The grades
Every player, team, transaction, and front office on FanVerdicts gets independent letter grades. They do not get averaged into a single score. You can be an A on the field and a C on your contract at the same time, and that gap is usually the most interesting thing about the page.
Starting in 2026, NBA player pages show Performance split into two grades — Impact and Role — because one number could not fairly answer both “who’s the best player in the NBA?” and “is this defensive specialist good at what he does?” The other sports continue with a single Performance grade for now; extension to NFL and MLB is on the roadmap.
Impact (NBA)
League-wide measure of winning contribution.
Uses advanced impact metrics designed for cross-position comparison (VORP and Win Shares per 48). A great impact player is a great impact player regardless of position. A center who anchors a defense, a guard who creates 30 points of offense, a forward who switches everything — all measured on the same absolute scale.
Role (NBA)
Position-relative measure of role execution.
Uses efficiency rates (PER, True Shooting %) plus per-game stats (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks) compared against peers at the same position. A backup point guard who excels at running the second unit can earn an A here even if their Impact grade reflects lower minutes. Doesn't penalize you for the role your team gave you.
Performance (NFL, MLB)
How well they are playing right now.
On-field production relative to peers at the same position. Built from per-game box-score inputs, advanced metrics where the sport publishes them, and era-adjusted benchmarks so a season ten years ago and a season this year stay comparable. NBA-specific decomposition into Impact + Role is described above.
Sentiment
How the public is reacting.
A reading of national reporting and fan discussion. Pulled from RSS feeds of major outlets and significance-weighted social signals. A leading indicator of perception, not a judgment of the underlying move.
Contract Value Index
Whether the deal is worth the money.
Compares a contract's structure — guaranteed money, average annual value, age at signing, years of control — against the player's recent production, with sport-specific adjustments for position scarcity, age curves, and the salary cap environment.
Fan Verdict
What readers think, in their own words.
An independent vote on every page. Not an average of the other grades. When Fan Verdict disagrees with the algorithmic grades, that disagreement is part of the story.
Honest limitation (NBA Impact)
The Impact grade uses public box-score-derived impact metrics from Basketball-Reference. The basketball-analytics community treats on/off-derived metrics (EPM, LEBRON, DPM) as the gold standard for cross-position impact. We don't yet incorporate those — extension is on the roadmap. Impact rankings will be most defensible at the very top of the league; expect more disagreement with consensus rankings in the middle of the distribution.
WNBA Performance
WNBA Performance is graded on per-game box production relative to position; advanced impact metrics are not yet publicly available for the WNBA, so there is no Impact/Role split. Sentiment and the Contract Value Index are being populated for the WNBA — until they land, WNBA pages show those grades as pending rather than a fabricated number. The Fan Verdict is live now.
What an A actually means
Letter grades are calibrated to the population of players in each sport. An A is rare on purpose: only a small share of the league earns one, the same way only a small share of cars earn a top crash-test rating. The exact share for each letter depends on the sport, but the shape is similar across all three: the bulk of the league lands in the B and C bands, A's and F's sit at the tails.
We map the full thirteen-letter scale ( A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, F ) onto a fan-friendly tier label per sport. Scan the table for your league:
| Grade | Tier | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | MVP-tier | Top of the league at their position. The kind of player a franchise builds around. |
| A | All-Pro caliber | Among the best at their position. Pro Bowl conversation every season they are healthy. |
| A- | High-end starter | Clearly above the league average starter at the position. Dependable week to week. |
| B+ | Quality starter | Solid full-time starter. A team is happy to have them in the lineup. |
| B | Average starter | A typical NFL starter. Not flashy, not a liability. |
| B- | Lower-tier starter | Holds a starting job but the team is looking for an upgrade in the off-season. |
| C+ | Spot starter / strong backup | Capable of starting in a pinch. Reliable depth. |
| C | Rotational backup | Plays a role in sub packages or special teams. Not part of the long-term core. |
| C- | Limited contributor | Active on game day but rarely takes meaningful snaps. |
| D+ | Roster fringe | On the bubble for the 53. Often a special-teams-only role. |
| D | Practice squad caliber | More likely to be cut and re-signed than to hold a regular roster spot. |
| D- | Camp body | In the building to push others in camp, not to play meaningful snaps. |
| F | Out of the league | Production well below replacement level. Usually a sign the role does not fit. |
| Grade | Tier | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | All-NBA First Team caliber | A genuine MVP candidate. The franchise player on a contender. |
| A | All-Star caliber | A clear-cut star. Carries an offense or anchors a defense at the highest level. |
| A- | All-Star fringe | In the All-Star conversation most years. Top-end starter in the league. |
| B+ | High-end starter | A trusted starter on a playoff team. Plays heavy minutes in the playoffs. |
| B | Average NBA starter | A typical full-time starter. Earns rotation minutes deep into the season. |
| B- | Sixth-man / fringe starter | Either an impact bench scorer or a starter on a non-contender. |
| C+ | Solid rotation player | A real-deal NBA contributor who plays regularly off the bench. |
| C | Rotation fringe | Earns minutes in some matchups but falls out of the rotation in others. |
| C- | End-of-bench role player | On the active roster but rarely sees real game minutes. |
| D+ | Two-way / 15th man | Holds a roster spot but spends most nights in street clothes or in the G-League. |
| D | G-League call-up profile | Production fits the development league more than the NBA bench. |
| D- | Camp invite | Fighting for a roster spot; not currently producing at NBA level. |
| F | Out of the league | Production well below an NBA replacement player. Likely a fit issue. |
| Grade | Tier | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | MVP / Cy Young tier | Best in baseball at their role. The face of the franchise on the field. |
| A | All-Star caliber | A perennial All-Star vote. Among the league leaders at the position. |
| A- | All-Star fringe | Just outside the top tier. A clear-cut top-of-the-order or front-of-rotation arm. |
| B+ | Above-average everyday player | A reliable starter who plays nearly every game and produces well above league average. |
| B | Everyday starter | Typical big-league starter. Dependable run producer or mid-rotation arm. |
| B- | Strong-side platoon | Best deployed in their preferred matchups; productive there. |
| C+ | Platoon / utility | Plays multiple positions or the long side of a platoon. Useful 25-man piece. |
| C | Bench / long relief | On the roster, but used in lower-leverage spots. |
| C- | Up-and-down arm or bat | Bounces between the active roster and the minors. |
| D+ | Quad-A profile | Dominates Triple-A but has not stuck in the majors. |
| D | Depth piece | Roster filler called up when the parent club is injury-strapped. |
| D- | Fringe / org filler | Production well below replacement level at the big-league level. |
| F | Out of the league | Not currently producing at major-league replacement level. |
Tier labels describe the typical player at that letter today. Where a specific player ends up depends on their actual production inside the formula — the labels are reading aids, not promotions.
How grades are calibrated
Each sport is graded against itself. NFL grades are calibrated against NFL data, NBA against NBA, MLB against MLB. The shape of the league's talent distribution sets the bar — a left-tackle is graded against other left-tackles, a closer against other closers, a center against other centers.
We target a published distribution per sport (most of the league in B and C, a small head in A, a small tail in D and F) and recalibrate every off-season as a new full year of data lands. That is why grades shift in waves at the end of the season and stay relatively stable mid-season.
The calibration is sport-specific because the leagues are. Football's positional value gap (quarterback versus everyone else) is wider than basketball's, which is wider than baseball's position-by-position spread. Forcing one global formula on all three would produce nonsense, so each sport gets its own.
Why grades change
Why did this player drop from A to B?
Why is a $50M player only a C+ on Contract Value Index?
Why is my favorite team’s Contract Value Index low even though we’re winning?
How often do grades update?
Why does an injured player still have a grade?
Why does the same player have different grades on two pages?
What goes into a grade
Every grade on FanVerdicts is empirical. We do not invent coefficients to match a hunch and we do not write formulas that confirm an editorial position. Each formula has to clear one of two bars before it ships:
- Improve predictive accuracy against held-out seasons by a meaningful margin, or
- Correct a documented bias in the prior formula (over-grading one position, under-grading rookies, inflating short-sample performances, etc.).
Proposals that pass neither test are shelved. Proposals that pass go through a documented calibration cycle — held-out validation on prior seasons, sensitivity testing, and a written rationale recorded with every formula change. Nothing changes without that paper trail.
We keep the exact formulas internal for the same reason every credit-rating, search-ranking, and team-statistics company keeps theirs internal — that is the work product. What we publish is the letter grade, the qualitative tier, the data sources, and written commentary on every grade so the reasoning is transparent even when the coefficients are not.
What grades don’t tell you
Letter grades are a snapshot of the best available evidence today. They are not a verdict on a player's career, a prediction about tomorrow's game, or a prescription for what a front office should do next.
- An A this year does not lock in an A next year. Grades update when the underlying data updates.
- Performance grades reflect production. They cannot fully capture leadership, locker-room fit, or the off-field reasons a contender wants a particular player.
- Sentiment grades reflect what reporters and fans are saying. They are not a judgment about whether the public is right.
- Contract Value Index reflects production-vs-pay at the time of grading. A bargain today can still age poorly if the sport's economics shift.
We publish the grades independently because forcing them into one number would erase the most interesting reading on the page: the disagreements.
A grade still feels off?
The best feedback we get points at a specific player, team, or transaction and explains why the letter feels wrong. Those are the notes we run through the next calibration cycle. If something on the site does not pass the smell test for you, tell us.