There’s a few very important concepts I use as building blocks, that once explained, will make the success probability charts and other concepts easier to apply strategy-wise. Dynasty leagues have a plethora of concepts and ideas that CAN work, but having a strong grasp of how the wheel is turning can create awareness for why things are working the way they are. The goal of the “Dynasty Strategy” series is to help develop the structural base of dynasty owners and help empower readers to bolster their decision-making.
Today we’ll dive into the “why” behind draft position being an incredibly effective dynasty weapon for roster building. There are a few factors that lead to this conclusion, and the hope would be reviewing the direct areas this type of strategy is effective will create more comfort in leaning on draft position for player evaluation.
Stacking draft position
DANGER! MATH AHEAD!
Ok, joking aside, it’s important that there’s real reasoning behind why I think this stuff is valuable. In order to use the percentages from the probability charts, we have to use an equation that would make sense. So, how can we display this?
I found the equation insurance companies use to determine things like house fires. For the purposes of our personal usage, the equation looks like this:
1 – (.X)^(Y) = Z
X = inverse of percentage in probability chart
Example: 57.3% of Round One WRs achieve 1+ seasons with 800 receiving yards in their career
Inverse of 57.3 = 42.7 = .427
Y = numbers of players in the data set
Example: I have a random sample of five Round One WRs
- Josh Doctson
- Nelson Agholor
- John Ross
- DeVante Parker
- Marquise Brown
Equation: 1 – (.427) ^ 5 = .98580486 = 98.6%
So, what does that mean? It means that in a random sample of five first round WRs, there’s a 98.6% chance that one will have a season with 800+ receiving yards in their career. For early round drafting, this doesn’t mean much. Almost all of those early round dynasty selections, like say, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones and A.J. Green, have already achieved that. In fact, this means VERY little for early round drafting. WRs being selected in the top 5 rounds of a startup should have higher expectations than one 800 receiving yard season. This type of idea is much more important for late round drafting.
So, let’s head back to that sample of round one WRs that were used in the example. All of those WRs are currently being drafted outside the top 100 based on startup ADP (shoutout to dynastyleaguefootball.com). THIS is where the information becomes actionable. If I told you ANY of those WRs would hit 800 receiving yards in a single season, it would seem far-fetched. With all logic we can use based on their careers so far (Although Agholor would seem reasonable), none of these WRs would seem likely to be fantasy relevant moving forward (there’s debate on Marquise Brown, but for the point of the exercise, work with me). All of these players will be available in round 10 or later of startup drafts, and these are the types of assets I like to stack together.
Let’s take a look at five random Round Two WRs who have ADPs outside the top 100 in startup ADP:
- Curtis Samuel
- D.J. Chark
- Zay Jones
- Andy Isabella
- Mecole Hardman
40.7% of Round 2 WRs have at least one season of 800+ receiving yards in their career
Inverse = 59.3 = .593
1 – (.593) ^ 5 = .92667138 = 92.7%
Let’s try five random Round Three WRs who have ADPs outside the top 100 in startup ADP:
- Tre’Quan Smith
- Miles Boykin
- Michael Gallup
- Terry McLaurin
- Jalen Hurd
1 – (.719) ^ 5 = .8078482 = 80.8%
As you can see, the odds are slipping, but are still reasonable with third-round WRs. At 80.8%, it’s still very likely that a random sample will result in a good player.
Now… Let’s look at what Round four, five, six and seven WRs look like in this exercise.
Five Random WRs, per NFL draft round
Round 1 = 1 – (.427) ^ 5 = .98580486 = 98.6%
Round 2 = 1 – (.593) ^ 5 = .92667138 = 92.7%
Round 3 = 1 – (.719) ^ 5 = .8078482 = 80.8%
Round 4 = 1 – (.871) ^ 5 = .49870799 = 49.9%
Round 5 = 1 – (.900) ^ 5 = .40951 = 41.0%
Round 6 = 1 – (.967) ^ 5 = .15446347 = 15.5%
Round 7 = 1 – (.719) ^ 5 = .8078482 = 26.6%
Let’s get one thing in the open. Because we’re only dealing with WRs that haven’t accomplished the goal (800+ receiving yard season), the odds probably aren’t this good. In fact, they aren’t. You can probably clip 20-30% off of all these numbers, considering most of the successful (already achieving an 800+ receiving yard season) won’t be available later In drafts.
I hope this is a good visualization of why it’s important to be diligent with late round drafting. These odds add up, especially when drafting 25-to-30 roster spots. While there’s a limited amount of top three round players at RB and WR, gobbling up as many as you can in later rounds is essential to drafting successfully.
Application
I recently did a startup auction that had 35 roster spots available (yikes!). Here’s what my group of WRs ended up looking like.
- Nelson Agholor
- Miles Boykin
- A.J. Brown
- Deon Cain
- Parris Campbell
- D.J. Chark
- Ted Ginn
- N’Keal Harry
- Jalen Hurd
- Richie James
- Marqise Lee
- DeVante Parker
- Paul Richardson
- Calvin Ridley
- Curtis Samuel
- James Washington
Yes, those are them. 16 WRs, only two with an 800+ receiving yard season (Ridley and Lee). On the surface, this would appear to be an enormous gamble on a bunch of unestablished players, but knowing the odds we’ve been playing around with, let’s take a look at what this group REALLY brings to the table.
Of the 13 WRs (14 minus Ted Ginn.. because well, he’s old) to NOT have a season with 800 receiving yards (yet), here’s the round breakdown of this group:
Round 1 = 3 (Agholor, Harry and Parker)
Round 2 = 6 (Brown, Campbell, Chark, Richardson, Samuel, Washington)
Round 3 = 2 (Boykin, Hurd)
Round 4- 7 = 2 (Cain, James)
Let’s take a look at the odds….
Round 1 = 1 – (.427) ^ 3 = .92214551 = 92.2%
Round 2 = 1 – (.593) ^ 6 = .95651613 = 95.7%
Round 3 = 1 – (.719) ^ 5 = .483039 = 48.3%
Despite very little production prior to 2019, I can roll into the season very confident that some of these pieces are going to work out and become fantasy relevant. Are they guaranteed to be studs? No, but I’m confident, in the coming years, there will be significant production coming from these groups.
A final note for today. The focus was on WRs today, but there are probability success charts for QB, RB and TE as well. This applies to all the positions. Hopefully, this information was coherent and easy to understand. Until next time!
