We'll need to see how it pans out, but I interpret the very short description as using a statistical analysis to value picks, not draftees. I suspect what they are trying to do is come up with a formula for, say, pick 5=pick 18 + pick ?, not a formula to assess what pick a Heeney or Moore is worth. That assignment of draft value is either going to have to remain with a bidding system or be a matter of complete judgement by a panel of "experts".
There are still numerous difficulties involved in such a system. While it might be feasible to assign a value to a top 10 or even top 20 pick on the basis of using past picks to estimate the probability of a player taken in those ranges "making it", the problem will get much harder for later picks where there will be a high degree of dispersion. Also, how do they take into account that some draft pools are deeper than others, that some have a higher quality top tier, the impact of injuries on whether players "made it", the impact of development systems at different clubs, the impact of luck (ie which players never made it because an opportunity never arose when they were at their clubs), or even how you judge whether a player even made it. Will it just take into account number of games played, or superimpose some measure of the quality of those games?
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