Grade My Draft

How each part is scored and weighted

Market value comes from the pick numbers. For every player on the team, the page subtracts his market rank from the pick at which he went: a forward the market ranked 28th who lasted until pick 40 earns plus twelve, while a player grabbed twelve spots before his market rank costs minus twelve. Those differences are averaged, and an average of zero, the middle of the road in a snake draft, scores 75, the middle of the C band. Each pick of average edge moves the score by three points, and the score is held between 5 and 100. Lineup is the value of the best legal starting lineup the roster can field, with every player able to fill any slot his eligibility allows, then placed in order among all the league's teams. Depth does the same with the players left on the bench. Balance begins at a full 100 points. Each required starting slot nobody can fill once the draft is over costs 25 (a check that only applies when the draft lasted at least as many rounds as there are starting slots), and each position where your count exceeds the starting slots it could fill by more than three costs 10. The overall score weights the four at 35, 35, 15 and 15.

Market rank, value picks and reaches

The table under a team's report lists every pick beside the player's market rank, his place in draft-position order among the players the market prices. When the gap between pick and market rank reaches twelve in your favour, the row is tagged Value; twelve or more the other way and it is tagged Reach; anything in between reads On price. Twelve picks is a full round in a twelve-team league, and the band is deliberately that wide, because draft position drifts by a few spots from one room to the next and a pick four spots early is noise rather than a mistake. A player the market does not rank at all is marked as having no market price. Because the market component needs every pick priced, a team holding such a pick has its overall letter withheld instead of guessed, while its lineup, depth and balance tiles are still shown, and a note under the results says how many picks went unpriced.

Eligibility, empty slots and the balance score

To find empty slots, the grade sets each roster the way a lineup would be set, filling the single-position slots first, then the guard and forward slots, then utility, with each player allowed into any slot his eligibility covers. Under the two-center rule that usually leaves just one real pressure point. Picture a roster deep in guards and forwards with a single center: every perimeter slot is covered several times over, the second center slot sits empty, and balance loses 25 for it. Grade the same roster under the shape with one center and three utility slots and every slot is filled, so it scores better there. The stockpile check is gentler than it sounds: it counts players at their main listed position and compares that count with every starting slot the position can fill, utility included, so it only bites on a genuinely lopsided roster. Pick the roster rule your league really uses before you grade, because the result is a different number under each.

The category strip under each report

For a category format, the report card adds a strip with one cell per category in play. Each cell adds up the z-scores of every player the team drafted, bench included, so a positive figure means the roster sits above the typical player there and a negative one means below. The two thinnest columns that were not punted are highlighted, and a sentence under the strip names them. In a head-to-head league those two columns are the likeliest to swing against you from week to week, which makes them the obvious target for your first waiver claims. A punted category stays on the strip as a struck cell and is left out of every value on the page. Shooting percentages are weighted by how many shots each player is projected to take before they are added up, so a high-volume scorer at 52 percent counts for far more than a reserve at 52 percent, and turnovers are flipped so that fewer counts as better. Points leagues get no strip, since they score a single combined number.

Why the market, not our projections, judges each pick

Draft position is the yardstick for the market component because a pick should be judged against the information everyone at the table had, and everyone at the table could see draft position. Grab a center in round two whom the market priced as a fifth-rounder and this page calls it a reach, however good his season turns out, since what is being scored is the decision rather than the outcome. Projections come in on the lineup and depth side, where the question is what each roster can actually produce, and every one of those values is MustDraft's own. One caution on timing: the grade uses the market and the projections as they stand when you press the button, not as they stood on your draft night, so grading soon after the draft gives the fairest reading.

What the grade does not count

Weekly game counts play no part, so a bench stacked with clubs that play often scores no higher than one assembled at random. It does not know about injured-list slots, which your host may fill with players the grade treats as bench. It cannot account for keepers, which bend the market for everyone in the room. A pasted draft is read as a snake, team by team in draft order, so a league that drafted in a straight line or reversed the order in the third round will be read with the wrong pick numbers. And it has no setting for best-game formats, where only each starter's top night of the week counts, so a letter from one of those leagues deserves a loose reading.

Once the grade is in

After draft night the work moves elsewhere. The schedule planner maps each week's game counts and back-to-backs club by club, the streamers page ranks short-term pickups for the quiet nights, and the injury report lists who is ruled out before your first lineup locks. Save the grade card and post it in the league chat. Whoever finished last will want to argue that his punt build was the plan all along, and that argument is half the fun.