Methodology

A letter on your draft, and where it comes from

Cut from what every pick returned against what a pick in that slot was expected to return — so drafting well from the back of the first round can beat drafting adequately from the front of it.

What it measures

Return above expectation, not points drafted

Two other definitions were on the table. Both are recorded here, because “we already thought about that” is the cheapest thing an explanation can offer.

A draft grade measures

return above what the pick was expected to return

A keeper is graded at the round it cost to keep, because that is the pick it actually spent.

Two things it deliberately is not

Draft haul

Raw points from drafted players. The manager picking first wins it most years, so it grades draft position rather than drafting.

Hit rate

The share of picks who became real starters. Blind to magnitude — a league-winner and a bye-week filler count the same.

When there is no grade

Four reasons a draft has no letter

A blank is never a zero in disguise, and the four are deliberately never collapsed into one another — “we have no draft” and “we have a draft we cannot measure” are different facts about your league.

No draft on record for this season, so nothing is graded.

This season stored no weekly lineups, so what a pick returned cannot be measured.

No pick counted here — the draft imported without this roster.

Too few drafts to rank this season, so the points stand on their own.

The bands

Where each letter cuts

A+0%8%
A8%17%
A-17%25%
B+25%33%
B33%42%
B-42%50%
C+50%58%
C58%67%
C-67%75%
D75%88%
F88%100%

The letter comes from where a draft ranks in its own season, as a percentile of that season's field — so an A is a statement about that year's drafts and not about a points total. A season needs at least 4 graded drafts before anyone is ranked at all; below that the points stand on their own and nobody gets a letter, because a percentile of three is not a percentile.

Draft questions

What people ask the morning after

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