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Revisiting the draft trade value chartro bowls

Discussion in 'Miami Dolphins Forum' started by Pauly, Apr 23, 2018.

  1. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    Since the draft is almost upon us I thought and soon we will be inundated with threads proclaiming that x trade had y value on the trade chart, I thought it might be fun to look at whether the famous Jimmy Johnson trade chart actually holds water.

    To get a metric of what a player produces in his career I used the “career AV” metric from pro football reference. There are other metrics such as games played, games started, pro bowls, all pros, hof selection, but as a rough estimate it is easier and passes the TLAR test. Basically a career AV of 100+ is HoF worthy, 75 a regular pro bowler, 50 a solid starter, 25 a starter for 2 or 3 years and 12 or less a part timer or bust.

    I then took the career AV for each draft slot that is niw in the first round (i.e. slots 1 to 32) and found the average and standard deviation for each slot from 1967 (start of the common draft) to 2011.
    The average first rounder had a career AV of 40.6 and a standard deviation of 28.7

    From that the picks broke into 5 separate tiers.
    Pick 1
    AV: 70.2
    Standard Deviation: 38.1
    Risk (AV divided by SD): 54%

    Picks 2 to 4
    AV: 58.9
    SD: 34.5
    Risk: 59%

    Picks 5 to 13
    AV: 45.8
    SD: 29.2
    Risk: 64%

    Picks 14 to 24
    AV: 38.5
    SD: 25.7
    Risk: 67%

    Picks 25 to 32
    AV 31.0
    SD: 26.7
    Risk: 86%.

    Some things that I found interesting. Pick#4 overall has performed sligtly better than #2 and #3 overall. Pick #7 has an average AV of 38.8, 10 less than picks #6 and #8,
    As the draft progresses the step between each pick flattens and becomes smaller, but the risk becomes higher.

    So what does this tell us, and how it deviates from conventional wisdom.

    Firstly, the ultra premium picks are the top 4, not the top 3.
    Secondly, its the top 13 that are the premium picks, not the top 10.
    Thirdly you have a reasonable expectation of contributions up to pick 24.
    Finally it’s from pick 25 that you start to get into lottery ticket territory.

    Also it reinforces that the #1 overall is a supervaluable resource.

    Looking at AV and risk this is how I would redraw the trade value chart, keeping JJs 3000 points for #1 overall

    1: 3000
    2: 2360
    3: 2320
    4: 2290
    5: 1830
    6: 1790
    7: 1750
    8: 1710
    9: 1670
    10: 1630
    11: 1590
    12: 1550
    13: 1510
    14: 1470
    15: 1405
    16: 1390
    17: 1375
    18: 1360
    19: 1345
    20: 1330
    21: 1315
    22: 1300
    23: 1285
    24: 1270
    25: 960
    26: 930
    27: 900
    28: 870
    29: 840
    30: 810
    31: 780
    32: 750
     
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  2. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    The original JJ chart plots to a logarithmic decay. The assumption was made that was how talent was distributed, on average.
    My chart of the performance modified by risk, shows some similarity to logarithmic decay, but it isn’t as smooth as the original.

    One confounding factor might be that modern players have longer careers than players from the 60s and 70s so career AV might be trending upwards.
     
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  3. roy_miami

    roy_miami Well-Known Member

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    As somebody that preferred to trade down I think Jimmy knew what he was doing...
     
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  4. cbrad

    cbrad .

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    vt_dolphan pointed this out but Rich Hill apparently looked at all trades involving only picks from 2012 and found the best-fitting draft chart based on them:
    https://www.patspulpit.com/2017/4/2...ating-a-brand-new-nfl-draft-value-trade-chart

    To be clear, I don't know precisely what methodology he used, but if he did a maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) where you basically have a computer try out tons of different functions and see which fits best, then it's the right approach.

    However.. it won't be that accurate for picks in the 1st round, or at least early 1st round, because sample size affects that portion of the scale far more than elsewhere (because draft value in mid/late rounds for neighboring picks are so similar you only need decent sample size across a larger range of picks there.. but early picks are so different in value you need more trades for each pick to get a good idea of its value).

    Anyway.. it'll be interesting to see how well any of these charts fit with trades this year.
     
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  5. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    So the #1 pick is relatively equal to the #14, 31 and 32 picks combined? You may be right, but I'd take the three picks any day of the week over just the #1.

    I think it really comes down to how you define value. For instance, the year we took Jake Long #1 overall, we knew that he was the most talented player in the draft and would start from day 1. That was definitely great value and he had one heck of an NFL career. HOWEVER, using your point chart, I also could have had Brandon Albert at #15, Joe Flacco at #18 and DeSean Jackson at #49.

    Each are worth right at your 3k mark and I don't think anyone would disagree that #15, 18 and 49 were the far superior value. So it really all comes down to scouting properly and getting that BPA regardless of position....and I think few teams are ever truly in the place where they can do that for 7+ rounds. And even if they were, that doesn't mean that they properly identify the talent, I think that's where the point value falls apart.

    For instance, DeSean Jackson was the 7th receiver taken in the 2008 draft- Donnie Avery, Devin Thomas, Jordy Nelson, James Hardy, Eddie Royal and Jerome Simpson went before him. Most of those names ring a bell with me...but looking back how many of them outplayed DeSean? We're comparing role players to a superstar because teams didn't recognize the true BPA.

    And if you can't identify the best possible player in each position then it's impossible to place a value on any pick. Just my humble opinion.
     
  6. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    Actually while I do like Rich Hill’s chart, as a measure of how teams actually value picks, I was looking more at how much production/risk a team faced at each pick.
    Looking at the top 5.
    Is estimate of how teams values these picks at -v- my estimate of expected value (base 1000 points)
    #1: 1000 - 1000
    #2: 717 - 783
    #3: 514 - 777
    #4: 490 - 763
    #5: 467 - 620

    Which indicates teams are undervaluing picks 3 and 4 much more than historical performance suggests they should.
     
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  7. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    I completely agree with you; I was just looking at 2008 since that's the last time we picked 1st- it went Jake Long, Chris Long, Matt Ryan and Darren McFadden as the top 4. All had great careers but looking back I think most would argue that #3 was the best of the 4- it's a tough call for that particular year.

    Yet when we compare Ryan to Flacco all these years later, it's pick #18 with the Super Bowl MVP nod. Ryan is statistically better but Flacco has won it all. Tough comparison- yet a lot of very QB needy teams passed on Flacco's value. For instance, we took Henne with pick #57 instead (the 4th QB taken that year).
     
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  8. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    The reason why the top picks are worth more is two fold. Its not just that they are more likely to be productive, but also there is less risk involved.

    The other point is that this is useful for forecasting, not back casting. With knowledge of what people did, you can pick and choose your year (Elway and #1 -v- Marino at #27 in 1983 for example). The main idea is that when you make the pick you don’t know how it will turn out.
     
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  9. Fin-O

    Fin-O Initiated Club Member

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    Great work.

    Although one of the reasons I feel like JJ’s chart is dated, is the obscene amount of guaranteed money for the top picks.

    The rookie cap has played a HUGE part in a teams success or ability to keep key players from eating up all the space at an early age.

    Baker Mayfield making 7 figures for a year or two is much more valuable than Baker Mayfield making 8 figures with 50M guaranteed.
     
  10. KeyFin

    KeyFin Well-Known Member

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    As I said earlier, I completely agree with you- especially the sentence I made bold above. It's very hard to tell what will translate from college to pro speed and who will go all-in on practice, diet, weight room, etc.

    At the same time though, the PERCEPTION of a player's talent and the HYPE around each player leading up to the draft often effects those top 4 picks. This year, it may well be 4 QB's even though a guard, a RB, a DE and a safety are ranked the highest grades overall.

    Two weeks ago, many thought Mayfield wouldn't go in the top 10....now some believe that he's the #1 overall pick for Cleveland. That means his perceived value has at least doubled in the past 10 days even though he's the exact same player.
     
  11. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    Agreed.
    The other thing is that random distribution is not even distribution.
    So some years there are more quality players available, other years the quality is less.
    Some years the quality available isn’t at a position of need for the teams picking.
    Some years the quality available is at ‘unsexy’ positions such as G, LB or S (and RB now).
     
  12. M1NDCRlME

    M1NDCRlME Fear The Spear

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    I heard a snippet of something on the radio yesterday that said Johnson didn't actually create this somebody else did. I didn't get to hear the rest of the story. Has anybody else heard this?
     
  13. Pauly

    Pauly Season Ticket Holder

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    It seems like too much math to come from purely a football perspective. JJ is credited with implementing in the draft, but I don’t know how much people would trust it but for the Herschel Walker trade, and JJ mostly hitting with the picks he got from that trade.
     

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