There& #39;s been a lot of talk on here lately about the importance of upside, so I& #39;m going to give my thoughts in this thread. First of all, I agree that upside is crucial. So, knowing that, how do you define upside? What percentile outcome is a player& #39;s upside?

I& #39;ve seen James White referenced as a player who lacks upside a lot. In 2018, White had 259.7 PPR points in Weeks 1-16 and finished as the RB8 (RB10 by PPG). He didn& #39;t need superhuman efficiency to do that either; he was seventh in expected points and 12th in expected PPG.

Going into 2019, the @RotoViz Range of Outcomes App (which finds similar historical seasons and looks at their Year N+1) had White& #39;s 75th percentile outcome 12th among RBs. The RoA App isn& #39;t perfect, but this at least shows that an analytical method believed White had upside.

White is going as the RB36 right now in @Fanball best ball drafts. We& #39;ve seen him be an RB1 on RB1 volume before (on a team that had better weapons that could take targets away from him). What more can you realistically expect from an RB going that late?

Back to the original question: How should we define upside? What percentile outcome is that? Do you only have upside if three-down workhorse is in your range of outcomes? I& #39;m curious to hear what other people think about this.