FADUCO 2015 Draft Grades
This morning, CBS Sports created a draft recap with grades that was generated by their bot. While we can appreciate the speediness of CBS's draft recap, the content itself left much to be desired. It gave the top grade to Matt, which I strongly disagree. It also gave a grade of D to Tuna. My initial impression of Tuna's draft was that he deserved an A- or better. While that view has moderated somewhat after examining the numbers, Tuna still merits far better than a D.
My Methodology: (Skip if you aren't into math or are not Asian)
I entered the average draft position (ADP) of each pick from rounds 1 to 12. I didn't bother to consider the snafu of round 13 in my analysis, but the scores would have been pretty insignificant. Each pick therefore gets a positive or negative score by comparing the difference between actual pick position and the ADP. I then adjusted that difference to factor in that differences are more significant in early rounds rather than later rounds. For example, if you picked 10 rounds earlier than the ADP, you reached for a pick. But that reach was moderated if you had picked in the 8th round versus the 1st round. Basically, reaching in later rounds wouldn't penalize you as severely as reaching in early rounds. Your score for each round then gets totaled. I also added to each score a normalization factor that essentially sets the curve at close to 0 for grand total.
Summary of results:
Here are the total draft score for each team, in order of best to worst:
Remember, these grades are based on values found in drafting. Looks like on a drafting basis, Lily won the night by picking more bargains while Hai and PJ reached too many times. Here are each team's noteworthy bargains/reaches:
Lily:
Bargains: Lots of good pickups in second half of draft. Noteworthy ones were Joique Bell, Roddy White, and Tre Mason. Basically, if the incumbent RBs hold off the trendier rookie RBs, she will be set.
Reaches: None really. Nelson Algohor at 5th round may have been almost 1 round too high, but nothing noticeable.
Donny:
Bargains: Rashad Jennings in Round 7, Brandin Cooks in round 2
Reaches: Technically one, but it's a handcuff pick of Ronnie Hillman in round 10 so doesn't really count.
Tuna:
Bargains: Not really spectacular one - Texans in round 10.
Reaches: This is where Tuna stood out. He didn't reach in any of his picks, which probably helped a lot in making me have an initial favorable impression about his draft.
Vu:
Bargains: Surprisingly, the numbers show the Seahawks as a bargain in Round 7. Also had good pickup of Vincent Jackson in round 11.
Reaches: Devin Funchess in round 6 - he's wasn't even named the starter for the Panthers for week 1.
Kevin:
Bargains: Keenan Allen in round 9 - a WR2/3 pick that late in the game.
Reaches: Eagles homerism or Philly love? Ryan Mathews in round 5. Also Carson Palmer in round 8.
Justin:
Bargains: Numbers may lie here, but Andre Ellington in round 3 rates as a solid bargain. Also received credit for Jonas Gray in round 12, but really shouldn't.
Reaches: Panthers in round 6 way way too early. Justin could have picked up his favorite team's defense in the last round. Possibly too-harsh penalty for Arian Foster in round 2 can arguably be offset by said "bargain" picks above, so it evens out for Justin in terms of grading.
Victor:
Bargains: No real big bargains. Rams in round 10 the only one rated as such.
Reaches: A few reaches, notably Lagerette Blount in round 4 but Torrey Smith and Matt Jones in rounds 8 and 9 were also a bit too aggressive.
Matt:
Bargains: Michael Floyd in round 9. While technically not a bargain, Matt did optimize his first overall pick with Justin Forsett, who had the lowest ADP score on the board at the start of the draft.
Reaches: 4 big reaches, most obvious one being K Gostkowski to start round 5. Worse was Terrance Williams in the pick immediately before that. Flacco pick in round 6 was not elite either.
PJ:
Bargains: Collected a few minor bargains in later rounds, such as Isaiah Crowell in round 9 and Brandon Marshall in round 6.
Reaches: PJ squandered his draft with a few early reaches. Tony Romo in round 1 and Ameer Abdullah in round 2 (though Abdullah does have high upside). Worst was Derek Carr in round 7 (probably free-agent material).
Hai:
Bargains: Hai started off on the right foot, with his 1st round pick of AJ Green, who was 2nd in the ADP at the start.
Reaches: Then Hai got lost in the later periods. His 5th round pick of Devante Parker resulted in the worst adjusted pick score in the entire draft. Christine Michael in round 10 was a homer pick who could have been a free agent pickup. 2nd round pick of Todd Gurley, while bad in terms of 2015 at least has great upside for the future.
Here is the breakdown in how many bargains/reaches/fair values each team got:
ONE BIG DIFFERENCE:
This is where I must note that the CBS Sports recap factored in each team's keepers, whereas my draft analysis excluded from consideration the keepers. Assuming that each keeper is a starter, I can weigh 37.5% of keeper grades with 62.5% of the draft grade above.
Here are my scores of each team's 3 keepers (including injuries), based on ADP:
Lily: C
Donny: B+
Tuna: A-
Vu: B+
Kevin: A
Justin: D
Victor: C-
Matt: C+
PJ: A-
Hai: D+
OVERALL ROSTER GRADE:
Therefore, final grades are the following, on a curve-adjusted basis:
Congratulations if you made it through the entire post AND examined my spreadsheet. First person to email me the total values of cell D10 in all 3 tabs gets a small cash prize.
This morning, CBS Sports created a draft recap with grades that was generated by their bot. While we can appreciate the speediness of CBS's draft recap, the content itself left much to be desired. It gave the top grade to Matt, which I strongly disagree. It also gave a grade of D to Tuna. My initial impression of Tuna's draft was that he deserved an A- or better. While that view has moderated somewhat after examining the numbers, Tuna still merits far better than a D.
My Methodology: (Skip if you aren't into math or are not Asian)
I entered the average draft position (ADP) of each pick from rounds 1 to 12. I didn't bother to consider the snafu of round 13 in my analysis, but the scores would have been pretty insignificant. Each pick therefore gets a positive or negative score by comparing the difference between actual pick position and the ADP. I then adjusted that difference to factor in that differences are more significant in early rounds rather than later rounds. For example, if you picked 10 rounds earlier than the ADP, you reached for a pick. But that reach was moderated if you had picked in the 8th round versus the 1st round. Basically, reaching in later rounds wouldn't penalize you as severely as reaching in early rounds. Your score for each round then gets totaled. I also added to each score a normalization factor that essentially sets the curve at close to 0 for grand total.
Summary of results:
Here are the total draft score for each team, in order of best to worst:
| Unadjusted | Adjusted | Grade | |
| Lily | 141.0 | 65.6 | A |
| Donny | 96.0 | 59.3 | A- |
| Tuna | 23.0 | 27.9 | B |
| Vu | 48.0 | 24.0 | B |
| Kevin | 6.0 | 7.5 | B- |
| Justin | -45.0 | -10.4 | C+ |
| Victor | -104.0 | -33.3 | C- |
| Matt | -72.0 | -39.1 | C- |
| PJ | -53.0 | -40.6 | D+ |
| Hai | -149.0 | -57.6 | D |
Remember, these grades are based on values found in drafting. Looks like on a drafting basis, Lily won the night by picking more bargains while Hai and PJ reached too many times. Here are each team's noteworthy bargains/reaches:
Lily:
Bargains: Lots of good pickups in second half of draft. Noteworthy ones were Joique Bell, Roddy White, and Tre Mason. Basically, if the incumbent RBs hold off the trendier rookie RBs, she will be set.
Reaches: None really. Nelson Algohor at 5th round may have been almost 1 round too high, but nothing noticeable.
Donny:
Bargains: Rashad Jennings in Round 7, Brandin Cooks in round 2
Reaches: Technically one, but it's a handcuff pick of Ronnie Hillman in round 10 so doesn't really count.
Tuna:
Bargains: Not really spectacular one - Texans in round 10.
Reaches: This is where Tuna stood out. He didn't reach in any of his picks, which probably helped a lot in making me have an initial favorable impression about his draft.
Vu:
Bargains: Surprisingly, the numbers show the Seahawks as a bargain in Round 7. Also had good pickup of Vincent Jackson in round 11.
Reaches: Devin Funchess in round 6 - he's wasn't even named the starter for the Panthers for week 1.
Kevin:
Bargains: Keenan Allen in round 9 - a WR2/3 pick that late in the game.
Reaches: Eagles homerism or Philly love? Ryan Mathews in round 5. Also Carson Palmer in round 8.
Justin:
Bargains: Numbers may lie here, but Andre Ellington in round 3 rates as a solid bargain. Also received credit for Jonas Gray in round 12, but really shouldn't.
Reaches: Panthers in round 6 way way too early. Justin could have picked up his favorite team's defense in the last round. Possibly too-harsh penalty for Arian Foster in round 2 can arguably be offset by said "bargain" picks above, so it evens out for Justin in terms of grading.
Victor:
Bargains: No real big bargains. Rams in round 10 the only one rated as such.
Reaches: A few reaches, notably Lagerette Blount in round 4 but Torrey Smith and Matt Jones in rounds 8 and 9 were also a bit too aggressive.
Matt:
Bargains: Michael Floyd in round 9. While technically not a bargain, Matt did optimize his first overall pick with Justin Forsett, who had the lowest ADP score on the board at the start of the draft.
Reaches: 4 big reaches, most obvious one being K Gostkowski to start round 5. Worse was Terrance Williams in the pick immediately before that. Flacco pick in round 6 was not elite either.
PJ:
Bargains: Collected a few minor bargains in later rounds, such as Isaiah Crowell in round 9 and Brandon Marshall in round 6.
Reaches: PJ squandered his draft with a few early reaches. Tony Romo in round 1 and Ameer Abdullah in round 2 (though Abdullah does have high upside). Worst was Derek Carr in round 7 (probably free-agent material).
Hai:
Bargains: Hai started off on the right foot, with his 1st round pick of AJ Green, who was 2nd in the ADP at the start.
Reaches: Then Hai got lost in the later periods. His 5th round pick of Devante Parker resulted in the worst adjusted pick score in the entire draft. Christine Michael in round 10 was a homer pick who could have been a free agent pickup. 2nd round pick of Todd Gurley, while bad in terms of 2015 at least has great upside for the future.
Here is the breakdown in how many bargains/reaches/fair values each team got:
| Bargains | Reach | Fair | |
| Lily | 5 | 0 | 7 |
| Donny | 4 | 1 | 7 |
| Tuna | 1 | 0 | 11 |
| Vu | 3 | 2 | 7 |
| Kevin | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Justin | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| Victor | 1 | 4 | 7 |
| Matt | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| PJ | 4 | 5 | 3 |
| Hai | 2 | 4 | 6 |
ONE BIG DIFFERENCE:
This is where I must note that the CBS Sports recap factored in each team's keepers, whereas my draft analysis excluded from consideration the keepers. Assuming that each keeper is a starter, I can weigh 37.5% of keeper grades with 62.5% of the draft grade above.
Here are my scores of each team's 3 keepers (including injuries), based on ADP:
Lily: C
Donny: B+
Tuna: A-
Vu: B+
Kevin: A
Justin: D
Victor: C-
Matt: C+
PJ: A-
Hai: D+
OVERALL ROSTER GRADE:
Therefore, final grades are the following, on a curve-adjusted basis:
| Donny | A | |
| Tuna | A- | |
| Lily | A- | |
| Kevin | B+ | |
| Vu | B+ | |
| PJ | B- | |
| Matt | C+ | |
| Justin | C | |
| Victor | C | |
| Hai | D+ |
Congratulations if you made it through the entire post AND examined my spreadsheet. First person to email me the total values of cell D10 in all 3 tabs gets a small cash prize.
Comments
I always have a good draft per your analysis but then my team falls apart by Columbus day much like the redskins. Funny you have Hai a barely passing grade because the bastard stole at least 2 or 3 of my picks.