Does the Massey-Thaler (M-T) surplus value of picks translate into wins? I repeated the analysis I did with conventional draft points.
First, I performed a simple single-variable regression with "DeltaWins" (the change in team wins from the previous year) as the dependent variable and M-T surplus value as the independent variable. M-T surplus was significant with an r-squared of 0.03. The coefficient was 0.86, which means that the difference between the #1 team and the #32 team in the draft equates to 0.34 wins.
This is far less than the r-squared for draft surplus (0.26). But keep in mind, M-T surplus is not as directly related to previous year's record as draft points. We already know that a team's previous year's record is dominantly predictive of the following year's win total, regardless of draft points.
To account for the other factors that produce the tendency for poor teams to improve and good teams to get worse, the previous year's wins was added to the model. M-T Value is no longer significant (p=0.42) and last year's wins (LASTWINS) dominates. Adjusted r-squared = 0.38, which was the same as for conventional points.
I ran several more regressions and got very similar results to the conventional draft point models. Adding various combinations of M-T values, previous year values, and cumulative values did not improve the r-squared found by using last year's wins alone, which is about 0.37. Below is the table of results. Asterisks denote significance and negative coefficents are in red.
If draft points don't matter (compared to other factors), then M-T values matter even less.
