I think you have to add it all up cumulatively.
You look over a select period of time and add as many judgement parameters as possible. Will it be perfect? No but it will start to identify things.
I'm working on a chart that will incorporate draft value according to the Walter Draft value chart.
The Wes Welker trade would be the product of a Second round pick because that is what the team gave up to get him. The grading would be emphasized on the team and not the player.
The pick trade and value concern is interesting because I think pick trade vs overall player return could be measure in a few ways. Starting time, playing time, etc... vs similar value for a 2nd round pick playing time or starting time. Not sure if that's necessary yet.
What I'm having a problem with is traded players for picks and picks for players. It gets complicated at that point.
Beyond the picks etc.... there is the unknowns such as the quality of the coaching staff. I'm not sure how to determine that. For example, let's say player A would be an All Pro under Staff A but he would only be a Starting player under Staff B. How do you recognize that?? That's a huge obstacle.
Ok those are my thoughts. Kind of thinking out loud.
I couldn't agree more.
At the moment, the whole enterprise of attempting to make a distinction between "success" and "bust" seems riddled with subjectivity rationalized as objectivity, and with "measurements" that are far too broad and poorly-weighted to be really useful.
For example, let's say a team selects two defensive propects at the same position in the same draft. These are their records after their second seasons:
Prospect A - 3rd round
... never starts a game
... amasses a total of only 140 defensive snaps with almost zero defensive stats
... however, he becomes a top core special-teamer on a unit that is among the best in the league, averaging over 22 ST snaps per game
Prospect B - 4th round
... explodes in his second season, starting 11 games including the playoffs while playing over half of the defensive snaps as a rotational player
... puts up the top stats on the team at his position
Is the first guy "bust" and the second guy a "success" because they were drafted "a round apart"? What if they were drafted only 4 picks apart (that just happened to fall into different rounds)? What if Prospect B had been drafted at the start of the 3rd and Prospect A had been drafted at the very end of the 4th (80 picks apart, including Comps)? Would that mitigate Propect A's "bust" label?
So, probably the first thing would be to figure out some more rational measure of contributed value beyond "AV".
The second thing would be to compare that value to "draft capital spent", using the standard Jimmie Johnson value chart as the currency basis (because whole numbers are much easier to calculate with). This is even better for measuring a team's relative draft success.
For example, both the Pats and Chargers have 7 picks in a given draft. Let's say that, after three years, the Pats' draftees have produce a total AV that's only 50% of that produced by the Chargers' draftees. Sounds like a relatively poor draft by the Pats, right? However, what if the Pats spent only 19% as much "draft capital" on their picks as the Chargers did, because the Chargers' picks were all much higher?. Makes a difference, obviously, and using the draft pick values for each individual slot provides a way to quantify that difference.
It also provides a way to quantify picks traded for players and players traded for picks.
It also provides a way to reasonably compare a prospect picked at #10 who produces a total AV of 48 during his rookie contract to a prospect picked at #42 who produces a total AV of 32.
Just my thoughts.
