I figured now was as good a time as any to update the keeper rankings before we draft our teams on Sunday. With a good read on not only player ranks, but the value relative to their rank, we can go ahead and update these. Note that Bryan, Sean, and Joe haven't submitted their rankings yet.
As a reminder, the number in parenthesis represent the player value and the cost to keep them. So if it reads (18/11), then the player value according to ESPN is $18, but he's being kept for $11. Bolded players are already under contract, including the new ones that have been signed. Diving right in:
10. Bryan - TY Hilton (31/10), Sammy Watkins (10/15). No change in rank
Since I last wrote this, Hilton's value has gone up $10 to $31. That bodes well for Bryan as he's getting a perceived more valuable piece. But, considering the state of his second keepers, he's still on the fringe. I'll hold off on speaking too much until he figures out who his final keeper is, but right now it looks to be the toughest keeper situation in the league.
Hilton should produce really good numbers, especially since Luck is improving. What worries me is his size relative to TD production. A ton of Hilton's TDs come from long bombs, and now that he has competition in the speed department, that number could drop. Andre Johnson could take red zone looks away, not to mention the TE combo of Fleener and Dwayne Allen.
Watkins was the biggest guess of any player in this list. I really don't know where Bryan is going to go with this. Keeping AJ Green presents zero value, and there really isn't anyone else.
9. Danny - Mike Evans (28/19), Jonathan Stewart (18/13). No change in rank
(Heads up, I went ahead and updated your Stewart keeper Danny. Because his ESPN value went up to $18 from $17, his 2-year deal becomes $13 and $17, not $12 and $15. Just giving you a heads up if you change it.)
I should've known better. I expected Danny to keep Lamar Miller, but the fact that The (former) Daily Show is valued about four or five RBs behind Miller, and he's a Panther, means Danny would go ahead and pick him. It was all a matter of cost vs performance, as he could have paid more for Miller, but probably didn't think he would bring as big a return as J Stew could. Danny probably would have stayed in the 9 spot regardless of what he chose to do here. Mainly because every other team above him has a better combination of potential and/or savings. But there's one thing they don't have: Mike Evans.
Evans is really getting some hype. He was valued at $19 at the time of the first edition of this segment, but with top notch WRs getting hurt, combined with his freak TD scoring potential, has vaulted Evans to the 9th overall WR according to ESPN (assuming Jordy is really out for the year). And the scariest part is he could outperform that. But it's all based on Jameis and that terrible, terrible O line.
8. Jose - Jeremy Hill (38/26), Davante Adams (2/2). Drop from 3 to 8
I'm really, really excited to do some drafting. I have two drafts this week, one next week, and one the week after. That's my official reasoning for writing part two of this little series. But my real reason I'm writing it is to point out how fluffing lucky I am to have Davante Adams carry over from my roster, and having the values lock when they do.
Jordy Nelson had 151 targets last year. Cobb had something like 127. The TE spot had 75 between Quarless and Rodgers. Let's say the TE goes up about ten targets as they lean on Rodgers a bit more and a little less on Quarless. Let's say Cobb gets 151 targets. That leaves 114 targets out there. What if Adams gets those?
Last year he had 66 targets, 446 yards and 3 TDs. Jordy had the aforementioned 151 targets, 1,519 yards and 13 TDs. If GBs new 3rd receiver steals what Adams had last year, then the 1,519 yards and TDs need to go somewhere. Even if we expect a TD regression without Jordy, it's not inconceivable that Adams could get 7-8 TDs. After all, the man scored 24 his senior year of college, so he knows how to get into the end zone. And what if Adams gets 1,000 yards? That doesn't seem impossible. I mean, he put up 124 or something against the Pats last year. 1,000 yards and 7 TDs is 142 fantasy points. That's good for 16th according to ESPN's projections. And because the keeper values locked when they did, Davante Adams costs only $2. $2! 16th in projections is valued at $24. $22 in savings! And what's crazy is that since he's on an Aaron Rodgers team, my predictions aren't all that crazy. You could conceive a scenario where Adams scores 10 TDs for example, or catches 1,200 yards. AND DID I MENTION I CAN KEEP HIM FOR FOR $2?!
Of course, because I traded Gronk, I did take a pretty significant fall in the keeper ranks. But pure luck might have us looking back on this keeper as the best value of the draft.
7, Baron - Jordan Matthews (18/13), CJ Anderson (47/35). No change in rank.
Here's where I put aside my personal bias and try to slot Baron into a reasonable area in these rankings. Reason being, I'm incredibly biased towards both Matthews and Anderson this year. I've had multiple arguments with Ed about why I think CJ Anderson will finish a Top 3 back and has a real chance to be the #1 overall player this year. I've also watched enough Jordan Matthews on TV and in highlights to think he's undervalued at the moment. I think he has a real shot to finish a Top 10 WR. Chip Kelly will look to him first and foremost, and that offense will give him plenty of opportunities to catch TDs.
But, it's not like there aren't question marks. Rumors coming from Denver today think that Ronnie Hillman has played himself into a 1B to Anderson's 1A role this preseason. I tend to disagree, but Anderson hasn't gotten as many reps as Hillman in games and Hillman is really taking advantage of the opportunity.
As for Matthews, I think he's more of a victim of the guys ahead of him in the rankings just being really good players too. Plus, people don't know how to grasp Kelly's system for WRs just yet (considering how interchangeable Kelly views them).
But, Baron's team has the upside to match the best of them in our league. I just wish the values were a bit better compared to the market.
6. Sean - Odell Beckham (43/38), Emmanuel Sanders (27/14). Drop from 5 to 6.
Sean's ODB price assumes he keeps him on a two year contract. This is the first change I've written for another team as I think Sean doesn't keep DeAndre Hopkins but instead keeps Sanders. There's two points to my logic:
1. While he could keep Hopkins for a savings around $10 and pay only $6 or so, the savings from Sanders are more, and he plays on a better offense. Basically, he's getting the premier WR2 in fantasy (unless Adams steals that thunder :P) for $13 off his normal price.
2. Sean has a history of taking best player available, regardless of savings. I gave him a hard time last year for keeping Manning when he was getting basically no savings on the deal, and he went ahead and had the highest scoring season in league history. Well, I'm assuming it was the highest scoring season. I'm not going to check that right now.
Sanders is a nice keeper, and ODB is the man, but he drops in ranking mainly because one guy in particular has seen a huge boom to his keepers. But it's not like Sean doesn't have any building blocks. His WR core to start the season rivals anyone's out there.
5. Jeff - Adrian Peterson (56/40), Mark Ingram (29/21). Rise from 6 to 5.
(Jeff, like I did with Danny, I updated your dollar values for your keepers on the draft spreadsheet.)
When you have the #1 overall preseason player on your team as a keeper with $14 savings, you're going to be in the top half of the keeper rankings. But I think we're about to see an interesting convergence of fantasy football thought played out in AP's season.
In short, AP has hit the age and overall touches wall that leads to so many RBs falling off a cliff. But at the same time, he has Norv Turner running an offense, who is putting him in the most primo position that any player could ask for. I can't stress this enough, but Norv ran the ball the inside the 20 the most of any coach during his time in San Diego. He's scheming up ways to get AP to catch the ball, and it's not unrealistic to think that AP could break his all time receptions record. By sheer volume alone AP could kill it. But between the 20s he may not be as successful as we think he could be. But he is and will forever be better than Matt Asiata, so you should see some magic from him. Still, it's worth watching.
Ingram should have himself a solid season. He's slotted in drafts around Alshon and Alfred Morris. That seems about right. This would make him an RB2, and Jeff is paying that much for him. So the value isn't the greatest compared to other players, but he's still setting himself up for one of the strongest RB cores in the game. And boy do we know how much RB matters.
4. Tim - DeMarco Murray (47/26), Alshon Jeffery (32/16). No change in rank.
Tim has seen Murray's value go up from $38 to $47 since the first edition of these rankings. That's resulted in only a $2 spike in the value of Murray (if he signes him to a two year deal). That's still a really good deal for him. Jeffery's value has gone up, but since he's under contract, he still only costs Tim $16.
I had a lot of back and forth thought about whether to put Jeff at the 4 spot. I tend to side with the people that think AP's play could fall this year. While I still think AP will score enough TDs, I think it brings him closer to Murray in terms of keeper value, and with the savings Tim has with Murray, he gets the nod here. After all, Murray plays on a team with the fastest per play pace of anyone in the league, and the 5th highest running plays last year of any team. So he'll get his. Of course, we worry about a potential timeshare with Ryan Mathews, but in pure volume alone, Murray should provide great return for Tim for only $26. And boy, does he need to save as much money as possible.
Jeffery isn't sexy at all. No one want to talk about him, and they all think Cutler will kill his relative value. But he still puts up points. He's basically become the Alfred Morris of WRs. You don't exactly want to draft him, but he'll put up points for you regardless.
3. Dan - Russell Wilson (23/10), Demaryius Thomas (45/18). Drop from 2 to 3.
With Danny cutting Cam Newton this year, Dan has the final grandfathered contract still in effect from when we first made the transition to contracts. That is, he made the contract day one when we could do contracts. And of all the contracts in the league, this has given him the most value. When he lucked into having Thomas under contract when Manning signed with the Colts, he got himself a top 5 WR for the cost of a top 30 WR. He's been able to use that contract and all that saved money to put together very good lineups the last three years. I don't exactly see that stopping any time soon. It's the biggest reason Dan is third in the rankings.
So why the drop from second to third though? Mainly because the second person on these rankings has had everything go right for him this offseason. But Dan doesn't have any problems right now. Russell Wilson is a top 3 QB that he's keeping for $10. For reference, the third most expensive QB in last year's draft was $34. So yea, good deal. Really good deal.
2. Arun - Rob Gronkowski (43/27), Randall Cobb (33/11). Rise from 8 to 2.
I've understandably been given a lot of grief for making this trade with Katarya. Mainly from Ed (who I know will read this) and Bryan. But feel free everyone else to join in. I haven't earned your respect yet.
Looking at it from Katarya's end though, it was about as good as it gets. He had the extra draft dollars to work with, and now he gets the undisputed biggest advantage in the game as a keeper. In my writeup about our trade, I pointed out that most sites had Gronk averaging four points per game more than the number two TE. That's absurd. Getting that advantage off the bat is huge. Add in the fact that, according to his fantasy cycle, Katarya should be good this year, and he's off and running on the right foot.
But what makes Katarya's keepers all the better is that Cobb just became the number one in Green Bay. Jordy was going for $40. You'll probably see Cobb peak a bit higher than that because now people will think he'll hog a ton of the market share with that team, so in effect, Katarya is getting a guy who many peg as a lock to finish Top 10 in receiving for only $11. If Katarya's keeper was a high end escort, Dan's Thomas keeper would be working the streets of North St. in Chicago (that was for you Tim!). Keep your eyes on Katarya this year guys. He may not be as Hairon Buttarya much longer.
But seriously Katarya, you need to change your logo to the one Joe made ASAP.
1. Joe - Le'Veon Bell (54/47), Eddie Lacy (55/35). No change in rank.
The numbers two and three RBs, with a healthy discount with Lacy. I'm giving Joe the number one spot because he has the numbers two and three RBs under contract. That's obscene, even if the savings aren't as crazy as Katarya's. Let me put it this way, the Top 2 scoring RBs last year averaged 5.1 points per game more than the third and fourth RBs. That's assuming the third and fourth RBs are on the same team. So the positional advantage he gets is, to use hyperbole, astounding.
There really isn't much more that needs to be said about these two. They're just really fluffing good.
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This is probably going to be the last writeup before the draft. I can see myself doing a writeup to rank teams and assess people's drafts after Sunday, but ESPN does have a new power rankings option that I could try out too. It also lets me assess drafts, so that's neat.
