1034: Mailbag - Vetoing Trades, TreVeyon Henderson, and More

JJ Zachariason (0:02)

This is The Late-Round Podcast with your host, JJ Zachariason.

What's up, everyone? It's JJ Zachariason. In this episode, 1034 of The Late-Round Fantasy Football Podcast, sponsored by DraftKings.

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It's a mailbag day. Let's get to it.

The first question this week is from Patreon. It's from Jilu. It says, When during the season is a good time to start trying to consolidate your power into a starting lineup? Thanks to the draft guide, I have five wide receivers inside the top 16 rest of season. In a typical two wide receiver in one flex league, I can only start three at most. I'm five and O, but could probably upgrade in RB too. Do I hold Pat and protect against bi-weeks and injury, or try to consolidate into a juggernaut starting lineup? Thanks as always. Look, I'm of the belief that you should always be trying to consolidate into a juggernaut almost immediately when the season starts. Leaving points on the bench isn't usually a good idea, because obviously those points aren't going to help you get a win. It's good and fun, and it's helpful to have a backup. Don't get me wrong. In an ideal world, you'd have a great starting line up and a great bench. But you're trying to get first place. If you're sitting with five top 16 wide receivers, at least package one of them up with one of your running backs and upgrade that running back spot. Do it two for one. Now, I don't want to be the analyst who says that wide receiver threes don't matter, or RB2s just don't matter, because they do. Especially in a deeper format where it's not always easy to feel like a full starting line up. But in a league where you don't start many players, where your starting line up is shallower, those players, those wide receiver three types, they matter less, like the Jacoby Myers of the world. They're going to be more helpful for a deep league with deep starting line ups, versus one where you're just starting two wide receivers, two running backs and no flex spots. Because each spot in that starting line up when it's shallower is more impactful, because there are fewer of them. So if you're trotting out Jacoby Myers, you're running the risk of not getting that much production in a given week, even though he still can get you some production in some weeks. Jacoby Myers is not a mecha-egg-buka. And I love Jacoby Myers. He's not catching strays here. I think he's a good player. And I think he's gonna bounce back and not be as bad as he's been the last couple of weeks. He's just like the quintessential wide receiver three right now in fantasy. But this is why I say each year, if you're in a shallower league, an eight, a ten-team league, you should probably spend up at least on a quarterback or a tight end. Maybe even both. Both of those onesie positions. That's much more difficult to do. That's an opportunity cost. That's much more difficult to take on in a 14-team league, where you're starting like three wide receivers, two running backs and three flex spots. Because of that opportunity cost. Different league sizes, different league types, they're going to make players more and less valuable, even though that player is scoring the exact same number of fantasy points. Of course, there's insane overlap. A mecha-buka is good in all formats. But you should really have a good grasp on your individual league to know how spread out you should be. To know how much depth you need. Versus how aggressive you can be at optimizing that starting lineup. But I would argue in the majority of leagues, optimizing that starting lineup is the number one thing to do. You don't want to worry too much about downside in fantasy football. It's an upside game with only one winner.

This next question is from Patreon is from Corey. It says, How do I convince my league that vetoing trades for any reason other than blatant collusion or apathy is just petty and lame? I'd like them to remove the veto system entirely. I feel like I answer this question once a year, but it's really important. Hear me out guys. Listen to me very closely. Vetoing trades is childish. Truly, it is. You're sitting there saying that your league mate is so stupid, is so inexperienced, is so wrong, that in order to save your league, you're going to say no to a trade that you weren't even involved with. If that's the way that your league thinks, then your league doesn't treat you like an adult making your own decisions. And you may need to find a new league. Not only is vetoing wrong, but a lot of times, trades you think should be vetoed end up not being bad trades at all in the end. Quit acting like you have all the answers and you know what's right and wrong. Like you're some fantasy football king. The only time vetoing should be allowed is if there's clear collusion. If a team is just giving up, doesn't care is moving players because they're checked out. I'll just group that all together as collusion. If that's the case though, you have to number one, talk to the managers and prove that to be true. But then number two, my god people, play fantasy football with better human beings. Quit playing fantasy football with these five-year-olds who throw a temper tantrum when they lose. The problem here is that vetoing would never have to be a discussion if people were just normal functioning adults. Everything stems from people trying to cheat or ruin the fun for everyone else. And if they're doing that, then they're fantasy managers that you don't want to play with. Stop vetoing trades. It's a childish thing to do. And if you think that your league needs vetoes, then you need to recalibrate and look at the managers in your league. This next question is from Chris. It says, how do you view Colston Loveland coming out of the by? High pedigree player, but limited production so far. So I'm actually intrigued by both Loveland and Luther Burden coming out of the by. If any of you followed my prospecting work this offseason, the ZAP model had Loveland as being just as good of a prospect as Tyler Warren. Warren obviously, he's in a position, he's in a situation where his team had a plan for his unique skill set and he has a more unique skill set. So it's really working out. And that's not to say that Warren's overrated or that he's bad. It's to say that Colston Loveland has a chance to be really good. Meanwhile, the ZAP model loved Luther Burden. He was in the elite producer category, albeit barely, and we usually don't see that from second round picks. We've gotten a glimpse of his upside this season. We're not going to see it consistently enough until Olamide Zaccheaus stops playing as many snaps as he's playing. The last time we saw Chicago, Zaccheaus ran a route on 68 percent of their drop backs. Luther Burden was at 27 percent. But like most rookies, I fully expect them to get more work as the season goes on. With them coming out of a buy, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a nice uptick here in week six, which means you might want to stash them right now before their potentially waiver wire ads next week. It's not a guarantee, but it's a pretty decent game theory play.