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NobodyCares

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Forum: GM GameApr. 7, 2017 at 12:02 p.m.
Thread: GM Game Master Thread
I've looked at several different studies this morning involving the value of draft picks.
One element that is pretty much consensus, is that the higher picks (Top 3, Top 5, Top 10, are the most significant drop off points, which isn't shocking).
In any case, it reinforces my original thought. You can't simply add the value of two picks in order to equal the value of a higher pick.
Once you get outside of the top 10, the value of a pick starts getting closer to a 2nd rounder than to first overall.
Outside of the top 20, you're closer to a 3rd rounder than you are to first overall.

If I can illustrate it in a very simple way ...
1st -- 2nd ---- 3rd -------- 4th --------- 5th ------------- 6th

The further away from 1st overall you get, the greater the difference in value between picks (more dashes)

But once you reach a certain point, the difference between the value of picks decreases. So once you get to 20th overall, it looks more like this ...
20th --- 21st --- 22nd --- ... --- 42nd -- 43rd -- 44th -- ... -- 61st - 62nd - 63rd ... until there is very little difference between them

So when you are trading between picks, in order to achieve fair value, you have to take the gap (number of dashes) between the picks into account, not simply the value of the pick itself.
When you compare pick #30 to pick #1, there are more dashes between those picks than there are between pick #30 and pick #90, which you can look at like this ...

1st -------------------- + ---- 30th ---------- 90th (where '+' represents the midpoint)
*<em>Note, these are not accurate approximations, simply a rough sketch to illustrate a point
</em>

BUT

As I stated at the beginning, there are a lot of other factors. Trading up to get "your guy" or trading down to get more "kicks at the can", poor evaluations by GMs (especially historically, where "gut" and "eye" were more heavily weighted than analytics), the quality of the respective players involved in the draft, the overall depth and quality of the draft class, etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, I found the topic interesting and thought I would try to share. :p