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Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Rankings 2023

By Matt Schauf | Updated on Tue, 01 Aug 2023 . 10:41 AM EDT

Find the biggest values. Win your draft.

Who’s the biggest fade in your best ball drafts right now?

Who's going much later than he should?

That’s what you should be thinking about at this point in Underdog Fantasy drafts, more than specific rankings.

You’re not drafting a single team to win a league. You’re building a best ball portfolio to win some money.

That said, rankings matter. That's how you uncover the biggest values, by applying our projections to the specified format.

How to Use Our Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Rankings

In this case, you'll want our half-PPR fantasy football rankings.

Below you’ll find a top 100 that everyone can access.

If you’re a DS Insider, then you’ll get access to the full top 300 – plus a downloadable spreadsheet that you can load right into your Underdog Fantasy account for use in your drafts.

Before we get to the rankings, here are some things you should keep in mind …

You’re Likely Drafting for Volume

These rankings are certainly ready to help if you're drafting into single leagues on Underdog Fantasy. And in that case, you should treat each draft individually.

But if you’re drafting into a tournament, don’t treat it like a single team that’s trying to win a league.

Treat it like part of your portfolio: a collection of fantasy rosters that you hope will produce a big-money gem.

You’ll want to mix up your player exposures (i.e. the players you draft). If you don’t, then you leave yourself more vulnerable to a key injury. Or even just a disappointing season.

ADP Matters ... But Shouldn't Control You

The further we get into summer, the better average draft position (ADP) rankings become.

If you’re drafting in August, you won’t want to go wildly against the market for player values – at least not repeatedly.

You also shouldn’t ignore ADP now. Multiple studies at this point have shown that regularly reaching vs. ADP will hurt your roster more than help.

Of course, just going through your draft and taking the next player up in ADP also isn't likely to produce a winning roster.

Unless you happen to hit a run of players falling past ADP, then you're just drafting the same way most others are from that spot. (Hence, average draft position.)

Target Dramatically Undervalued Players

There are basically two reasons to use anyone's draft rankings as a cheat sheet:

1. You want to see which players are going too early.
2. You want to see who's undervalued by the market.

Those players will be your targets or "fades."

One to Target

Take Dolphins RB Jeff Wilson Jr. (No, seriously. You should take him.)

Wilson's Underdog Fantasy ADP as of this writing: RB57.
His position in our half-PPR ranks: RB40.

Are we just way under market on rookie Devon Achane? Nope. He sits 41st in those same rankings, vs. his RB39 ADP on Underdog Fantasy.

You know what's funny? We're also not under market on Raheem Mostert, even though we have him third among Dolphins RBs.

It looks like we're simply above-market on the Miami running game as a whole. And why wouldn't we be?

Wilson Boost

Over the first eight games last season, Miami RBs scored just 17.05 half-PPR points per game. That would have ranked 29th in the league for the season.

So they dumped Chase Edmonds and traded for Wilson. And from Week 9 on, the backfield averaged 21.5 points. That would have tied for 11th.

Miami then re-signed Wilson for slightly more than Mostert -- just months after trading a fifth-round pick for him.

Throw in the undersized Achane, who is bound for a decent-to-strong role but will never be a workhorse. And you have a clear committee in what should be a strong offense.

All three Dolphins RBs look attractive for best ball lineups. Wilson is obviously the most undervalued.

Who to Fade?

It sure ain't a comfy position, but Saints WR Chris Olave looks overpriced -- perhaps by a lot.

He's 12th among WRs in Underdog Fantasy ADP, going in the middle of Round 2. He finished 26th in half-PPR points per game last year -- even with Michael Thomas out most of the year and Jarvis Landry gone for half.

Shouldn't Derek Carr be an upgrade over Andy Dalton (and Jameis Winston)? Yes.

But Carr doesn't throw deep especially well. He has a career 4.4% TD rate. And he's coming off his worst season since at least his 2014 rookie campaign.

Should we count on him being the fairy godfather to Olave's fantasy points? Seems like an iffy bet, and an expensive one at Olave's ADP. (He sits well below market price in our WR rankings.)

Draft No Olave on Underdog Fantasy?

So does that mean you should skip the second-year Saints WR altogether? Not necessarily. And that's a key difference in best ball vs. traditional fantasy leagues.

We like Olave the player, so it's certainly possible things work in his favor this year -- especially in a tournament with playoff weeks.

He could have a disappointing season but overall but go off in weeks 16 and 17 and win you money.

So the more teams you draft, the more you want to work in some shares of Olave, as well as other players we're below market on.

That's how you spread your exposure around when you're building a best ball portfolio. That helps you avoid getting overexposed to your favorite players (in case of injury or other downfall) and avoid missing out on surprise performers.

Pay Attention to Stacking

Of course, because this is best ball, you’ll want to look for stacking opportunities.

That’s most commonly combining a QB and at least one of his pass-catchers. But play around with it.

Multiple pass-catchers? Sure! A QB and lead RB here and there? Why not!

You can even pair later-round RBs from the same team (such as Wilson and a Dolphins backfield mate).

Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Rankings

Now let’s get to those rankings.

1. Justin Jefferson, Vikings (WR)
2. Ja'Marr Chase, Bengals (WR)
3. Tyreek Hill, Dolphins (WR)
4. Christian McCaffrey, 49ers (RB)
5. Cooper Kupp, Rams (WR)
6. Travis Kelce, Chiefs (TE)
7. Austin Ekeler, Chargers (RB)
8. Stefon Diggs, Bills (WR)
9. CeeDee Lamb, Cowboys (WR)
10. A.J. Brown, Eagles (WR)
11. Davante Adams, Raiders (WR)
12. Saquon Barkley, Giants (RB)

We started with the current Underdog Fantasy ADP, to represent the draft market.

If you decide a player’s ADP is way too early, then you’re basically deciding you’ll never draft him (at least for current tournament play).

That’s fine in some cases. But make sure you think about whether you want to be totally out on a player – or merely mix in a few shares in case you’re wrong about him.

On the other end, it’s OK to go heavy on a player you think is being drafted way too late. Take him every time, though, and you might be depriving yourself of exposure to some other upside players around him in ADP.

Check ADP for the big movers

You’ll find a column with Underdog ADP in the rankings. That can show you which players have made the largest moves up or down these rankings.

That signals the players we’re targeting or fading the most.

Otherwise, play around with how you build your entries. And check the bottom of the article for downloadable rankings.

Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Rankings Top 300

Rankings Download

Want to load these rankings directly into the Underdog Fantasy website so they'll show up when you go to draft?

Access the Google Sheet here.

Once you're in: Click File > Download > Comma Separated Values (.csv)

That will save a version to your computer. Then:

1. Navigate to Underdog Fantasy.
2. Click "Rankings" in the navigation menu.
3. Click CSV upload/download button at bottom.
4. Click CSV upload and choose "6-26-23 Underdog upload - Sheet1.csv" from the folder where you saved it.
5. Hit the Save button.
6. Draft away!

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