by qksilver69 » Tue Oct 20, 2009 12:32 am
Ray - strongly disagree in the sense that at the end of the 1st round, very hard to get 2 cards that will be really good both in 2009 & 2010. Very easy to do what you did - get an elite card for both years with pick 1, and a very solid card for both years with picks 2 & 3.
When I looked at the draft, the clear strategy for end of Round 1 was to sacrifice 2009 for a better shot to compete at 2010.
In other terms - number of elite cards for both years is probably around 18, but the difference in quality between picks 19-100 is much less, when looking at 2-year value, than the dropoff after pick 18.
I.e. 2-year value on Pujols roughly 28M, Span 10M, Yunel 10M. $48M value on 2 yrs for your 1st 3 picks.
Let's say I maxed out & drafted Holliday, Zobrist and Peavy (14M, 12M, 10M) - I get to 36-40M depending on where there cards end up but with nowhere near the youth/upside you have, and I don't gain much with my 4th pick over your 4th, the difference in 2-yr value gets progressively less.
This is why in the NFL draft, the teams all use a weighted system which gives a point value to the 1st pick through the last pick. GMs will not trade picks in the draft unless the point value of the picks being traded is roughly equivalent, and there is no way in hell a team will trade 2 picks at the end of Rnd 1/beginning of Rnd 2 for the 1st overall pick, or even any in the top 5. Same concept here, if you think there is no difference in drafting 1st vs last in Rnd 1, you're way undervaluing the elite picks. The snake draft does not come close to making up that value.