Just wondering if anyone has any numbers/resources on what picks are really worth? I’ve seen things like this (
What percentage of NHL draft picks make it to the NHL? | Hockey Answered) that go over the odds of making it for each round, but I’m curious about exact picks.
Like, is it better to have #6 overall, or #15 and #28? Meanwhile we also always judge off of what round a pick is in, but really- if you get Vegas’ 1st rounder that’s likely in the #25+ range. Is there a huge different between that and the Coyote’s 2nd round pick? It’d be cool to have, like, averaged out aggregate numbers for each pick over the years, but I doubt anyones done that. Obviously it’s gonna be year and pick specific, but it also seems teams would benefit by using that math a bit more- maybe they do and I just don’t know it, but say a good team has a late 1st and a bad team wants to make a deal- they offer their 2nd and 4th picks. I’d be curious what the numbers say. There’s all sorts of scenarios where it gets interesting- is there value in getting two cracks at two different players in the first place? So on and so forth.
I will tie this in a bit to my response above and pretty much just answer the bolded with: it depends.
Here are my top 15 guys from 2021. Don't worry too much about the meaning behind the numbers, letters, symbols, etc. Not as important as the "local" and "global" rankings.
Local ranking is effectively where they rank in the draft. There will be exactly 5 top 5 guys, another 5 "top 10" guys (6-10), another 5 top 15 guys (11-15), etc. However, global rankings are not that exact, because I use that to compare where they would rank in what I deem an "average" draft. In a top heavy draft, there may be more than 5 top 5 caliber guys, whereas in a weaker draft, there may be less than 5. In chart above, you can see I have 11 top 10 caliber guys even though one (Fedor Svechkov) technically ranked outside of the top 10 in the local draft.
Since you referred to #6 specifically, let's look at two contrasting scenarios:
Scenario 1: There are actually 6 top 5 caliber guys in that draft, or that one of the top 5 teams drafted other guys and there was a guy you thought was top 5 caliber available to you. And then let's say that the quality of prospect around the #15 pick is mostly average, and same with around #28. The question no longer becomes "Would I rather have #6 vs. #15 and #28" rather than "Would I rather have the prospect I can pick at #6, who I have as a top 5 caliber prospect, or what I believe will be an average #15 prospect and an average #28 prospect?" Well the answer is probably going to be you would rather have #6, because a top 5 caliber prospect will likely bring you more value (i.e. they are usually elite players you can't get anywhere else and are extremely rare) than the two prospects you get at #15 and #28.
Scenario 2: The draft is kind of weak up top, and I believe that the quality of prospect I can get at #6 is barely even top 10 quality. However, there is some good depth all the way down to pick #15, and I believe I can get a top 10 quality prospect at that pick too. Well you probably take that #6 for #15 + #28 deal and you get another pick in the 1st round without sacrificing much in terms of prospect quality between #6 and #15 (based on your belief).
Now the the "Based on your belief" part is fairly important for all of this, and these scenarios are very simplified versions of reality. First of all, as I mentioned in my post above, you need a very strong prospect evaluation model and scouting department which can precisely nail down these prospect values. If you can't identify talent, then you have much bigger issues at hand that determining pick values. Secondly, you need another team to compliment your belief; i.e. for you to receive that offer, they believe more in the prospect you can get at your pick than you do. If everyone thinks that guy at #6 is nothing special, you probably don't get that offer in the first place. Fortunately, that is rarely ever the case, and it is simply a matter of finding the right combination of picks to make both teams comfortable with their beliefs. Of course, this same principle applies throughout the entire draft (so that should answer your subsequent questions).
That is why the answer is "it depends" and also why pick value models like that one from 11 years ago do not really work. Unfortunately, that effectively means that there is no static model like you were hoping for. However, subjective probability models are extremely popular and do achieve much of the same result while handling the dynamics of the draft-to-draft variability, and if done correctly, can be done so with limited bias. That is effectively what I am doing, but mine is a lot less formal. I hope to make mine a little bit more formal some day, because it is certainly possible.
