Hindsight is 20/20

[dynastyninja]

Last post here because I'm sure it's getting pretty annoying to read me type the same thing over and over.

The question basically asked who you would rather own starting in 2015, knowing what we know now.

The answer is Gurley because he gives you a better chance to win over the last three years and is 6 years younger. You get a better expected return over the last three years, plus you get plenty more return in the future.

We're not debating what will happen or how we like to build our teams or projections or anything like that. We are looking at exactly what happened in the past. Julio never gave you better than a 20% chance to win a championship in any year. Gurley gave you a 47% chance to win in 2017. Even below average teams won with Gurley this year.

We're not talking about just trying to make the playoffs and then seeing what happens. 80% of teams that did that with Julio didn't win a thing (I'm oversimplifying here, but the point remains the same). Julio was a nice piece for championship teams, but Gurley was THE piece.

[clarion contrarion]

well I get a fail for reading comp on this as OP states knowing what you know today - so yes I change my answer as knowing what we know - gurley is the correct answer in a landslide . My bad for not reading more thoroughly.

[Vcize]

After reading the question again think I misunderstood the first time but now knowing what i know today that’s tough. I think I would still take Julio a young stud wr over a young back that is very good but not proven . I would want Julio he was a set and foget it player and what else would u want ..
I mean u getting three years of good production compared to one I like the odds better with 3 vs one

One? Are we forgetting that Gurley was actually pretty good as a rookie too?

Ppg over the last three years
Julio: 23, 18, 16
Gurley: 17, 13, 26

Other than the order there's not really a huge disparity there, and of course Gurley is trending up now while Julio is headed in the opposite direction and getting older.

[Phaded]

I feel like saying having Gurley on your roster gave you nearly a 50% chance of winning the championship is disingenuous.

From the leagues that you looked at was Gurley on the winning roster in almost 50% of them? Sure - but that does not necessarily translate to "if you have Gurley - you had a 50% chance of winning a championship".

You still have to have a good enough overall roster to get you to the fantasy playoffs - even if you have Gurley. Yes, his best 2 games of the year came in weeks 15 & 16 but that means nothing if you didn't have the team around him to get there. If you made the playoffs and had Gurley, I'm sure the statistics will show something much higher than 50%.

The team that won the championship in my league that had Gurley had a far superior lineup to that of his opponent (and that opponent also had nearly everyone on their team tank). Even if he had benched Gurley for some inexplicable reason and started someone else, he only would have had to make up 10 PPR points to still win.

My other league - the Gurley owner lost in round one and had a stud riddled lineup, including the likes of Wilson, McCoy, AJG, Baldwin & Landry.

Those are just the two examples from my leagues, but the bottom line is - Gurley alone is not going to win you a championship. You have to get there and if you had Gurley; yes in 2017 your chances were very high of winning it all.

It's like taking a small bit of information and coming to a conclusion without collecting the entire piece of data.

[skip]

I feel like saying having Gurley on your roster gave you nearly a 50% chance of winning the championship is disingenuous.

Yet that's a pretty good summary of the assertion being made by those picking Gurley. I prefer to look at the totality this way...Who was more likely to get you a title in each of the 3 seasons:

2015: Julio
2016: Julio
2017: Gurley

So I view the score as 2-1 in favor of Julio. Not that it means anything but in my league neither player appeared on the roster of either club the last 3 years in the title game. But that's just anecdotal.

[Life of Pablo]

For all you dead horse beaters that keep saying "but Julio was better in 2015 and 2016!" as if that's the only thing that matters here...

Don't forget you still have Gurley/Julio on your roster for the 2018 season and beyond (I assume at this point, you can trade them, but for the sake of the argument it doesn't matter). And anybody that claims they would rather have Julio than Gurley heading into the 2018 season is a stubborn mule. Imo the answer to OP's question is slightly Gurley even before taking that into account, and then once you factor that part in it's Gurley by a landslide.

Also, Julio was an absolute beast in 2015 I know, but maybe people forget that Gurley was also a stud in 2015 and probably helped win leagues for a good amount of people (not as much as Julio, I know). After his first game, he cleared 66 yards AND a touchdown in 8 of 12 games... of the other 4 games, 2 of them were his only duds (30 and 41 yards, no TD's), and the other 2 were two of his best games (164 and 159 yards but no TD's). Here's where they finished in my league:

Julio
2015 - WR #2
2016 - WR #6
2017 - WR #5 (with 25.5% of his scoring coming from one game)
- Being nitpicky here, but if you replace his one big game with literally his 2nd best game all year, he drops down to WR #15

Gurley
2015 - RB #5 (in 12.5 games, cause nobody was starting him in his 1st game)
2016 - RB #20
2017 - RB #1

The only reason I could see for people taking Julio is because they already had a stacked team and would prefer the consistency of Julio to give themselves a good chance every year... while maybe a weaker team would want Gurley just to hope he single-handedly carried them to a championship in 2017.

[Madadamus]

Yeah I am surprised at some of the responses in favor of Julio.

As Pablo said, you have to take into account the future as well, and not just the past 3 seasons. There is a 5 year age gap, and while WR’s peak into their late 20’s when RB’s hit the wall, you still are likely to get at least the same amount of seasons out of the two from here on out.

[kamihamster]

The way I look at it is if you know whether or not Gurley is going to be a bust, do you trade Julio for the 1.01 (to get Gurley)? The answer for me is yes. Knowing what we know now, I make that trade back then. Despite RBs having a shorter shelf life, Gurley is 6 years younger so you get more runway, Julio has declined (value wise) or stayed steady (production), so he's been a sell since then. Gurley has since then gained value, so that also confirms making the move back then.

I look at this hindsight question the way I look at the 1.01 this year and someone like Hopkins. I believe the number one ranked RB produces more than the number one ranked WR. So, if I knew for sure that Barkley would live up to the hype and could produce top 3 RB points for at least four years, I should sell anyone to get the 1.01. But I don't, and there's a chance he is a bust, so I wont trade away a guy I've seen put up monster numbers over a guy that should. Take away that uncertainty and I'll put OBJ on the block for the 1.01 right now.

[Vcize]

The way I look at it is if you know whether or not Gurley is going to be a bust, do you trade Julio for the 1.01 (to get Gurley)? The answer for me is yes. Knowing what we know now, I make that trade back then. Despite RBs having a shorter shelf life, Gurley is 6 years younger so you get more runway, Julio has declined (value wise) or stayed steady (production), so he's been a sell since then. Gurley has since then gained value, so that also confirms making the move back then.

I look at this hindsight question the way I look at the 1.01 this year and someone like Hopkins. I believe the number one ranked RB produces more than the number one ranked WR. So, if I knew for sure that Barkley would live up to the hype and could produce top 3 RB points for at least four years, I should sell anyone to get the 1.01. But I don't, and there's a chance he is a bust, so I wont trade away a guy I've seen put up monster numbers over a guy that should. Take away that uncertainty and I'll put OBJ on the block for the 1.01 right now.

Right. I have OBJ and if I knew for sure that he'd be as good as Gurley I'd trade OBJ for him in a heartbeat.

Without that guarantee I am sticking with OBJ.