‹ Back to the Stat Pack hub

Draft Steals & Busts — The Full Board

Every drafted player, ranked by production vs. draft slot · Weeks 1–5 · built 2026-07-21

Read this first COLOR

This whole page is directional, not settled. It's five weeks of games — a genuinely small season. The value ranks are real, but they'll move as more games land, and a couple of these players are riding two- or three-game samples. Treat the big gaps as the story and the fine ordering as provisional.

SOLID safe to stateCOLOR provisional / directional — frame as funTINY n say the sample out loud

How this is computed

Draft slot is where each player actually went in the snake draft — 14 teams × 6 rounds, overall picks 1–63 (captains weren't drafted, so they're not on this board at all).

Value is a composite of Buzzer Elo (skill — who actually wins tossup battles head-to-head) plus total tossup points (production), z-scored and combined. Everyone with game data gets a value rank among the 53 drafted players who have logged games.

The one number that drives everything here:

steal_score = pick_rank − value_rank

A player drafted 61st (pick_rank 52 among drafted-with-data) who's playing like the 19th-best value gets a +33 — a massive steal. A first-rounder playing like a 43rd gets −31 — the biggest bust. Positive = outperforming draft slot; negative = underperforming it.

Coverage: 53 of 62 drafted players have game data. The 9 with none — almost certainly season no-shows — are excluded from the ranking, not labeled busts (they're listed at the bottom). Captains were never drafted and aren't scored here.

THE STEALS

Drafted late, producing like stars

Top 12 by value gap. COLOR — the late-round names ride 3–4 game samples.

PlayerTeamDraftedPlays likeEloGap
Uddip KMingworms#61 · R5#191552+33
Andrew WenHellcats#48 · R4#161630+25
Owen MaoMingworms#60 · R5#301540+21
Advai SFerroasumin#63 · R5 (last!)#331508+20
Edward CCryofornia Gurls#25 · R2#31759+18
Roshan AnnamalaiMingworms#27 · R2#61708+16
William WGid#56 · R4#321472+16
Sohil RathiWeilords#28 · R2#121674+11
Jianyu WUncs#29 · R3#131603+11
Dennis JDANK#43 · R4#271515+11
Bryce TCryofornia Gurls#52 · R4#351536+10
Pravira DUncs#53 · R4#361489+10
Say "The last pick of the entire draft — Advai S at 63 — is playing like a mid-second-rounder. Uddip K at 61 is producing like a top-20 pick. Somebody's scouting was asleep on the Mingworms — they landed Uddip AND Owen Mao in the last two rounds."

The headline steal is Edward C — taken 25th, playing like the #3 overall value. He's the breakout of the season: #2 Buzzer Elo (1759) and the biggest overperformer in the league (+8.8 tossups above expectation). Every model flags the same guy. SOLID

THE BUSTS

Drafted early, underproducing

Top 12 by negative value gap. TINY n — small season, ranks will move, but right now the arrows point down.

PlayerTeamDraftedPlays likeEloGap
Ryan Karim(Stitch)²#13 · R1#431466−31
Sanjay OrugantiSeanjay#20 · R2#461451−28
Ishaan KabraHellcats#14 · R1#381563−25
Kensuke OhshimaJonathan#23 · R2#441507−24
Monish SGid#30 · R3#481403−23
Edwin HeJonathan#4 · R1#251599−21
Likhith MFerroasumin#37 · R3#501375−18
Arman AWeilords#38 · R3#491400−16
Kevin FFerroasumin#42 · R3#511411−14
Shannon ImaokaCryofornia Gurls#33 · R3#371550−9
Minghao GPonnor St. Germain#51 · R4#521294−8
Travis DSeanjay#36 · R3#391473−8
Say "Three of the four early-pick disappointments came off the board in the first two rounds. Ryan Karim, the 13th pick, is playing like a 43rd — that's the biggest miss on the board." TINY n "Small season, ranks will move — but right now, oof."

The two first-rounders — and the highest-pick bust

THE FULL BOARD

All 53 drafted players with game data

Sorted by draft position. Elo = Buzzer Elo, Pts = total tossup points, Val# = value rank (1 = best), Gap = steal_score. Green = steal, red = bust. COLOR

PickPlayerTeamEloPtsVal#Gap
1 · R1Harry GGid1642609−8
2 · R1Rohan GUncs16984810−8
3 · R1Kian DhawanPonnor St. Germain1754921+2
4 · R1Edwin HeJonathan15991225−21
5 · R1Sean FSeanjay16175611−6
6 · R1Suzuko OCryofornia Gurls1717527−1
7 · R1Vishnu MCZZ1699804+3
8 · R1Theenash SenguptaMingworms16942814−6
9 · R1Akhil BatchuWeilords1782722+7
10 · R1Lucas WFerroasumin1669685+5
12 · R1Advik SharmaFez_Keyreb16702815−4
13 · R1Ryan Karim(Stitch)²1466843−31
14 · R1Ishaan KabraHellcats1563038−25
15 · R2Lishan PradoDANK15493620−6
16 · R2Eric LHellcats1731448+7
18 · R2Aldric BFez_Keyreb16112817−1
19 · R2Angelina YFerroasumin15523618−1
20 · R2Sanjay OrugantiSeanjay1451446−28
22 · R2Rahib HPonnor St. Germain15882821−2
23 · R2Kensuke OhshimaJonathan1507−444−24
25 · R2Edward CCryofornia Gurls1759723+18
27 · R2Roshan AnnamalaiMingworms1708566+16
28 · R2Sohil RathiWeilords16744412+11
29 · R3Jianyu WUncs16034813+11
30 · R3Monish SGid1403448−23
31 · R3Daniel LuPonnor St. Germain15632423+3
32 · R3Arjun D(Stitch)²15791626+1
33 · R3Shannon ImaokaCryofornia Gurls1550837−9
34 · R3Varyan JDANK15532822+7
35 · R3Anish ACZZ15881624+6
36 · R3Travis DSeanjay14731639−8
37 · R3Likhith MFerroasumin1375450−18
38 · R3Arman AWeilords1400449−16
39 · R3Justin KFez_Keyreb15072829+5
40 · R3ArjunHellcats15542028+7
41 · R3William JGid15012434+2
42 · R3Kevin FFerroasumin1411−451−14
43 · R4Dennis JDANK15152827+11
46 · R4Chris WangFez_Keyreb15362031+8
47 · R4Sam E(Stitch)²1487841−1
48 · R4Andrew WenHellcats16303616+25
49 · R4Daniel YUncs1510840+2
50 · R4Shaun IHellcats1478842+1
51 · R4Minghao GPonnor St. Germain1294452−8
52 · R4Bryce TCryofornia Gurls15361635+10
53 · R4Pravira DUncs14892436+10
55 · R4Abhinav AGid1291−1253−6
56 · R4William WGid14723232+16
57 · R5Patrick LJonathan14151245+4
59 · R5Matthew YDANK13711247+3
60 · R5Owen MaoMingworms15402030+21
61 · R5Uddip KMingworms15523619+33
63 · R5Advai SFerroasumin15082433+20

Kian Dhawan (#3), Vishnu M (#7), Akhil Batchu (#9) and Lucas W (#10) are the model's "chalk that held" — high picks producing at or above slot, so their gaps are small and positive. That's a draft working as intended, not a steal.

FAIRNESS NOTE

Who's NOT on the board — and why

Two groups are deliberately kept out of the rankings so nobody gets tagged a "bust" unfairly.

9 drafted players with zero game data — excluded, NOT busts

These players were drafted but have logged no buzzes — almost certainly season no-shows. A player who never took the floor can't be judged against his draft slot, so they're excluded from the value ranking entirely rather than being scored as failures.

PlayerDrafted
Praneel Avula#17 · R2
Nihar Bhave#21 · R2
Aryan B#24 · R2
Selena Y#26 · R2
Ziang Zhuang#44 · R4
Alex S#45 · R4
Sriman D#54 · R4
HA#58 · R5
Jaime Yu#62 · R5
Say "Nine drafted players have zero game data — likely no-shows. We're explicitly NOT calling them busts. If you never suit up, the model has nothing to grade. Four of the nine went in the second round, which is its own quiet story about draft-day risk."

Captains — out of the exercise entirely

The 14 team captains weren't part of the snake draft, so they have no pick number to measure against. They're not on this board at all — this is a drafted-players-only exercise.

Caveats & method: Value = z-scored composite of Buzzer Elo (skill) + total tossup points (production), ranked among the 53 drafted players with game data. steal_score = pick_rank − value_rank. Everything here is Weeks 1–5 — a small season, so ranks will move, and several late-round names sit on 2–4 game samples (tagged TINY n). Canonical-grouped value stats drop 7.5% of buzzes that are unmapped to a player identity, so a few point totals slightly undercount. Per the rigor audit, treat the whole page's precision as directional (COLOR) — the big gaps are the story, the exact ordering is provisional. Source: outputs/podcast/draft_steals_busts.csv · draft_value_lines.md · confidence framing from outputs/podcast/AUDIT.md.