Dynasty Value Study: DJ Moore, WR CAR

Michael Liu Posted On February 18, 2020

In this series, the writers here at Dynasty League Football dive deep into the current dynasty value of a specific player. This can actually be quite a challenge considering player value in a dynasty league can be impacted by everything from weekly production during the season to decisions players make off the field in the spring and summer months.

Luckily for you, we offer a number of valuable tools here at Dynasty League Football to measure a player’s value and we’ll be taking you all through many of them throughout this Dynasty Value Study series. Let’s dig in!

We’ll be diving into DJ Moore who is one of my favorite dynasty players. If you follow me on Twitter @MikeMeUpP or even if you don’t, his name should sound pretty familiar.

Moore’s rise to fantasy stardom was a fast one. It may have come as a surprise to some, but to those of us in the analytics community it was a long time coming. As you can see from DLF’s College Market Share App, his profile is elite even when compared to some of the best wide receivers in the NFL.

Moore dominated his final season at Maryland at an elite level hitting a college dominator of 53 percent. Technically, he didn’t break out until he was a sophomore when looking at his college dominator on an absolute basis. However, he only played 11 games as a freshman and would have likely broke out then if healthy.

He tested out as an elite 90th+ percentile athlete at the combine, as you can see in his MockDraftable profile. Put quite simply, he was the dream wide receiver prospect.

He had an impressive rookie season, proving to be a playmaker with the ball in his hands and near the top of the NFL in yards after the catch. I’d say he was the Deebo Samuel of last year. After watching him in his first year, I was ready to push all my chips into the middle for him this past off-season by acquiring him on any team I didn’t already draft him on the year before.

He continued his breakout campaign this year while averaging over 15 points per game en route to a WR15 finish despite only playing 14 full games as he got injured at the start of his week 16 match-up against the Colts. With only seven points separating Moore and the WR12, there’s no doubt in my mind he would’ve finished as a WR1 in only his second year as a pro.

What makes him even more impressive is the fact that he accomplished this feat while catching passes from a hobbled Cam Newton, an inaccurate Kyle Allen and a rookie Will Grier at quarterback. I can’t wait to see what this kid is going to do once they solve the quarterback position in Carolina. Enough of my opinion. Let’s explore how Moore is valued through the lens of the many tools we have here at DLF.

Dynasty Rankings

In our top-200 overall dynasty rankings, Moore currently ranks 16th overall, with a high rank of 15th and a low of 23rd. He is sandwiched between two other young, elite wide receivers in Chris Godwin and Amari Cooper. I have both Moore and Godwin a little higher myself, but this area feels like it’s in the right area code to me.

In our positional rankings, Moore comes in as the WR10, between Odell Beckham Jr. and Keenan Allen. The range is relatively wide with a high of WR7 and a low of WR18. Seems like Jeff is the only one who doesn’t have him as a top-12 wide receiver while most have him in the WR7 to WR9 range.

Dynasty ADP

In our January dynasty ADP, Moore’s ADP was 19.67, ranking him as the 19th overall player and making him the WR9 which is very much in line with our expert rankings. This places him between his peers Beckham and Cooper. It seems like he routinely pops up in the second cluster of wide receivers who are just outside the elite group at the top.

Moore’s dynasty ADP history, found on our ADP Data Analytics page, shows his steady rise to the top. His ADP took a slight dip from the December 2019 peak but is still clearly valued as an elite dynasty asset. If he continues on his current trajectory, I can see him cracking the elite tier by this time next year.

Trade Finder

One of the best tools we have at DLF is our Trade Finder, which pulls trade data from actual dynasty leagues. You can customize the data based on number of teams, scoring and starting requirements. Each of the following trades are based on typical PPR leagues with just one starting quarterback.

As you can see, he is being used in a variety of different packages. Some packages include Moore in stud-for-stud swaps while others use him as the marquee asset to trade down for depth. Most notable trade here is the second one where Moore was sold for a haul of other young assets and picks. Nothing on here jumps out to me as extremely lopsided which is to be expected in transactions involving studs of his caliber with less variance in value range.

Dynasty Trade Analyzer

Another one of my favorite tools at DLF is our Dynasty Trade Analyzer. I’m not someone who lives and dies by trade calculators, but I think it is an incredibly valuable tool when used correctly. If you understand how your leaguemates use it, the tool can create very profitable opportunities for you in the long run.

It shows Moore’s value is just above the 2020 1.01. Other plays in this value range include Juju Smith-Schuster, Aaron Jones and Courtland Sutton. Moore is definitely a pricey asset to try to acquire at this time, but you might try your luck closer to the draft when rookie fever is at its peak. If I can get him for a single 2020 rookie pick, I’d be all over it.

Twitter Polls

The final resource we’ll examine in this article: Twitter polls. I don’t base my decisions solely on Twitter polls given they are a lagging indicator rather than a leading one. What I mean is if you’re making decisions based on polls, you’re likely already behind. However, they are still very informative by providing insight into public sentiment. To simply ignore them would be putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Recently, I sent out some polls comparing Moore and other wide receivers who are ranked similarly to him in either our DLF Dynasty Rankings or January 2020 ADP. In most of these cases, I picked players who were above Moore to really test the limits of public perception.

Which WR do you prefer in dynasty?@MyFantasyLeague

— Michael (@MiKeMeUpP) February 7, 2020

In the table below, I’ve summarized the results from the polls and their implied relative ranking based on the percentages from the Twitter polls (from 1-13) and how they compare versus the relative DLF Dynasty Rankings and ADP for the same group of players (also 1-13). The delta columns represent the difference between the two.

For example, Smith-Schuster is the WR5 per DLF Dynasty Rankings, which is the highest ranked player out of this group and is therefore assigned the rank of one for our purposes here. He is the fifth ranked player per the Twitter polls resulting in a delta of four between Twitter and our expert rankings.

Green shows the players who are valued much higher by Twitter than our expert rankings and/or ADP. There are some pretty interesting takeaways here.

Based on the results of these polls, I clearly didn’t test the upper limits of Moore enough. I was hesitant to include names like Davante Adams, Tyreek Hill, and DeAndre Hopkins, but perhaps I should have. Moore is clearly well ahead of both DLF ADP and expert rankings compared to Twitter, which suggests his hype is definitely at an all-time high. Based on these polls, Twitter values him as the dynasty WR6. If you have him on your teams, I’d maybe test the waters to see what’s out there. If I can get Smith-Schuster or Beckham+ for Moore, I’m open for business.

It’s also clear to me veterans like Allen and Cooper Kupp, are extremely undervalued. They finished as the WR7 and the WR8 on a PPG basis in 2019. Kupp is slightly more concerning given he finished the back half of 2019 as a middling WR3 on a points per game basis after starting off hot. Even still, he’s a buy at his current price. I’d be looking to acquire both of these players aggressively this off-season. If you’re a contending team with rookie picks, look to flip them for these bona fide studs instead of rolling the dice on the incoming class.

Conclusion

When viewing all of these tools in combination, it’s clear Moore’s value has reached near peak levels after his impressive breakout season. I’d say his value rests safely within the top ten dynasty wide receivers no matter how you slice it. Although he still has room to grow even further and break into the truly elite tier, he’ll definitely need some things to swing his way. Getting a stable and capable quarterback might be the most important one.

If you bought Moore before this season, you likely got him at a discount so just enjoy the ride!