**Originally posted on Thesporter.site**
In the 17th Century, “Hat Maker” was a common profession. Making hats by hand back then required following a particular process and used an assortment of tools and chemicals. It was also common, a few years into a hatter’s career, that they started to seem “off” to the locals. After a few more years, they would become full blown crazy and the term “Mad Hatter”, or “Mad as a Hatter” was born. In the 1940’s it was discovered that an everyday chemical that hatter’s were using was actually poisoning them and inflicting severe damage to their mental state. ADP, or Average Draft Position, is the poison that causes Fantasy Managers/Analysts to become Mad Hatters.
ADP is a measurement of where a player is being drafted, typically across multiple platforms. When applied, ADP can provide some useful insight or ADP can contribute to some relatively crazy statements. My personal favorites are, “I’m not touching Player X AT ALL this year”. Or when trying to trade another manager, “Player X is a 1st round pick!”. What these people really mean is, “Player X is being drafted, according to ADP, at a position that I don’t feel comfortable with.” Or “I spent a 1st round pick on this guy, and even though he’s underperforming, I need more return on investment.” These people also know that they would draft Player X if they fell to them or that the trade you offered for Player X is fair.
I dove into ADP’s since 2014 for the first 50 picks in fantasy leagues and then compared the ADP to where players finished in that year’s final rankings. After sifting through the data and asking myself “How does ADP correlate to player rankings?” I’m pretty sure I found an answer, “It doesn’t”.
Interesting Findings
- After removing extreme outliers for injuries/holdouts, the only picks that average a single digit positional ranking are: 1 (5.6), 2 (5.0), 10 (6.5), 18 (6.8), and 19 (7.8). The first two picks are obvious, the 10th pick is typically WR2-3 drafted, and the 18-19 picks were frequently QB1-2 or TE1-2 drafted.
- On average (not removing injuries) managers miss on their pick’s positional ranking by 14 picks and miss on their pick’s overall ranking by 64 picks. This, admittedly, is so substantial because a player that suffers a significant injury is a huge setback and a player drafted 3 overall likely won’t finish in the top 3.
- In fact, although ADP 1 and 2 had the highest average positional return they didn’t finish 1 overall.
- Only 36% of picks either met or outperformed their positional ADP and only 24% of picks met or outperformed their overall ADP
Okay, okay so what am I saying? Essentially, ADP shouldn’t be used to argue that a player will provide more or less production. Also, that ADP should never be a factor when determining trade value. What SHOULD ADP be used for? Draft strategy, and that’s about it. ADP gives you a clue as to where certain players will fall. This information can be used to determine if you need to move up, or maybe you can move back in the draft to select “your guy”. ADP is a nice piece of information to help you plan your attack on draft day, but once the draft is over, forget about it.
| ADP | Max Pos ADP | Max Pos Finish | Max Ovr Finish | MinPos ADP | Min Pos Finish | Min Ovr Finish | Avg Pos Finish | AvgOvr Finish |
| 1 | 1 | 12 | 61 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 5.6 | 28.8 |
| 2 | 2 | 9 | 37 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5.0 | 20.2 |
| 3 | 3 | 47 | 205 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 12.4 | 52.6 |
| 4 | 4 | 32 | 140 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9.0 | 35.2 |
| 5 | 5 | 51 | 225 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 18.2 | 72.7 |
| 6 | 5 | 83 | 271 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 23.8 | 71.8 |
| 7 | 6 | 81 | 252 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 26.3 | 85.5 |
| 8 | 7 | 60 | 270 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 24.7 | 106.7 |
| 9 | 8 | 24 | 67 | 1 | 4 | 11 | 13.3 | 42.8 |
| 10 | 5 | 20 | 81 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 6.5 | 31.3 |
| 11 | 9 | 31 | 136 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 12.3 | 49.3 |
| 12 | 8 | 46 | 140 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 14.5 | 41.8 |
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