Dynasty Stock Market: Mid-Season Mock Drafts

Over the past couple of weeks, several members of the DLF team, along with a few other active dynasty players participated in two in-season dynasty mock start-up drafts. I viewed these as a continuation of the series of mock drafts DLF hosted throughout the off-season. If you are unaware of these, our team here at DLF put together a total of forty-eight mock drafts from January through August. While this certainly gave dynasty players a chance to hone their craft and prepare for any actual drafts they may have had, the main purpose of thee mock drafts was to glean average draft position data, or ADP. This data was then posted on our site on a monthly basis. It gave owners an excellent view of the changing value of all players throughout the busy off-season. As you can imagine, player value changes even more rapidly during the season as we not only have the off-field news and speculation that makes up the off-season, but actual game play as well, in which to judge players.

Because of this, I chose to continue to dynasty mock draft series with two mock drafts that we recently finished. We will likely continue these with other mock drafts later in the season and then will continue in January to help you assess player value.

Before we focus on the players whose value is dramatically rising or falling, let’s take a look at the top players from each position, based on the ADP gathered from our two in-season mock drafts. While this data can be somewhat skewed in comparison to the six monthly drafts held in the off-season, I still feel that this is valuable information that can help owners determine trade value in hopes of a playoff run or in an attempt to rebuild.

*Note: These drafts were completed prior to week seven, which saw many injuries that could impact long-term value.

Let’s begin with a look at the top twelve quarterbacks selected.

At first glance, it appears there has been little change in the makeup of the top twelve quarterbacks, or the QB1s and this is correct. For the most part, these same twelve signal callers composed our monthly list of the top quarterbacks selected during the off-season. While there have been some surprising performances early this season, specifically from Raiders quarterback Terrelle Pryor, it was not enough to crack the top twelve.

The biggest move among these players though was Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning, who is on record-breaking pace through the early part of the 2013 season. This was enough to convince at least two dynasty owners that he should be the top quarterback selected.  This goes back to the theory that once the season begins, many dynasty owners fully transform into a dynasty mindset. While it’s important to win now, savvy owners can take advantage of this by being willing to trade veterans for multiple younger players or picks.

There are many takeaways from this data, but first among them are that the hype of the off-season on many young unproven players has been replaced by trusting reliable veterans that are already producing. The struggles of second year backs David Wilson, Lamar Miller and Trent Richardson have been well documented and are evident by their fall in ADP from August. Many of the rookies have had strong showings early on and gained value, namely Giovani Bernard, Eddie Lacy and even Le’Veon Bell.

Meanwhile, veterans like the struggling Maurice Jones-Drew, injured Steven Jackson and even one of the top running backs of this season, Frank Gore, have fallen outside of the top twenty-four running backs.

We entered the season with a consensus top five at wide receivers, which included Calvin Johnson, AJ Green, Julio Jones, Dez Bryant and Demaryius Thomas. Despite the season ending injury to Jones, that group remains unchanged. In the next tier, we have seen some players moving quickly up the draft board thanks to notable early season performances, including Josh Gordon, Justin Blackmon and DeSean Jackson. What’s most evident though, looking through the top twenty-four and beyond is the depth at the wide receiver position. Players like Denarius Moore, who is WR24 so far this year, are available as late as the ninth round.

The tight end position is where the value has seen its greatest shift through the first two months of the regular season. While studs Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski remain atop the list, though the huge shake-up is seen as high as the TE3 spot. Breakout stars Jordan Cameron and Julius Thomas see two of the most significant jumps in value from August and are now ranked as TE3 and TE4 respectively. The other interesting thing to note is that pre-season favorites Jared Cook and Tony Gonzalez have both fallen out of the TE1 ranks following some inconsistent and overall disappointing play in 2013.

Now, let’s look across all positions at some of the players who have seen the biggest change in value, for better or worse.

Gaining Value:

Among this group, we have a variety of players in different situations attributing to their gain in value. First, I notice a few rookies who are outperforming expectations and therefore have experienced a large gain in value of five rounds or more. This includes Marlon Brown, Kenny Stills, Terrance Williams, Andre Ellington, Jordan Reed and Khiry Robinson.

Next, I noticed a couple of players who were injured during the pre-season. Their injury obviously affected their value, and the policy of MyFantasyLeague, where the mock draft are hosted, to move injured players from the “Top Players” list further skews their value. Affected by this are Jeremy Maclin and Dennis Pitta. These two have obviously done nothing so far this year to gain value, but what you see here is owners correcting a previous mistake of ignoring or overlooking these players.

Next, we see a few players who have taken advantage of an injury early in this season and have gained some dynasty value as a result. This includes Marcel Reece and Nick Foles. Because their rise in value is so closely linked to the health of other players, I would not assume that these two players have reliable long-term value.

Finally, there are those players that are simply breaking out, and we have some different tiers of said players. First, and most importantly, are some players who have proven to be weekly fantasy starters and should give us long-term dynasty value. Among these are Julius Thomas, Knowshon Moreno, and Jordan Cameron. Each of these players has been a top five player at their respective positions and has seen their value skyrocket as a result. A tier below that trio are players like Terrelle Pryor, Stephen Hill and Charles Clay, who have surprised many with their play, but do not fall into the elite category yet.

Losing Value:

It is no surprise that the majority of these players have experienced either injury or subpar play and sometimes both this season. From this group of players, which includes all players who fell at least five rounds in ADP rank since August, the following have been injured this season: Ahmad Bradshaw, Lance Moore, Vick Ballard, Andre Brown, Steven Jackson, Owen Daniels and Latavius Murray.

Among these players are also a group of running backs who were expected to start for the teams. In fact, some are still holding down the starting role, but have not performed up to expectations. This includes Rashard Mendenhall, Daryl Richardson, Chris Ivory, BenJarvus Green-Ellis and DeAngelo Williams. Throw into this group the perpetually disappointing Isaiah Pead and Mikel Leshoure, along with LaMichael James, who seems buried in San Francisco and it’s easy to see that many of the players losing value come from the running back position. This could be due to owners looking to hit a home run with middle or late round picks during the off-season, but now that this season is in full swing, we see the true value of these players. Yes, many of the backs are still starters, but if a player like Mendenhall, Williams or Green-Ellis are not worthy of starting on a weekly basis, or even as a bye week or injury replacement, then what value do they offer dynasty owners?

If you have any questions about a specific player’s In-season dynasty ADP, feel free to post a question below or contact me on Twitter @RyanMc23

Check back next week when I conclude the Destination Player series by revealing my list of destination players.

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Ryan McDowell

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

In addition to his senior leadership role here at DLF, Ryan is also a husband, father of three and PE teacher. Ryan is the commissioner of multiple dynasty leagues, most notably the Kitchen Sink Dynasty Leagues. Here at DLF, Ryan’s focus is on identifying, monitoring and analyzing player value.

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