A thought on “risky” players in dynasty.

Most dynasty GMs tend to think that a player’s “risk” is the chance that he doesn’t play well. So, for instance, rookies are “risky” because they’re a crapshoot. Someone like Chase Claypool is riskier than someone like Mike Evans.

I’d say this misses a crucial component.

Real risk is the chances a player doesn’t play well *multiplied by the consequences of him not playing well*.

If Claypool is meh the rest of the way, what’s going to happen to his dynasty value? Absolutely nothing. He’s a *SAFE* player.

(For those doing the math at home: a high chance of bad play times near-zero consequences for bad play = near-zero risk.)

Let me give you a for-instance. Let’s say there’s a highly-regarded rookie who is repeatedly a healthy scratch and finishes with ~150 yards. What happens?

Well, for N’Keal Harry, the answer was “not a whole lot”.

In August of 2019, Harry was the the 62nd overall draft pick in startups, according to DLF ADP.

In August of 2020, Harry was drafted 78th overall.

Pretty much the worst possible rookie season cost him about a round.

You can draft a rookie receiver, give them a year, and if they’re no good sell them for virtually the same price you paid to acquire them. There’s very little risk.

Actually, they’re the second-safest asset in dynasty after future rookie picks.

Now, Mike Evans is a phenomenal receiver. I’m way, way more confident that he’s really good than I am that, say, Chase Claypool is really good.

It’s much less likely that he’ll have a bad season. But if he does, the consequences are much higher. His value drops a lot!

Brandin Cooks had four straight 1k seasons on three different teams from 2015-2018. We were confident he was really good. Then he had a bad year in 2019. What happened to his value?

August 2019 ADP: 30th overall
August 2020 ADP: 82nd overall

There’s a lot to unpack here. A lot of this represents market inefficiencies. The dynasty community is probably too slow to downgrade rookies and too fast to downgrade vets. In a perfectly efficient market, both would probably have comparable risk.

But in the not-perfectly-efficient markets we all operate in, vets and rookies don’t have commensurate risk. And insofar as one is riskier than the others, it’s not the rookies (like most people think), it’s the vets. The bottom can drop out at any time.

Of course, risk isn’t the be-all end-all to dynasty analysis. It’s one component. The goal is to put points in your starting lineup. Risk is frequently a cost you pay to achieve that goal. Vets tend to be much more productive.

But it *is* a cost and it shouldn’t be ignored.