Rookie draft value chart (1 Viewer)

[Spin]

With my leagues rookie draft around the corner I decided to take a different approach, and was hoping to get some feedback on this. I actually started this as a school project for a stats class, comparing generations against each other and morphed it into it's current state.

I started by comparing career VBD using my league's scoring and settings. We start 1qb/2rb/3wr/1te/1superflex. So I set the baseline at qb15, rb27, wr39, te14.

Then I compiled every player's season stats from 1981 -> 2012. Calculated their fantasy scores, and then each season's VBD. Then summed it all up and got each player's career VBD that was drafted in 1982 or later.

Sorted that by draft and averaged out each draft pick value for 1982 -> 2007, I chose 2007 because it just felt like a good spot to stop, 6 years. I know that they will definitely increase their VBD going forward, well some of them, but I had to cut it off somewhere. This created my chart, setting pick 48 (round 4, 12 teams) as the baseline, I found each draft pick's relative value.

1. 1197 13. 147 25. 103 37. 69

2. 845 14. 143 26. 102 38. 63

3. 582 15. 136 27. 100 39. 56

4. 469 16. 133 28. 99 40. 51

5. 365 17. 126 29. 96 41. 45

6. 294 18. 123 30. 94 42. 37

7. 234 19. 119 31. 90 43. 30

8. 211 20. 113 32. 87 44. 22

9. 198 21. 111 33. 84 45. 17

10. 179 22. 108 34. 81 46. 12

11. 167 23. 106 35. 78 47. 6

12. 156 24. 105 36. 74 48. 1

I hope that looks right. I hate how you can't copy/paste charts into this so I did my best to do it manually.

Interesting notes:

1985 was by far the best draft for fantasy. Not only did it yield the best individual player Jerry Rice at 2118, but everyone in the first round had a positive career VBD, for a combined 5169.

1984 and 1993 were by far the worst. Neither had a player over 250, and the entire first rounds yielded 55 and 7 respectively.

1988 Had the most players over 400, with 6.

Although, that seems to make sense, as the 2000's still have players that are accumulating VBD.

I'd be interested to hear feedback, changes, flaws with my thought process, etc.

 

[meyerj31]

This is great, man. Nice job. There might be some interested in looking at the entire file if you would like to make it public.

 

[Spin]

This is great, man. Nice job. There might be some interested in looking at the entire file if you would like to make it public.

Thanks.

So going by the chart, it would take 1.2 + 1.5 to get 1.1. That probably feels about right. Especially moreso this year. Although everyone continues to talk about how bad this draft is, that it lacks the superstars, etc. But it seems pretty rare that you get 2 players from a draft that will yield 1k+ VBD. 90, 96, 98. 3 years out of the 25 years in the study.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Great work here. Really interesting stuff. Cleaned it up a bit for you...

Pick	Val1	11972	8453	5824	4695	3656	2947	2348	2119	19810	17911	16712	15613	14714	14315	13616	13317	12618	12319	11920	11321	11122	10823	10624	10525	10326	10227	10028	9929	9630	9431	9032	8733	8434	8135	7836	7437	6938	6339	5640	5141	4542	3743	3044	2245	1746	1247	648	1

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

This assumes that rookies were drafted in perfect order each year, right? The top value was assigned as the first draft pick, regardless of where he was actually drafted in rookie drafts?

 

[Spin]

This assumes that rookies were drafted in perfect order each year, right? The top value was assigned as the first draft pick, regardless of where he was actually drafted in rookie drafts?

Yah. Pretty much. I guess if someone gave me rookie adp drafts going back I could assign actual values. But I don't know how or where to get that information. And thanks, I was going to list it in one column but I like the way it looks in multiple columns.

 

[Spin]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Just putting together some potential trades in my head using this chart, it seems pretty spot on for what I would typically consider fair value in most cases. Pretty good take on the idea, definitely the best I've seen for one of these.

Would be interesting to see something similar for startup drafts as well.

 

[MAC_32]

This is great, man. Nice job. There might be some interested in looking at the entire file if you would like to make it public.

Thanks.

So going by the chart, it would take 1.2 + 1.5 to get 1.1. That probably feels about right. Especially moreso this year. Although everyone continues to talk about how bad this draft is, that it lacks the superstars, etc. But it seems pretty rare that you get 2 players from a draft that will yield 1k+ VBD. 90, 96, 98. 3 years out of the 25 years in the study.

If I had the 1.2 and 1.5 I am not trading them for 1.1 this year, but this is a very interesting tool to facilitate trade talks. I usually go into drafts knowing where I want to pick so I can get the guys that I want, but navigating my way to those spots can be tricky. As it turns out, according to this, I got great value trading down from 1.12 to get 2.12 and 3.1. I thought it was a good deal at the time, but nice to see validation too.

 

[Spin]

This is great, man. Nice job. There might be some interested in looking at the entire file if you would like to make it public.

Thanks.

So going by the chart, it would take 1.2 + 1.5 to get 1.1. That probably feels about right. Especially moreso this year. Although everyone continues to talk about how bad this draft is, that it lacks the superstars, etc. But it seems pretty rare that you get 2 players from a draft that will yield 1k+ VBD. 90, 96, 98. 3 years out of the 25 years in the study.

If I had the 1.2 and 1.5 I am not trading them for 1.1 this year, but this is a very interesting tool to facilitate trade talks. I usually go into drafts knowing where I want to pick so I can get the guys that I want, but navigating my way to those spots can be tricky. As it turns out, according to this, I got great value trading down from 1.12 to get 2.12 and 3.1. I thought it was a good deal at the time, but nice to see validation too.

I meant I would definitely trade 1.1 for 1.2 + 1.5 this year.

I created something similar to this last year for my league and brought it with me to the rookie draft and gave everyone a copy. It definitely created way more draft day trades. The guys seemed to be pretty receptive, and the the most frequent comment I got was pretty much what you said. It allowed guys to target specific spots with the picks they had. I was big on Greg Childs last year (woops) and I knew what the value of my next to picks were worth, and I remember just watching him fall hoping he'd make it a bit further so I could trade up. He did fall, I traded up to get him, and proceeded to cut him a month later after his knees blew out.

 

[Concept Coop]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

I always set a floor of 0 when using VBD. Rodgers is a good example of why. I'm usually trying to calculate value over replacement, so replacement options are assumed. When Rodgers was on the bench behind Favre, his owners weren't starting him and getting zeros. They were starting other options.

If you do want to reflect the value lost by a wasted roster spot - I think there could be a way to do that. But negative VBD seems harsh.

 

[Spin]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

I always set a floor of 0 when using VBD. Rodgers is a good example of why. I'm usually trying to calculate value over replacement, so replacement options are assumed. When Rodgers was on the bench behind Favre, his owners weren't starting him and getting zeros. They were starting other options.

If you do want to reflect the value lost by a wasted roster spot - I think there could be a way to do that. But negative VBD seems harsh.

I just ran it with a minimum of 0 and I ran into some snags that way. For example, 2006 only had 19 players with a VBD that was positive. Everyone else? 0. I guess allowing for negatives allows me to compare people that were never "startable", but still definitely hurts players that sat out a year for various reasons. A guy like Vincent Jackson has a negative career VBD. 2005, 2006, 2010 were all bad years for him, but still has the 5th best career VBD of his draft class thus far. If I switch it to 0 for minimum, he moves up to 4 from the draft class (replaces Heath Miller). But then there are only 17 players that have a value at all. And it probably should be 16, but Matt Jones comes in at 0.1 if you set 0 as the minimum.

 

[Concept Coop]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

I always set a floor of 0 when using VBD. Rodgers is a good example of why. I'm usually trying to calculate value over replacement, so replacement options are assumed. When Rodgers was on the bench behind Favre, his owners weren't starting him and getting zeros. They were starting other options.

If you do want to reflect the value lost by a wasted roster spot - I think there could be a way to do that. But negative VBD seems harsh.

I just ran it with a minimum of 0 and I ran into some snags that way. For example, 2006 only had 19 players with a VBD that was positive. Everyone else? 0. I guess allowing for negatives allows me to compare people that were never "startable", but still definitely hurts players that sat out a year for various reasons. A guy like Vincent Jackson has a negative career VBD. 2005, 2006, 2010 were all bad years for him, but still has the 5th best career VBD of his draft class thus far. If I switch it to 0 for minimum, he moves up to 4 from the draft class (replaces Heath Miller). But then there are only 17 players that have a value at all. And it probably should be 16, but Matt Jones comes in at 0.1 if you set 0 as the minimum.

I think 0 is more accurate than negative VBD, myself. But neither are perfect, especially for what you're doing. I'm really curious and interested now, so I am going to give it some thought and will get back to you. To be closer to perfect, we'd need to find a way to measure other value in addition to VBD. Once we invite negative values into the equation, we're essentially just using fantasy points. But I do get where you're coming from. If we use blanket VBD with a floor of 0, it suggests that Flacco wasn't worth the late 2nd rounder used to acquire him, and we know that's not accurate.

 

[Adam Harstad]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

Yes, you should set the minimum at 0 VBD. The idea is that it doesn't matter how bad a player is once he gets past a certain point, because he'll never see your starting lineup. Functionally, there's no difference between a guy who finishes as QB26 and a guy who finishes as QB48- both are bench/waiver fodder. The other problem is the idea that everyone went in perfectly optimum order. Obviously that idea is unrealistic- no one would have taken Peyton Manning with the #1 overall (even though in hindsight it was the right pick), and even if a league had been willing to do so, they would have taken Ryan Leaf high, too (thereby bringing down the value of the #2 or #3 pick). I know ZWK took a look at this before and came up with some sort of formula to predict fantasy draft position (something like an RB taken with the 18th pick gets drafted over a WR taken with the 10th pick, but after a WR taken with the 3rd pick). That'd be a good idea to look into, I think. I feel like this pick chart overrates the right to choose a little bit- I think in practice, once you take into account the fact that players don't get drafted in optimal order, the value of the picks tends to compress together a little bit. For instance, ZWK figured the average #1 rookie pick produced something more like 250-300 career VBD.Edit: I realize this sounds a bit negative, and I really don't mean it to be. I wouldn't be making suggestions for areas of improvement if I didn't think you were already off to such a strong start on the subject. You've got a great idea, I just think it needs a bit of refinement here and there.

 

[Adam Harstad]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

I always set a floor of 0 when using VBD. Rodgers is a good example of why. I'm usually trying to calculate value over replacement, so replacement options are assumed. When Rodgers was on the bench behind Favre, his owners weren't starting him and getting zeros. They were starting other options. If you do want to reflect the value lost by a wasted roster spot - I think there could be a way to do that. But negative VBD seems harsh.

I just ran it with a minimum of 0 and I ran into some snags that way. For example, 2006 only had 19 players with a VBD that was positive. Everyone else? 0. I guess allowing for negatives allows me to compare people that were never "startable", but still definitely hurts players that sat out a year for various reasons. A guy like Vincent Jackson has a negative career VBD. 2005, 2006, 2010 were all bad years for him, but still has the 5th best career VBD of his draft class thus far. If I switch it to 0 for minimum, he moves up to 4 from the draft class (replaces Heath Miller). But then there are only 17 players that have a value at all. And it probably should be 16, but Matt Jones comes in at 0.1 if you set 0 as the minimum.

I think 0 is more accurate than negative VBD, myself. But neither are perfect, especially for what you're doing. I'm really curious and interested now, so I am going to give it some thought and will get back to you. To be closer to perfect, we'd need to find a way to measure other value in addition to VBD. Once we invite negative values into the equation, we're essentially just using fantasy points. But I do get where you're coming from. If we use blanket VBD with a floor of 0, it suggests that Flacco wasn't worth the late 2nd rounder used to acquire him, and we know that's not accurate.

If that's your concern, then best practice would be adopting a lower VBD baseline (set it at qb24 instead of qb15, for instance) and then suddenly guys like Eli and Flacco start compiling positive VBD totals, again. Lowering the baselines is a good way to capture the value of a quality backup.

 

[Concept Coop]

If that's your concern, then best practice would be adopting a lower VBD baseline (set it at qb24 instead of qb15, for instance) and then suddenly guys like Eli and Flacco start compiling positive VBD totals, again. Lowering the baselines is a good way to capture the value of a quality backup.

True - I just don't like the idea of tinkering with a baseline to account for below baseline options. Flacco shouldn't be treated as though he provided VBD when he didn't, but he should have more value than Ryan Leaf. One of the short comings of VBD, in my opinion.

 

[Spin]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

Yes, you should set the minimum at 0 VBD. The idea is that it doesn't matter how bad a player is once he gets past a certain point, because he'll never see your starting lineup. Functionally, there's no difference between a guy who finishes as QB26 and a guy who finishes as QB48- both are bench/waiver fodder.The other problem is the idea that everyone went in perfectly optimum order. Obviously that idea is unrealistic- no one would have taken Peyton Manning with the #1 overall (even though in hindsight it was the right pick), and even if a league had been willing to do so, they would have taken Ryan Leaf high, too (thereby bringing down the value of the #2 or #3 pick). I know ZWK took a look at this before and came up with some sort of formula to predict fantasy draft position (something like an RB taken with the 18th pick gets drafted over a WR taken with the 10th pick, but after a WR taken with the 3rd pick). That'd be a good idea to look into, I think. I feel like this pick chart overrates the right to choose a little bit- I think in practice, once you take into account the fact that players don't get drafted in optimal order, the value of the picks tends to compress together a little bit. For instance, ZWK figured the average #1 rookie pick produced something more like 250-300 career VBD.Edit: I realize this sounds a bit negative, and I really don't mean it to be. I wouldn't be making suggestions for areas of improvement if I didn't think you were already off to such a strong start on the subject. You've got a great idea, I just think it needs a bit of refinement here and there.

I appreciate the feedback. Didn't think it sounded to negative at all. And actually, at the moment Moss is edging out Manning, oh so slightly, and his advantage will likely be gone after this year, but he should have been the #1 pick that year

But I agree with the thought of setting it to 0, the problem becomes then, how do I compare? When I reran it, using 0 as the floor, most drafts only had a handful of guys that had any VBD at all. So I'd be able to compare across the first 19ish picks or so.

But with allowing negative VBD, how do you account for guys that only had one relevant fantasy season? Hi Peyton Hillis! Allowing for negative VBD puts him at 24th in his rookie class. With a 0 for the floor he jumps to 7th. Would you rather have a guy like Hillis with one monster season, finishing rb2, or a guy like Mendenhall who had a rb 7, rb 13, rb19 and then two bad seasons?

 

[cstu]

A question for the VDB guys out there. I allowed negative VBD years. IE, if you were like WR 43 that season you got negative VBD. Should I set 0 as the minimum? The question for this is, a guy like Rodgers. He had 3 straight years of negative VBD. So his career total is pretty low atm, Should a few years of being unstartable, count against the rest of your career where you blow it out of the water?

Yes, you should set the minimum at 0 VBD. The idea is that it doesn't matter how bad a player is once he gets past a certain point, because he'll never see your starting lineup. Functionally, there's no difference between a guy who finishes as QB26 and a guy who finishes as QB48- both are bench/waiver fodder.The other problem is the idea that everyone went in perfectly optimum order. Obviously that idea is unrealistic- no one would have taken Peyton Manning with the #1 overall (even though in hindsight it was the right pick), and even if a league had been willing to do so, they would have taken Ryan Leaf high, too (thereby bringing down the value of the #2 or #3 pick). I know ZWK took a look at this before and came up with some sort of formula to predict fantasy draft position (something like an RB taken with the 18th pick gets drafted over a WR taken with the 10th pick, but after a WR taken with the 3rd pick). That'd be a good idea to look into, I think. I feel like this pick chart overrates the right to choose a little bit- I think in practice, once you take into account the fact that players don't get drafted in optimal order, the value of the picks tends to compress together a little bit. For instance, ZWK figured the average #1 rookie pick produced something more like 250-300 career VBD.Edit: I realize this sounds a bit negative, and I really don't mean it to be. I wouldn't be making suggestions for areas of improvement if I didn't think you were already off to such a strong start on the subject. You've got a great idea, I just think it needs a bit of refinement here and there.

I appreciate the feedback. Didn't think it sounded to negative at all. And actually, at the moment Moss is edging out Manning, oh so slightly, and his advantage will likely be gone after this year, but he should have been the #1 pick that year

But I agree with the thought of setting it to 0, the problem becomes then, how do I compare? When I reran it, using 0 as the floor, most drafts only had a handful of guys that had any VBD at all. So I'd be able to compare across the first 19ish picks or so.

But with allowing negative VBD, how do you account for guys that only had one relevant fantasy season? Hi Peyton Hillis! Allowing for negative VBD puts him at 24th in his rookie class. With a 0 for the floor he jumps to 7th. Would you rather have a guy like Hillis with one monster season, finishing rb2, or a guy like Mendenhall who had a rb 7, rb 13, rb19 and then two bad seasons?

Any way to account for players who produced early in their careers? Those guys have a lot of trade value early (like Mendenhall) and therefore are more valuable as rookie picks while a guy like Hillis would have been passed around the league many times before he produced.

 

[Andrew74]

Hope this is not too off topic, but how would you guys use this in comparing picks across years. I know lots of variables, but if you think a team is a good bet to be around 1.06, give or take, would you use that pick value or discount it?

 

[Adam Harstad]

Hope this is not too off topic, but how would you guys use this in comparing picks across years. I know lots of variables, but if you think a team is a good bet to be around 1.06, give or take, would you use that pick value or discount it?

A lot of that's going to depend on how you value future years vs. the current years. Some guys play dynasty as if every year is equally valuable. Others will use a 5-year window, or a 3-year window, or weight sooner years heavier than later years, some to the point of turning dynasty into a sort of extended redraft. I tend to fall into the former camp, so I tend to think a first next year is, all else being equal, worth roughly the same as a first this year. Not exactly the same, as there are factors that demand you value current production slightly higher than future production- the risk of your league folding, for instance (if there's a 5% chance your league goes belly up, then there's a 5% chance that next year's first rounder is literally useless). As a general rule, if I had a perfect crystal ball and could make trades with perfect foreknowledge, I'd trade a rookie first this year for another rookie first 1-3 picks higher next year- a rookie 1.10 would get traded for a rookie 1.07, the 1.07 would be traded for the 1.05, the 1.05 for the 1.03, the 1.03 for the 1.02, the 1.02 for the 1.01. Just as a rough guideline.

The other thing to consider is that all else is never equal. We often have an idea years in advance of how strong or how weak a particular draft class is going to be. We all knew over a year ago that this year's draft class was going to be weak, so for the past year when calculating trades that involved 2013 and 2014 draft picks, I actually valued the 2014 picks higher- I would prefer a 1.05 in 2014 to a 1.05 in 2013, or if my trading partner was offering me his 2013 pick, I'd ask for his 2014 pick instead. I never wound up making any straight 1-for-1 swaps, but in one league where I had accumulated four 2013 picks, I wound up selling them off in a series of moves and eventually wound up with just one 2013 pick, but four 2014 picks.

 

[Bamac]

Hope this is not too off topic, but how would you guys use this in comparing picks across years. I know lots of variables, but if you think a team is a good bet to be around 1.06, give or take, would you use that pick value or discount it?

Also, the uncertainty of the future pick is an advantage over current mid-first picks. For (an overly simple) example, assume the team with the 1.06 this year has a 50% chance of having the 1.06 again next year, a 25% chance of having the 1.02 next year, and a 25% chance of having the 1.12 next year. That's better than a guaranteed 1.06 next year because pick value is logarithmic -- the difference between the 1.02 and the 1.03 is much greater than the difference between the 1.11 and the 1.12.

 

[ShaHBucks]

This assumes that rookies were drafted in perfect order each year, right? The top value was assigned as the first draft pick, regardless of where he was actually drafted in rookie drafts?

Yah. Pretty much. I guess if someone gave me rookie adp drafts going back I could assign actual values. But I don't know how or where to get that information. And thanks, I was going to list it in one column but I like the way it looks in multiple columns.

I think if you had this ADP information you could be onto something extremely valuable that can account for human error. Myfantasyleague .com has the most past adp results that I know of. But assuming everyone makes the correct pick, this is a nice baseline that can foretell what you might be giving up or getting when trading picks.

 

[ZWK]

That's a cool project, Spin. I did an analysis similar to it last year, using a smaller data set (1996-2005), and got estimates of:

1-3: 277 VBD
4-6: 125 VBD
7-9: 146 VBD
10-12: 70 VBD
13-15: 73 VBD
16-18: 55 VBD
19-21: 51 VBD
22-24: 40 VBD

(That means 277 career VBD expected for a player drafted with one of the top 3 rookie picks in your fantasy league, etc.)

Quick outline of my methodology:

The first thing I did was to calculate career VBD for each player drafted in those years (well, I actually used a wider range for this step). I just took those numbers from PFR, who added up VBD for each season, with a minimum each year of 0.

Second, for each position I plotted the best fit curve of fantasy VBD vs. NFL draft pick. Example: on average, you'd expect a RB drafted with the 21st pick to get 176.8 career VBD, a WR taken 21st to get 120.0 VBD, and a WR taken 22nd to get 117.3 VBD. These are the numbers that I use for my generic rookie rankings.

Third, for each year, I assumed that the rookie draft went in the order of my generic rookie rankings. This year, if a WR had been taken with the 21st pick he would've gone 2nd overall, behind Austin. In 2005, Matt Jones was the 21st pick and I assumed that he went 8th (behind the 7 skill position players taken in the top 10). In 1998, Randy Moss was the 21st pick and I also assumed that he went 8th (behind 6 skill position players taken ahead of him, plus RB John Avery who went 29th).

Then, for each rookie draft spot, I just averaged the career VBD of all the players who I assumed would've been taken in that draft spot. Because of small sample sizes, I combined them into groups of three; and there's still a fair amount of noise in there (hence the jagged dropoff).

There are a couple differences in methodology here. I didn't allow negative VBDs, which seems reasonable, as others have argued, since negative VBD players are on your bench rather than costing you points in your starting lineup (although ideally we might include a small penalty for using up a roster space). I tried to approximate the actual rookie draft order (based on my generic rookie rankings) instead of assuming that they'd get drafted in the optimal order (which tends to overvalue the top picks); ideally we would use actual ADP or a particular league's draft positions. You used a bigger data set and matched the VBD to your league's scoring, which are nice steps that I did not take.

 

[womb]

Is it at all possible to run this valuable analysis for 5 or 6 round drafts?

 

[Holy Schneikes]

This assumes that rookies were drafted in perfect order each year, right? The top value was assigned as the first draft pick, regardless of where he was actually drafted in rookie drafts?

Yah. Pretty much. I guess if someone gave me rookie adp drafts going back I could assign actual values. But I don't know how or where to get that information. And thanks, I was going to list it in one column but I like the way it looks in multiple columns.

While I applaud the effort, the lack of ADP makes it really hard to apply the values to the real world. This same thing always comes up in the serpentine draft vs alternates discussion.

If you knew for sure you'd get the #1 performer at the #1 slot, this chart would be invaluable. But as it is, if you assume that the first guy drafted turns out to be the #1 guy, what, maybe 50% vs the field? - it would REALLY flatten out the relative values.

I just looked back and the #1 guy drafted in my leagues over the last decade or so RARELY turns out to be the #1 guy. Very often it's a guy drafted much later in the 1st.

Just a rough data point from one league:

2003 best guys were drafted 2 and 4

2004 also 2 and 4 (weird)

2005 2nd round pick (Rodgers) and #10

2006 14 (MJD)

2007 is the first class where it really is 1 and 2 (ADP, Calvin easy picks)

2008 all over the place - maybe 6, 8, 10, 13, 1 was McFadden, 6 was Rice

2009 8, 11

2010 2, 3, 7, couple 2nd rounders and a 3rd rounder. Gonkowski, the 3rd rounder might be the best

See what I mean? Trading "full value" for that #1 pick (based on the assumption you will be getting the best guy) has incredibly good odds of being a horrible trade.

 

[Sigmund Bloom]

This is great work and a perfect exercise to create a default "rookie pick value chart".... that being said, this year's 1-2-3 picks aren't nearly the quality of a typical year's rookie FF draft, so it might be misleading for 2013 rookie drafts. It has got me thinking about creating a customer 4 round rookie draft pick value chart...

for instance this year, it would take very little for me to trade from 1.1 to 1.2 or 1.3, but a lot more to go to 1.4...

I dealt 1.6/1.8 (505) for 1.1/2.9 (1308) and it seemed like a decent amount of people in the thread where I discussed the trade would have preferred 1.6/1.8...

 

[jmo87usc]

This is great work and a perfect exercise to create a default "rookie pick value chart".... that being said, this year's 1-2-3 picks aren't nearly the quality of a typical year's rookie FF draft, so it might be misleading for 2013 rookie drafts. It has got me thinking about creating a customer 4 round rookie draft pick value chart... for instance this year, it would take very little for me to trade from 1.1 to 1.2 or 1.3, but a lot more to go to 1.4... I dealt 1.6/1.8 (505) for 1.1/2.9 (1308) and it seemed like a decent amount of people in the thread where I discussed the trade would have preferred 1.6/1.8...

I agree with this. The value chart is great as a jumping off point. Definitely need to consider the strength of the draft to tweak it each year. The top 6 picks this year are much closer than they are showing on the chart. You also need to consider the person you are trading with and his draft needs. For instance, I just traded 1.1 and a 2014 1st(assumed late), for 1.2 and 1.8. I basically got nothing out of it, but I did not want to take Austin at 1 and the other owner did. I had been trying to get the 1.8 for a future first anyway so this just made sense. Had this been last year, I probably could have done 1.1 alone for 1.2, 1.8 and something.Beside all of that, I like the value chart and think it's a nice guide to use when trading picks.ETA: I forgot to finish my thought above. The owner I traded with has no real need, just preferred Austin. I needed RB more than WR so the eagerness to make the deal was more on my end once he guaranteed he'd be taking austin. However, if he had a wr need, I'm sure the 1.1 would have been alot more valuable to him.

 

[Sigmund Bloom]

This thread has inspired me to create a "2013 only" rookie pick value chart. It should be published later today. In the meantime, you can hit me with questions here.

 

[Phenix]

Makes me not Feeling bad moving from 1.09 to 1.12 with Keller as the difference. I was thinking I might not have wont he deal, but on your scale, it looks different. Makes me feel better at least.

 

[Jeff Pasquino]

Good topic. I wrote about this several years ago in making a Dynasty Draft Pick Calculator (which was customizable to each league, and offered something called a "Dynasty Factor" which told you how Dynasty-ish your league was). Similar concept. Link is in my signature.

Nice job.

 

[MoveToSkypager]

I liked your work. I think you could have punched in that data to a spreadsheet to check a fit for a predictive formula. Mine shows for a logarithmic is a pretty respectable fit. Then go back and calculate your new set of variables (Avg Value/Pick) for smoother transition and less noise. But the Avg Value/Pick value made me cringe a bit since that's so derived. Can you open up your calcs for that?

 

[Spin]

A lot of very good discussion and questions. I've been incredibly swamped at work so havn't had enough time to really respond and pour adequate time into it. Will definitely address some of the comments/questions/points raised soon.

ZWK, that looks awesome. Dunno how I missed that thread, will definitely look over it again when I have more time to really look into it.

 

[Mr. Irrelevant]

If that's your concern, then best practice would be adopting a lower VBD baseline (set it at qb24 instead of qb15, for instance) and then suddenly guys like Eli and Flacco start compiling positive VBD totals, again. Lowering the baselines is a good way to capture the value of a quality backup.

True - I just don't like the idea of tinkering with a baseline to account for below baseline options. Flacco shouldn't be treated as though he provided VBD when he didn't, but he should have more value than Ryan Leaf. One of the short comings of VBD, in my opinion.

I don't think it's unreasonable to set a lower baseline for VBD calculation purposes than the number of positional starters for several reasons:

(1) The fact that the player is taking up a roster spot, as others have mentioned (though this is a minor consideration IMO).

(2) You're going to play a below-replacement backup at some point every year - your QB2 once, on your QB1's bye; your RB3 twice, on each of your starting RB's byes; etc. And that's before taking your starters' injuries into account, which I suspect is significant, but which I'd have no idea how to account for in numerical terms.

(3) Trade value of your below-replacement players - because positive-VBD players aren't evenly distributed across every team at every position, a guy who provides fewer PPG than your starters may provide more PPG than other teams' starters and thus provide "VBD" in the eyes of those owners. I'd imagine this to be significant in dynasty leagues, less so (if at all) in redrafts.

Add all these factors up and it wouldn't totally surprise me if the optimal baseline for VBD calculation purposes were in fact closer to the total number of rostered players at each position than to the total number of starters. But I've never had the time to run historical data against a series of different baselines to see whether anything stands out.

 

[Concept Coop]

I don't think it's unreasonable to set a lower baseline for VBD calculation purposes than the number of positional starters for several reasons:

(1) The fact that the player is taking up a roster spot, as others have mentioned (though this is a minor consideration IMO).

(2) You're going to play a below-replacement backup at some point every year - your QB2 once, on your QB1's bye; your RB3 twice, on each of your starting RB's byes; etc. And that's before taking your starters' injuries into account, which I suspect is significant, but which I'd have no idea how to account for in numerical terms.

(3) Trade value of your below-replacement players - because positive-VBD players aren't evenly distributed across every team at every position, a guy who provides fewer PPG than your starters may provide more PPG than other teams' starters and thus provide "VBD" in the eyes of those owners. I'd imagine this to be significant in dynasty leagues, less so (if at all) in redrafts.

Add all these factors up and it wouldn't totally surprise me if the optimal baseline for VBD calculation purposes were in fact closer to the total number of rostered players at each position than to the total number of starters. But I've never had the time to run historical data against a series of different baselines to see whether anything stands out.

This all depends on what we each want out of the calculation, individually. And I - aside from basic purposes – don’t use lowest projected starter as my baselines, for the reasons you bring up. VBD has some holes and even more so when we apply it to dynasty formats. I don’t think drastically lowering the baselines is a remedy for that, however.

 

[MoveToSkypager]

A lot of very good discussion and questions. I've been incredibly swamped at work so havn't had enough time to really respond and pour adequate time into it. Will definitely address some of the comments/questions/points raised soon. ZWK, that looks awesome. Dunno how I missed that thread, will definitely look over it again when I have more time to really look into it.

I plotted your numbers to fit log and power functions. The power function actually looks better to the eye, but the best fit value is lower. The ends of the data is where the power function matches your data better than the log function. I averaged the two sets and got some reasonable values. Of course this was all pretty low effort. There would be much better ways to beat the data into a story than what I did. I'd post the numbers, but I don't know how to format it without it looking terrible. I wasn't looking at this data with any context. It was just playing with numbers. I think sometimes it has advantages, because people will inject their own personal judgments with evaluating the stuff in context (as you can see by this thread).FYI, I usedy1 = -219.0182736039*LN(x)+805.7116645526 for my log andy2 = =(x^-1.0856894094)*2278.4561749813 for my powerYou might be able to find better fits.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick     Value  1       1,000  2        747  3        531  4        431  5        334  6        252  7        221  8        206  9        195 10        181 11        171 12        159 13        149 14        141 15        131 16        123 17        113 18        104 19         95 20         85 21         80 22         72 23         67 24         59

 

[Sigmund Bloom]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick Value 1 1,000 2 747 3 531 4 431 5 334 6 252 7 221 8 206 9 195 10 181 11 171 12 159 13 149 14 141 15 131 16 123 17 113 18 104 19 95 20 85 21 80 22 72 23 67 24 59

great starting point, but would you trade 3 and 4 for 1 this year? Heck even 3 and 8? or 3 and 12?

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick Value 1 1,000 2 747 3 531 4 431 5 334 6 252 7 221 8 206 9 195 10 181 11 171 12 159 13 149 14 141 15 131 16 123 17 113 18 104 19 95 20 85 21 80 22 72 23 67 24 59

great starting point, but would you trade 3 and 4 for 1 this year? Heck even 3 and 8? or 3 and 12?

I'd always rather have two or three bullets than one and usually trade back if I happen to have an early pick, but obviously this draft year was just really down so the usual rules apply even less than normal.

It'd be interesting to take PFR's AV data by draft pick and use it to adjust my baseline above. For example look at the average draft position (NFL) of each skill-position rookie and then index them based on where they were actually drafted in a given year.

Actually, stay tuned. Had an idea.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

Ok... hopefully I'll be able to explain this... there's a smallish cheat involved, but I'm not going to explain it here since it'll just add to any confusion...

Player ADP WCAV 2013 EWCAV Index1 1 60 8 46 76.7%2 3 53 16 36 67.9%3 7 47 21 34 72.3%4 9 44 27 32 72.7%5 12 39 29 31 79.5%6 16 36 34 28 77.8%7 20 34 37 28 82.4%8 23 34 39 27 79.4%9 26 33 41 27 81.8%10 29 31 47 26 83.9%11 32 29 48 25 86.2%12 35 28 55 23 82.1%13 37 28 58 22 78.6%14 40 27 61 22 81.5%15 45 26 62 22 84.6%16 47 26 63 22 84.6%17 51 25 73 20 80.0%18 54 23 74 19 82.6%19 57 23 76 18 78.3%20 60 22 78 18 81.8%21 64 22 79 17 77.3%22 67 21 85 15 71.4%23 70 21 92 13 61.9%24 71 20 96 11 55.0% 752 597 79.4%
Player = the Nth skill position player in the NFL draft

ADP = the average NFL draft position for the Nth skill position player

WCAV = the Weighted Career Average Value for that draft position, per PFR

2013 = the actual draft position for the Nth skill position player in 2013

EWCAV = WCAV for that actual draft position

Index = WCAV for actual draft position/WCAV for average draft position

Really shows the diminished value of this year's draft. As a group they can expect to have 80% of the career value.

 

[Chad Parsons]

One of the flaws I see with this type of rookie value scale is that it is completely independent of veteran player value.

It would help in valuations involving soley current year pick combinations.

On the otherhand, what about RB2 level vet vs. this chart? What about current year vs. future years?

I have been working on more of a universal system that accounts for veterans in the mix as well as future seasons of picks. Tough to fit it to all parameters, but a start in my opinion.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

And using the pick-by-pick index %s to adjust my earlier draft pick values for 2013, you get this:

Pick	 AVG Value 	Index	 13Val 1	 1,000.00 	76.7%	 767 2	 746.91 	67.9%	 507 3	 530.99 	72.3%	 384 4	 430.75 	72.7%	 313 5	 334.28 	79.5%	 266 6	 251.59 	77.8%	 196 7	 220.98 	82.4%	 182 8	 205.81 	79.4%	 163 9	 194.83 	81.8%	 159 10	 181.34 	83.9%	 152 11	 170.77 	86.2%	 147 12	 159.44 	82.1%	 131 13	 148.95 	78.6%	 117 14	 140.54 	81.5%	 115 15	 130.88 	84.6%	 111 16	 122.90 	84.6%	 104 17	 113.24 	80.0%	 91 18	 104.41 	82.6%	 86 19	 95.16 		78.3%	 74 20	 85.08 		81.8%	 70 21	 80.46 		77.3%	 62 22	 71.63 		71.4%	 51 23	 67.00 		61.9%	 41 24	 59.01 		55.0%	 32

 

[Adam Harstad]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick     Value  1       1,000  2        747  3        531  4        431  5        334  6        252  7        221  8        206  9        195 10        181 11        171 12        159 13        149 14        141 15        131 16        123 17        113 18        104 19         95 20         85 21         80 22         72 23         67 24         59

I like the dropoff by the end of the 1st, but intuitively, it feels way too steep at the top. There are very few drafts where I think the 1.01 is twice as valuable as the 1.03. I feel like there is generally a top tier that is 2-3 players deep (or, rarely, even 4), and the value of the right to choose within that tier is relatively low. Think Green/Julio/Ingram, or Richardson/Martin/Luck/Griffin. Or Mathews/Dez/Spiller/Best, or Moreno/Wells, or McFadden/Stewart/Mendenhall, or Peterson/Calvin. It seems looking back that the top tier players have historically had surprisingly comparable value, and the busts seem to be pretty evenly distributed through the order. As that list demonstrates, though, the value of a top draft pick is historically very high. That stud-to-bust ratio is absurdly good.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick     Value  1       1,000  2        747  3        531  4        431  5        334  6        252  7        221  8        206  9        195 10        181 11        171 12        159 13        149 14        141 15        131 16        123 17        113 18        104 19         95 20         85 21         80 22         72 23         67 24         59

I like the dropoff by the end of the 1st, but intuitively, it feels way too steep at the top. There are very few drafts where I think the 1.01 is twice as valuable as the 1.03. I feel like there is generally a top tier that is 2-3 players deep (or, rarely, even 4), and the value of the right to choose within that tier is relatively low. Think Green/Julio/Ingram, or Richardson/Martin/Luck/Griffin. Or Mathews/Dez/Spiller/Best, or Moreno/Wells, or McFadden/Stewart/Mendenhall, or Peterson/Calvin. It seems looking back that the top tier players have historically had surprisingly comparable value, and the busts seem to be pretty evenly distributed through the order.As that list demonstrates, though, the value of a top draft pick is historically very high. That stud-to-bust ratio is absurdly good.

Well, it's obviously playing the averages and there are definitely a couple judgment calls in putting it together.But keep in mind that there is only one #3 pick. So trading the #1 for two #3s isn't possible. And per the chart you'd be gaining 26% if you got the 2+3 in exchange for the #1, and giving up 4% if you got the 3+4.That actually feels about right to me in lots of years. That top pick doesn't miss all that often (and having your choice of the elite players has value as well IMO).

 

[Adam Harstad]

Well, it's obviously playing the averages and there are definitely a couple judgment calls in putting it together.But keep in mind that there is only one #3 pick. So trading the #1 for two #3s isn't possible. And per the chart you'd be gaining 26% if you got the 2+3 in exchange for the #1, and giving up 4% if you got the 3+4.That actually feels about right to me in lots of years. That top pick doesn't miss all that often (and having your choice of the elite players has value as well IMO).

I tend to think of the value of the right to choose as largely illusory (again, as evidenced by the distribution of busts throughout the first tier). The right to choose in 2011 would have gotten you Ingram over Green or Julio. In 2010, it would have gotten you Mathews over Dez, or Best over Spiller (I believe Best was the consensus #3 over Spiller that year, but I may be misremembering). In other years, (Peterson/Johnson, Moreno/Wells), the two assets were so comparable that the choice was meaningless. I do think choice has to hold some value, but I think anything more than marginal value overstates the case. In a year where the first tier goes three deep, I would gladly trade the 1.01 for the 1.03 and another mid-1st, and then just snap up whatever was left for me. I think the fantasy community has proven ridiculously adept at identifying the top tier, and relatively inept at sorting it.

 

[Spin]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick     Value  1       1,000  2        747  3        531  4        431  5        334  6        252  7        221  8        206  9        195 10        181 11        171 12        159 13        149 14        141 15        131 16        123 17        113 18        104 19         95 20         85 21         80 22         72 23         67 24         59

I like the dropoff by the end of the 1st, but intuitively, it feels way too steep at the top. There are very few drafts where I think the 1.01 is twice as valuable as the 1.03. I feel like there is generally a top tier that is 2-3 players deep (or, rarely, even 4), and the value of the right to choose within that tier is relatively low. Think Green/Julio/Ingram, or Richardson/Martin/Luck/Griffin. Or Mathews/Dez/Spiller/Best, or Moreno/Wells, or McFadden/Stewart/Mendenhall, or Peterson/Calvin. It seems looking back that the top tier players have historically had surprisingly comparable value, and the busts seem to be pretty evenly distributed through the order.As that list demonstrates, though, the value of a top draft pick is historically very high. That stud-to-bust ratio is absurdly good.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to check and list the top 4 players from each rookie draft for the years in my study (These values are without allowing negative VBD, ie, I set the floor at 0): 1982 - Marcus Allen - 983, Mike Quick - 540. Mark Duper - 438, Steve Jordan - 4281983 - Dan Marino - 1053, John Elway - 896, Eric Dickerson - 800, Roger Craig - 753 1984 - Warren Moon - 733, Boomer Esiason - 469, Louis Lipps - 315, Greg Bell - 3071985 - Jerry Rice - 2322, Steve Young - 879, Randall Cunningham - 814, Andre Reed - 7341986 - Herschel Walker - 808, Ernest Givins - 711, Neal Anderson - 567, John L. Williams - 4151987 - Cris Carter - 1126, Rich Gannon - 404, Haywood Jeffires - 348, Mark Carrier - 2491988 - Thurman Thomas - 1064, Tim Brown - 1000, Sterling Sharpe - 770, Michael Irvin - 7401989 - Barry Sanders - 1373, Andre Rison - 647, Wesley Walls - 446, Eric Metcalf - 3601990 - Emitt Smith - 1557, Shannon Sharpe - 1062, Terry Allen - 507, Chris Warren - 4121991 - Brett Favre - 1112, Ricky Watters - 1080, Herman Moore - 691, Ben coates - 6221992 - Jimmy Smith - 773, Carl Pickens - 430 Edgar Bennet - 308, Robert Brooks - 2381993 - Jerome Bettis - 406, Frank Wycheck - 396, Drew Bledsoe - 375, Garrison Hearst - 3301994 - Marshall Faulk - 1641, Isaac Bruce - 883, Rod Smith - 755, Charlier Garner - 4901995 - Curtis Martin - 1080, Terrell Davis - 655, Joey Galloway - 464, McNair - 3481996 - Marvin Harrison - 1302, Terrell Owens - 1234, Eddie George - 630, Joe Horn - 5311997 - Tony Gonzalez - 1584, Tiki Barber - 934, Priest Holmes - 872, Derrick Mason - 5921998 - Randy Moss - 1373, Peyton Manning - 1110, Ahman Green - 745, Hines Ward - 6851999 - Edgerrin James - 967, Torry Holt - 939, Culpepper - 548, Donald Driver - 4692000 - Shaun Alexander - 856, Tom Brady - 834, Jamal Lewis - 421, Thomas Jones - 3792001 - LaDainian Tomlinson - 1737, Reggie Wayne - 855, Drew Brees - 766, Chad Johnson2002 - Clinton Portis - 734, Brian Westbrook - 705, Jeremy Shockey - 361, Randy McMichael - 2232003 - Antonio Gates - 806, Jason Witten - 799, Andre Johnson - 707, Anquan Boldin - 5352004 - Larry Fitzgerald - 760, Steven Jackson - 714, Wes Welker - 663, Chris Cooley - 3352005 - Roddy White - 643, Aaron Rodgers - 595, Frank Gore - 589, Vincent Jackson - 3032006 - MJD - 641, Brandon Marshall - 613, Marques Colston - 448, Greg Jennings - 3702007 - Adrian Peterson - 754, Calvin Johnson - 627, Marshawn Lynch - 323, Dwayne Bowe - 280 I bold the years where the best player didn't score at least 2x the 3rd player's points. 11 times out of the 26 years. Not sure what exactly that tells us. Sometimes it's just the case of one super elite stud being that good, like 1985, 2001, etc. where the third ranked player still scored 700+ VBD, but the #1 was just insane. But then sometimes you have years like 1993, where first and third are separated by 24 points. So, if you had to pick a year that you felt like best resembled the current draft class (2013) which year would you say? -Side Note: Sorry I havn't had a chance to update and really think about this, had a ton of IRL stuff going on.

 

[Adam Harstad]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick     Value  1       1,000  2        747  3        531  4        431  5        334  6        252  7        221  8        206  9        195 10        181 11        171 12        159 13        149 14        141 15        131 16        123 17        113 18        104 19         95 20         85 21         80 22         72 23         67 24         59

I like the dropoff by the end of the 1st, but intuitively, it feels way too steep at the top. There are very few drafts where I think the 1.01 is twice as valuable as the 1.03. I feel like there is generally a top tier that is 2-3 players deep (or, rarely, even 4), and the value of the right to choose within that tier is relatively low. Think Green/Julio/Ingram, or Richardson/Martin/Luck/Griffin. Or Mathews/Dez/Spiller/Best, or Moreno/Wells, or McFadden/Stewart/Mendenhall, or Peterson/Calvin. It seems looking back that the top tier players have historically had surprisingly comparable value, and the busts seem to be pretty evenly distributed through the order.As that list demonstrates, though, the value of a top draft pick is historically very high. That stud-to-bust ratio is absurdly good.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to check and list the top 4 players from each rookie draft for the years in my study (These values are without allowing negative VBD, ie, I set the floor at 0): 1982 - Marcus Allen - 983, Mike Quick - 540. Mark Duper - 438, Steve Jordan - 4281983 - Dan Marino - 1053, John Elway - 896, Eric Dickerson - 800, Roger Craig - 753 1984 - Warren Moon - 733, Boomer Esiason - 469, Louis Lipps - 315, Greg Bell - 3071985 - Jerry Rice - 2322, Steve Young - 879, Randall Cunningham - 814, Andre Reed - 7341986 - Herschel Walker - 808, Ernest Givins - 711, Neal Anderson - 567, John L. Williams - 4151987 - Cris Carter - 1126, Rich Gannon - 404, Haywood Jeffires - 348, Mark Carrier - 2491988 - Thurman Thomas - 1064, Tim Brown - 1000, Sterling Sharpe - 770, Michael Irvin - 7401989 - Barry Sanders - 1373, Andre Rison - 647, Wesley Walls - 446, Eric Metcalf - 3601990 - Emitt Smith - 1557, Shannon Sharpe - 1062, Terry Allen - 507, Chris Warren - 4121991 - Brett Favre - 1112, Ricky Watters - 1080, Herman Moore - 691, Ben coates - 6221992 - Jimmy Smith - 773, Carl Pickens - 430 Edgar Bennet - 308, Robert Brooks - 2381993 - Jerome Bettis - 406, Frank Wycheck - 396, Drew Bledsoe - 375, Garrison Hearst - 3301994 - Marshall Faulk - 1641, Isaac Bruce - 883, Rod Smith - 755, Charlier Garner - 4901995 - Curtis Martin - 1080, Terrell Davis - 655, Joey Galloway - 464, McNair - 3481996 - Marvin Harrison - 1302, Terrell Owens - 1234, Eddie George - 630, Joe Horn - 5311997 - Tony Gonzalez - 1584, Tiki Barber - 934, Priest Holmes - 872, Derrick Mason - 5921998 - Randy Moss - 1373, Peyton Manning - 1110, Ahman Green - 745, Hines Ward - 6851999 - Edgerrin James - 967, Torry Holt - 939, Culpepper - 548, Donald Driver - 4692000 - Shaun Alexander - 856, Tom Brady - 834, Jamal Lewis - 421, Thomas Jones - 3792001 - LaDainian Tomlinson - 1737, Reggie Wayne - 855, Drew Brees - 766, Chad Johnson2002 - Clinton Portis - 734, Brian Westbrook - 705, Jeremy Shockey - 361, Randy McMichael - 2232003 - Antonio Gates - 806, Jason Witten - 799, Andre Johnson - 707, Anquan Boldin - 5352004 - Larry Fitzgerald - 760, Steven Jackson - 714, Wes Welker - 663, Chris Cooley - 3352005 - Roddy White - 643, Aaron Rodgers - 595, Frank Gore - 589, Vincent Jackson - 3032006 - MJD - 641, Brandon Marshall - 613, Marques Colston - 448, Greg Jennings - 3702007 - Adrian Peterson - 754, Calvin Johnson - 627, Marshawn Lynch - 323, Dwayne Bowe - 280 I bold the years where the best player didn't score at least 2x the 3rd player's points. 11 times out of the 26 years. Not sure what exactly that tells us. Sometimes it's just the case of one super elite stud being that good, like 1985, 2001, etc. where the third ranked player still scored 700+ VBD, but the #1 was just insane. But then sometimes you have years like 1993, where first and third are separated by 24 points. So, if you had to pick a year that you felt like best resembled the current draft class (2013) which year would you say? -Side Note: Sorry I havn't had a chance to update and really think about this, had a ton of IRL stuff going on.

Thanks for pulling the numbers, Spin. To be honest, I am a little surprised that we don't have more years where the ex post (or after the fact) #1 ran away from the ex post #3 (although seeing how many bolded years are recent, I think in a lot of those seasons we'll see someone hang around longer than his peers and finally run up double the value). I don't have a problem with saying the first best player in this class will probably trounce the third best player in this class. The problem is that we don't know who the first best or third best players are this year. The #1 pick might yield the first best player, but the odds of doing so are not radically higher than they are with the #3 pick. The odds of the #1 pick busting in a year with a three-man "top tier" are not radically lower than they are with the #3 pick. Ex ante (or before the fact), I think it's hard to say that the #1 will prove twice as valuable as the #3, except in years where there are only two players perceived to be "top tier".

 

[Adam Harstad]

I took ZWK's data on the likelihood you hit on a 250+ VBD player with each of the first 24 picks to create a separate draft chart. That data has the advantage of being based on actual FF drafts. Then I combined it with Spin's data here, which assumes perfect prior knowledge on the correct draft order. The thought is that while you may hit on strong VBD+ picks later in the draft the earlier picks are still more likely to be the most valuable over time. Anyhow, the two methods weren't crazily dissimilar and combining them I got this, which seemed pretty good when I messed around with it (top pick set at value of 1000, everything else indexed off of that):

Pick     Value  1       1,000  2        747  3        531  4        431  5        334  6        252  7        221  8        206  9        195 10        181 11        171 12        159 13        149 14        141 15        131 16        123 17        113 18        104 19         95 20         85 21         80 22         72 23         67 24         59

I like the dropoff by the end of the 1st, but intuitively, it feels way too steep at the top. There are very few drafts where I think the 1.01 is twice as valuable as the 1.03. I feel like there is generally a top tier that is 2-3 players deep (or, rarely, even 4), and the value of the right to choose within that tier is relatively low. Think Green/Julio/Ingram, or Richardson/Martin/Luck/Griffin. Or Mathews/Dez/Spiller/Best, or Moreno/Wells, or McFadden/Stewart/Mendenhall, or Peterson/Calvin. It seems looking back that the top tier players have historically had surprisingly comparable value, and the busts seem to be pretty evenly distributed through the order.As that list demonstrates, though, the value of a top draft pick is historically very high. That stud-to-bust ratio is absurdly good.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to check and list the top 4 players from each rookie draft for the years in my study (These values are without allowing negative VBD, ie, I set the floor at 0): 1982 - Marcus Allen - 983, Mike Quick - 540. Mark Duper - 438, Steve Jordan - 4281983 - Dan Marino - 1053, John Elway - 896, Eric Dickerson - 800, Roger Craig - 753 1984 - Warren Moon - 733, Boomer Esiason - 469, Louis Lipps - 315, Greg Bell - 3071985 - Jerry Rice - 2322, Steve Young - 879, Randall Cunningham - 814, Andre Reed - 7341986 - Herschel Walker - 808, Ernest Givins - 711, Neal Anderson - 567, John L. Williams - 4151987 - Cris Carter - 1126, Rich Gannon - 404, Haywood Jeffires - 348, Mark Carrier - 2491988 - Thurman Thomas - 1064, Tim Brown - 1000, Sterling Sharpe - 770, Michael Irvin - 7401989 - Barry Sanders - 1373, Andre Rison - 647, Wesley Walls - 446, Eric Metcalf - 3601990 - Emitt Smith - 1557, Shannon Sharpe - 1062, Terry Allen - 507, Chris Warren - 4121991 - Brett Favre - 1112, Ricky Watters - 1080, Herman Moore - 691, Ben coates - 6221992 - Jimmy Smith - 773, Carl Pickens - 430 Edgar Bennet - 308, Robert Brooks - 2381993 - Jerome Bettis - 406, Frank Wycheck - 396, Drew Bledsoe - 375, Garrison Hearst - 3301994 - Marshall Faulk - 1641, Isaac Bruce - 883, Rod Smith - 755, Charlier Garner - 4901995 - Curtis Martin - 1080, Terrell Davis - 655, Joey Galloway - 464, McNair - 3481996 - Marvin Harrison - 1302, Terrell Owens - 1234, Eddie George - 630, Joe Horn - 5311997 - Tony Gonzalez - 1584, Tiki Barber - 934, Priest Holmes - 872, Derrick Mason - 5921998 - Randy Moss - 1373, Peyton Manning - 1110, Ahman Green - 745, Hines Ward - 6851999 - Edgerrin James - 967, Torry Holt - 939, Culpepper - 548, Donald Driver - 4692000 - Shaun Alexander - 856, Tom Brady - 834, Jamal Lewis - 421, Thomas Jones - 3792001 - LaDainian Tomlinson - 1737, Reggie Wayne - 855, Drew Brees - 766, Chad Johnson2002 - Clinton Portis - 734, Brian Westbrook - 705, Jeremy Shockey - 361, Randy McMichael - 2232003 - Antonio Gates - 806, Jason Witten - 799, Andre Johnson - 707, Anquan Boldin - 5352004 - Larry Fitzgerald - 760, Steven Jackson - 714, Wes Welker - 663, Chris Cooley - 3352005 - Roddy White - 643, Aaron Rodgers - 595, Frank Gore - 589, Vincent Jackson - 3032006 - MJD - 641, Brandon Marshall - 613, Marques Colston - 448, Greg Jennings - 3702007 - Adrian Peterson - 754, Calvin Johnson - 627, Marshawn Lynch - 323, Dwayne Bowe - 280 I bold the years where the best player didn't score at least 2x the 3rd player's points. 11 times out of the 26 years. Not sure what exactly that tells us. Sometimes it's just the case of one super elite stud being that good, like 1985, 2001, etc. where the third ranked player still scored 700+ VBD, but the #1 was just insane. But then sometimes you have years like 1993, where first and third are separated by 24 points. So, if you had to pick a year that you felt like best resembled the current draft class (2013) which year would you say? -Side Note: Sorry I havn't had a chance to update and really think about this, had a ton of IRL stuff going on.

Thanks for pulling the numbers, Spin. To be honest, I am a little surprised that we don't have more years where the ex post (or after the fact) #1 ran away from the ex post #3 (although seeing how many bolded years are recent, I think in a lot of those seasons we'll see someone hang around longer than his peers and finally run up double the value). I don't have a problem with saying the first best player in this class will probably trounce the third best player in this class. The problem is that we don't know who the first best or third best players are this year. The #1 pick might yield the first best player, but the odds of doing so are not radically higher than they are with the #3 pick. The odds of the #1 pick busting in a year with a three-man "top tier" are not radically lower than they are with the #3 pick. Ex ante (or before the fact), I think it's hard to say that the #1 will prove twice as valuable as the #3, except in years where there are only two players perceived to be "top tier".