Fantasy Analytics
ADP Is Consensus, Not Value
4 min read
TL;DR
Average Draft Position measures where drafters are taking a player. That is a fact about drafters, not about the player — and the distinction is the entire point of using it.
What the number is
ADP is the average pick number at which a player is selected across a large sample of drafts. On this site it is expressed as an overall pick number, not a round-and-pick.
It tells you what the market believes. It does not tell you whether the market is right.
Two useful ways to read it
- As a cost. ADP is the price you will likely have to pay. A player you rate highly whose ADP is late is cheap; the same player going early is expensive. Value is your rating minus the cost.
- As a movement signal. ADP changes over the preseason as news lands. A player climbing steadily is usually reacting to real information — a depth chart change, a camp report — and the direction of travel is often more informative than the level.
We keep the history for exactly this reason; a single snapshot hides the trend.
The trap
Using ADP as a ranking is circular. If you draft in ADP order, you are not making decisions — you are copying the average of everyone else's, including everyone who was wrong.
ADP is most useful precisely where you disagree with it. If you never depart from it, it has told you nothing.
Keep these
- ADP is where drafters take a player, expressed as an overall pick number
- Read it as a cost and as a trend, not as a ranking
- Drafting in ADP order is copying consensus, not making decisions
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What a Backup Is Actually Worth