Riches and Ruin
Once a year, the nation of dynasty managers gather together to pay tribute and offer up sacrifices in hopes of a fruitful season for their rosters. At the center of this festival looms an overwhelming structure. The marble facade boasts a colonnade design that towers high into the sky, reflecting brilliantly in the sunlight. At the precipice of the entrance, you take a deep breath… and then you are plunged into a world of chaos. Welcome to the Rookie Stock Exchange.
Rookie Value Insulation
Hanna - “Number one rule of Wall Street. Nobody... and I don't care if you're Warren Buffet or if you're Jimmy Buffet. Nobody knows if a stock is gonna go up, down, sideways, or in fucking circles. Least of all, stockbrokers, right? It’s all a fugazi. You know what a fugazi is?”
Belfort - “Fugayzi, it's a fake.”
Hanna - “Fugayzi, fugazi. It's a whazy. It's a woozie. It's fairy dust. It doesn't exist. It's never landed. It is no matter. It's not on the elemental chart. It's not fucking real.“
The Wolf Of Wall Street
The Rookie Stock Exchange
Once a year, the nation of dynasty managers gather together to pay tribute and offer up sacrifices in hopes of a fruitful season for their rosters. At the center of this festival looms an overwhelming structure. The marble facade boasts a colonnade design that towers high into the sky, reflecting brilliantly in the sunlight. At the precipice of the entrance, you take a deep breath… and then you are plunged into a world of chaos. Welcome to the Rookie Stock Exchange.
Staring at you are 11 other managers, most of them pissed off for how long they have had to wait before the ritual could begin. But it isn’t long until the shriek of the ceremonial bell echoes throughout the exchange, signaling the beginning of the draft. Immediately you are swallowed up in a frenzy of pushing, shoving, and screaming. “I’ll take Jermaine Burton at the 3.05!” one manager shouts. “Give me Rasheen Ali at the 5.06!!!” another exclaims. Looking up, you see numbers, names, green arrows, and red arrows scrolling across the walls: 2.05 - Ricky Pearsall ↑, 2.06 - Adonai Mitchell ↓, 2.09 - Troy Franklin ↓, 3.01 - Ben Sinnott ↑. Armed with their Sleeper apps, they angrily send each other trade offers, desperately seeking a seat at the draft table. Speed is the most important characteristic to surviving this Tasmanian affair. They drown themselves under a torrent of communications: Press Releases, Beat Reporters, YouTube, Twitter, you name it! They piece together nuances and subtle changes in the flow of information, all to catch trends and try to predict what will happen in the rookie exchange market. Fortunes are made or lost because of information or the lack of it.
All Good Things…
Buried beneath the spectacle of our rookie drafts is the inescapable truth: all things eventually come to an end. For some rookie prospects, this certainty unfortunately occurs all too quickly. In an effort of self-preservation, we weigh out the costs and benefits of our draft pick investments, wondering to ourselves, “Is this draft pick the next Justin Jefferson or the next Jalen Reagor?” The rookie market is a rollercoaster of value fluctuations that can occur soon after a prospect’s name is announced at the NFL Draft. The most intriguing aspect of this process is that some rookies can withstand negative situations better than others. This is known in the dynasty community as Value Insulation.
There are a ton of assumptions that are widely spouted in the dynasty community revolving around rookie value insulation. “QBs maintain their value better than any other position,” “WRs are a safer bet than RBs,” or “TEs take 2-3 years before they start returning value.” But if you have been reading my articles long enough, you’ll come to understand that I hardly have any faith in what a lot of people say (especially without the research to back it up). I need to look into things myself.
The Setup
To discover the hidden truths behind this phenomenon, I began my research with the consensus rookie ADP of SuperFlex drafts from 2020-2023 (which you can view in the Dynasty Blues article). I split these four draft classes into two groups: the first group of prospects each arranged by their respective ADP and the second group arranged by position. Using KTC, I logged their positional ranking one week after their NFL draft as a baseline. From there, I measured their positional ranking at seven more critical junctures: the beginning of the NFL Preseason, week 1 of the NFL Regular Season, week 8, week 16, the following NFL Draft (1 year after the baseline), and the subsequent drafts for the following two years (2 & 3 years after baseline). Recording the positional rankings and value fluctuations at each of these dates, I originally attempted to track every pick and prospect of each class. Slowly realizing that this project would take forever to complete, and that no one gives a shit about 3rd and 4th-round rookies, I settled for tracking only 1st round prospects. Beginning with rookie insulation by draft slot, here are my findings:
Early-Round Rookie Picks
Picks 1.01-1.03 are pretty locked in to accrue value until at least week 8 of the NFL Season.
The 1.04 is more dependent than the 1.01-1.03 upon early production returns to guarantee value retention. Managers with this type of investment are likely more susceptible to panic selling if the players in this range do not produce early.
Mid-Round Rookie Picks
Mid-1sts are even more dependent upon early production and positive market sentiment. Often, these players are in a clear tier below the elite prospects, making them a lot easier to move down or flip for proven veterans. Many of these players lose value since the draft, but can often see massive value gained if they are producing by the midway point of the season.
Late-Round Rookie Picks
Late-1st prospects are perhaps the least susceptible to massive value changes (negative or positive), making them some of the “safest” bets of the first round. Given the mild capital investment, there is less pressure on these players to produce early, making it easier for managers to hold them. With so much hype focused on the top 6-8 picks, we often see talented players with imperfect profiles fall to this range, making them an immense value and some of the best steals in the draft.
Other Key Takeaways
The most critical time for rookies is 1-year after they are drafted and how they stack up with the next incoming class. Managers with rookies who didn’t produce their freshman season or have negative public perception will look to trade to recoup some of the lost value.
About 3/4’s of rookie picks will lose value between the end of year 1 and year 2.
If a player has lost value after year 1, only about 1/4 of rookie picks recover and accrue value from year 2 into year 3, making them a risky bet.
Outside of a disastrous season, most players retain their draft-day value throughout their first season.
But only about 1/4 of rookie picks will hit and continue to maintain or accrue value throughout their first three seasons in the league.
Tracking the value insulation of certain picks is only half the story. What can we learn if we view this same data by position?
Rookie Value Insulation By Position
We are in a TE renaissance, where 1st-round ADP TEs are the safest bets on hitting (more on this in the previous article Dynasty Blues) and value insulation. This is likely due to how few great TEs there are in the dynasty landscape and how highly ranked so many begin their careers.
Most positions on average suffer a value loss after year one because 3/4‘s of prospects across the board fall in the rankings.
WRs are the toughest bets to make, likely due to how difficult it is for prospects to break into the elite category early on in their career (see the Positional Volatility article for more on this). It doesn’t help that WR is the deepest position with the lowest hit-rate percentage either.
The best thing WRs have going for them is that they can have the best return early in their career if they hit.
RBs are the prospects that can shine twice as bright as any other position in their first season, but their value is sadly all but guaranteed to fall after year one.
QBs are a relatively safe bet given their scarcity, but managers will often mirror the NFL and look to quickly move on from them if they don’t show promise by year two.
Other Key Takeaways
Outside of players like J.K. Dobbins and Cam Akers, who suffered devastating injuries early in their careers, nearly every prospect fell in the rankings due to play, not injuries.
The best time to sell rookies is during the fantasy playoffs. As a prospect’s freshman campaign comes to a close, managers will have a good idea of rookie values and will look to acquire promising assets heading into the next season.
The best time to buy ascending rookies is between weeks 3-4 of the first season. At this point, there is just enough production data on players to make calculated wagers and get a last-minute seat on a rocket ship before it leaves the stratosphere.
When Is A Gift Not A Gift?
The rookie voice is rising, but realizing how few of them become meaningful contributors to your dynasty squads can be quite sobering. Building off the concept of Hit-Rates (Dynasty Blues), this article sought to discover how long these rookies could maintain their positional ranking. From the moment you click “DRAFT,” a countdown commences. Over the next year, your investment will be relatively safe. But after a year, there will be a turning point (as shown below) where you’ll have to decide to either hold or sell your asset. Knowing that only 25% of these rookies will enjoy continued success should signal to sell more often and sooner than we think. Rarely do prospects like Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Justin Jefferson, and Ja’Marr Chase come along and maintain their position for many years.
With how addicted to young talent the dynasty community is, it won’t be hard to present to your leaguemates with a “special opportunity,” a new scenario, another stock for them to invest their valuable assets into (and then some). Many managers will be willing to pay the iron price after one year because they believe they have seen enough to make a “safe” investment. While these managers believe they are making their teams better in the long run, the brokers (who are liquidating) are doubling or tripling their investments in this racket. Outside of acquiring the future 1sts of poorly-constructed teams, there is no other more profitable strategy in the dynasty than selling over-hyped rookies after their freshman season. This doesn’t work if you’re incapable of scouting rookie talent or can’t continually replenish your war chests with 1st-round picks through trading.
For this reason, I have devoted all the previous articles of this off-season to trading and rookie evaluation. To the rest of your leaguemates, your roster should look like an amusement park filled with excitement and intrigue. Keep them returning with season passes through amicable trading and the moment they want to get off the ride to head home, show them a new attraction they can try.
