Quality over Quantity

It's the time of year for draft-talk. We usually hear talk of "trading down" and garnering more picks, but I am over the school "quality over quantity".

With that being said, I am happy with the first (4) picks we have and at #17 and #32 we should get a few good players, not to mention our second #2 pick.

However, with this being a little unusual place for the Steelers, is their any appetite to pack out #1 and perhaps our #3 and "go up and get someone".

Not sure if there is that much of an impact player to make such a move. I hear a lot of Jalen Carter being a game changer but he didn't impress that much in the college playoffs.

Not sure about anyone else. Thoughts??

 

Moving up would be fine if we had a massively higher grade on someone at CB or OT than everyone else and that player fell in range of what we could move up for.

I made a post on an earlier thread regarding this very question. The conclusion is that the "hit rate" (defined as someone who was a regular starter but may never have been a pro bowl caliber player) is so insanely low after the first round that trading down to acquire more chances to "hit" doesn't actually increase the chance of "hitting". See chart below (High End is defined as a multi year PB or AP type player) (drafts sampled were 2011-2017).

PICK HIT HIGH END
Picks 1-5 - 74% 54%
picks 6-10 - 57% 46%
Picks 11-20 - 51.5% 24%
Picks 21-32 - 34% 14%

If we make the assumption that 20% of second round picks "hit", then adding an additional second round pick takes the percentage that we "hit" once to 36%. 3 picks gets us roughly 49% chance of a single "hit". So with 3 second round picks we still have less than a coin flip's chance that we get one consistent starting caliber player out of the bunch. (It's likely a bit less due to pick positioning and the actual number of hits in round 2 likely being a touch less than 20%). Analytically speaking the 17th pick is more valuable to us attaining a starter than 3 second round picks. And that's not even calculating the "high end" player percentage where we have a 1/4 chance that 17 turns into a PB/AP caliber player where 3 second round picks (assuming a 5% HE rate) only gives us a 14% chance.

Also see this data on a total draft focus:

Pick 17 + 1 second round pick = nearly 61% chance that at least one of those becomes a "hit"
Pick 25 + 2 second round picks = nearly 58% chance that at least one of those becomes a "hit"

- It feels negligible, but dropping 8 spots to pick up an extra second theoretically give you a worse chance at getting one starter w/ 3 picks than the original scenario with 2 picks. Makes you think.

The conclusion here is that trading down is only useful if we are targeting a specific player and we are 100% sure that specific player will be available at the position we trade down to. Otherwise we actually worsen our theoretical chances at getting a starting caliber player.

Conversely trading up to say, pick 9 while using a second round pick is also negligible in terms of "hitting" since picks 1-10 gives us about a 4% lower chance of "hitting", but it takes our "high end" percentage from 27% with a pick 17 +2nd rounder draft to 46% with a pick 9 and no second rounder draft (a nearly 20% increase). So, you give a few "hit" percentages to massively gain in "high end" percentage.

Obviously this doesn't mean we should always trade up as there is still value in having the second round players and beyond turn into role players or quality back ups that round the team out. It also doesn't factor in the fact that having one second rounder can only "hit" once, while having 3 may hit multiple times despite the odds being low. It also doesn't factor that good GM's could theoretically hit at a higher percentage than an average GM or statistical mean rate.... This is just a theoretical exercise to show stats that aren't always thought of when forming opinions on this topic.

Just for fun purposes: The way we sit now 17+32+49 would give us a theoretical 74% chance of getting one starter with a 24% chance of multiple hits. We have about a 38% chance of one "high end" player and a 4% chance of multiple "high ends". Not a bad place to sit.

 

You need to factor in the Value of the Picks. Nobody is going to trade Pick #17 for 3 3rd round picks, because it does not add up.
Pick #17 is worth 950 points. If you are trading back you want to get 950 points worth of picks.

https://walterfootball.com/draftchart.php

 

I still believe Peter Skoronski is going to be a this generations Offensive Tackle of the year, so I would like to see the Steelers use their 3rd round pick to move up a few spots if he falls out of the Top 10.

Also seeing the Steelers trade down to the early 20s to pick up an extra 3rd round pick would not be bad early if they are going Defense in the 1st. (AKA CB Porter)

To add another 2nd round pick the Steelers would only need to trade back 10 spots in the 1st round. (Your math says #17 is 51%. #27+ plus a second rounder would be 34% + 20% = 54%)

 

These percentages are kind of skewed because you have 32 different scouting departments and GM’s and Coaches making these draft picks. Some teams are just absolutely awful at drafting which can really skew these metrics by round. Then you have teams that just seem to hit on draft picks every year like (KC, Baltimore, Seattle, New Orleans and I would put the Steelers in there). It would be interesting to see what the percentage of draft success is by team by round.

The other factor is the quality of players in each draft and the quantity of quality players in each draft. In some drafts you have five can’t miss players and in others you may have double that. Finally you have to take into account each teams situation. As in this year with the Steelers. We have a ton of draft needs, we are theoretically drafting outside of the can’t miss selection as in I doubt there are 17 can’t miss players so do you trade down and increase your chances of hitting on players simply by having more picks especially when you have a ton of needs or do you stay put especially if that player you covet is available?

I think the smartest teams either trade down when out of the can’t miss area or draft best player available. I think when you reach for need is when you get into trouble. I imagine it is hard to do when you have a lot of needs though.

 

Of course. I even mentioned in the post that its a statistical average and that there are some GM's that are going to "hit" at higher rates than the statistical average. And yes, the draft crop's strength is variable on a year to year basis, but those statistics took 6 drafts into account (and far enough back for us to have real evaluations of who "hit" and who didn't. I feel like that is a good enough sample size to rule that out of the equation. Also there are positional strengths to take into consideration, and team needs as well. Lots of factors that play into decision making.

You mention that you should trade down if you sit outside the "can't miss" players because it increases your chances on hitting on players. The statistics show that trading down actually DOESN'T increase your chances of hitting. Trading back 8 slots and gaining an extra second actually makes you 3% less likely to hit than if you stayed put. That was kinda the whole point of the exercise. To show that despite logically thinking that more chances = better chance to "hit", that it really isn't the case at all.

I totally agree that reaching for need is something to avoid. Almost never works.

At the end of the day, the smartest teams are the ones that "hit" and hit "high end" at the highest frequency.

 

Well of course. Theoretically its fair value to trade pick 17 straight up for picks 66,67,68, and 69. Though you'd never do that because the rate at which you will find a single starting caliber player is lower with four 3rd round picks than it is with 1 pick 17.

A true value trade (if we were to trade down) would be to go from 17 to 25 would be to swap firsts and exchange a 4th and 2nd to equal out the value. We obviously could have a team overpay in order to get the pick if they're desperate enough, but I doubt that happens.
Pick 17 and pick 113 = 1,018 to trade partner
Pick 25 and pick 57 = 1,050 to Steelers

I'm certainly not advocating for anything like this, but it does probably even out the value and make it so that the percentages of "hitting" at least once are the same/similar.

 

No to trading up in the first round, they're already without any picks in the 5th and 6th rounds, they can't afford to give away anymore picks.

 

DO they have a metric which shows the teams or GM’s with the highest hit rate?

 

Well we have an extra second, which is probably way better than a 5th and 6th

 

They didn't, but I expect it would be the tenured GM's and not the one's that get fired quickly

 

They also have a lot of holes, and they need to hit on those first four picks, the better option in maybe a trade down to acquire more picks.

 

Those first 4 picks must be huge if we are to make
the steps needed to play with the big boys. Our team roster is
not as talented as the Cincy's, Philadelphia , KC, SF, Buffalo.
They will weaken with the loss of some FA's.

 

The notion of Quality over Quantity is a bit of a fallacy. It presumes drafting higher always guarantees better. This is only partially true. However, having more opportunities to make a pick Increases the chances you might hit on a star.

We went quality over quantity in trading up to grab Devin Bush, yet it didn't work. Even though bit worked with Troy.

I'd probably do it for the QB position, but other than that, I'd almost never trade up and always prefer trading down.

This year, I'd rather have and extra 3rd and 4th round picks and draft around 25th, that go up to 12 and lose a 3rd round pick.