Grading our 2014 Predictions: Part Two
Each and every year we take a moment towards the end of August to poll our staff and ask what they think is going to happen during the following fantasy season. We ask a variety of questions ranging from who they think will be the fantasy MVP, fantasy rookie of the year and just about everything else. If you want to see the exact picks and explanations for them, you can go ahead and take a look at part 1 and part 2.
In case you don’t want to go back and see all of the details, I’ll do the heavy lifting for you with a nice little wrap up of our predictions that were made back in August. Just for fun, bragging rights and some good natured ribbing. I’ll also name a prediction champion as well as award the “swing and miss” title for the year! After all, none of us can be right all of the time!
The nominees for each award are the players who our writers predicted back in August with multiple votes shown by the numbers. The list would certainly be different if they were allowed to pick now, but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun. Part 1 of the look back was published a few days ago. Now it is time for part 2, where I take a look at the categories of fantasy sleeper, best buy, best sell, and comeback player of the year. Time to get down to business with the awards!
Fantasy Sleeper Nominees: Alfred Blue, Ben Tate, Robert Woods, Benny Cunningham, Jermaine Kearse, Brandon Lloyd, Pierre Thomas, Brian Quick, Jace Amaro, Travis Kelce, Percy Harvin, Justin Hunter, Geno Smith, Lance Dunbar (2), Mark Ingram, Dri Archer, Rashad Jennings
In my eyes, for someone to be a sleeper, they need to be a player who isn’t commonly expected to be a fantasy starter but ends up producing like one. For that reason, we aren’t talking about anyone who was being drafted in the first nine or ten rounds of start-up drafts this fall. Yes, someone taken in the seventh round could vastly outperform their price tag, but they weren’t a sleeper if they had to be drafted in the top 100 players to get them. For this reason, I’m going to immediately toss out Harvin and Hunter.
The second part of being a sleeper is you need to actually produce at a level worthy of fantasy consideration as a starter. It seems this was by far the hardest of the eight categories, because almost no one on this list did much of anything this year. Ingram and Cunningham are the only running backs from this list who produced at a top 25 level for their position and Cunningham just barely made the cut. Jennings and Thomas would have made it if not for injuries. As far as pass catchers, the only one who did much of anything was Kelce.
The Case for Ingram: Ingram has been a bit of a disappoint since he was drafted, especially for people who drafted him over AJ Green or Julio Jones. This was the first season where he actually showed some kind of promise. While he failed to top 1000 rushing yards due to missing three games with injury, his nine touchdowns on the ground made up for it. He was used sporadically in the passing game, but all together his production landed him in the top 15 running backs even though his ADP had him barely inside the top 50.
The Case for Kelce: Kelce was a highly prized rookie tight end for the 2013 season, but injury prevented him from ever seeing the field. This allowed many to scoop him up at a discount last offseason in hopes he would see the field. A lack of receivers for the Chiefs made Kelce one of the top targets. He managed 67 receptions for 862 yards and 5 touchdowns even with some very questionable usage at times. This was good for sixth overall at the position. Considering he was being drafted as a back end TE2, that is quite the value!
2014 Sleeper: Travis Kelce
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Honorable Mention: It is really difficult to name the best sleeper of the year, because it had to be someone people had a reason to be watching in the offseason. There are lots of great choices, but I think CJ Anderson needs to be the winner here. Some were talking about him as a sleeper last summer and they definitely nailed it!
Thanks to Kelce’s performance, Eric Olinger earns himself his first point. On the other end of the spectrum, I think Ben Tate gets the nod there, digging a little bit of a hole for Rob Shandler.
Best Dynasty Buy Nominees: Robert Turbin, Jeff Janis, Justin Hunter (3), Cordarrelle Patterson, Marvin Jones, Rueben Randle, Odell Beckham, Victor Cruz, Cody Latimer, Golden Tate, Stevan Ridley, Torrey Smith (2), DeAndre Hopkins, Donte Moncrief, Bryce Brown
In order for someone to be a great dynasty buy, they need to have seen a significant increase in their value from last offseason to now. If their value has stayed roughly the same or even decreased, they don’t fall into this category. In order to be the best buy, there needs to be a significant return on your investment if you were to buy them last offseason and sell them now.
When it comes to losing value, Patterson, Cruz, Hunter, Jones, Randle and Ridley all saw their ADP slip this season due to injuries or ineffective play. While Turbin, Janis, Latimer, Smith, Hopkins and Brown all remained roughly stable. That leaves us with only a trio of options in Beckham, Moncrief and Tate. Moncrief saw the least growth of them, leaving us with just two nominees.
The Case for Tate: In past years we always had questions about exactly how talented Tate was. In Seattle’s system, he clearly wasn’t used to his fullest potential, but where was the ceiling? He had his chance this year due to injury and he shined. He produced at almost a WR1 level and fantasy owners have taken notice. His value has risen from someone being drafted just inside the top 100 players to someone going in the first four or five rounds of startups. Definitely someone you’re happy you bought if you did so last offseason.
The Case for Beckham: Beckham should have been the third or fourth rookie pick last offseason and a sixth or seventh group selection in startups. With the pre-season injuries, his stock dipped a little bit for a few weeks, but once he made it onto the field his arrow has been solidly pointing up and through the roof. While I’m not willing to anoint any rookie as the top player at their position, he is solidly in the discussion for a first round start up pick. Anyone who drafted him has definitely been rewarded!
2014 Best Buy: Odell Beckham Jr. (By a mile!)
Honorable Mention: I don’t think anyone tops Beckham when it comes to gaining value this year. The other obvious answers are players we’ve already talked about like Tate, Kelce and CJ Anderson. If I had to pick someone else, I would go with Emmanuel Sanders who saw a major increase in his price tag this year thanks to Peyton Manning. His owners just need to hope Manning comes back next year to keep it going!
A big point is awarded to Nick Whalen for is selection of Beckham while the biggest miss is easily Patterson. His selection of Patterson gives Dr. Peak a negative point and a little dunce cap to go with it.
Best Dynasty Sell Nominees: Zac Stacy (2), Randall Cobb, Marshawn Lynch, Julio Jones, Christine Michael (2), Julius Thomas, Jeremy Maclin, Adrian Peterson, Trent Richardson, Giovani Bernard, Andre Ellington, Nick Foles, Rob Gronkowski, Rashad Jennings, Percy Harvin, Cordarelle Patterson
The criteria for being the best sell are the exact opposite of being the best buy. I’m looking for someone who lost significant value over the course of this season. This means they must have started with some value as well.
Looking at the list, there are a lot of good options here, but there are also a few players who actually gained or held their value like Cobb, Lynch, Jones, Michael, Thomas, Maclin and Gronkowski. Of the remaining group, I don’t think Jennings had a ton of value to start with, so I’m going to toss him out as well. Bernard, Harvin and Ellington also saw their stock take some hits, but the combination of youth and potential has kept it fairly close to where they began.
That leaves us with Stacy, Peterson, Richardson, Foles and Patterson. I’m going to remove Peterson from the list because there is no way anyone could have predicted his legal issues this year. I’m also going to arbitrarily kick Patterson to the curb because I feel like he could easily win every negative award up here! At the running back position, Stacy had a higher ADP going into the season than Richardson, and they are both equally worthless now (both being healthy scratches at times), so I’m going to give Stacy the nod over him.
The Case for Stacy: There were a lot of ‘experts’ talking about Stacy being one of the most overvalued players in dynasty leagues last summer. I really like Stacy as a person, but he was about as far from a special talent as you could get. He does everything slightly better than average, but you can’t say much more positive things about his running game than saying he gets what is blocked for him and falls forward. The Rams figured this out and quickly showed him the bench once they had better options. Given he was a late third round pick in startups late last summer and he wasn’t even playing at the end of the season, it is a pretty major drop. I hope you cashed in when you could!
The Case for Foles: Foles is another player I felt was vastly overvalued after the 2013 season. His touchdown to interception ratio was unsustainable and everything bounce just right for him. He wasn’t as good as the numbers suggested. He was struggling in 2014 and we’ve now seen enough for me to declare Foles as little more than a system quarterback. He’s dropped from a sixth round startup pick to somewhere in the mid-teens. At some point, he’s bound to turn into a value though on the chance he might get the starting gig back and be a solid QB2. Time will tell.
2014 Best Sell: Zac Stacy (His stock isn’t coming back up.. ever)
Honorable Mention: In the timing is everything category, I’m going to give a special shout out to Josh Gordon. I doubt many did this, but there was a brief window of time when you could have sold Gordon for nearly full price this year. First his suspension was decreased, then the press about him being in great shape started to leak out. His first game back he posted 8 catches for 120 yards, seeming to be the focal point of the Browns offense even though he was being eased back in to the game plan. At that point, you could have gotten close to first round startup value. It was much too brief of a window though as two weeks later, when he posted 2 catches for 15 yards, it was clear something wasn’t right. Now he might be outright cut from the Browns. If you sold him around Thanksgiving, my hat is off to you!
Completely random points are awarded to the editor in charge, Ken Kelly, and Eric Hardter for their selections of Zac Stacy. The biggest miss on this one goes to Nick Whalen for his selection of Jeremy Maclin, erasing all of the positive thoughts we had about him for his Beckham selection a moment ago.
Comeback Player of the Year Nominees: Reggie Wayne, Michael Crabtree, Percy Harvin (3), Doug Martin, Jeremy Maclin, Roddy White (4), Julio Jones (2), Steve Smith, Victor Cruz, Lamar Miller, CJ Spiller, Dennis Pitta
In order to be the biggest comeback, I’m looking for three qualifications. They needed to have a great season in the past, a down 2013, and then another great year in 2014. Looking at the list, there are a few players who lack a star season on their resumes. Miller and Spiller both have had a lot of hype but neither one had a statistically great season in their past.
Pitta, Cruz and Wayne all struggled with injuries this season. Crabtree, Harvin and Martin all struggled for various other reasons as well. This leaves us with a pair of Falcon receivers and Steve Smith for options. Between the two Falcons, Jones had the better 2014 and missed more time in 2013 than his teammate White, so I’ll give Jones the nod into the finals.
The Case for Jones: Julio had a great first five games in 2013. He was on pace for 131 receptions and 1856 yards. Unfortunately he missed two thirds of the season due to injury. In 2014 he reminded all of us how dominate he can be, utterly destroying defenses at times on way to a clear WR1 finish.
The Case for Smith: In his first year with the Ravens, Smith came out of the gate on fire. He had at least five catches and over 100 yards in four of his first five games this year to go with four touchdowns, making Panther fans wonder why they ever let him walk out the door. His pace drastically slowed as the season went on though. In the end he did top 1000 yards for the eighth time in his career, but he was much more inconsistent for the last two thirds of the season.
2014 Comeback Player: Julio Jones (He’s easily a top 3 overall player in my book)
Honorable Mention: Arian Foster had a very rough 2013 and still missed three games in 2014, but he still managed to be fifth among running backs. He averaged over 20 points per game in PPR leagues in the games he played, making him one of the most valuable players when healthy.
Julio Jones earned Eric Olinger and Luke Wetta another point for the completely meaningless contest. The good doctor is down another point for his selection of Doug Martin coming back to form this year.
That’s it for our look back. Even though he was held off the board for part 2, Jeff Miller walks away with the crown for the 2014 predictions by winning three of the eight categories. On the other end of the spectrum, the swing and miss award is split between Dr. Peak and Nick Whalen this year. Nick was actually on the bottom end three times, but his selection of Beckham evened the score with the good doctor.
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