Vox Talks

Nathan Powell

voxer

Vox Talks is back!

I bring you into the world of the DLF Voxer Chat, allowing you a glance at what we talk about when we aren’t on the Twittersphere.

The Value of Rob Gronkowski

Often times our conversations stem from conversations on Twitter and go on Voxer because it is easier to talk it out – his was the case when a conversation about Rob Gronkowski started in the chat. Karl Safchick was stating while he loves Gronk, he’d much rather have Odell Beckham Jr. or Julio Jones and Jordan Reed, rather than Gronk and a 17th round wide receiver, which is where Karl selected Reed in the DLF IDP mock. The conversation may have stemmed from Karl’s tweets, but it evolved into something more and Karl was too busy with Mrs. Safchick at the grocery store to chime in. The conversation was between myself, Eric Coleman and Eric Breeze. I was outnumbered on the Eric front, but the thing we discussed was how we like to use our rosters in dynasty leagues. One of the main arguments for selecting Rob Gronkowski is you get the best tight end in the game and you don’t have to use more than 2 or 3 roster spots at the tight end position.

While I do love Rob Gronkowski as much as the next guy (I rank him #2 overall), I think it is easier to stream (use multiple players for one position throughout the season) at the tight end position than running backs or wide receivers. So this conversation of streaming moved into how exactly we use our roster spots in dynasty leagues. Eric Breeze said he prefers to start the same nine players every week outside of bye weeks and injuries. I disagree with that way of managing a dynasty team, particularly in the first few years of the league. Dynasty leagues have 24-25 roster spots for a reason, I want 16-20 roster spots spent on guys that will start for me at some point in the season, with the rest spent on developing rookies and stashing guys behind superior veterans, like Ladarius Green. I think this way of building your roster makes you less susceptible to injuries and bye weeks and it also gives you the chance to play the matchups when two players are close in projections, but one has an easier matchup for that week. So, bringing this back to the Gronk conversation, I have no problem rostering 4-5 tight ends, mixed with the Charles Clays and Delanie Walkers of the world, paired with the Tyler Eiferts and Maxx Williams of the world.

ADP and Trade Value

[inlinead]One of the most popular topics in the dynasty community is the disconnect between ADP and trade value. We talked about it a lot in the DLF Voxer chat with a variety of writers chiming in on the topic. There were a few conclusions we came to. First, there is no way to quantifiably say something like two 3rd round startup picks like Jeremy Hill + Kevin White is greater than or equal to a 1st rounder like Dez Bryant. Are there some people who would make that deal? Probably, but there are no A+B=C when it comes to ADP because everyone values players differently. Another thing with ADP, DLF’s Ryan McDowell hosts  six mocks per month and a lot of the time, when you draft a player (particularly in the mid-rounds), you are likely the highest on that player drafting in that particular mock. Now this is somewhat alleviated by having six mocks per month instead of one, but I think it still shows a little. Not every league has a person who still values Jordy Nelson as a top 20 asset, and in the same token, not every league has a person that values Carlos Hyde as a top 35 asset, so whether it is young vs old, proven vs unproven, you just aren’t always going to get as high of a return on a player ADP might suggest.

Trade Etiquette

Another interesting thing we discussed is trade etiquette in dynasty leagues. Building relationships and a positive rapport with leaguemates is an underrated aspect of dynasty leagues. If you are constantly a jerk or difficult to deal with, you’ll be hard pressed to get any fair offers in your inbox. We had a bit of a debate on whether or not you can/should be able to disclose open offers from other owners with possible trade partners. I think the answer is yes, and if it somehow got back to the owner, I’d say feel free to do the same with offers from me. Other guys like Scott Fish and Eric Coleman thought it should be more vague. For me, if I’m shopping AJ Green in a dynasty league, I won’t just put on the league chat or message board “Fred offered me Allen Robinson and two first rounders, come and beat it,” Instead, if Jack makes an offer that doesn’t beat Fred’s, I’ll tell Jack, “If you want Green, you are going to have to beat Allen Robinson and two first rounders.” Scott Fish and others suggested it should be more vague, with no ability to track back to the other owner, like just saying “That offer doesn’t beat one I have on the table,” or “I have a better offer that is a young player with upside and a pair of picks.” While both of these are acceptable alternatives, I have found this just leads to more offers that I won’t accept, by telling the other owner what my current best offer is exactly, they know they will have to come with a great offer to beat it, or just back away if they don’t think they can beat it.

The Tampa Running Back Situation

The backfield of the Bucs was a popular topic of discussion on Memorial Day. Per May ADP, Charles Sims is being drafted at #101 overall, compared to Doug Martin being selected 17 slots lower at 118 overall. I think much of this is a combination of “Sophomore Fever,” which Jeff Miller covered at length in his Rookie Draft Report at DLF, as well as people saying, “The Devil you don’t know is better than the one you do know,”  – I know that’s the inverse of the actual phrase, but it fits here. DLF writers Karl Safchick, Matt Carracio and George Kritikos (among others) almost all agreed they preferred Martin and if they were going to pick one player out of the Bucs backfield at their current ADP, it would actually be Bobby Rainey who is currently going undrafted, so an “ADP” of lower than 270. Among the DLF team, many just weren’t fans of his game coming out of college and the Matt Forte comparison that some tagged Sims with was vastly unwarranted and was really only because he is a pass catching running back selected by Lovie Smith. My main concerns with Sims are:

1.) His age, he will turn 25 in September without any sort of production at the NFL level. He may have only played half of his rookie season due to an injury, but he didn’t do anything to impress in the games he played in.

2.) Fans of Sims like him for his catching ability and PPR upside, but Sims actually has very small hands at 8 ¼,” compared to the NFL average which is around 9 ¼”. Small hands and relying on your ability to catch are not a winning formula in the NFL.

DLF Inside Joke of the Week

It didn’t become quite as mainstream as #ThanksArob, but you may have seen DLF writers call things “On Fleek” or “Not On Fleek” – this stems from when Eric Olinger talked in the chat about his daughter introducing him to the term “On Fleek.” There was a good day or two filled with On Fleek jokes in the Voxer chat and Eric Olinger changed his Voxer name to a variety of Fleek words, the funniest being “Big Fleek Daddy Olinger.”

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