What is ADP?

It's round three of your fantasy league draft and you notice an RB early on your ADP list still available. You snatch him up, thinking you've snagged a high-value steal, but there is a problem. Your ADP reference is only a few days old but a lot has transpired in those final days of the preseason. Depth chart changes, free agent signings, and a couple of preseason injuries make your data stale enough to potentially cost you a spot in the playoffs.

If only you had refreshed your ADP list an hour before the draft you would have been able to make a more informed decision. That is the value of ADP, arguably the most important piece of data to have on draft day. It gives you each player's market value, based on actual real-world draft data, weighted for recency (i.e. the stud that topped the draft board in early July is now accurately adjusted downward due to his new preseason injury).

ADP is most valuable in middle-draft rounds. The early rounds tend to have strong consensus on who is the best available player, and the later rounds are more of a shot in the dark on who will sink or swim. Conversely, the middle round picks tend to have wider value gaps between similarly-ranked players.

What ADP actually measures

Just as the name "Average Draft Position" implies, this data is telling you which round/pick each player is being selected based on data from actual drafts. This should not be confused with projections. It is not a ranking of expected performance, but rather a consensus on each player's value in fantasy leagues.

ADP is typically displayed in one of two formats. The first is as overall average-pick position (such as 8.2) without any reference to which round that pick lands in (which is league-size dependent). This format is easiest to compare across sources, and is what you see on LitFantasy. The other format is to display which round the player tends to be drafted along with the pick number within the round (such as 3.02 - third round, second pick).

Why you will see different values from different sources

Some ADP lists are derived directly from real-world drafts, while others combine league draft data with expert consensus. There also may be sources that are scraping search/popularity data and presenting it as ADP (which it is not). Fantasy Football Calculator is one source that uses real public mock draft data along with data from drafts performed on their own platform. This is a true ADP signal and is LitFantasy's primary source for ADP data.

How to use ADP effectively

Some fantasy managers will simply draft the next available player from their ADP list each round, but this is not recommended. ADP is a good reference point to consider whether a pick is a good value or not, but you typically want to take other factors into consideration as well.

If you see a player still available 15 picks after his ADP position this is probably a good value pick, but you may also want to consider where the current gaps in your roster are, if other positions with a limited number of high-value picks (QB, TE) are getting picked off early, or maybe even bye-week collisions with same-position players already on your roster.

Common pitfalls to avoid:

• Single source reliance: Any given source may suffer from insufficient input data and/or incorporate potentially unscrupulous "expert" opinions into their weighting.

• Stale data: Out-of-date data is another risk, in which case the example at the beginning of this article could still bite you even if you have gotten the latest output from your source.

• Scoring format: You also need to pay attention to your league's scoring format. Standard vs. Half-PPR vs. Full-PPR ADP should all be different, since the PPR setting will affect the value of some positions more than others.

• Confusing ADP with projections: A lesser-projected player may be higher in ADP due to the scarcity of quality players for that position, for example.

The takeaway

ADP is just one piece of your draft strategy puzzle. Use it in conjunction with projections, depth-chart analysis, strength-of-schedule, and within the context of your previous picks. This is why LitFantasy was created: to put all that information right at your fingertips in a single, color-coded, sortable view. Use ADP to identify a range of defensible picks and then narrow down the choices using all the information available, without switching tabs or waiting for a page to load.

Next up: Projections vs. Rankings: What's the Difference and When to Use Them