What is Replacement Level? WR

As we approach Opening Day tomorrow, the dust has just begun to settle on the fictional field of play on BORT after a furious off season.  As the "Roster Right" deadline has passed, a question comes to mind.  Are the rosters really "right"?  Are there valuable contributors languishing in obscurity on the waiver while rubes such as say, Antonio Gates are rostered?  Well, yes.  But how do we know when we're paying a fictitious paycheck to someone that's draining points each week by being worse than their waiver wire counterpart?  We find the replacement level.  We look at the contributing value of our currently rostered players compared to the best possible replacement player available.  And today, we first look at WR.

Last season there were 10 teams on Rocky Top.  With 2 WR slots apiece, we're looking at 20 WR at a minimum that should be rostered.  With each NFL team having 1 nominal starting RB, that means that there were 12 starting RBs available to start at the FLEX position.  The 21st highest scoring RB however, only averaged 10.82 points per week (Michael Turner), almost a full point less than the 30th highest scoring WR (Brian Hartline at 11.61).  So conceivably more teams were using WR at their flex than RBs unless they happened to have 3 of the top 15 or so RBs.  The 11th TE, Jermain Gresham, only scored 9.83pts/week so no teams would be expected to use a TE at their FLEX.  So we're looking at roughly 30 WRs rostered and started on BORT.  There are 10 "bench" spots per team, and if we allocate 3 of those 10 to WR (with 3 going to RB, 1 to QB and 3 to defensive players) you get 60 WR that should be rostered at any given time.  There were 62 WR on rosters at the end of 2012, so we're looking good.

The 61st highest scoring WR last season was Kenny Britt at 9.03pts/week, but he missed 2 weeks, thus depressing his point total.  If you take the mean of the ppw scores for WRs 60-65, however, you get 8.71pts/week.  That is what we will use as our replacement value.  It's a bit skewed because of Desean Jackson's 11.45pts/week, so let's approach it a different way and see if we come up with the same answer.

Sorting the 2012 WR output by ppw instead of total points gives us Andrew Hawkins as our 61st player at 9.56pts/week.  Averaging 61-65 gives us 9.37pts/week.  So we're looking at a replacement level value of right about 9pts/week.

So how is this helpful?  Obviously if we're starting a WR in our flex that's averaging 9pts/week we're either Da or just traded with John, but what this should actually help us do is refine our benches.  If the average WR that you can scoop up from waivers is averaging 9pts/week, or 4 catches for 50 yards per week (coughBRANDONMYERScough), it means that you should consider that value as your "11th bench player".  Unlike Seattle's "12th Man" this is a useful player.  When agonizing over whether to drop Nate Washington or Bilal Powell, look at the respective replacement level for their positions.  Nate Washington scored 9.1pts/week in 2012.  He is the definition of replacement level.  He is droppable, and is never worth paying for.  Instead of him, roster as your WR4 someone with a chance to score more than 9pts/week down the road.  There will always be a Nate Washington you can pick up if he busts, or if your WR3 goes down and you need a human band-aid.

Next to come: RBs!