Stock Up, Stock Down

I did some analysis and overall in this years draft, owners selected players roughly 1/2 a round earlier than last year.  It works out be an average of 13 slots sooner in the draft.  That didn't seem right to me so I looked a bit more closely.

Turns out we really had two drafts within one.

Here is the data sliced by rounds.  A positive number means the pick was made later than last year, a negative number is early than last year.

Rd 1-3::  +3.3 Picks (about 1/8 of a round later than last year)
Rd 4-8::  +28.7 Slots (about 1.2 rounds later than last year)
Rd 9-14:: +35.7 slots (about 1.5 rounds later than last year)
Rd 15-19: -39.3 slots (about 1.6 rounds earlier than last year)
Rd 20-28: -93.1 slots (about 3.9 rounds earlier than last year)

Spot the change in sign?

Earlier in the draft when new high valued talent (Negro Leaguers) were available, the average pick was made 1 or 2 rounds later than last year.  For example last year Billy Hamilton was taken at 49th overall, and this year at 84th.  This seems reasonable, for every Oscar Charleston, Nip Winters, Heavy Johnson, etc., taken this means an former ATB great was bumped down in the draft.

Then, at about halfway through the draft, it reversed.  Suddenly, players usually taken much later where coming off the board in Rd 15.  This too makes sense, I certainly missed out on many players I originally targeted for the late rounds.

I think that owners realized everyone was drafting so well, and a result they they had better not wait on a late round sleeper.  If there was a player one wanted, better grab him now than miss out on him altogether.  This process fueled itself, and as more late rounders were drafted early, the more "panic" set in, and as a result even more players were selected earlier than last year.

There is nothing groundbreaking here; much talk on the board alluded to this very thing.  But it is nice to see the numbers match the intuition.

Below are the players selected much earlier or much later than last year:

I understand why Ellsbury dropped, but is Monty Stratton really that bad?   He may be the pick of the draft.

Saberhagen a 500 resim trap?