As we head toward the fantasy football playoffs, roster positioning becomes so much more important, and one or two savvy moves can position your team for a strong chance at winning your league crown. We are almost fully through bye weeks, which bring numerous roster juggling situations into fantasy football. Some options exist on the waiver wire, but budgets and actual benefit to your starting lineup are questionable at best.
This article aims to assign a dollar value to any player above replacement level for standard-structure leagues, i.e., leagues that start 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE and a flex. Both PPR and standard-scoring leagues are highlighted.
The calculation utilizes our rest-of-season fantasy football projections from Weeks 9-16. We assign a value of zero to players who are just out of the realm of possible starts in a standard-structured league to provide us with a replacement-level basis of fantasy points for that position. Every player above replacement is then assigned a value based on the rest-of-season projections. This accurately takes into account both position scarcity as well as future projections.
The values can be used not only to gauge player-for-player trades but also 2-for-1 or 3-for-2 offerings, among others. This hopefully helps some fantasy owners come to a consensus on worthwhile trades for both parties. Typically, the side giving up the most players should expect to pay a premium of 5-10% over the stud player's cost.
Wide receivers may appear low in this calculation, but this reflects the replacement-level value of the position in fantasy football. The tight end group has dropped to 13 playable options, which more accurately reflects the position as a whole as not being a flex option in basically all league types. This cuts down on the value of the middle tier of tight ends to more accurately reflect their value compared to other positions.
There is an assortment of valuable options at wide receiver, which affects the values in relation to what is replacement-level for the position. This makes it hard to justify swapping a top-end running back for a wide receiver. After all, we are in the midst of an offensive explosion, with numerous mid- to late-round wide receiver picks leading the position in fantasy scoring. There are a few high-quality WR options at the top, but there are plenty of options in the tier or two below that have comparable value. As such, the position itself is priced down slightly relative to the premium that exists at both running back and tight end.
We must also note that fantasy football is the only place where the quarterback position doesn’t matter. This is also reflected in the value rankings, with cross-positional trade evaluation made simple. Hit me up on Twitter with any questions or if you are looking for customized charts based on unique leagues and/or scoring.
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