In my previous post, I explored whether rookie running backs were a better value than vets in redraft. By and large, the rookie RB’s fell short of comparable vets; today, we’ll see if that’s the case for receivers, too.
Early-season performance
Everybody knows that rookies take a while to get going; the question is just how poorly they perform at the start of the season. Like with RB’s, we’ll judge these receivers on their play through week 5; if they score over 20 PPR points in a single game, we’ll consider that a “breakout” performance. The intuition is that if a player has a great game early on, you’ll be tempted to keep rostering him until he really turns it on in the back stretch.
As the chart above shows, there’s a pretty significant difference between early-season rookie and veteran performance. There’s not a massive difference between late-round rookies and vets here, with 30% of vets having a breakout game, while only 22% of rookies do so. The difference between mid-round vets and rookies is slightly more pronounced, with vets leading 40% to 26% there.
The gap between top 100 vets and rookies, of course, is far more substantial, but also carries a pretty big asterisk. Top 100 vets go way earlier in drafts than rookies, and this is before we even account for how few rookie receivers go that early. Because of this, we’ll have to frame our analysis differently this time to compensate.
The back stretch
We still need to see how rookies do in the back half of the season first, though, given players draft rookies banking on late-season breakouts. Like with running backs, we first see what percent of receivers clear 100 total points scored after week five of the season. This essentially checks if a player is a useful stretch-run contributor or not, and is a fairly low bar to clear.
Above we see something promising, at least for rookies just outside the top 100. While deep-sleeper rookies get clobbered by vets here, rooks with an ADP between 101 and 150 hold a considerable advantage over veteran receivers.
If we look at what percent of players had two “big games” in the back stretch—i.e., 20-point games, the same criterion we used for an early-half breakout—our mid-round rookies again take a commanding lead. Late-round rookies also get closer to vets here, perhaps suggesting they can offer some explosive potential in the back half, just not consistency.
That previous point may be an understatement, really: mid-to-late-round rookies blow vets out of the water when it comes to having multiple huge games down the stretch. There are caveats, of course, since it’s only a handful of players who accomplish this feat.
Still, this is one area where our small sample size works in the rookies’ favor. Our data contains nearly 90 mid-round veteran WR seasons, yet only in three of those did players chain together four big back-half games. Mid-round rookies, meanwhile, eclipse the vets with four such seasons, doing so with just 27 overall players.
Of course, we still have to address the elephant in the room, which is that I’ve brought top-100 picks back into the picture for this specific metric. I’ve previously noted how comparing top 100 vets and rookies gets to be pretty iffy, since the top vets go way earlier in the draft than rookies.
Yet in the graphic above, the fact that zero rookies with a top-100 ADP had four big stretch games says it all. Even with their ADP handicap—and a small sample size—that’s pretty striking stuff. The lesson, it seems, is to take rookies when they’re a value—i.e., just outside the top 100—and to not pay a premium.
Defying expectations
So far, it seems that mid-round rookie receivers are exceptional values. Even still, our methods are a bit coarse; we need a better way of judging receiver ROI.
This comes in the form of Scoring over Expected (SoE), which essentially looks at how our receivers perform against players with similar ADP. To do this, we divide ADP into buckets—e.g., rounds 4-7, rounds 8-13, and so on—and get the median values for those buckets.
Early in the season, the biggest leaders in SoE are vets. This isn’t surprising, of course, since as the rest of our data has shown, vets come on much stronger than rookies. Thus, if you’re taking a flyer on a rookie, it might be good to get some veteran starters to tide you over.
When we look at data from week six and beyond, however, rookies really step up. In the table above, there’s strong rookie representation, despite there being far fewer rookies overall than vets. (Note: click the right arrow above the table to tab over and see the full data.)
Granted, there’s a reason this metric is called Scoring over Expected, since few of our breakout rookie seasons in the table above were predictable. Anyone who tries to convince you they knew Amon-Ra St. Brown would be that good, that quickly probably has a bridge to sell you, too.
Even still, the table above affirms the trend we’re seeing that some rookie WR’s might be going too late in redraft. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that guys who went in the first two rounds of the NFL draft are pretty likely to pop off.
Group performance
While looking at individuals is great and all, we need to understand the overall trends better. This way, we’ll be properly equipped to exploit the inefficiencies in receiver ADP.
Unsurprisingly, many rookies fall well short of expectations through week five. While rookies taken in rounds four through seven seem to do well here, this only includes 11 players.
We start from this round because, like before, rookies are poorly represented in the early rounds. No rookie in our dataset has a first-round fantasy ADP, and only one (Marvin Harrison Jr.) lands in the second.
When we look at the back stretch of the season, things come into focus. So far, late-round rookies have looked poor in comparison to their veteran peers.
However, the discrepancy has never looked so stark, with rookies firmly underwater vs. expectations. While vets with a 14th-round ADP (or later) roughly meet their already-low expectations, the median rookie scores five points below expectations.
Granted, this isn’t terribly meaningful, since these are guys who are fringe picks at best. Anyone drafting them is almost certainly reaching; maybe they’re making a Homer pick, or taking a rookie they really like. For example, somebody took Luke McCaffrey in my league last year, even though he had an ADP of 244.
Even still, our data says the upside for these guys is basically nonexistent. The arguments that support drafting late-round RB’s don’t apply here either. Taking a late flyer on a rookie RB at least demonstrates an understanding of positional scarcity, though I’ve poked holes in that strategy as well.
Summary
So where can we find surplus value, then? If you’re looking for a proactive strategy, and can stomach waiting a bit for a good return on investment, then the answer seems fairly clear. Everything else being equal, you should hone in on in on rookies with an ADP between rounds four and 13.
Again, this doesn’t mean all rookies are good; you shouldn’t be reaching on guys with an ADP South of 200, for example. Nor does it mean you can build the whole plane out of these rookies, since they do take a few weeks to come on.
Still, this is strategy with league-winning upside. A lot of this is certainly due to the increased level of rookie receiver play, which is itself the product of factors too numerous to get into here.
The simple answer is that if you can get guys who were top-50 picks in the NFL Draft on your team, it’s probably not a half-bad idea. While this strategy is far from infallible, it’s certainly a market efficiency waiting to be exploited.
It might be even better, really, to let your league-mates draft these rookies, then trade for them when their stock is in the toilet. You’ll likely be the one laughing to the bank when your guy turns it on down the back stretch.