Value-based drafting for Tight Ends in Standard and PPR leagues

According to both MathBox™ and the Fantasy Outliers team, these Tight Ends could return higher value than ADP or Expert Consensus Rankings.

Chris Seal
Aug 25, 2017 · 7 min read

Listen to our draft prep monster, all-you-need-to-know podcast at Fantasy Outliers Podcast Ep. 5 — The Big 2017 Predictions Episode!

It refers to our draft kit, which is available free here. (desktop friendly)

Tight Ends can be more valuable than common knowledge suggests

  • Can a TE who scores less total points win more points for your team than a RB or WR? Yes.
  • Do the Top 3 tight ends on average have a higher injury risk than the Top 3 Running Backs? No. In our analysis of competitive fantasy football leagues, the first 3 picks taken at each position, the top tight ends actually start about 1 more game on average than running backs do. Is Gronk “injury prone”? Maybe. MathBox™ does have him as an above average injury risk this year. But if he is, so are a whole bunch of other running backs taken at the top.
Figure 1. Weeks Started by Position in 12-Team leagues for the Top 3, 6, and 10 picks taken by position.

The point I’m trying to make here is, drafting a top Tight End can win your team as many points — sometimes more — as RBs or WRs can.

How to find value at Tight End in the 2017 draft

Now, let’s compare MathBox™’s projections with Expert Consensus Rankings (ECR). MathBox™ predicts both Points Per Opportunity and Opportunities Per Game separately. From there, we extracted our best estimate for Weekly Value versus the top 20 projected Tight Ends — this is the Value vs. Tier 1 & 2 Players metric. So Jordan Reed’s +7.55 means that MathBox™ thinks he will beat the typical Top 20 Tight End by 7.55 points per week on average.

Figure 2. MathBox™ Value vs. Top 20 Tight Ends rankings vs. Expert Consensus Rankings. When using our draft kit, you can “trust or adjust” PPO or OPG and all the value projections will auto-adjust

In our projections sheets, we also have Value vs. Tier 1 only, which is value vs. the top 10 Tight Ends. It may be more accurate in 1 TE leagues. That said, the ordering remains the same.

Key takeaways for value-based drafting Tight Ends in PPR Leagues

Dave Seal: Jordan Reed is definitely the standout guy here, as he has the highest Weekly Value vs. Tiers 1 and 2 of anyone on MathBox™’s draft board at +7.55 pts/wk. My issue is that Jordan Reed could get another concussion and retire. He just came off the PUP list with an injured toe, so he’s injured already in the pre-season.

In terms of relative ranks alone, Zach Ertz is the biggest jump for MathBox™ #2 ahead of ECR #7. He’s going at pick 64 in ADP, so you can get him around the 7th round. That’s compared to Travis Kelce, MathBox™’s #3 ranked tight end, going at pick 26. If the Ertz pick pans out, that’s a tremendous draft value. Finding positively valued players in the last 2/3 of drafts is historically really hard to do, and Zach Ertz might be one of your only chances to do it.

We have Antonio Gates pretty high at #11 MathBox™ vs. #22 in ECR. Basically, MathBox™ is saying that Antonio Gates is going to be the guy, and Hunter Henry will be playing second fiddle this year. But I think MathBox doesn’t have all of the situational knowledge. Maybe Antonio Gates is going for that touchdown record. Maybe he cools down after he hopefully does that and maybe Henry gets more snaps from there. MathBox™ has Henry at #17 vs. ECR #13, so I might want to adjust that #17 up a few spots.

Martellus Bennett projected to be a starter in terms of ECR at #9, and MathBox™ has him a bit lower than that at #13. I think there are other better options out there. That said, he’s kind of a touchdown machine, and he has Aaron Rodgers throwing to him. But historically, I don’t remember Aaron Rodgers ever throwing a lot of touchdowns to his tight end. There have just been a lot of guys that have had potential and haven’t panned out. So maybe MathBox™ is catching that and the experts aren’t. I guess we’ll see.

MathBox™ is close but high relative to ECR on Jimmy Graham (#6 in both), Tyler Eifert (MathBox™ #7 vs ECR #10), and Coby Fleener Coby (MathBox™ #12 vs. EC R#16).

David Harbarger: My main concern with Jordan Reed is that he never plays all season. Given where he used to go, I might’ve taken him there, but now that he’s getting drafted in the 3rd or 4th rounds, I’m not sure his injury issues warrant a pick that high. That said, if I’m converting to this Fantasy Outliers value-based style of thinking, it’s really hard to overlook this pick.

I gotta be honest. I don’t know if Gronk is going to be a good player again. I’ve kinda lost the faith. You get to watch him so infrequently these days, it’s hard to tell what’s really going on. He’s MathBox™’s 4th projected tight end and he’s going first in ADP. I’m staying away.

Greg Olsen is a bit of a surprise to me. In our podcast about finding tight end value, I’d said that Olsen is one of those valuable top 3 tight ends this year that I’m going to be targeting, but after seeing this projection (MathBox™ #10 vs. ECR #3), I’m going to be re-evaluating that approach.

MathBox™ is a little bit low on Delanie Walker and Kyle Rudolph, but close. Also, Eric Ebron is MathBox™ #18 vs. ECR #11. I’ve been drafting him for years, and he’s never panned out. I’m not sure he ever will, and MathBox™ seems to agree, at least for this year. That’s redeeming. Stay away.

Clay J. Seal: One thing I will say is that while we’ve discussed the dropoff for Total Season Value after the first three picks for tight end, I do also have a suspicion that TEs, defenses/special teams and kickers are subject to more streaming than other positions, which might lend itself to the top few draft picks’ Total Season Values being bloated. I’m also an evangelist for not drafting Gronk because of his availability risk, and his 0.44 rating is above the league average and is the worst of all TEs according MathBox™. Let another sucker in your league take on that risk.

Chris Seal: MathBox™ must have a man-crush on Jordan Reed. I mean, c’mon. +7.55 points/week in PPR leagues? Okay, so that’s against the top 20 Tight Ends. He’s ‘only’ +5.8/wk against top 10 TE’s. That’s right up there with David Johnson. Is he injury-prone? Maybe. Our projections have him at a 0.27 Availability Risk rating which is moderate (the mean for all positions is at 0.33). As I said in the intro, top tight ends get a bad wrap for their injury risk. Can you find a better value in the 4th round?

As Clay sai, Gronk on the other hand, does have a high availability risk this year. So he could be Gronk again, but I’m not drafting him as the first tight end off the board.

Tyler Eifert (MathBox™ #7 vs. ECR #10) is someone who I think could pop, and you get him just inside the top 100 pick. He’d be a great option if you punt at tight end. He’s a red zone threat, and if he stays healthy this year (MathBox™ has him at slightly below average injury risk) he could be a draft day steal.

Other than that, I don’t think you can go wrong with Zach Ertz, Jimmy Graham, Travis Kelce, or Delanie Walker.

Figure 3. Where MathBox™ thinks you can find draft value relative to ECR.

Value-based drafting Tight Ends in Standard leagues

Figure 4. MathBox™’s Tight End projections for standard-scoring leagues

To get a unique draft kit that will give you an advantage in your league this year, go to our 2017 fantasy projections here. (desktop friendly)

If not, you can also connect with us by: Listening to our podcast, reading our articles, following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or emailing us at: podcast@fantasyoutliers.com.

Fantasy Outliers

Where machines and humans team up to win at fantasy sports

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Chris Seal

Written by

Co-Founder, Lead Data Scientist at Fantasy Outliers

Fantasy Outliers

Where machines and humans team up to win at fantasy sports

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