Your model is an attempt at a parallel scouting/drafting tool that is not forward looking.
It is? I thought I was using past data, for which we have before and after, to predict the after for current players, for which we only have the before.
Yes, actually I'm quite sure that's what I was doing, because that's what I was doing.
But Martin St.Louis and Eric Perrin never played in the QMJHL.
So you cannot compare players from different leagues? How do scouts do it then?
(Hint: You can do it with the numbers as well. It's actually one of the easiest factors involved in my analysis.)
Their midget AAA numbers are interesting but equaled or surpassed by others.
I don't use midget AAA numbers, for two reasons: the only ones I have access to are from Quebec, and the further away a season is from the player's pro years, the less useful it is.
Iain's point is that the right things existed to be looked at (they just weren't being used at the time).
Exactly. There's nothing I'm doing that couldn't have been done at the time. Perhaps not with precisely the same results, but with similar results. And given the very rough nature of these results, similar is good enough. It could have served as a very useful second opinion to scouts, saying "are you really
really sure we shouldn't even draft this guy in the 11th round, because it's quite possible he's going to be really good?"
There's no sure bet, there would be many misses if you used only the numbers. Which isn't a thing, because there are also many misses when you use only the scouts. Using both, using all information available to you, would surely be the best strategy. Get someone who knows how to interpret junior numbers, someone who can see that Patrice Lefebvre's 1985 numbers are not impressive at all, and his 1986 are only mildly so. I checked the results, the system would not have suggested drafting him in 1985 at all, and for 1986 and 1987 would peg him as a very late-round pick, which seems pretty reasonable for a player of his type. There are illusions in his stats, which you can largely see through if you understand them.