Dynasty Fantasy Football Mailbag: The True Value of Rookie Draft Picks
Welcome back to the DLF Mailbag, the preeminent mailbag in all the dynasty fantasy football land. As a reminder, there are multiple ways to pose your burning questions! I’ll be soliciting weekly feedback via X/Twitter (look for a new pinned tweet each Monday), and you can also reach out using our Discord channel, or the old-fashioned way (via our online webform).
Amazingly, the 2024 NFL Combine has already come and gone. Up next is the NFL Franchise Tag deadline today, followed by free agency in just over a week’s time. This makes for a very interesting time in the off-season calendar, as players will wind up gaining or losing value despite their skill levels not changing one bit. Fortune may indeed favor the bold – maybe you swing for the fences with a trade for Davante Adams, and he does wind up getting moved despite the Raiders brass stating the contrary. But you could be on the other side of this as well, buying or selling players when waiting may have been more prudent. Or less prudent. You get the point.
None of us are soothsayers. There exists a risk/benefit profile for each potential move, and we may not have control over the ultimate outcome based on the happenings of the next few weeks. Make deals or don’t make deals, just make sure you’re keeping your eyes open!
Let’s get to it!
From Twitter…
The Fate in the Eight
Got the 1.01 in an 8 team superflex league. In a 12 team league I’d take CW but MHJ is intriguing in this one. Landing spot still matters, but as of today, would you take CW or MHJ? My QBs are Burrow, Lawerence, and Levis. J. Jefferson, G. Wilson, D.Smith and Z. Flowers at WR.
— Thomas Burgerson (@tferguson9) February 29, 2024
The paradigm of an eight-team league is going to bring with it a number of differences compared to larger settings (i.e., 12 or more teams). Even in a superflex setting, there will only be 16 quarterbacks starting on a weekly basis. To emphasize that point, the greatest number of NFL teams that will be on bye in any given week is six – that means in Thomas’ league format, there will still be ten active signal callers residing on benches during the heaviest bye weeks.
To be clear, I’ve stated before and will reiterate that there are not 32 good quarterbacks in the NFL, so I don’t want to dismiss the position solely because of the numbers game. But the fact is it’s likelier that you’ll be able to get by at QB2 with players like Jared Goff and Kirk Cousins without sacrificing points compared to your league mates, and even guys who catch fire out of nowhere (e.g., Joe Flacco) could be startable band-aids. Unless an owner is absolutely hammered by injuries and/or bye weeks, it’s also highly likely they’ll always be able to start two quarterbacks, week in and week out. This is all to say that, while still valuable, the position loses some of its luster in a smaller league format.
As an exercise, I wanted to see if this was born out in the DLF Trade Analyzer, which is customizable to include league settings of 10 to 16 teams, while also accounting for 1QB versus superflex. In this exercise I wanted to compare the values of the best quarterback and the best receiver, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Jefferson, on a sliding scale of league size. The results are shown below in descending order of league size.
16 Teams
14 Teams
12 Teams
10 Teams
Truthfully this isn’t a surprise to me – while I don’t know the exact league specifications, as alluded to above, signal caller value is going to take a hit as league size diminishes. And while I didn’t think Jefferson’s value would flatten across each league size, it stands to reason that the other skill positions would retain more value. If we were able to extrapolate this to an eight-team league size, I think we’d be looking at roughly equivalent values for Mahomes and Jefferson.
As such, I’d advise going with Marvin Harrison Jr at pick 1.01. While I’m usually drafting for talent and not position regardless, your quarterbacks are fine given the league setting. Joe Burrow will return healthy and should be a top five-eight guy. While I don’t love Trevor Lawrence, he finished last season as the overall QB10 and is an obvious starter in your league setting. You do need some depth after that, but I’d rather roll the dice with your second-round pick.
Your receivers are also a strength, but it would not be unsurprising to see MHJ wind up surpassing all of them with the exception of Jefferson. By the time training camp hits he’ll already be valued as a top-five dynasty wide receiver, still with room to grow. He’s also likelier to be more of an immediate contributor than Williams (in my opinion). As such, and as much as it pains me to say as a proud Penn State fan, I’ll go with the Buckeye!
From the old-school web form…
Thirst for a First
This will be my first year doing a rookie draft, as last year was our Startup Draft.
I have an ADP weakness in my WR room, so I plan on taking MHJ with my 2024 1.01 pick. The team ranked #1 on KTC’s League Ranker has the 1.04 pick. I came up with the idea to offer him my 2024 2.01 and my 2025 1st for his 2024 1.04. He also likes the trade. I will only execute this trade if Malik Nabers is still on the board at pick #4. 2024 picks #2 and #3 have significant needs at QB, so there is at least a decent chance Nabers slides to #4. I am having trouble understanding the true value of rookie picks since this will be my first rookie draft. My question is, would you execute this trade?
Do you think Nabers is worth giving away the extra pick to vault my WR room? I think he’s a game changer, but I also have weaknesses at QB2 and true valued depth behind my RB1 and RB2. – Lee in Virginia
Let’s start with the overarching philosophy behind rookie picks. In short, they’re inherently worth a bit more than players for the following primary reasons:
- Rookie picks are abstract, meaning they can’t get hurt or suffer by virtue of getting drafted into a bad situation – players can.
- Everyone dreams of the unicorn player who will not only produce right away, but will anchor their team for another decade plus. Rookie picks represent something of an equal mechanism for owners to achieve this as everyone gets a shot to make their picks unless they’ve traded them away.
- FOMO! I can’t put a quantitative value on this, but it’s real. If you don’t have picks, you want them. And even if you don’t want more picks, you want to make deals. It’s human nature, just like trying to haggle a few bucks here and there at a flea market. You also will see players sliding, or are nervous “your guy” won’t make it to you, and want to make a deal or two to lock it down.
The next piece in valuation regards timing. Most rookie drafts occur following the NFL Draft, though there are exceptions. A general rule is the closer you get to your rookie draft, the more expensive picks become. It’s my belief that a pick will never be more expensive than when it’s on the clock, as this is when it becomes tangible.
Here too there will be microcosms. While I noted that picks are more insulated, if Harrison tears his ACL at his Pro Day, pick 1.01 could suffer as the two are now a bit intertwined – it wouldn’t stop me personally from still selecting him first in a 1QB league, but it’s notable nonetheless. While I also am largely agnostic to where rookies are drafted, landing spot may matter in the minds of some (potentially to their detriment – think Skyy Moore in Kansas City).
Finally, each owner will have his or her own preference. It’s your first rookie draft so folks don’t know what they don’t know. Some will overvalue rookies, and others will undervalue them and choose to be more veteran-centric. The onus will be on you to have the conversations, and review roster constructs to try and figure out who’s who.
With all that said, your trade is within the realm of reason. Per DLF’s Trade Analyzer, we’d be looking at the following in a 12-team, 1QB league:
I think the value is a little low on the 2025 first, so I’d actually view this as fairly even – notably you paid the iron price for pick 1.01, so both Harrison and Nabers would likely have to make some noise as rookies for you to greatly improve. It should also be noted that pick 2.01 has the potential to yield a very good receiver prospect given the depth at the position this year.
As to KTC and their valuations, I’ll use them as a resource as well, but truthfully no tool or aggregate analysis is the be-all, end-all. Particularly with ADP, I believe a team’s “sexiness” carries too much weight. What I mean by that is ADP will reflect a team’s dynasty value, but not its fantasy value – as noted above it’s easy to become seduced by the potential of rookies and young players, but there are simply no guarantees it’s going to work out! But it’s like what we learned in elementary school science class – potential energy is what could happen, kinetic energy is what does happen. We need to see these guys score some points to see their potential actually translate. The too long, didn’t read version? Be appropriately skeptical of valuations using ADP inputs as they are not infallible.
Still, if Nabers is there I think I do the deal. In most other drafts he’d be in contention for pick 1.01, Harrison just happens to possess nearly every quality we look for in a rookie pick. If Nabers performs as expected, his value will shoot through the roof. Best of luck to you in pulling the deal off!
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