Predicting the Preseason ADP Pop

Every year, the same disclaimer is made before a single preseason snap is played: Preseason performance doesn’t predict regular-season success. Most season-long and best ball drafters accept this is true, and understand that most of the players racking up preseason touches are third- and fourth-stringers who are fighting for a spot on the 53-man roster more than our fantasy roster. Regardless, every year, without fail, the market finds a way to overreact to preseason performance anyway, causing ADPs to soar.

We looked at weekly Underdog Best Ball Mania ADP and compared it against our preseason database across 2024 and 2025 preseasons to determine if there was any relationship between preseason production and ADP movement. Across 127 rookies, we found a -0.35 correlation between preseason DraftKings points and how much that player’s ADP improved the following week. The more fantasy points they scored, the higher their ADP climbed. The relationship between preseason production and following-week ADP isn’t overwhelmingly strong, and other variables can’t be ignored. Still, it is important to understand how the market reacts — or overreacts — to what happens on the field in August. 

To be clear, the implication here isn’t that every rookie’s price will climb throughout the preseason, nor that performance is the only thing driving these changes. Training camp reports, coaches’ press conferences, and injuries to the players ahead of them on the depth chart will all move ADP, too. However, we shouldn’t ignore that certain players will get more expensive due almost solely to what happens on the field in August.

The question worth asking now, before a single preseason snap is played: Can we use situational cues, such as depth-chart standing, coaches’ tendencies, or playing-time expectations, to identify which players are likely to be more expensive at the end of draft season than they are today?