VALUING PICKS 11-20 VS 21-32
(April 2009)
The numbers indicate that there is an advantage of drafting higher in the first round. Just how significant is that difference? Well, if you average the games played to a per-season count, then the 11-20 draft picks play an average of seven games more per season than the players drafted 21-30. Next, let’s take a look at the points per game difference between the two.
a points-per-season difference of 2.5 per season. Considering the way the NHL is sometimes generous in its assist statistics, that difference hardly seems significant.
VALUE OF PICKS OUTSIDE THE 1ST ROUND
after the top ten selections, there is not much difference in the value of a first round draft pick.
This analysis also suggests that there is not much difference in expected player performance between the subsequent rounds of the NHL draft.
That there is no material difference in the value of a draft pick after the first round is further strong evidence that the draft is largely a lottery.
But the relative value of late picks is higher than one might think.
VALUE OF LATE PUCKS VS UNDRAFTED FREE AGENTS
(June 2009)
There is limited difference in the value between fifth round picks, sixth round picks, seventh round picks and undrafted free agents.
There really does not appear to be a signal that teams are taking high risk/reward players with the idea that there is a minimal difference in value. Rather, it simply appears that selecting players so late in the Entry Draft is as much a lottery as many would have you believe
What this tells me is that teams are looking for any type of productive players they can at this point in the draft
NHL teams are merely always drafting the best player available and that the draft is such a crapshoot, especially with so many team ranking sheets being completely different after the first 30-45 picks, that the results of which players succeed and do not succeed is a mere coincidence.
ACQUIRING DRAFT PICKS
In total, there was 2700 players drafted and only 439 of them (16.2%) turned into NHL players.
Thirty six of them are dominant players, which equates to only 1.3% of the drafted players.
403 of them became decent NHLers, which amounts to 14.9% of the draft picks.
It seems pretty clear that after the first round (60.5%) your chances of finding a decent NHL player become increasing lower.
A second round pick will give you a 23.7% chance, you’ll have a 15.8% in the 3rd round, only 8.6% in the fourth, 7.1% in the fifth, a little boost up to 9.1% in the sixth and 9.7% in the 7th round.
· A first round selection is far more valuable than any other selection – a player taken in that range has a slightly better than 60% chance of turning out to be a “decent” or better player; nearly three times the rate of the second round.
· Second and third round picks are a cut above the rest of the draft, although the chances of landing a “decent” or better player are quite low: a little better than 1 in 5 for the second round, and slightly better than 1 in 7 for the third round.
· There’s little difference between picks made from the fourth to ninth rounds of the draft; over those rounds players are roughly half as likely to develop into a “decent” or better player as a third round pick.
THE VALUE OF AN NHL PICK
· There’s a huge gap between a top-three selection and a four through six selection, which is followed by another gap between the sixth spot and the rest of the draft.
· Again, there’s a big drop between the first round and the second/third rounds, and another big drop from about the 100th pick on, at which point things flatten out – there’s very little difference between drafting 105th and 195th.
· A player taken after the first round but in the first hundred picks has roughly a one-in-three to one-in-four shot at hitting the 100-game plateau in the NHL.
· Get top five picks
· After the top five, move down in the first round
· Top 100 picks after the first round are not very good and are virtually interchangeable
· Picks outside the top 100 are virtually interchangeable
· Contending teams can trade mid to late round picks without any reluctance
VALUE OF NHL DRAFT PICK
So, a #1 pick has a value of “1” (or 100%). A #7 pick has a value of 74%. A #18 pick has a value of 50%. A #52 pick has a value of 25%. Therefore, the suggestion is that trading up from 18 to 7 is equivalent to trading up from 7 to 1 or from 52 to 18.
FIRST ROUND DRAFT PICK VALUE
Odds of finding someone over replacement level:
1st – 85.7%
2/3 – 88.2%
4-7 – 50.0%
8-13 – 41.2%
14-25 – 29.3%
26-50 – 14.9%
51-100 – 7.4%
101-200 – 3.9%
201+ - 3.1%
TRADING UP
TALENT DISTRIBUTION IN THE NHL DRAFT
The thing about the entry draft is that talent is not distributed in a linear fashion. That is to say that each prospect is not just a little worse than the guy before him. Instead, talent tends to decline exponentially from the 1st overall pick onwards, and draft picks in the 5-10 range tend to be closer in value to 3rd round picks than they are to guys taken just 2 or 3 picks ahead of them
DRAFT PICK VALUE CHART
I looked at each player’s Point Shares only during their first seven seasons in the NHL. I fully recognize that catch-all statistics are not perfect evaluations of a player but they are probably the best available statistics for judging large numbers of players throughout history.
ANALYZING VALUE IN NHL DRAFT PICKS
(Feb 24, 2015)
much of the available evidence implies that the identification of NHL-caliber defensive or goaltending talent through the draft is spotty at best.
adding multiple second- or third-round selections is likely an easier way to improve the roster of a team than holding out for that tough-to-obtain first-round choice when the market is far more thin.
The lottery tickets in the second, third and fourth rounds are significantly cheaper than those in the first but there is a smaller difference in value between a mid-round pick and a late first-rounder than between a late first-rounder and a top-five pick.
DRAFT PICK VALUE CHARTS
The basic idea of a DPVC is to develop a value on a particular draft pick to have a starting point for possible trades.
We have used a statistical method that forces the value of draft picks to be decreasing because that is what I believe inherently should be the structure of a DPVC.
I just don’t think that you should value a pick which give you fewer choices to have higher value than one that gives you more choices.
DIFFERENCE IN VALUE OF DRAFT PICKS
In fact, there is approximately as much difference in expected value between the 1st and 3rd picks, the 14th and 24th picks, and the 24th and 211th picks.
there’s little reason to value a third round choice much more than a fourth or fifth round choice. Trading down to amass more total selections is then theoretically optimal,
For teams that acquire first round selections after the 23rd pick, those GMs might better serve their organization by aiming for two or three second or third round picks instead.
EXPLOITING VARIANCE
Let’s start with the simplest question: why is the draft important at all? There are two main reasons.
· Drafting allows you to acquire players that would be exceedingly hard/expensive to find through trades or free agency.
· Entry-level contracts allow you to pay young players next to nothing for up to three years while giving them significant on-ice responsibility.
In general, when considering a prospect, we should want to know how much value he will end up creating above and beyond the dollar value of his ELC. If the difference is negligible, teams could acquire such players in other channels (free agency).
In summary: every team needs third and fourth liners, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should draft them. Instead, consider taking a chance on a player you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else.
DRAFT CLASS VARIANCE
· We do not see evidence that confirms any recent draft class has performed statistically significantly better than the others.
This last point is most crucial. It’s statistically plausible that every draft class has the same innate talent, and the variation we see is entirely the result of random chance.
There is more extreme variation in the first few years after the draft, likely driven by how quickly players make the NHL and start accruing points. As time goes on and players either reach the NHL or bust, the overall production of each class mostly balances out.
Anything past the first few picks is all the same. Only the first few picks determine the perceived “strength” of a draft class
HOW BAD IS TRADING UP
(May 8, 2020)
Not only have teams almost always lost value when they traded up (only 4 of 60 trades produced positive expected value for the team trading up), but they lost the most value when trading up for higher picks.
Turns out the most common outcome is neither team winning, but the teams who traded up have “won” just as many of the trades as those who moved down.
Teams who have moved down have acquired far more cumulative value than those who traded up in the 7 years following the draft.
Note that teams who traded down also produced more NHL players, not just more quality NHL players.
1) Teams have grossly over-payed to trade up, and over-payed most for high draft picks (roughly 1-80)
2) Teams who traded up tended to get more value per player, but this is because they are drafting with higher picks, not because of awesome foresight causing teams who moved up to draft players better than their pick number implies.
3) While teams who trade down get less value on a per pick basis, they get so many more shots to find talent that they drafted more NHL players, and more good NHL players, than their counterparts
4) The more teams have been willing to give up to trade up might signal more confidence in that player’s abilities, but that confidence hasn’t translated to more production either.
5) Trading Down is great in theory, and has worked well in practice. So if teams are willing to overpay to move up, don’t hesitate and trade down!
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