Starting pitchers and wide receivers are a lot alike in fantasy sports.
Your fantasy baseball team needs an anchor starter, much like your fantasy football team needs a WR1 on the roster. Finding sleepers is necessary with both positions and the waiver wire can yield weekly results if you find the right one.
That’s why wasting early picks on starting pitchers and wide receivers aren’t necessary. Despite the overwhelming evidence against wide receivers, experts and the general public aren’t in agreement with waiting on that position.
I’ve looked at quarterbacks and running backs in the recently released Athlon top-300 fantasy football cheat sheet, so now I’ll examine the wide receivers on the list.
First-round WRs are tough to trust
According to Athlon’s rankings, five wide receivers are listed in the first round in a standard 12-team league.
Antonio Brown (No. 3 overall), DeAndre Hopkins (No. 5), Odell Beckham Jr. (No. 7), Michael Thomas (No. 9) and A.J. Green (No. 10) are your top choices.
It’s difficult to argue with Brown, although I would still value him lower than third, but it’s tough to make the case for the other wide receivers based on lack of production. In 2017, only Hopkins and Brown tallied more than 200 total fantasy points for the season.
Seven running backs accomplished that feat.
It’s not just the total points that have me concerned. Hopkins and Brown were consistently high-level scorers last year. Thomas and Green were not. Thomas had more single-digit fantasy outputs than double-digit ones. Green was even more inconsistent, going for seven or fewer points in seven games.
Wide receivers are so dependent on a multitude of factors that they can’t control. Defenses shading more coverage their way, quarterback ability and game flow are all out of the wide receiver’s hands, but play an important part in each game.
Think twice before risking an early pick on those inconsistent wide receivers.
Look to the third/fourth rounds
My strategy generally stays the same.
I grab two running backs in the first two rounds, and then I weigh the options of a flex running back compared to a hammer as a WR1.
Last season, I picked up Keenan Allen in this range as my hammer, and he tallied the third-most fantasy points among wide receivers.
So who will be available at this time in 2018?
I’m targeting two wide receivers at this level, who have major upside, but create some risk (just like Allen last year, who dealt with injury issues in the past).
Amari Cooper, ranked 36th, and Allen Robinson at 42, are strong candidates to produce WR1 numbers.
Cooper was atrocious last season, but has shown high-level ability in the past. With Derek Carr at the helm, he had 130 and 132 targets, respectively, in those two years. Without him, that dropped to 96.
With Carr back, Cooper’s production will rise, along with his targets.
Robinson, who dealt with injuries last year, has a new team and a stronghold on the top receiver spot on the team. With a young quarterback slinging the ball to him, I anticipate a major target load for Robinson.
And where there’s targets, there generally is major production. With Blake Bortles feeding him the ball, he totaled 151 targets apiece in 2015 and 2016. I would expect the same workload with Mitchell Trubisky.
Hello busts
Wide receivers love to bust, so that’s also another reason why I avoid them in the first two rounds.
During the last few years, experts got giddy about wide receivers, and started listing them as top four options in fantasy football drafts.
And while those receivers, like Beckham, Julio Jones and Green were good at times, they weren’t worth the draft capital at that rate.
So who’s busting this year?
Green is regularly overrated, with his ability to go for 20 to 30 points on occasion, and then follow up with complete duds for three weeks. It’s not all his fault, since his quarterback situation is less than ideal.
Players with higher capabilities of being complete busts (and not just being average) would be Allen because of injury issues and Brandin Cooks. Allen is a target hog when he’s healthy, but he’s been a regular on the injury list during his career.
Just because he had one season where he was finally productive for the entire season isn’t going to erase his past issues.
And with Cooks, I have major reservations about a person who has been traded away by two teams in two years. That doesn’t happen with elite players. Even though he was the seventh-most productive wide receiver in 2017, he was inconsistent, going for less than five fantasy points in six games.
There’s a lot of mouths to feed in the Rams offense, so how will Cooks fit in on a regular basis? I’m concerned that he could get lost in the shuffle.
