It is that time of year for dynasty players. The Playoffs have ended, and it is time to evaluate rookies and startups. The diversity of leagues and settings leads to many strategies for navigating your start-up. First, is it Superflex, Devy, One QB, IDP, or All 22? And then is it a snake draft, 3RR, Dispersal, or Auction?
I have participated in one of those and will provide you with my strategy in this series of articles. And give my insight as to whether there is a “Perfect Dynasty Strategy”. Or whether it is just reacting to the behaviors of your league mates. And hopefully provide insight into any mistakes I have made and how I would fix them.
- The Obsession of the Perfect Dynasty Strategy (Part 1)
- The Obsession of the Perfect Dynasty Strategy (Part 2)
Fantasy Cares Eliminator Dynasty
18 Team TEP SF Eliminator that includes K and DST. Start 8. Auction Draft
This league is a bit different. It is the Dynasty offshoot of the Eliminators run yearly by John Bosch that raises money for Fantasy Cares. If you’ve never done an FCE I highly suggest it. All donations go to the great work that Fantasy Cares does yearly providing Toys for kids. But the most dynamic parts of this league are that the scoring settings change yearly to reflect the current FCE scoring, which is typically centered around efficiency similar to SFB.
An Eliminator is simply just a league where you draft and essentially operate as a Best Ball that eliminates the bottom teams every week. In this case, because it is a 36-team, 2-copy league it will eliminate the bottom 2 teams weekly. The yearly scoring changes also mean trading is essential to future success. My Team is as follows
FCE is a Different World
Now this team likely looks a little funny. But league format and my particular strategy play into that. In the league, there is 1,000$ budget so all values going forward will be based on a 1k budget. Also, there are multiple strategies in auction drafts. Some are aggressive early and those who wait for everyone to spend their money early to pick up values later, especially in multi-copy leagues.
It is also a non-proxy auction draft. This means that the price on the board is the actual bid for the player as opposed to proxy auctions where you put in a max bid and only have to pay what the next closest bid becomes.
This changes strategy as instead of simply starting with a player putting in what they are worth and allowing the clock to run it requires a bit more strategy in where to put your money and how to increase bids and how much aggression to use. I prefer non-proxy drafts.
Paying a Premium for the Future
My process in this draft started with needing to secure a Top 6 QB. This gives me a positional advantage where positional scarcity is hit hardest. Patrick Mahomes was the first QB off the board at 440 so I had a baseline for what the values were. I was also aggressive at the very beginning of the draft because I noticed a lack of activity. I finally decided Trevor Lawrence would be where my money would go.
Both because he was a relative bargain at 317 but also because I believe that he has the most upward mobility potential within the QB ranks. He is currently QB7-8 for most and QB5 for me. And other than Mahomes and Burrow I would argue he is the safest due to the possible volatility in scoring settings. 32% of the overall budget may be an overpay but in an 18-team league, it was vital to me.
Defense Wins Championships?
DSTs being included in this format provide for some interesting decisions. There will be 288 roster spots in each league. So there will be a premium on having every roster spot scoring points and providing a decent floor. Remember the bottom 2 teams are eliminated weekly. So I decided to make some relatively small bets on DSTs that I believe in their future growth.
Jax DST and DET DST are two I particularly believe in for future growth to join the annual stalwarts of Dallas DST and New England DST. And one of the bigger advantages of the DST being your deep bench is that they won’t get hurt and often provide steady RB2/WR3 production. I also only spent 182$ on them during the draft. On 7 assets that is to me at least tremendous value. And also left me with the flexibility to spend bigger in other areas.
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TE: Top 5 or High Upside?
Given it being a TEP league I knew I would have to dedicate 15-20% of my budget to the Tight End position. So you left the Auction play out. To me, the question with a Best Ball Eliminator is one Top 5 option or 2 High Upside options where you still may get a splash week out of one of them weekly. Given the prices for Premium TE, I went with the high upside option.
Greg Dulcich and Chigoziem Okonkwo are my two selections. Dulcich will likely improve on his breakout from last year as the offense becomes more dynamic with Sean Payton at the helm. And Okonkwo is a perfect fit for that Tennessee offense and I expect to see a much higher target share next year as his late-season stats showed with 3+ receptions in 5 of his last 6 games.
So I spent 95$ on Dulcich and 50 on Okonkwo. Dulcich was likely an overpay but with an Eliminator-style league you want to prioritize youth more than usual because your season can end in two weeks.
So I spent on the low end of the TE budget which allowed further flexibility. And kept the core in the 3-year competitive window I like to keep all my Dynasty teams in. Also kept me out of any bidding wars for the top players. Which is one of the traps of auction drafts.
Letting Value fill out a roster
I had approximately 350 left in my budget to fill out a QB2, RB1 and RB2, and WR1. Which is an auction draft that seems daunting. Desmond Ridder is someone I am picking up in almost every start-up this off-season. The Falcons believe in him and the style with which he plays while not dynamic does make him Fantasy viable. My early aggression allowed me to secure him for 50$.
I picked up his Falcons teammate Tyler Allgeier for 65$. The value of both of these is the belief that they will be replaced. They both showed an ability to play effectively with Arthur Smith’s system and I believe the Falcons will prioritize their draft capital elsewhere.
For my RB1 and WR1, I chose two people the market has cooled on, DK Metcalf and Najee Harris. I believe in Metcalf even with his regression over the past several seasons. And Najee Harris suffered a severe reduction in value last year while battling through a foot injury and also the Steelers offense was significantly less dynamic.
Harris was 95$ which is a tremendous value given his likely workhorse role. And Metcalf was 135$ which given the values of other fringe top 12 dynasty WRs was a value. And given the format, I am buying production and workload to create a safe floor for my team.
Collecting 2024 Capital
Given the high degree of trading of 23 equity within the draft I knew I was likely priced out of the top 7 prospects within the 23 Draft. I instead chose to trade my 2023 draft bankroll for 2024 equity. To both give me the flexibility to trade it for assets in the season if possible but also if my season ends in Week 1. It gives me the extra capital to ensure I have a shot at securing Caleb Williams, Drake Maye, or in this format Brock Bowers.
Trading for 2024 1sts within a start-up is the easiest and cheapest way to gain that capital. As people are using the capital to pursue a current goal with maybe some blinders on the future. I also traded for the 24 picks of a team with considerably older assets on their team.
This may mean a later pick but is also a lottery ticket if that team suddenly ages out and falls flat.
Reflections on the Draft and Mistakes
The biggest reflection on this draft is that I have probably built too safe of a floor but not high enough of a ceiling. I will likely survive the first 5-6 weeks but may not have the high-ceiling players to be able to win in those final few weeks.
It will require luck to go deep. But on the positive side, I have a very young team with future capital. Given scoring settings, I also likely made a mistake not investing more in WR and diversifying as opposed to only 1 WR.
The vast amount of DSTs is probably the most glaring thing on my team. I probably went overboard on them but put in low bids and won which allowed me to pursue higher-value players elsewhere.
This team is likely a Caleb Williams or Drake Maye away from being a consistent contender. But I exited the start-up with a clear plan for the future and believing in the assets that I have.
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