No, no I am an analytics guy.
Beast, the simple answer is should the OHL be drafting 15 and 16 year old's in their minor midget year? My response is no. First of all, there is way to much oscillation in a teenager's biological development at that point in their life. There is way too much hit and miss for the OHL teams. Advancing the age to midget to a certain extent levels off the discrepancy that different growth rates can have on hockey performance. In other words it gives some kids a chance to catch up while others who are already advanced and may not grow much more a re-evaluation.
In other words the rating you get in minor midget maybe different from the rating you get in midget if the draft were moved to midget. Many drafted kids drop out of hockey and many undrafted kids continue to play. Whats in the heart buddy?
In minor midget A few kids might have already reached their growing height and weight, but most not. Kids that are late bloomers are at a bigger disadvantage as they get past over and once their catch up if in fact they do, it is very hard for them to enter an OHL roster as a free agent invite. Even if they are invited, scouts prefer their draft choices over free agent invites sentimentally because they obviously don't want to admit they were wrong in their choices, their employment depends to a certain extent on the accuracy of their predications. Yet the best developmental opportunities under the current system are given to the first out first drafted list of kids. The point is where are those kids in three years and where are the other kids? Most of the time under the current system they get it right but they could do better.
The Major midget draft tried to solve some of this but the problem is, the prestige index is not the same as the OHL priority draft at minor midget. The Major Midget draft covers two years yet they generally only select from one of the years and those kids are really not serious contenders. I think you need an overhaul in thinking to make the system better. Everybody rushes development, why do you think other countries are catching up/ They now do it better than us I think.
No matter what age a league drafts players, there will be kids who are both way ahead and way behind the curve physically, mentally and skill wise. The CHL can't even be consistent as the WHL drafts Bantam players and the OHL and the Q Minor-Midget.
For the same reasons (but mostly physical disparity), Hockey Canada has struggled with both age divisions and body contact, redefining age divisions around the year 2000 and backing off body contact year after year until now it doesn't start until Minor Bantam!
Similarly the NHL has suggested moving their draft from 18 to 19 (or even 20).
The one thing many hockey fans (and hfboards posters/armchair GMs) don't consider is potential litigation. The lion's share of decisions made by hockey's governing bodies (Hockey Canada, OHF and the regionals - GTHL, OMHA, Alliance, HEO etc.) are not for what's in the best interest of the game and it's players, it's what decision is the least likely to expose them to litigation. They don't have the resources to defend lawsuits and are forced to take direction from their insurers.
Should any league change it's draft policy there will be a double cohort (i.e. two groups of players competing for one set of available spots). Let's say, for example, that the NHL changes from an 18 year-old to a 19 year-old draft. The year of the change, you will have two birth years of prospects competing for the same 217 draft slots as the year before. Can you IMAGINE the number of lawsuits that would be filed as Little Johnny didn't have the same chance as those the year before or the year after to be drafted!?!?! The same situation would arise for the CHL leagues if they implemented such a change.
I'm not saying improvements wouldn't help or that leagues won't make changes. What I am saying is there is no perfect formula that will suit all players. Remember Newton's third law (it doesn't just apply to physics!), "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
