on actual, real drafts, either by BPro, or by philly on the Sons of Sam Horn board. They generally disagree with you.This is one of philly’s post on draft positions:

First, some of his definitions:

60+ WARP3: the very good to HoF great
Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3
4 109 Bos Jeff Bagwell* 3B C 125.3
3 79 Tor John Olerud* 1B-LHP C 111.6
1 13 Cle Manny Ramirez* OF HS 100.2
1 12 Bos N Garciaparra* SS C 63.6

40-60 WARP3: good players
Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3
1 23 Bos Mo Vaughn 1B C 56.4
5 121 Bos John Valentin SS C 56.1
5 127 Tor Mike Timlin* RHP C 50.2
8 215 Sea Derek Lowe* RHP HS 49.9

20-40 WARP3: useful players
Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3
2 49 Bos Jeff Suppan* RHP HS 37.7
1 2 Det Tony Clark* OF HS 35.1
1 3 Atl Steve Avery LHP HS 33.7
1 7 Bos Trot Nixon* OF HS 33.2
1 8 Min Todd Walker* 2B C 31.5

Rd Pick Team Player Pos School WARP3
25 641 Bos John Flaherty* C C 19.6
23 640 Hou John Halama* LHP C 19.1
11 291 Bos Phil Plantier 3B HS 18.6
25 657 Sea Matt Mantei* RHP HS 15.6

By the supplemental round and picks in the 40s the valuation drops to 1.5M and the chance to draft a "good" 40+ WARP3 player dips below 5%. After that the valuations hold steady for a few rounds at roughly 700k-1M with a 2% chance to draft a "good" player and by the 8th round the picks have negligible value and a very low probability to become a "good" player.

The results of the study on picks after the 1st round:

First round – supplemental
The WARP3 average continues to plummet into the low single digits. For the rest of the draft it’ll bounce around between 0-5 WARP3 with the baseline steadily decreasing. On average, no pick after the first round is worth much of anything in terms of career production. The by the mid-30s and it gradually increases over time. In terms of "good" players there’s a trough between #36 and #42 (happens to be Buchholz), but that’s just randomness. If a player isn’t picked in the 1st rd his chances of being a "useful" or "good" player are never higher than 10% and 5% respectively.

Second Round
The most obvious characteristic of this round to me is its flatness. The WARP3 averages are between 2.5-4.5, the and the combined 40+ is around 2. There aren’t many data points that fall outside of those boundaries. Slot #75 is an exception, but a lot of that is because John Olerud, a top of the draft talent that fell to the 3rd rd due to health/signability issues, happens to be included in the slot 75 range. If I dropped him the slot 75 data would fall right in line with the rest of the second round.

By the time we get to the 2nd rd the chance of any player becoming a "good" 40+ WARP3 player is roughly 1 in 50.

The kind of players that you can get in the 2nd round are generally fairly easily available, either via trades, Latin American signings, Japanese signings, waivers, rule 5 picks, or even FA. Lincecum, or David Price type players, are never easily available, by any means.

but probably none that are really that great. That’s like trading Jay Bruce or Alex Gordon for a bunch of Nick Noonan’s.

It gives teams something else to barter with, which expands the options for a smart GM.