Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community - View Single Post - Lottery Protecting 1st Round Pick vs. additional 4th Round Pick

delayedreflex · 03-27-2018, 05:15 PM

A lot has been made of Treliving not lottery protecting the first round pick that we traded for Hamonic - with the current standings, that pick has ~10% chance to win a top-3 pick (based on this source), though Calgary might drop a couple more spots in the standings so it's possible that the pick might have up to 15% chance. According to this page, a top 3 pick is basically guaranteed to be a regular NHLer with an 80% chance of being a top 6 forward/top 4 D/starting goalie (lets call that an impact player). The #10-12 pick seems to have a ~33% chance to land you an impact player. So taking a simplistic approach, a non lottery-protected pick would have 38-40% chance to land you an impact player, meaning lottery protection of a first round draft pick in that range should be worth a 5-7% chance to get an impact player.

From that same TSN table, that seems to put the value of lottery protecting this particular 1st rounder as likely a #90-100 pick - so say a late 3rd rounder or 4th round pick. As a GM, would you offer an extra 3rd or 4th round pick in return for being allowed to lottery protect your 1st round pick that you're trading, in order to get a deal done? Would you offer a 5th, 6th, 7th? As a GM, what additional pick would you ask for in exchange for allowing a 1st rounder to be lottery protected?

Of course this is assumes that the 1st round pick ends up being a lottery pick with a decent chance of winning - the lowest odds lottery pick has just a 3% chance of winning a top-3 pick, though conversely it is possible that you end up with a disaster season that leaves you with a 50% chance.

This simplistic analysis also doesn't take into account "generational" players, deep drafts vs. shallow drafts, etc. - nevertheless, for a typical draft it is likely that even a 4th round pick is an overpayment in order to lottery protect a 1st rounder in most cases, especially considering that if you are trading a 1st rounder you likely aren't expecting it to be a lotto pick. Still, might it be worth it to save your fanbase the anguish of "losing" a top 3 pick? It's possible for that 4th rounder to turn into a Brodie or Gaudreau - but the fans would never know what we missed out on if we trade that pick, and its far more likely that it would turn out to be nothing anyway.

03-27-2018, 05:15 PM	#1
delayedreflex Crash and Bang Winger Join Date: Oct 2013 Exp:	Lottery Protecting 1st Round Pick vs. additional 4th Round Pick A lot has been made of Treliving not lottery protecting the first round pick that we traded for Hamonic - with the current standings, that pick has ~10% chance to win a top-3 pick (based on this source), though Calgary might drop a couple more spots in the standings so it's possible that the pick might have up to 15% chance. According to this page, a top 3 pick is basically guaranteed to be a regular NHLer with an 80% chance of being a top 6 forward/top 4 D/starting goalie (lets call that an impact player). The #10-12 pick seems to have a ~33% chance to land you an impact player. So taking a simplistic approach, a non lottery-protected pick would have 38-40% chance to land you an impact player, meaning lottery protection of a first round draft pick in that range should be worth a 5-7% chance to get an impact player. From that same TSN table, that seems to put the value of lottery protecting this particular 1st rounder as likely a #90-100 pick - so say a late 3rd rounder or 4th round pick. As a GM, would you offer an extra 3rd or 4th round pick in return for being allowed to lottery protect your 1st round pick that you're trading, in order to get a deal done? Would you offer a 5th, 6th, 7th? As a GM, what additional pick would you ask for in exchange for allowing a 1st rounder to be lottery protected? Of course this is assumes that the 1st round pick ends up being a lottery pick with a decent chance of winning - the lowest odds lottery pick has just a 3% chance of winning a top-3 pick, though conversely it is possible that you end up with a disaster season that leaves you with a 50% chance. This simplistic analysis also doesn't take into account "generational" players, deep drafts vs. shallow drafts, etc. - nevertheless, for a typical draft it is likely that even a 4th round pick is an overpayment in order to lottery protect a 1st rounder in most cases, especially considering that if you are trading a 1st rounder you likely aren't expecting it to be a lotto pick. Still, might it be worth it to save your fanbase the anguish of "losing" a top 3 pick? It's possible for that 4th rounder to turn into a Brodie or Gaudreau - but the fans would never know what we missed out on if we trade that pick, and its far more likely that it would turn out to be nothing anyway.