Draft Pick Value & Analysis – Part 1 – Take a chance; roll the dice May 9, 2021 Part 1 – Take a chance; roll the dice The following is Part 1 of a 5-part series written by Nagasaki. Draft picks can be viewed like scratch lotto tickets. There are some who play life safe, and view a lotto ticket as wasted money; likely one who will trade picks away for proven players. However, many will say you can’t win if you don’t play, and therefore, find the joy in chasing down extra picks at the expense of giving away top stars. Odds are not the greatest in landing the top players in the draft, and at a cost of the rookie wage scale, at what risk might you find the hunt to be? The investment in a rookie selection merits the idea that sooner than later, you should expect the player in your starting lineup. For the MFFL, you would be looking for a top 12 RB and two top 24 WRs…. or an RB1, WR1 and WR2, prior to locating flex players. How easy is it to land one in the rookie draft? Not only does one look for end-of-year finish but in theory every team should have an RB in the top 12 each week, and two WRs in the top 24 each week as well. ADP can be traced back to around 2009, which formulates the average draft position for all rookies, by combining rankings from over 100 experts. That’s 12 years in which we can track how players performed, based on their expectations. There have been 288 players drafted in the first 2 rounds over the past 12 years. 36 players ranked as Top-3 picks, of which 24 have been Running Backs and 11, Wide Receivers. These are highly coveted picks with the highest of potential, but at what cost? A losing season? Trading away talent? Packaging multiple picks to get into one of these spots? In a dynasty league, the earlier you draft each round, the better chance of landing a lead man that will help your team succeed, but in a salary cap dynasty league, the earlier the draft pick, the larger the price tag through the years. Historical Data When researching all the RBs and WRs drafted in the past 12 years, using ADP and the top 24 rankings each of the 12 years, there have been 118 RBs and 108 WRs drafted in the first 2 rounds of the rookie drafts; a total of 251 RB/WR out of 288 picks. Those 251 players have played a combined 12,754 games in the NFL, over the course of 204 weeks, in quest for a top 12 finish at their respective position. Twenty-FOUR top-3 picks have been Running Backs who have played in a combined 1259 games. These are the premium picks; the ones most covet where as sometimes an owner will trade a small fortune to get. Or, will “tank” in efforts to land one of the top-3 picks. Of the 1259 games played, how often did your top-3 pick RB1 have an RB1 game? (finish as a top 12 RB for the week) ANSWER: RB1 – 29.2% 29.2% of the games… over 70% of the time, (of 1259 games) those RBs drafted top-3 pick, finished outside top 12 RBs in scoring, week after week, when a veteran, won in auction, will more consistently finish top 12 for any given week. But all is not lost; how about a flex spot? An RB2 or top 24 finish in a given week would justify some success. Over the same sample, these top-3 picks in 1259 games, finished RB2 in 52.8% of the games. So, roughly every other week, you got a flex worthy player from your top-3 selection. RB3 would be a little of a stretch to be considered start-worthy. (top36 RB for the week) But, for statistical evidence, it shall be known that, 70.5% of the weeks, the top-3 picks had a top36 RB performance in the 1259 games. The remainder, 29.3% of the time, a top-3 pick becomes a bust in the league. Almost 1 of every 3 to 4, each and every year, results in a failure of a pick; for which you can assess at what cost, financially, season lost, or traded assets. Running Backs Picks 1-3 RB1 – 29.2% of the time RB2 – 52.8% of the time RB3 – 70.5% of the time Career bust rate: 29.3% Picks 4-6, and 7-12, while not as expensive in cost, or to acquire, but are still costly, highly desired, and at the end of the day, still first round picks. In general, many will chase to acquire extra first rounders at all cost. So the same can be asked, how have these players performed? Picks 4-6 There have been 20 RBs who have totaled 1323 games played. Their performance as an RB1, RB2, and RB3 in a week to week tally ? RB1 – 26.9% of the time RB2 – 47.7% of the time RB3 – 63.4% of the time Bust rate of RBs drafted in picks 4-6 over the past 12 years – 34.9% Again, less than a third of the time as a top 12 RB, and less than half as an RB2, typically one can assume your top half of round 1, player, should even be in the lineup. Remember, the idea is that in an equal league, every team would have a top 12 RB, and on average they would score top 12 value week in and out. Picks 7-12 23 RBs drafted in the back half of round 1, have combined for 1075 games played. RB1 – 16.6% of the time RB2 – 35.3% of the time RB3 – 53.1% of the time Career bust rate – 45.5% Picks 13-18 36 RBs drafted in the first half of round 2, have combined for 1390 games played. RB1 – 13.6% of the time RB2 – 31.8% of the time RB3 – 50.6% of the time Career bust rate – 47.5% Picks 19-24 25 RBs drafted in the back half of round 2, have combined for 915 games played. RB1 – 9.5% of the time RB2 – 23.1% of the time RB3 – 40.1% of the time Career bust rate – 59.1% As you can see, as risky as it is to try and land a consistent contributor in the draft, the odds aren’t great, and gradually become even worse with each pick further down the draft through the end of round 2. How about receivers? One would assume it might be a safer avenue as there seems to be a larger pool of WR in the draft to target compared to the top notch RBs each year. Wide Receivers Only 11 of the top-3 picks have been Wide Receivers, who have played in a combined 900 games. Yet still a large sample size of games spanning an 11 year period. However, the results are a step below that of the RBs. WR1 – 23.1% 23.1% of the 900 games played by top-3 pick Wide Receiver, resulted in a WR1 performance. And 38.72% netted a WR2 performance. This indicates that after spending large capital to acquire and play a top-3 pick as one of your starting two WRs each week has resulted in disappointment far more than not. 50.9% of the time the player was good enough for a flex position. So drafting a WR with a top-3 rookie pick at least predicts that a mere half the time over the 12 years, the player was even flex worthy. Picks 1-3 WR1 – 23.1% of the time WR2 – 38.7% of the time WR3 – 50.9% of the time Career bust rate – 35% Picks 4-6 There have been 17 WRs selected, who have totaled 938 games played. their performance as a WR1, WR2, and WR3 in a week to week tally ? WR1 – 18.4% of the time WR2 – 35.3% of the time WR3 – 49.5% of the time Career bust rate – 32.1% Picks 7-12 37 WRs drafted in the back half of round 1, and have combined for 2162 games played. Perhaps the largest sample to track, considering it is well known that the back half of round 1 is traditionally WR heavy. WR1 – 15.3% of the time WR2 – 30.3% of the time WR3 – 42.4% of the time Career bust rate – 41.6% Picks 13-18 30 WRs drafted in the first half of round 2, have combined for 1311 games played. WR1 – 9.5% of the time WR2 – 20.4% of the time WR3 – 32.4% of the time Career bust rate – 52.8% Picks 19-24 28 WRs drafted in the back half of round 2, have combined for 1481 games played. WR1 – 10.5% of the time WR2 – 21.0% of the time WR3 – 32.9% of the time Career bust rate – 53% As you can see, the odds are not in favor of easily landing a starting RB or WR from the draft who will be a consistent quality starter. At times it could be beneficial to part ways with draft picks IF a quality trade is made and you receive a consistent starting RB1, WR1, or WR2 that you can count on week in and out. But, if you are still sold on the quest to defy odds to land a quality starter on a fair and favorable rookie contract, and believe you can outperform the math on more regular weekly output, then part 2 will help set the expectations from a financial value. If you can correctly identify rookie talent above and beyond the performance percentages listed prior, at what cost in a salary league, will the player remain a good value? Don’t go ditching all your picks just yet. Draft picks are an excellent chance to add supporting depth with the added chance that one might break out. Remember to weigh out all aspects of a trade if you consider giving up picks or chasing more down. This is only the one part of the research to analyze the value of draft picks. Stay tuned for part 2, regarding the financial value of the picks that hit. Part 1 – Take a chance; roll the dice Part 2 – The financial value of the picks that hit Part 3 – Help me help you Part 4 – What’s in the cards for me?