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I once did a study of this. It was intended mainly to feed my intuition about the effect of personality traits, not to be scientifically rigorous.
I can't remember now how many years I simulated - I think it was 40 or 50 years. I looked at the amateur draft class for each year and the question was: what percent of the draftees eventually made it to the big leagues, and how does that percentage change for each of the personality categories.
The basic result was that about 14.5% of amateurs in the draft eventually make it to the big leagues. Here were the results for each of the personality categories:
Work Ethic:
Very Low: 5.5%
Low: 13.3%
Normal: 17.6%
High: 19.7%
Very High: 20.5%
Desire to Win
Very Low: 8.5%
Low: 12.7%
Normal: 18.7%
High: 19.2 %
Very High: 16.1%
Intelligence:
Very Low: 13.2%
Low: 13.2%
Normal: 14.8%
High: 15.4%
Very High 15.4%
Greed:
Very Low: 15.8%
Low: 15.9%
Normal: 13.2%
High: 15.8%
Very High 14.7%
Loyalty:
Very Low: 15.4%
Low: 14.7%
Normal: 14.4%
High: 15.3%
Very High: 12.5%
Leadership:
Very Low: 16.0%
Low: 14.3%
Normal: 14.4%
High: 14.5%
Very High 15.7%
Injury:
Fragile: 14.0%
Normal: 13.8%
Durable: 16.0%
Work ethic had by far the biggest effect. The effect of intelligence was modest. I don't hear "desire to win" discussed much, but a Very Low desire to win (lack of drive perhaps, or lack of the "fire in the belly"?) had the second strongest negative effect after "Very Low" work ethic.
On the positive side, "Very High" work ethic had the highest positive effect followed by "High" Work Ethic and "High" (but not "Very High") Desire to Win was next. (I guess maybe someone with "Very High" desire to win might be too intense for his own good...)
One needs to be careful interpreting these results though. For one thing, the sample size was probably not large enough. If each of the traits are distributed normally there will be relatively few at the extremes (Very High and Very Low) so these numbers are bound to be less accurate.
Also I didn't take into account the initial talent assessment at all. Most of the players in these drafts are never going to make it anyway no matter what their personality. And conversely plenty of talented players will make it despite their personalities. I still think talent assessment (how ever you might want to accomplish that) would still be much more important than personality.
The other thing is, my criterion was just whether or not the player made it to the big leagues. By that criterion, a career minor leaguer with a single September cup of coffee is treated the same as a future hall-of-famer.
So I'd probably perform some sort of talent assessment first, then give the players a little boost up or down based on personality traits - perhaps a little more than just a tie-breaker, but definitely not the main criterion... (imho)
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