Reserves Results

[Legs Akimbo]

The draft is much like the stockmarket-- a value gets assigned to a player. There is no difference between their perceived value (to the person who values them most highly) and their actual value (i.e. they're worth exactly what the highest bidder says they're worth). If the market knows with absolute certainty that a share will be worth $10 in a year's time, then that will have an inevitable effect on its current price-- in very short order, it will shoot up to nearly $10 (to sell it for less would be giving money away). Similarly, if there was a broad-based belief that Currie was going to be worth pick 10 or so in the 2007 draft, then it would have been irrational for any club who held an interest not to pick him up at pick 25 at latest in the 2006 draft. The 'missing year' has to be trivial where it takes at least 3-4 years for ruckmen to develop to AFL standard (barring the odd athletic freak), and he was never going to do nothing during 2007 anyway.

I think this ignores the value of information gained from the additional year. The price of a player (their rank in the draft) reflects what is known about them as much as how good they are at that point in time. There will be a discount effect because the uncertainty is higher.

[SimonH]

I think this ignores the value of information gained from the additional year. The price of a player (their rank in the draft) reflects what is known about them as much as how good they are at that point in time. There will be a discount effect because the uncertainty is higher.

But that is all reflected by the point 'if the market believes that the stock will (almost certainly) be worth $10 in a year (or the player will be a top 10 pick in a year), that will have a dramatic effect on the price now.'

If the market merely believes that the stock is a 25% chance of being worth $10 in a year's time, then the impact on today's price will be far smaller. And I think that was probably the true case with Currie. Plenty of clubs might have been interested to see how he developed in 2007 (i.e. he was one of a large number of players who had potential to be a top pick if he developed strongly), but none of them thought, 'this guy is more likely than not to be top 10 in the 2007 draft', or they would have snapped him up in the 20s or 30s.