Does Draft Position Matter?

With the draft coming up, captains are busy trying to plan for every hypothetical situation. "If I have an early first round pick, do I go with option A or option B? What if I pick at the end vs. in the middle?" At this stage captains plan for every scenario because they don't have any idea (for the most part) if they are picking early or late in the first round. The possibilities start to come into a little more focus when captains are told on Bensi Night if they are picking 1-8 or 9-16 (R.I.P. Bensi Night). All of a sudden, half the planned scenarios are pretty much meaningless unless you work out a trade.

But does draft position matter? Here are the overall winning percentages that correlates to where teams picked from 2009-2014.[1] I won't offer any analysis this time around. I'll let the numbers do the talking.

  

1: .534 (71-62)

2: .474 (63-70)

3: .504 (67-66)

4: .602 (80-53)

5: .391 (52-81)

6: .526 (70-63)

7: .598 (79-53)

8: .579 (77-56)

9: .504 (67-66)

10: .414 (55-78)

11: .421 (56-77)

12: .455 (60-72)

13: .504 (67-66)

14: .429 (57-76)

15: .579 (77-56)

16: .489 (65-68)

Draft Positions 1-8: .526

Draft Positions 9-16: .474

Draft Position of Championship Teams By Year:

2009: 7

2010: 16

2011: 7

2012: 4

2013: 3

2014: 8

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[1] I started with 2009 because that is the first year where the draft was not dominated by protected picks. For instance, in 2008 it did not matter much where a team drafted in the first round because 12 out of 16 teams came in with a protected first round pick.