Average draft position, more commonly referred to by its acronym ADP, is the bane of my existence. Okay, well maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration. ADP essentially forces your hand. As I touched on in a recent post about Trea Turner, once the market decides a player is going to be drafted in a specific round, that’s the round in which he will consistently be drafted. It doesn’t matter if there are more valuable players still on the board. When the meter says it’s time to select Starling Marte, it’s time to select him. According to my sources his going rate is currently around the 59th pick which translates into the 5th round in a 12-team league. My current rankings have him somewhere around the 8th round depending on your league’s scoring system.
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The unfortunate thing is that it doesn’t matter what my rankings say. Even if my rankings are right on the money, delivering a precise representation of the players’ value as defined by your league settings, it still doesn’t matter. And while my rankings spreadsheet might not be dead on, I’m rather confident that it’s damn close. I spent a lot of time fine tuning, testing and cursing to make sure I delivered you all a premium resource. After all Razzball is a first rate source of content. Personally I think we are the Mike Trout of fantasy sites. And while I’m busy patting myself and team on the back I think I’m going to buy Grey a daiquiri. You should too.
Okay, let’s get back to me b*tching about ADP. If just about everyone is going to use ADP in order to determine their selections, what’s the purpose of my awesome league specific position adjusted rankings? Notice how I said “just about everyone”. Well if you have my rankings, then you are not part of the “everyone”. Instead, you have what I like to call “the equalizer”. Allow me to explain.
Here’s the official way to use my rankings. Once you’ve generated your league specific rankings, the next step is to compare rank with ADP. This is how you will be able to identify over and undervalued players. This is how you will determine if and when you should draft a specific player.
On the “Rankings” sheet I have added three new columns. These columns are “Rank”, “ADP” and “Score”. Rank represents the player’s overall ranking. ADP is that thing I don’t like. And “Score” is the difference between a player’s rank and their ADP. A positive score represents a player that is undervalued, while a negative means he is overvalued. Generally I look for players that have a score of plus or minus 20. Those between positive and negative twenty are generally valued just as they should.
So what happens when I find a player like Jonathan Lucroy whom my rankings say is the 28th ranked player. That ranking aligns him with the third round. Should I be drafting Lucroy in the third? The answer is no. Here’s why. His ADP is approximately 64. That makes him a sixth round pick. Why take him in the third when you can wait another two or three rounds? If there weren’t another player of similar appeal and value available, I’d probably take Lucroy in the 5th and know that I got third round value two rounds later.
The strategy I usually employ is that when it is my turn I look at two things. First I look at who is the highest (highest meaning closest to the #1 rank) ranked player available based on my rankings. In a perfect world I would just draft this person. Or perhaps the next player if I already had a 2B and there was no MI position to fill. However, we’ve already established that we do not live in a perfect world, so we have to keep looking. The next thing I do is to re-sort the rankings by the ADP column to see which players are being drafted in the current round (or earlier). These are the players that my league mates (opponents) are most likely to draft this round when it’s their turn to pick (because ADP dictates). If the player my rankings point at has an ADP of about the current round, I draft that player. If that player has an ADP of a few rounds later, I will usually hold off and look at the next player based on my rankings. I keep going down the rankings until I find a guy with an ADP that matches the current round.
The key is to find the right balance between your rankings and ADP. Instead of taking Lucroy in the third round, instead I will take Joey Votto whose ranking is 29 and his ADP is 31. If I don’t take Votto now, he isn’t going to be on the board when my next pick comes around. I could always take Lucroy in the 4th, but I won’t. Instead I’ll grab Ryan Braun who has a ranking of 45 and an ADP of 49. Then I’ll take Lucroy in the fifth and all is right in the world. Although I am probably not drafting Lucroy at all, because there will be other players of similar value that I can draft while scooping up a bargain catcher in a later round. Although there is nothing wrong with locking down a top ranked catcher with an early pick provided you are getting value at that pick. If I could get Posey in the 5th, I am definitely taking him considering his ranking indicates he has first or second round value.
Since there is no universal point system, it wouldn’t be very helpful to the greater majority of you if I sat here a spewed out a long list of over and undervalued players. Instead I urge you to generate your own list using the spreadsheet found at the bottom of this post. This is the same spreadsheet as last week which includes my projections, rankings and now ADP. The ADP values have been pulled from the very few head-to-head points league sources I was able to find on the web.
I know I said I wasn’t going to give you a list, and I’m not. However, I am going to point out a few players based on the standard CBS and ESPN points systems. Okay, fine, it’s a list. I’m a software guys, so let’s call it a queue.
CBS Undervalued:
Eric Thames: Rank 62, ADP 220
Victor Martinez: Rank 97, ADP 203
Collin McHugh: Rank 85, ADP 179
Kole Calhoun: Rank 99, ADP 187
Jeff Samardzija: Rank 70, ADP 143
John Lackey: Rank 76, ADP 133
Justin Upton: Rank 80, ADP 132
Adam Eaton: Rank 94, ADP 136
There are a lot of players that I can mention here. Just set the scoring system to CBS and sort the “Score” column in descending order to see the full list. One last player I’d like to mention is Jon Gray. Partly because he was mentioned in the title and partly because I am a fan of him this season (and beyond). I realize that is generally prudent to exercise caution with pitchers that call Colorado home, but I think Gray has the pedigree to succeed. Look at what Ubaldo Jimenez was able to do back in 2010. Gray’s ranking is 135, but his ADP is 158. I think he’s worth grabbing in the 11th or 12th round. Keep in mind that when I talk about round numbers I am basing this on 12-team leagues. Make sure you adjust if your league size is different. Somehow his ranking is the same for both CBS and ESPN, but on Yahoo! it is 90, making him an even better value when selected near his ADP. So buy him a daiquiri and welcome him to your team!
CBS Overvalued:
Wil Myers: Rank 148, ADP 73
A.J. Pollock: Rank 103, ADP 39
Starling Marte: Rank 116, ADP 59
Giancarlo Stanton: Rank 87, ADP 51
ESPN Undervalued:
Dustin Pedroia: Rank 77, ADP 151
Kendrys Morales: Rank 81, ADP 148
Albert Pujols: Rank 80, ADP 143
Carlos Santana: Rank 42, ADP 94
John Lackey: Rank 85, ADP 133
Kyle Seager: Rank 55, ADP 89
Andrew McCutchen: Rank 41, ADP 73
ESPN Overvalues:
Kyle Schwarber: Rank 197, ADP 80
Wil Myers: Rank 174, ADP 73
Justin Turner: Rank 141, ADP 53
Jonathan Villar: 132, ADP 48
I could have made these lists longer, but the goal of this post is to have you generate your own and identify the players that will help you win your league. Remember it’s not often the team with all the big name players is the team that wins their league. Often you will find that it’s the team with a few studs and then a lot of guys that outproduced their preseason projections and ADP.
Some last words of wisdom. While the advice offered in this post can be useful throughout your entire draft, it is best served for rounds 5 (or 6) and on. During the first couple of rounds is when the studs are going to be drafted. You need studs. At least a few. Grab these high scoring beasts that will gone if you don’t. What I am saying is, use ADP for the first few rounds and then consider switching over to my proposed strategy to help you pick some winners. While your opponents are sticking to ADP and filling their rosters with overvalued players, you can avoid these landmines and construct a solid team.
Note to self and everyone else reading this, do not buy Sonny Gray a daiquiri. Don’t buy him sh*t. Cross him off your list as if he was drafted before your draft even begins. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 dollars!
2017 Projections, Rankings and ADP
Follow malamoney on Twitter at @malamoney.
