I just hope that teams who do utilize statistical analysis to guide their decisions take a broader view than a lot of the online discourse which seems to treat talent as existing within a vacuum. If you are starting over with the assumption that you will be trading every existing player on the roster and your goal is to begin your rebuild around an elite player who will finish top 5 in MVP voting at least once in their career, then it makes sense to apply this kind of an approach until you identify and secure that player. As soon as you have one "keeper" player on your roster though, you are now looking for more than just talent -- you are looking for talent which compliments the player(s) you already have. And as you add more and more players to your core, it's going to get harder to get both maximum value of your assets (be that a trade asset, cap space for signing a free agent, or a draft pick) and also maintain a synergistic relationship between each player on the roster.
This is why so many rebuilds ultimately top out in no man's land and then start regressing. The opportunistic low-hanging fruit deals are only there when you are starting from scratch. At some point you're going to have to concede something -- give up more in a trade, overpay for a free agent, reach to draft a player higher than their overall projection -- in exchange for adding a player to your roster who fills in some needed skills and compliments the players and the style of play you have committed to. A lot of managers are capable of reacting tactically to the situation at hand but when it comes to applying a long-term strategy which will require them to target and acquire specific players or specific player archetypes, they are either unwilling or incapable of adjusting their thinking out of "maximize asset" mode.
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