Comparing Draft Pick Value in the NFL, NBA, and MLB
Photo Credit: Greg Fiume/Getty Images
As the MLB off-season nears an end and the NFL season approaches its climax, I’ve read some really informative analyses calculating and discussing the relative value of draft picks in each sport.
In this post I’ll combine those analyses to compare draft value across the three largest US sports.
In the NFL, weighted Approximate Value (wAV) is used as the metric for player valuation; in the NBA, Win Shares (WS) is used; and in the MLB, Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is used.
Figure 1 below depicts draft pick value decay, as the draft progresses, for each of the three leagues.
Figure 1: Draft pick value decay in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. The y-axis is average career wAV, WS, and WAR for each draft position and the x-axis is the draft pick number
The NBA experiences the most pronounced decline in draft value as we advance further into the draft, with a draft pick value decay nearly twice as steep as that of the MLB and more than double that of the NFL, which exhibits the least decline in draft value.
Zooming in to look more closely at first round draft pick value decay, illustrated in Figure 2 below, we can linearly approximate the loss in draft value.
Figure 2: First Round draft pick value decay in the NFL, NBA, and MLB. The y-axis is average career wAV, WS, and WAR for each draft position and the x-axis is draft pick number
In the first round, the linear decline in value of an NBA pick more than triple the loss in value of an MLB pick and exceeds the loss in value of an NFL pick by 50%.
Conclusion
The draft lottery is most important in the NBA to prevent teams from tanking
After the first round, NFL picks have greater relative value than NBA picks and MLB picks
Within the first round, MLB has the least steep decline in draft value
