Buy Now Buy Low

So I started this blog with the intention of writing about fantasy sports, specifically keeper and dynasty leagues. That cavaet muddies the waters a bit. Keeper and dynasty leagues are, by their very nature, more unique than standard  redraft leagues. Redraft is easy to rank, predict ADP, speculate on position runs, etc. Long term leagues have so much variance. I can reasonably expect in a redraft PPR league that Brown, OBJ, and Julio will all be off the the board within the first five picks and potentially the first three picks. It's easy to write an article going over how to plan for a draft that includes the entire player pool. It's a lot harder for me to write an article that is actually useful to somebody else about their keeper and dynasty leagues because the entire landscape is potentially different. But what the hell....I am going to try. 

I am really getting excited about baseball now. Fantasy football season is done outside of odd playoff leagues. I will watch the playoffs, but fantasy is really my thing. I watch NFL games to see the outcomes of fantasy match-ups and to look at players that are future investments. I don't follow one team exclusively anymore, so I don't feel any guilt about not watching "my team" on a weekly basis if I really don't have any interest in their game. More on that another day. 

I expected to be writing mostly about baseball for the next few months. But, as this is a post about long-term leagues, I find myself thinking of football. There is no off season after all. 

I have often found that immediately after the playoffs is a great time to hit the trade circuit. I can't tell you why exactly. I speculate that there are a number of reasons. Most leagues have a trade deadline that cut off deals well before the playoffs so some owners may be anxious to move some pieces around again. Owners are still familiar with their team and team needs and are still in a fantasy football mind set. You all know the owners that are fine to negotiate with in season but text them in may about a deal and it's like they have now clue what you are talking about. If they even respond. I am trying to avoid this by striking while the iron is still hot. 

It's not a fail safe plan. And it doesn't work with every player of course. At this point there are guys that are too up in the air to invest in this far out. A higher-end example is AP. He looked like shit when he came back. I don't know why. Maybe he is done. Maybe that Godawful line that could really block for any rb was the cause. But there is that strike against him and a second, probably bigger issue for me....I don't know where he will be playing next year. Last year at this time we were speculation on if the vikings would cut or trade him. And then Jerry Jones chatted him up on the phone about playing for 'mericas team just adding to the fire. But Minnesota kept him and this year just went south for him with the injury and bad play before that. He is expensive. Really expensive (18 mil. in cap hit in 2017). I am not sure that Minnesota doesn't move on from him. That could be a better situation. Or maybe not. Who knows. I don't and I don't want to bet on him if I don't already own him. 

But some guys I feel pretty confident in their place on their current team. One of those guys is Jordan Howard. Howard is 22. He started the season third on the depth chart. By week three he was able to wrangle 13 touches away from Jeremy Langford and Ka'deem Carey. By week 4 it was 26 touches and no looking back. He finished with the Bear's record for most rushing yards by a rookie, 1313. In standard leagues he finished 9th in rb scoring. 

He seems overlooked somehow though. Some of it probably has to do with some of the seasons that other RBs have had. David Johnson was incredible. Zeke Elliot too. Le'veon Bell turned a shortened season into a good full season worth of stats. When you talk to guys about RBs that really did well this year Howard is not the first guy to roll off their tongue. It won't stay that way forever though. I would be shocked if Howard isn't a consensus 1st rd pick in redraft leagues next year. I can't really predict what his ADP would be in a keeper league, because A) the keeper parameters of every league are different. B) He might be the best player available in a keeper draft depending on who is kept. And C) in most keeper leagues he will probably be kept (I have this long standing thought that in general long-term league owners are more invested and know more about the game than redraft owners, thereby not making stupid decisions like cutting a young ascending back). 

Redraft ADP is somewhat useful to keeper league owners. It's not perfect but it does establish at least one source of player value. Most of us develop our own rankings going into our drafts, but It's good to have an idea where the masses are valuing that player even if it isn't a perfect match to your league. Plenty of owners prep by printing off the ESPN cheat sheets. Those are the owners that you beat by knowing the redraft ADP of players. Those ESPN cheat sheets are built around their most popular game, standard scoring redraft leagues.

Sorry. Diatribe. Jordan Howard, oh yeah. So Howard blew up the last half of the year. Starting week 8 he had a low of 15 touches and a high of 32. That's the currency when it comes to running backs. You can't score for me unless you get the ball. Howard got the ball and ran. He ran a lot. He really ran a lot when you consider the team went 2-7 in those games. 2-7. He averaged 21.5 touches on a team that was getting stomped. It is so hard to get really great value out of a RB if their team is getting beat. Howard did it for more than half the season. That is incredible.

Now I am cherry picking a little bit. I chose week 8 as my starting spot because he had 7 touches the week before. But That was the outlier. If we look at weeks 3, 4, 5, and 6 he had 13, 26, 19 and 17 touches. The team went 1-3 in those weeks. Howard really did have a great year. But I still think you can buy him cheap. I should qualify that. You can buy him cheaply, relative to his actual value, and relative to what he will cost you in August. This is a back that will carry some serious helium into drafts next year. David Johnson was in a similar spot last year. Sure he had his fans. I know there were some guys I played with that loved Johnson (Ha) from day one and wouldn't move him for anything. But generally he wasn't thought of as a 1st round pick in January. I posted a poll on the FantasyLife app about this time last year asking for thoughts on his ADP. The most common answer was something to the effect "of late 2nd, early 3rd. If he goes in the 1st I will be happy to let somebody else waste their pick on him." By June his ADP was down to 9th overall. By draft season it was 5th. I am not comparing the two as players. But I think this situation is similar. Both had success, but it was somewhat shielded by their teams, Howard for team ineptitude and Johnson for team usage (until the playoffs). Both were/are initially undervalued by the fantasy community.

I was able to trade for Howard in one of my dynasty leagues in late Nov. The trade went through on Dec. 1. I was rb poor and TE heavy. Not much was really available. I offered Gronk for Howard Straight up. The other guy took the deal. Other owners raged against the machine for a day or so about a no name getting traded for a star. Literally hours after the trade was agreed upon Gronk was announced as injured and shortly after that, out for the year. I don't write about this deal to brag. OK I do a little. I clearly won the deal in the short term (but not because I knew anything about the injury before the other owner). But I think I made out really well long term as well. Informally I have heard ADP predictions on Gronk as a 2-3 rd pick next year. There will still be guys that take him in the 1st because of name value and because when he plays he puts up points unmatched by almost anyone in the game position aside. Here is what I am really getting at. I think you can probably still get Howard for Gronk now. I don't think you can in Aug. Right now Fantasyfootballcalulator is estimating that Howard will go at pick 8 in PPR leagues while Gronk goes at pick 21. Other guys that might hold more value now than next year: Lamar Miller, Demarco Murray, LeGarrette Blount. 

Now is the time to buy Howard if you want him for next year. The industry will catch onto him more than they already have. He preformed exceptionally and got touches on a really bad team. I don't have much faith in the Bear's, but I have to expect the team will be better than 3-13 next year (right?). Likely a new qb, potentially a rookie. I could see them leaning heavily on the run game. If Jordan Howard can garner this type pf production on a three win team, what could he do with a team that is in more games? Even if there is no improvement, let's say we have seen the best Howard can be, wouldn't you take that? Especially if you could buy that production now for the cost of a 2nd rounder next year? I will try and profile other potential buy now/buy low candidates over the next couple weeks. If I can pry myself away from baseball for a bit.

Thanks 

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