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There are some fantasy football players that believe that the lineup you pick can lose you a game just as much as it can win a contest. Having a player give you a consistent performance week after week can be considered more valuable than a player who goes off every third week and then takes two weeks off between those fantastic performances. Consistency has a value, and it does not take much of a leap to understand that players that you can rely on for solid games when you need them (such as in your postseason) are a huge advantage.
Baseball has a term called "Quality Starts" for pitchers, which is a statistic that represents how often a starting pitcher will put up a good (not great, just good) performance in a given game. The bar is set neither high nor low (six innings pitched, three earned runs or fewer) so as to gauge a decent performance. The theory behind it is that if your pitcher gives you a Quality Start, your team has a fighting chance to win a given game.
So now we need to translate this to football. What is "quality" for each position? How do we define a "Quality Start" for quarterbacks or running backs or any other position? Looking back at the 2013 season, I decided to take the #24 WR for the year (Brian Hartline, 201.6 fantasy points) and take that fantasy total and divide it by 16 for a per game average. Now a case can be made to argue against doing this. I did not account for missed games or a per-start performance metric, but I believe that the numbers will get averaged out by doing this method. Also, taking WR24 seems a bit arbitrary, but if you are looking for a bare minimum of quality, the 24th WR should be the "worst starter" in your fantasy league as a WR2 and a great WR3.
So now we move on to the next question - one of quantifying the quality. At what point do we decide whether or not a wide receiver has given us a quality performance? Here is where it gets a bit murky, but looking at the distribution of WR performances by starters over the season and it becomes evident that the using the 24th WR average and adding or subtracting a percentage gives us a good range for a WR Quality Start.
Using the WR Quality Start range, we can also define a bad performance or an excellent performance as either falling below or exceeding the Quality Start range. Table 1 gives us the fantasy points that it takes to fall in each of the three areas:
WR Start Type | Fantasy Points |
---|---|
Bad Start | 0 to 9.4 |
Quality Start | 9.5 to 15.7 |
Excellent Start | 15.8+ |
Table 1: 2013 WR Quality Start and Fantasy Point Ranges - PPR Scoring
Table 2 shows us the breakdown of all the Top 75 WRs from 2013 and how many of each type of start resulted for each:
Wide Receiver | Team | Excellent | Quality | Bad | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Demaryius Thomas | DEN | 10 | 5 | 1 | 16 |
Josh Gordon | CLE | 9 | 3 | 2 | 14 |
Antonio Brown | PIT | 12 | 4 | 0 | 16 |
A.J. Green | CIN | 10 | 5 | 1 | 16 |
Brandon Marshall | CHI | 10 | 4 | 2 | 16 |
Calvin Johnson | DET | 9 | 1 | 4 | 14 |
Dez Bryant | DAL | 10 | 2 | 4 | 16 |
Alshon Jeffery | CHI | 9 | 3 | 4 | 16 |
Eric Decker | DEN | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 |
Andre Johnson | HOU | 8 | 4 | 4 | 16 |
Pierre Garcon | WAS | 7 | 8 | 1 | 16 |
DeSean Jackson | PHI | 8 | 2 | 6 | 16 |
Jordy Nelson | GBP | 8 | 6 | 2 | 16 |
Julian Edelman | NEP | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 |
Anquan Boldin | SFO | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 |
Vincent Jackson | TBB | 6 | 4 | 6 | 16 |
Larry Fitzgerald | ARI | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 |
Keenan Allen | SDC | 7 | 4 | 4 | 15 |
T.Y. Hilton | IND | 6 | 2 | 8 | 16 |
Kendall Wright | TEN | 5 | 8 | 3 | 16 |
Wes Welker | DEN | 8 | 2 | 3 | 13 |
Torrey Smith | BAL | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 |
Harry Douglas | ATL | 4 | 7 | 5 | 16 |
Brian Hartline | MIA | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 |
Michael Floyd | ARI | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 |
Marques Colston | NOS | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 |
Mike Wallace | MIA | 5 | 3 | 8 | 16 |
Victor Cruz | NYG | 4 | 5 | 5 | 14 |
Marvin Jones | CIN | 4 | 5 | 6 | 15 |
Golden Tate | SEA | 5 | 2 | 9 | 16 |
Riley Cooper | PHI | 3 | 4 | 8 | 15 |
Emmanuel Sanders | PIT | 6 | 3 | 7 | 16 |
Rod Streater | OAK | 2 | 6 | 8 | 16 |
Greg Jennings | MIN | 3 | 3 | 9 | 15 |
Nate Washington | TEN | 4 | 2 | 9 | 15 |
Jerricho Cotchery | PIT | 3 | 4 | 7 | 14 |
Steve Smith | CAR | 3 | 6 | 6 | 15 |
Cecil Shorts | JAC | 5 | 3 | 4 | 12 |
Eddie Royal | SDC | 3 | 3 | 9 | 15 |
James Jones | GBP | 3 | 5 | 5 | 13 |
Doug Baldwin | SEA | 4 | 4 | 7 | 15 |
Dwayne Bowe | KCC | 3 | 5 | 7 | 15 |
Roddy White | ATL | 3 | 3 | 7 | 13 |
Terrance Williams | DAL | 2 | 4 | 9 | 15 |
Cordarrelle Patterson | MIN | 3 | 4 | 9 | 16 |
Hakeem Nicks | NYG | 3 | 3 | 8 | 14 |
Denarius Moore | OAK | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 |
Marlon Brown | BAL | 3 | 4 | 7 | 14 |
DeAndre Hopkins | HOU | 2 | 5 | 9 | 16 |
Brandon LaFell | CAR | 3 | 3 | 8 | 14 |
Rueben Randle | NYG | 2 | 4 | 7 | 13 |
Jarrett Boykin | GBP | 4 | 3 | 4 | 11 |
Stevie Johnson | BUF | 3 | 5 | 4 | 12 |
Danny Amendola | NEP | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 |
Kenny Stills | NOS | 2 | 3 | 9 | 14 |
Tavon Austin | STL | 3 | 1 | 9 | 13 |
Jerome Simpson | MIN | 2 | 2 | 12 | 16 |
Ted Ginn, Jr. | CAR | 1 | 5 | 10 | 16 |
Robert Woods | BUF | 2 | 3 | 9 | 14 |
Jeremy Kerley | NYJ | 2 | 3 | 7 | 12 |
Aaron Dobson | NEP | 2 | 3 | 6 | 11 |
Donnie Avery | KCC | 2 | 1 | 12 | 15 |
Julio Jones | ATL | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 |
Ace Sanders | JAC | 0 | 8 | 5 | 13 |
Mohamed Sanu | CIN | 0 | 4 | 12 | 16 |
Randall Cobb | GBP | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
Reggie Wayne | IND | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 |
Kenbrell Thompkins | NEP | 2 | 2 | 6 | 10 |
Andre Roberts | ARI | 3 | 0 | 12 | 15 |
Santana Moss | WAS | 1 | 3 | 10 | 14 |
Austin Pettis | STL | 2 | 2 | 10 | 14 |
Greg Little | CLE | 1 | 2 | 12 | 15 |
Kris Durham | DET | 1 | 2 | 10 | 13 |
Rishard Matthews | MIA | 1 | 2 | 9 | 12 |
Jacoby Jones | BAL | 1 | 2 | 9 | 12 |
Totals | 322 | 281 | 466 |
Table 2: 2013 WR Start Types Sorted By Top 75 WRs - PPR Scoring
That's a lot of info to digest, so let me help. First, we see that there are about 10% more Excellent Starts (322) than there are Quality Starts (281), which marks the second year in a row (2013 was 355 and 319, respectively) that we had more Excellent than Quality Starts. That's a bit remarkable as the three prior seasons (2009-2011) did not show this trait - you have to go back to 2008 to have more Excellent than Quality Starts for a given year. The numbers were closer and favored Quality Starts those particular three seasons (315-340 in 2011, 332-381 in 2010 and 332-348 in 2009). Last year there were also a lot of Bad Starts (466), but we are only looking for the best here, plus a "start" is not as definitive for a positional player that may just see partial playing time. The net results look like a good trend, which means that our distribution is close to normal and that our baseline point range does make sense.
Now, to dig deeper, let's look at the numbers distributed in two different ways. First, I need to define a valuable starting wide receiver in this system. We want a WR that will win more fantasy games than lose them, so we want either "Quality" or "Excellent" starts. Using a simple formula of scoring each type of start, we can define the value of a given NFL wide receiver. Here is the formula:
STARTING FANTASY WR VALUE = EXCELLENT STARTS - BAD STARTS
We neglect to look at Quality Starts because they neither win games nor lose them on average - they are just average WR performances. We only really care about how often he helps our team vs. how often he hurts it. Giving a "-1" value to bad starts and "+1" to excellent ones does this for us.
On with the results, sorted by value:
Wide Receiver | Team | Excellent | Quality | Bad | Total | Net Val |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Antonio Brown | PIT | 12 | 4 | 0 | 16 | 12 |
Demaryius Thomas | DEN | 10 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 9 |
A.J. Green | CIN | 10 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 9 |
Brandon Marshall | CHI | 10 | 4 | 2 | 16 | 8 |
Josh Gordon | CLE | 9 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 7 |
Dez Bryant | DAL | 10 | 2 | 4 | 16 | 6 |
Pierre Garcon | WAS | 7 | 8 | 1 | 16 | 6 |
Jordy Nelson | GBP | 8 | 6 | 2 | 16 | 6 |
Calvin Johnson | DET | 9 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 5 |
Alshon Jeffery | CHI | 9 | 3 | 4 | 16 | 5 |
Wes Welker | DEN | 8 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 5 |
Julio Jones | ATL | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
Andre Johnson | HOU | 8 | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 |
Julian Edelman | NEP | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 | 3 |
Larry Fitzgerald | ARI | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 | 3 |
Keenan Allen | SDC | 7 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 3 |
Eric Decker | DEN | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 | 2 |
DeSean Jackson | PHI | 8 | 2 | 6 | 16 | 2 |
Anquan Boldin | SFO | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 | 2 |
Kendall Wright | TEN | 5 | 8 | 3 | 16 | 2 |
Randall Cobb | GBP | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 2 |
Reggie Wayne | IND | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 2 |
Cecil Shorts | JAC | 5 | 3 | 4 | 12 | 1 |
Vincent Jackson | TBB | 6 | 4 | 6 | 16 | 0 |
Marques Colston | NOS | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 0 |
Jarrett Boykin | GBP | 4 | 3 | 4 | 11 | 0 |
Harry Douglas | ATL | 4 | 7 | 5 | 16 | -1 |
Victor Cruz | NYG | 4 | 5 | 5 | 14 | -1 |
Emmanuel Sanders | PIT | 6 | 3 | 7 | 16 | -1 |
Stevie Johnson | BUF | 3 | 5 | 4 | 12 | -1 |
T.Y. Hilton | IND | 6 | 2 | 8 | 16 | -2 |
Torrey Smith | BAL | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | -2 |
Brian Hartline | MIA | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | -2 |
Michael Floyd | ARI | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | -2 |
Marvin Jones | CIN | 4 | 5 | 6 | 15 | -2 |
James Jones | GBP | 3 | 5 | 5 | 13 | -2 |
Denarius Moore | OAK | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 | -2 |
Danny Amendola | NEP | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 | -2 |
Mike Wallace | MIA | 5 | 3 | 8 | 16 | -3 |
Steve Smith | CAR | 3 | 6 | 6 | 15 | -3 |
Doug Baldwin | SEA | 4 | 4 | 7 | 15 | -3 |
Golden Tate | SEA | 5 | 2 | 9 | 16 | -4 |
Jerricho Cotchery | PIT | 3 | 4 | 7 | 14 | -4 |
Dwayne Bowe | KCC | 3 | 5 | 7 | 15 | -4 |
Roddy White | ATL | 3 | 3 | 7 | 13 | -4 |
Marlon Brown | BAL | 3 | 4 | 7 | 14 | -4 |
Aaron Dobson | NEP | 2 | 3 | 6 | 11 | -4 |
Kenbrell Thompkins | NEP | 2 | 2 | 6 | 10 | -4 |
Riley Cooper | PHI | 3 | 4 | 8 | 15 | -5 |
Nate Washington | TEN | 4 | 2 | 9 | 15 | -5 |
Hakeem Nicks | NYG | 3 | 3 | 8 | 14 | -5 |
Brandon LaFell | CAR | 3 | 3 | 8 | 14 | -5 |
Rueben Randle | NYG | 2 | 4 | 7 | 13 | -5 |
Jeremy Kerley | NYJ | 2 | 3 | 7 | 12 | -5 |
Ace Sanders | JAC | 0 | 8 | 5 | 13 | -5 |
Rod Streater | OAK | 2 | 6 | 8 | 16 | -6 |
Greg Jennings | MIN | 3 | 3 | 9 | 15 | -6 |
Eddie Royal | SDC | 3 | 3 | 9 | 15 | -6 |
Cordarrelle Patterson | MIN | 3 | 4 | 9 | 16 | -6 |
Tavon Austin | STL | 3 | 1 | 9 | 13 | -6 |
Terrance Williams | DAL | 2 | 4 | 9 | 15 | -7 |
DeAndre Hopkins | HOU | 2 | 5 | 9 | 16 | -7 |
Kenny Stills | NOS | 2 | 3 | 9 | 14 | -7 |
Robert Woods | BUF | 2 | 3 | 9 | 14 | -7 |
Austin Pettis | STL | 2 | 2 | 10 | 14 | -8 |
Rishard Matthews | MIA | 1 | 2 | 9 | 12 | -8 |
Jacoby Jones | BAL | 1 | 2 | 9 | 12 | -8 |
Ted Ginn, Jr. | CAR | 1 | 5 | 10 | 16 | -9 |
Andre Roberts | ARI | 3 | 0 | 12 | 15 | -9 |
Santana Moss | WAS | 1 | 3 | 10 | 14 | -9 |
Kris Durham | DET | 1 | 2 | 10 | 13 | -9 |
Jerome Simpson | MIN | 2 | 2 | 12 | 16 | -10 |
Donnie Avery | KCC | 2 | 1 | 12 | 15 | -10 |
Greg Little | CLE | 1 | 2 | 12 | 15 | -11 |
Mohamed Sanu | CIN | 0 | 4 | 12 | 16 | -12 |
Totals | 322 | 281 | 466 | . |
Table 3: 2013 WR Start Types Sorted By Value - PPR Scoring
This is a lot of information once again, but some names leap out at us. The first observation is that there are an extraordinary number of receivers with a positive Net Value that had fewer than two or less Bad Starts in all of 2013, including the Top 5 names (Antonio Brown, Demaryius Thomas, A.J. Green, Brandon Marshall and Josh Gordon). Pierre Garcon and a pair of receivers form Green Bay (Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb) are three others that accomplished this feat, with Cobb notable with just six games, but the one bad start was the game he left due to injury. The other two names (Reggie Wayne, Julio Jones) on the positive Net Value list with few bad starts also had shortened seasons because of health. If Wayne can bounce back, he could represent huge value in fantasy drafts this season.
Lastly I will sift through it for you and get right to the heart of the matter with our final table. Here we have the results sorted by value for the Top 36 WRs on the 2014 ADP list.
Wide Receiver | Team | Excellent | Quality | Bad | Total | Net Val | ADP |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Antonio Brown | PIT | 12 | 4 | 0 | 16 | 12 | 19 |
A.J. Green | CIN | 10 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 9 | 10 |
Demaryius Thomas | DEN | 10 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 9 | 6 |
Brandon Marshall | CHI | 10 | 4 | 2 | 16 | 8 | 11 |
Josh Gordon | CLE | 9 | 3 | 2 | 14 | 7 | WR51 |
Dez Bryant | DAL | 10 | 2 | 4 | 16 | 6 | 9 |
Pierre Garcon | WAS | 7 | 8 | 1 | 16 | 6 | 28 |
Jordy Nelson | GBP | 8 | 6 | 2 | 16 | 6 | 21 |
Alshon Jeffery | CHI | 9 | 3 | 4 | 16 | 5 | 20 |
Calvin Johnson | DET | 9 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 5 | 3 |
Julio Jones | ATL | 5 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 | 12 |
Wes Welker | DEN | 8 | 2 | 3 | 13 | 5 | 43 |
Andre Johnson | HOU | 8 | 4 | 4 | 16 | 4 | 37 |
Keenan Allen | SDC | 7 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 3 | 34 |
Julian Edelman | NEP | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 | 3 | 54 |
Larry Fitzgerald | ARI | 8 | 3 | 5 | 16 | 3 | 39 |
Anquan Boldin | SFO | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 | 2 | WR48 |
Randall Cobb | GBP | 3 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 24 |
Eric Decker | DEN | 7 | 4 | 5 | 16 | 2 | 79 |
DeSean Jackson | PHI | 8 | 2 | 6 | 16 | 2 | 55 |
Reggie Wayne | IND | 2 | 5 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 87 |
Kendall Wright | TEN | 5 | 8 | 3 | 16 | 2 | 62 |
Cecil Shorts | JAC | 5 | 3 | 4 | 12 | 1 | WR41 |
Jarrett Boykin | GBP | 4 | 3 | 4 | 11 | 0 | WR54 |
Marques Colston | NOS | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 | 0 | 73 |
Vincent Jackson | TBB | 6 | 4 | 6 | 16 | 0 | 36 |
Victor Cruz | NYG | 4 | 5 | 5 | 14 | -1 | 40 |
Harry Douglas | ATL | 4 | 7 | 5 | 16 | -1 | WR68 |
Stevie Johnson | BUF | 3 | 5 | 4 | 12 | -1 | WR73 |
Emmanuel Sanders | PIT | 6 | 3 | 7 | 16 | -1 | 71 |
Danny Amendola | NEP | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 | -2 | WR46 |
Michael Floyd | ARI | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | -2 | 49 |
Brian Hartline | MIA | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | -2 | WR58 |
T.Y. Hilton | IND | 6 | 2 | 8 | 16 | -2 | 61 |
James Jones | GBP | 3 | 5 | 5 | 13 | -2 | WR55 |
Marvin Jones | CIN | 4 | 5 | 6 | 15 | -2 | WR49 |
Denarius Moore | OAK | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 | -2 | WR71 |
Torrey Smith | BAL | 3 | 8 | 5 | 16 | -2 | 63 |
Mike Wallace | MIA | 5 | 3 | 8 | 16 | -3 | 68 |
Dwayne Bowe | KCC | 3 | 5 | 7 | 15 | -4 | WR39 |
Golden Tate | SEA | 5 | 2 | 9 | 16 | -4 | 81 |
Roddy White | ATL | 3 | 3 | 7 | 13 | -4 | 45 |
Tavon Austin | STL | 3 | 1 | 9 | 13 | -6 | WR40 |
Cordarrelle Patterson | MIN | 3 | 4 | 9 | 16 | -6 | 48 |
Terrance Williams | DAL | 2 | 4 | 9 | 15 | -7 | 86 |
Michael Crabtree | SF | INJURY | 41 | ||||
Percy Harvin | SEA | INJURY | 42 | ||||
Jeremy Maclin | PHI | INJURY | 67 | ||||
Sammy Watkins | BUF | ROOKIE | 75 | ||||
Mike Evans | TB | ROOKIE | WR37/91 | ||||
Brandin Cooks | NO | ROOKIE | WR38/95 |
Table 4: 2014 Top Drafted WRs Sorted By 2013 Value - PPR Scoring
Note that Sammy Watkins is not included due to his rookie status, and two other rookies (Mike Evans, WR37 and Brandin Cooks, WR38) just missed the cut. Three others in the Top 36 (Michael Crabtree, Percy Harvin and Jeremy Maclin) are also missing because of their injury issues last season.
Judging form 2013, the first thing we have to do is remove Josh Gordon from consideration as he is expected to get a very big suspension soon. it would appear that Reggie Wayne would be the best value by far if he was a lock to repeat his numbers, with Eric Decker not far behind - but neither is a lock due to age and joining a new team in the case of Decker with the Jets. DeSean Jackson (ADP 55) could be a steal with his new home in Washington, especially considering he remains in the NFC East. Julian Edelman and Wes Welker also look promising for 2013 with ADPs above 40 and Net Values of +5 and +3. Lastly there are four wide receivers that are on the list that are not in the Top 36 – Gordon (WR51), Anquan Boldin (WR48), Cecil Short (WR41) and Jarrett Boykin (WR54). I felt that it would be a terrible oversight to omit these great value wide receivers that can be had after many lesser quality 2013 WRs go off the board.
On the flip side, we have to take a long look at the wide receivers in the Top 36 that are hard to justify their place here based on Quality Starts from last season. Dwayne Bowe (-4 Net Value) seems to find a spot on this list each year, but maybe Andy Reid can help Bowe and the Chiefs to turn it around this year. I just know I would not overpay to have Bowe on my team. Emmanuel Sanders is a favorite of mine this year with him making the move to Denver and Peyton Manning. Marques Colston will not have to compete with Darren Sproles or Lance Moore for targets from Drew Brees, which makes him a candidate to get back into positive territory this year. That brings up an important point, which is that all of this is based solely on last year's results. There is no reason to believe in these numbers as indications of 2014 performance, but having this information available should give you more to think about when deciding who you will have leading your fantasy team this year.
Questions, suggestions and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.