Dynasty Data: Startup Draft Steals at WR

Photo: USA Today Sports

A player's Dynasty ADP is largely a function of his redraft ADP and Age. Data modeling can help us quantify the strength of these connections.

A linear model built to predict a wide receiver's Dynasty ADP based only on their age and Redraft ADP returns an R-squared value of 0.957. An R-squared value of 1 would be a perfect connection. The 0.957 value indicates that about 95.7% of the variability in dynasty values can be explained by age and redraft value.

The most interesting aspect of these models is not the players whose Dynasty ADP is exactly what the model predicts. Instead, the insight comes from analyzing the outliers. In this week's four-part series of articles, we will highlight the running backs and wide receivers whose Dynasty ADPs most differ from what the model says their Dynasty ADP should be, based upon their age and Redraft ADP. For example, Jameson Williams is 23.3 years old and has a redraft ADP of 109 (according to Sleeper). The model says Williams should be going in the middle of the 8th round of dynasty startups (93.5 overall). Instead, his actual Dynasty ADP (111.5) is a full round and a half later. The model says Jameson Williams is a steal at his current Dynasty ADP, but is he really? 

We will investigate that question and examine the other running backs and wide receivers whose Dynasty ADPs are outliers according to the model.

Series: See RB Dynasty Startup Draft Steals here >>>
Series: See RB Dynasty Startup Draft Reaches here >>>
Series: See WR Dynasty Startup Draft Steals here >>>
Series: See WR Dynasty Startup Draft Reaches here >>>

Wide Receiver Dynasty Steals

Let's look at the players the model predicts should be going earlier in Dynasty drafts than they actually are to see if we can identify potentially undervalued Dynasty targets.

Thoughts on Undervalued WRs

Value in Buffalo? It is interesting to note the two wide receivers the model predicts should be going the most picks earlier in dynasty drafts are both Buffalo Bills. Some of the discrepancy between redraft and dynasty ADP is simply due to the fact that we may be betting on different players short-term (Curtis Samuel and Khalil Shakir) than we are longer-term (Keon Coleman and Dalton Kincaid). However, we should be open to the possibility of Shakir and Samuel being undervalued. What if Coleman is a bust?

Marquise Brown is a legitimate startup target. Some of the gap between Brown's predicted Dynasty ADP and his actual Dynasty ADP is easily explained -- he is on a one-year contract, and even if he stays in Kansas City beyond 2024, his value may decrease going forward due to the expected emergence of Xavier Worthy. That being said, Brown is a talented player who could explode with Patrick Mahomes II. He is actually being drafted much earlier (Underdog, for example) than his Sleeper Redraft ADP.

Jameson Williams is worth targeting. The redraft hype for Williams continues to grow. His 109.3 Sleeper ADP actually lags multiple rounds behind his Underdog ADP. This talented 23-year-old with early first-round draft capital is going multiple rounds later in dynasty than in redraft. It simply does not compute. Williams seeing his dynasty stock rise over the next two months is one of the easiest bets to make in all of fantasy.

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