Best Ball Rankings - V2.0

After completing my team level projections, I've made some updates to the ranks

Hey folks — no long post today, just a link to some rankings.

Last month I wrote out my first run of Underdog best ball tournament rankings, as well as some context for how I do my rankings, and the 2023 draft landscape. If you haven’t checked those pieces out I would encourage you to do so, as I won’t re-hash any of the rankings process notes here.

I also wrote an overview of my team-level projections for each team and some thoughts on my projections process and the utility of projections generally.

After going through that exercise I have updated my rankings for Underdog and I will add FFPC rankings as well. To make them easier to update or for you to export I’ve done them via google sheet. (Link is immediately after the pay-wall break)

Please note however that while the projections process was the most meaningful driver behind a lot of changes, these rankings are not merely an ordering of my median projections on each player. I am still taking into account the current draft economy, ADP, and my micro-analysis of each player in a vacuum. As discussed in the Projections Overview post — projections merely show one projectable outcome within an infinite range.

Also, please take note of the “Priority" tab in the ranks. This may be a better indication as to where I actually draft players than their rank.

Especially near the top of the draft it is difficult when ranking to accurately articulate how I draft or how I would advise anyone else to. For instance, in a vacuum I prefer Breece Hall to Tee Higgins and Devonta Smith. If I was drafting 20 teams I would take Hall over Higgins and Smith on almost every team when I had that choice. Because I am drafting closer to 500 teams, I don’t want to have 40-percent Breece Hall exposure, 0-percent exposure to Smith and Higgins, or an aggressively outsized exposure to RB-heavy starts from the front half of drafts.

It’s a balancing act.

I encourage you to decide for yourself how much to weight my player preferences against yours, your player preferences against your structural preferences, your willingness to take aggressive stands on or against players, as well as correlation, uniqueness, and ADP value, when determining how and how often to draft differently than you would rank the players.