Best Ball: Running Back and Tight End Definitive Starts

On Tuesday we looked at Definitive Starts for the upper echelon receivers.

Today, we are going to look at fantasy football running back and tight end performance over the past three seasons and see who you should be targeting or avoiding in your best ball drafts.

Arian Foster has been an extremely dominant force over the past three seasons.

Not only does Foster average double digit top 12 weeks per season, but you would’ve secured nearly all of his scoring output (98.7 percent) over that time. That’s nearly a flawless victory. Even expecting a decline for 2013, Foster should be a solid option.

Darren McFadden appears like an extremely strong third round value. You can secure a player that is proven to be dominant when he plays. Even if he misses games, in a best ball, it’s similar to him just laying an egg compared to other backs.

Even if McFadden plays only 12 games this year, he’s likely going to still be better than a player like Chris Johnson over a full season of best ball play.

If DMC can just increase his average of games played to just 12 games, based on his averages, you’d get nine starts for 186.7 points. Johnson has never missed a game and averages the same 9 Definitive Starts for 179.7 points. If you found a genie in a bottle and wished for McFadden to play a full season, he’d blow away a guy like Johnson.

Johnson is probably the biggest misnomer in best ball format. By definition, he should be a solid selection as you (have a chance) can avoid his low scoring weeks. But in his best weeks he still averaged fewer points than Matt Forte and that you’d be flushing on average over 21 percent of his total points down the drain.

Players like Ridley and Morris are largely ineffective in a PPR Best Ball. Morris comes with the cost of a roster spot that requires a selection in the top 15.

He scored the fewest points per start of all of the players listed and you would’ve missed out on nearly 50 of his total season points (which would’ve closer to 100 points if week 17 weren’t excluded). As good as Morris was in 2012, he would’ve netted you only 20 more points than Mikel Leshoure (145 points in nine starts).

Ridley amassed 1,200 total yards and 12 scores and was still largely ineffective in Best Ball last season, a comparable player to him last season was BenJarvus Green Ellis (8 starts for 128.9) points.

A player I love in PPR redraft leagues is Sproles. But in a Best Ball league, he comes with a so-so start percentage and not a tremendously high ceiling in those starts.

I’d probably like to pass on him for a more reliable option in points per start or start percentage that comes at a lower cost. A player with similar Definitive Start peripherals to Sproles is Ahmad Bradshaw, and he’s leaving drafts in the fifth round.

The tight end position is just as ugly as imagined. If you don’t land one of the top four, you could find yourself at a tremendous disadvantage all season long. Before delving further into it, let’s look at the perfect world scenario which we used for the wide receivers, assuming everyone plays a full slate of games.

Since Gronkowski and Graham have been insanely good since their rookie seasons, I’ve stripped away 2010.  The duo’s dominance shines through, especially from Gronk. 12 Games of Gronk have been equal to 14 games from Graham over the past two seasons.

While they might not be equals per game, the fact that Gronk may miss time gives Graham to be a Thor like God in best ball leagues as he may have the potential to swing  a 100 plus point hammer over your opponents.

The rest of the position gets really murky in a hurry. After Gonzalez and Witten clear the board, no other tight ends register half of their games as Definitive Starts except Rudolph (who you can ignore due to his inflated score from an unsustainable touchdown rate) and Pettigrew (who averages the least amount of points per start).

Both Witten (52.7) and Gonzalez (66.5) have respectable ADP, so the opportunity cost is not as great if you can’t land one of the whales.

In fact, 47 different tight ends registered at least one Definitive Start in 2012, making it nearly impossible for you to avoid awful weeks at the position in season.

One troubling picture that this information paints is that the high upside plays have low best ball ceilings. Players like Rob Housler or Jordan Cameron may be able to crack the top twelve overall when the season ends, but in a best ball structure, you’ll be fortunate to get half of a season from them if their best performances don’t overlap.

Since you are unable to successfully play the waiver wire in a best ball league, the late round tight end approach is no longer viable. You would need to tie up 3-4 roster spots just to have a chance of equaling top tight end production from the low end options. Something you just can’t afford to do at a onesie position during your draft.

You are going to have to go against every redraft muscle reflex you have and extend your reach in landing a top tight end.

Next time we will look at the quarterback position and see if taking Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees early is better than going with a quarterback by committee approach.

Rich Hribar

Rich Hribar is a husband, father, sports meteorologist and a slave to statistics. A lifelong sports fan and fantasy gamer. Follow @LordReebs !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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