Timing is everything in life. It’s something we all learn at some point in our lives. It doesn’t matter its a relationship, job, or any personal matter. If the timing isn’t right, then something will go wrong. Take for instance “Joe”, the father of my friend “Mike”. For large portions of their life, they had lived in either rented out duplexes or apartments. That’s pretty standard for most people in my hometown of Stockton. Well, when high school came around, Joe had the opportunity to buy a house is a pretty nice area of town. He took it. Their first home. He told Mike that one of the few things he knows about life is that the value of property always goes up. This was in 2006. Very quickly, Joe would find out that the timing of this transaction was not good.
Like many of Stockton’s residents, Joe would eventually lose his house after the Great Recession of 2008. The property value on that home dropped along with many of the homes all across Stockton. The timing of this major investment could not have been worse for them and the thousands of others who had their homes foreclosed on as a result of the economic crisis. If Joe had been able to wait just another 18 months and invested at that moment, maybe the family still owns that home (and at a much cheaper price). Like most things in life, it comes back to the point of this article, timing is everything.
The same goes for fantasy sports. If you’ bought Todd Gurley in the middle of the 2018 season, you’re probably kicking yourself right now. If you grabbed onto Austin Hooper in the middle of 2018, you’re probably feeling pretty good about that investment. When investing in fantasy prospects, it is vital to understand their value and when you’ve hit that peak. It might have been tough to realize that Gurley might be at his peak in 2018, but if you understand how difficult it is for an RB to maintain superstar value for 4+ years then you might have sold. Likewise, if you understand that TEs usually take 2-3 years of development before we see them start producing, you’d have scouted out for TEs like Hooper who were moving into their 3rd year back in 2018.
Today we are going to look at three WRs that are all entering their 3rd year in the league. These are 3 guys all drafted within 16 picks of each other. D.J. Moore, Calvin Ridley, and Courtland Sutton. All three have been fantasy producers in their young careers and are being hyped across the fantasy community. So I’ve decided to play a little game of Buy, Sell, Hold with that three and discuss what I would do if I owned all three and what you can try to do in your own leagues.
Sell
D.J. Moore
I want to preface this with the fact that I think Moore is an outstanding young WR who is going to be able to give you consistent production at the WR position. I don’t think he is a bad player in any way. The reason that he is my sell, is because just like Gurley in 2018, I think he might be reaching his max value at this point in time.
I polled the Twitterverse about DJM’s value and these were the results.
First acknowledgment, this is a small sample size of people so it may not represent everyone but in a prior poll, everyone was saying he was worth the 1.01 plus. This means that you can probably trade Moore for something around the 1.02 AND 1.06 picks. If we look at Rotoballers Post Combine Rankings that is going to land you some combo of Lamb/Jeudy and Dobbins/Akers most likely depending on landing spots come draft time. All of which I view as being guys capable of getting you RB and WR1 numbers within the next two years. He probably could even get you one of these other guys here AND a mid 1st still.
Now Moore has been incredible. He had a horrific situation last year with guys like Kyle Allen throwing him the ball and yet he still managed to get a line of 87/1175/4. He finished right at WR12 in PPR leagues in weeks 1-16 in total points and 15th in PPG (15.4).
While I think Moore is a great player, I also think he might have reached his ceiling a bit. I can’t imagine the hype on him going any higher and that’s one of the reasons that I think he is a sell in this group. Yes, he will be getting a new QB but that doesn’t necessarily translate to more targets or opportunities. Moore isn’t a red zone threat, especially on this team where McCaffrey and Samuel are both ahead of him as options in the RZ and Ian Thomas will be stepping right into that Olson role. DJ Moore is never going to be that huge TD guy on a team. He might have a path to becoming a Julio type of player who racks up a bunch of yards and catches, but his TD upside is limited.
Last year Moore finished as a WR1 in just 2/15 games. He did finish as a WR2 in 7/15 games. That’s pretty steady results but his lack of WR1 game upside is one of the reasons that I think he might be capped out here. Like I said above, you can argue that a new and improved QB could help Moore’s numbers but I don’t see a whole lot of targets and opportunity increases. His catchable target rate and target quality rating on playerprofiler are comparable to that of Julio Jones. It’s one of the reasons that I think Moore is at his ceiling and that this is the perfect to sell on the hype. The only way I can imagine the hype increasing is if the Panthers move up to draft Tua.
Hold
Courtland Sutton
I’ve already written a bunch about Sutton. I acknowledge that if I could, I would sell Sutton too. Not necessarily because I don’t think his value will increase but because I think there is more potential for his value to decrease than the other two guys here. When I polled twitter these were our results.
Sutton is probably going to land you the 1.05 in most leagues based off this poll. The 200 vote sample size helps give us a more clear picture of how people value him. Like I showed in the rotoballers link above, that is probably getting you the RB3 or WR2 in most drafts. Depending on what you need, that could be really valuable. I think there is still more room for the Sutton hype to grow and for Sutton to maintain this current value in the eyes of the public.
While I don’t believe in Lock much, I do believe in Elway to go out and grab someone that will get the ball to Sutton. Elway isn’t someone who sits on his hands and waits for things to happen. He makes moves and gets the guys he wants. If this Lock experiment fails this year, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Elway making a move for a big-time guy or trading up for someone like Lawrence/Fields. That would help skyrocket Sutton’s value.
If we look at consistency, Sutton had less WR1/2 games compared to Moore but he showed a higher upside with 3 WR1 games compared to Moore’s 2. His catchable target rate and quality target rate were even worse than Moore’s, so there is room for improvement as well. The quality of targets has a drastic drop from 2018 to last year for Sutton.
Like I said above, if I could I would sell both but I think there is still a chance that Sutton’s value can increase into that 1.2 range and get you a better pick/player.
Buy
Calvin Ridley
Calvin Ridley is firmly in a buy spot for me. I think this is a player who is ready to make the jump next year. He checks all the boxes of what you want and need in a WR. He gets separation consistently, runs quality routes, and has a very good contested catch rate. Let’s add on the fact that Austin Hooper will be gone. There is no Sanu there to take snaps and targets. Freeman and his targets are going to be replaced. He plays in an offense where the QB consistently throws the ball 600+ times. With all of that info, people are still only valuing him as a bottom 1/3rd pick in the first round this year.
Now once again this is a small sample size from twitter so there are some precautions with it. However, the significant majority of these 79 votes put Ridley as being worth a pick in the second half of the 1st round.
That was with all those factors that I mentioned above. Last year Austin Hooper was a major factor for the Falcons. That was because their OL was horrendous. They gave up the 7th most sacks and FootballOutsiders ranked them as bottom half in pass protection. Matt Ryan was forced to get the ball out quickly and relied on Hooper. With Hooper gone, Ridley can calmly step into that role. His ability to separate and the cushion provided to him by DBs (#2 in the league according to PlayerProfiler) will help funnel some of those targets back to him. Atlanta also tried to address the OL with the drafting of two rookies in the 1st round last year. A year of development should help with those protection issues and allow Ryan to get Ridley the ball more consistently.
Lastly, I wanted to discuss Ridley’s consistency. He is the guy that gives your fantasy team the highest chance of a WR1 game. He had 3 in the 13 games that he played. He was well onto his way to a 4th in Week 14 when he got knocked out of the game. He finished as the WR13 that week. While he is going to have more lows than someone like Moore, he also provides more highs. He is the type of player that can win you weeks. That is always something that I’m looking for in my team. I can supplement my team with players who have more consistency but you need those boom players to win your titles and that’s exactly what Ridley is.
Cresson Sorby
@TwoOohNine