Comparing First Round Draft Pick Performance

[jay]

Earlier this week, Parker published an article looking at first round draft picks.  I went off and did some number crunching based on the discussion that followed.  The full blog with some additional analysis and the statistical approach can be found here: 

http://twinsdaily.com/blog/237/entry-6328-comparing-first-round-draft-pick-performance/

 

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From 2003-2011, the Twins’ first-round picks were:
23rd in expected WAR per pick. This is an indication of their consistently low draft position due to successful teams and supplemental round picks.
15th in total expected WAR. The Twins make up ground here due to the additional picks they gained in the supplemental round as compensation for losing free agents.
19th in actual WAR generated. The Twins draft picks from 2003-2011 have produced WAR at a lower rate than the league average.
19th in pick efficiency. This most directly ties to “how well they drafted” after accounting for both draft position and total number of picks. I’m defining pick efficiency as the ratio of actual WAR to expected WAR.

 

 

[Thrylos]

Really good stuff

 

I think that there is more to a draft than the first round.  I'd love to see how they match up against the other teams in the first 30 rounds of each draft.   If you look at that data you would reach the conclusion that teams like the Dodgers, Giants and Red Sox are more successful in drafting players than the Athletics & Rays, which I am not sure it is valid.

 

Bit of a math question.  Eyeballing it looks like the pick efficiency average > 1.  Shouldn't it be 1?  Otherwise your expected assigned values are lower than what they should be.  Would be interesting to normalize those with the average pick efficiency = 1.

 

Another cool thing to see is how much of that WAR was actually for the drafted team...

[mikelink45]

Do you have access to the dialogues from past drafts where we were avoiding agents and people who might not want to sign with us?  When did we go from safe pick to good pick?

[jay]

Really good stuff

 

I think that there is more to a draft than the first round. I'd love to see how they match up against the other teams in the first 30 rounds of each draft. If you look at that data you would reach the conclusion that teams like the Dodgers, Giants and Red Sox are more successful in drafting players than the Athletics & Rays, which I am not sure it is valid.

 

Bit of a math question. Eyeballing it looks like the pick efficiency average > 1. Shouldn't it be 1? Otherwise your expected assigned values are lower than what they should be. Would be interesting to normalize those with the average pick efficiency = 1.

 

Another cool thing to see is how much of that WAR was actually for the drafted team...

All totally valid points.

 

It's not a perfect process, but the legendary 2005 class really helps throw off the normalization to 1.0. I thought about making an adjustment, but that was just more work when the results are what they are for that period. Note that I didn't create the equation or expected rates, but rather used tiers from analysis done elsewhere on a larger window.

 

I'm happy to share the initial data used here if anyone wants to add more rounds or figure out WAR observed by the drafting team.

[jay]

Do you have access to the dialogues from past drafts where we were avoiding agents and people who might not want to sign with us? When did we go from safe pick to good pick?

Someone made a comment on the blog page about looking at draft bonus dollars and comparing that to actual WAR. That might be a good way to account for what you're talking about.