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August 2, 2005

Doctoring The Numbers

The Draft, Part Six

by Rany Jazayerli

It’s been a long time since we spoke. Since my last article on the draft--for the first five parts, click here, here, here, here, and here--I’ve suffered two emotionally draining events: the big 3-0, and the birth of my second daughter, Jenna. (Mother and daughters are doing fine. Father is trying to figure out how to squeeze in baseball highlights between diaper changings and viewings of Dora the Explorer.)

I’m back now, and promise to get the next installment of this series out well in advance of the big 4-0.

The time off wasn’t entirely wasted--I did have an epiphany of sorts while trying to figure out different ways to extract useful information from a veritable mountain of data.

Up until now, I had tried to calculate the value of a draft pick by aggregating them into large groups--like all college players drafted in the first round--and then determining the average value that each of those picks had in Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, etc. after each player was drafted.

That was a very useful method for looking at large groups, but there were problems in extrapolating that method to look at other issues. For instance, an issue as simple as asking “which teams have done the best job of drafting?” would be poorly-served by this approach. Comparing, say, the average value of every first-round pick by the Atlanta Braves with the first-round picks of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays would be useless, because--as tradition dictates--they draft on opposite sides of the round. You simply can’t compare the value of the #3 overall pick with the #30 overall pick. And if you break the individual groups down into smaller parts--say, looking at Top 10 picks only--you quickly end up with sample sizes so small that they’re essentially meaningless.

So I had to look for another way. Which meant I had to get over my hang-up over using discounted values.