Rookie Pick Trade Values. The Dynasty Format in Fantasy Football is seeing explosive growth over the past ten seasons. The advent of free and easy-to-use apps like Sleeper has helped fuel that change but also, a specific segment of the Fantasy Football player-sphere was tiring of the typical Redraft and Best Ball Formats. Just as there are many winning strategies in Redraft and Best Ball, the winning strategies in Dynasty formats are even more significant. Whether you are a “Build for the Future” or “Win Now” player, one key to success is managing the value of draft picks. Let’s look at one of the subsets in that strategy tree how to figure out values in trading up for a higher first-round pick.
Know Your Dynasty Format
The most important thing in ANY Fantasy Football league is understanding how your league’s unique rules can be used to your advantage in your strategic decisions. For example, managing a 1QB 10-team league is different from handling a Superflex 14-team league. The more players in the starting lineup each week, the more you need depth over studs. Likewise, the value of rookie draft picks varies depending on the number of teams in the league and your format. For example, quarterbacks will be at a premium in rookie drafts in Superflex and will be a luxury pick in 1QB formats. So today, we will only concern ourselves with a 1QB Dynasty Rookie Draft strategy.
1QB Dynasty Rookie Variance in the Draft
Several websites do a great job archiving Average ADP data and are helpful to consider each year’s rookie class, and I combined several sources for my rookie data chart below. Over the past five rookie drafts in Dynasty, significant trends have identified themselves.
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- The farther along you go in the draft, the more critical the variance of where that player listed at a certain ADP has in the draft sequence.
- The top 1 or 2 picks have a minimal variance than the 5th pick, and the 10th is even more significant down the list.
- Understanding this data is key to understanding the value of moving up in the draft by giving up a player or picks in later years. For example, why give up value well ahead of the draft to move up four spots if the player you would choose at that position (Or an even better-rated player) would still be available at your original pick?
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| Pick | 5 Year Variance | Last Year |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.4 | 1 |
| 2 | 3.2 | 3 |
| 3 | 4.2 | 3 |
| 4 | 5 | 4 |
| 5 | 6 | 6 |
| 6 | 5.6 | 6 |
| 7 | 7 | 8 |
| 8 | 5.2 | 7 |
| 9 | 7.6 | 9 |
| 10 | 9.2 | 12 |
| 11 | 12 | 7 |
| 12 | 11.6 | 17 |
| 13 | 10 | 6 |
| 14 | 8 | 5 |
| 15 | 12.2 | 7 |
| 16 | 12 | 11 |
| 17 | 10.2 | 8 |
| 18 | 10.4 | 7 |
| 19 | 10.2 | 6 |
| 20 | 14.4 | 15 |
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Rookie Pick Trade Values Conclusion
Spending a valuable Dynasty asset only to move up four positions in the draft is only an intelligent move the higher you would move up in the draft. Moving from 1.05 to 1.01 guarantees you pick the guy you are targeting. But moving from 1.08 to 1.04 does not guarantee you will get the player you targeted or even the Top 2 you are targeting.
It’s also possible the player you moved up to target at 1.04 will be available at your original 1.08 pick, so you wasted another valuable asset to move up just four spots in the draft. Once you get past pick 1.05, the variance starts getting so large that you are just as likely to get the targeted player (Or an even better one that slips in the Dynasty draft) by staying at your original position.
Don’t give up a valuable asset that increases the value to move up four spots in the middle to the late first round. It’s better to wait until draft day and trade up once you see your targeted guy is still on the board. The only exception is if you are only giving up a resource that is aging or likely to lose volume in the upcoming seasons. Then it would make sense to move up in the draft to get the player you are targeting to improve your team.
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Don’t forget to check out the Professor’s data driving lesson plans here on Fakepigskin (see professor’s classroom); tune in to the “Science of Fantasy Football” podcast for more advice to improve your Fantasy Football team next season.
