2015 academy discussion thread (with some FS thrown in for good measure)

[CureTheSane]

And send the Saints down the drain. No way they could pay the $500,000. Unless of course the 500 large finds its way into the back door via the Commission

Just as potentially the new academy draft system would send them down the drain over a longer period of time.
In the end it's up to them to get it together.
Swans nearly went out of the comp. Fitzroy did. Melbourne and Hawks nearly did. A few other clubs have been on the brink.
Not exclusive to the Saints or any other club struggling at the moment.

[sharp9]

it's not spelled out what happens with wanting to draft extra players...but...it does say "carry over the debt" or words to that effect. So if Mills is bid pick 1 then we take him pick 18 plus our second and third round picks....WHICH GET MOVED TO THE END OF THE ROUND not removed altogether. Of course being premiers that is no actual problem in terms of draft order. :-)

After that it is not specified what happens if someone bids, say, 10 for Dunkley. Can we then use pick 36 on Dunkley or do we have to start paying for Dunkley with pick 72....and carry the debt over to 2016?

[Dosser]

Maybe if this change is implemented Swans and other 3 clubs with the academies should insist on financial compensation which should be provided on a similar sliding scale.

For example if Swans invested $1M a year in the academy, St Kilda uses pick #1 on Mills, St Kilda will pay compensation to Swans of $500K if Swans decide not to match the pick according to the new rules.

If Freo uses pick #58 on another Academy player that Swans nominated, Swans do not match the pick and Freo compensates Swans with $20K

Sahi for PM!

[Meg]

it's not spelled out what happens with wanting to draft extra players...but...it does say "carry over the debt" or words to that effect. So if Mills is bid pick 1 then we take him pick 18 plus our second and third round picks....WHICH GET MOVED TO THE END OF THE ROUND not removed altogether. Of course being premiers that is no actual problem in terms of draft order. :-)

After that it is not specified what happens if someone bids, say, 10 for Dunkley. Can we then use pick 36 on Dunkley or do we have to start paying for Dunkley with pick 72....and carry the debt over to 2016?

As I understand it, we would have to start paying for Dunkley with pick 72 - or more likely forego him.

[Steve]

For second and subsequent players you match the bid and get the player - owing however many points which your later draft picks (if they have any points value) can start paying for.

But any deficit rolls over to the next year.

[Meg]

For second and subsequent players you match the bid and get the player - owing however many points which your later draft picks (if they have any points value) can start paying for.

But any deficit rolls over to the next year.

Grateful for clarification Steve - are you agreeing that to match the bid for a second player your points would start from 72 (or wherever your pick had slipped to after points had been 'spent' for the first player taken)? Or are you saying something different?

[Steve]

That is how I read it - a second matching bid would start using the highest pick you had remaining to pay off the second lot of points.

In the scenario i) pick 1 was bid for Mills, and ii) we are premiers and start with pick 18, we couldn't even 'pay' for Mills in that draft.

We would owe 2250 points (3000 less 25% discount), but the value of picks 18, 36, 54 & 72 combined only comes to 1726.

We could though have traded a player away for a pick in the low 30's, which would give us enough points to completely pay off Mills, with some 'change' left over which would be minimal and be a pick in the 70's. Then match the bid for Dunkley, to which that pick in the 70's would be applied, meaning we still owe most of the 1185 points it would cost if pick 10 was bid for him - to be paid in the following year's draft.

This highlights the extreme complexity of this system - even such a small difference in it being pick 2 bid for Mills means you don't have to trade that player in my example above, and can pay for Mills and still do a similar thing with Dunkley as per the details also above.

But if it's pick 5 bid for Mills and pick 15 for Dunkley, things are dramatically different again and you wouldn't carry over much into the next draft if at all.

That's another reason why the bidding happening on draft night would be a nightmare for us - you'd hate to trade away a player expecting to need an extra pick to pay off a lot of points, only for the bid to come later in the draft meaning you didn't need to make that trade.

Likewise you'd be screwed if you expect bids at certain picks only for clubs to bid much higher picks, meaning you carry over a significant debt into the next draft (when you would have made other trades earlier if you knew that was the price you'd have to pay).

It is an interesting question re: whether you are barred from making subsequent matching bids if you've run out of picks. I'm assuming you can and instead of that process of your pick moving to the end of the draft, you just immediately go into deficit for the next year.

[Meg]

The credibility of the proposed new draft bidding system for Academy and F/S selections is crucially dependent on the appropriateness of the points value allocated to each pick.

While the use of a proxy for market salary for each pick is a reasonable concept, I've been trying to understand how the AFL came up with the points allocation they've shown in the proposed Draft Value Index.

Firstly, their presentation of the Index as a continuous curve is misleading as it suggests that Draft Picks are infinitely divisible which clearly they are not. Each Pick is a discrete data point - so a bar chart would have been a more appropriate graphical presentation as it would have shown the value allocated to each individual pick.

However using their Value Points the tops of the bars would still have formed the quasi convex curve as depicted by the AFL. I find it very surprising that the use of player salaries allocated to past draft picks has come up with the 'perfect' result that each single pick ascending from Pick 1 shows a continuously descending 'value'. That result suggests perfect foresight by the draft bidders which just doesn't happen in AFL draft choices.

I'm also very surprised by the rapid drop in value within the first 10 picks. For example, Pick 2 is valued at only 84% of the value of Pick 1. It is said that the "scale was based on data relating to the average player salaries of each pick from the year 2000 onwards" so I've had a look at Picks 1 & 2 from Year 2000 on as below:

THE NUMBER 1 DRAFT PICKS (value = 3,000 points)
2000 Nick Riewoldt St Kilda
2001 Luke Hodge Hawthorn
2002 Brendon Goddard St Kilda - now Essendon
2003 Adam Cooney W. Bulldogs - now Essendon
2004 Brett Deledio Richmond
2005 Marc Murphy Carlton
2006 Bryce Gibbs Carlton
2007 Matthew Kreuzer Carlton
2008 Jack Watts Melbourne
2009 Tom Scully Melbourne ? now GWS
2010 David Swallow Gold Coast
2011 Jonathon Patton GWS
2012 Lachie Whitfield GWS
---------------
2013 Tom Boyd GWS ? now W. Bulldogs
2014 Patrick McCartin St Kilda

THE NUMBER 2 DRAFT PICKS (value = 2,517 points = 84% of Pick 1)
2000 Justin Koschitzke St Kilda ? retired 2013
2001 Luke Ball St Kilda ? then Collingwood ? retired 2014
2002 Daniel Wells North Melbourne
2003 Andrew Walker Carton
2004 Jarryd Roughead Hawthorn
2005 Dale Thomas Collingwood ? now Carlton
2006 Scott Gumbleton Essendon ? then Fremantle ? retired 2014
2007 Trent Cotchin Richmond
2008 Nic Naitanui West Coast
2009 Jack Trengove Melbourne
2010 Harley Bennell Gold Coast
2011 Stephen Coniglio GWS
2012 Jonathan O?Rourke GWS ? now Hawthorn
---------------
2013 Josh Kelly GWS
2014 Christian Petracca Melbourne

It is not clear what salaries were used but in my view the salary chosen should be the one most appropriate as a proxy for what the drafting club would have paid for those players at the draft had they been required to pay a market salary rather than use a pick. Year 1 & 2 salaries are set for draftees - so the first year a 'market' salary is established is Year 3 of the player contract. (Even then, the club has much better knowledge of the AFL skill and durability of the player than they do at the time of drafting, so the Year 3 salary might be significantly higher or lower than it would have been at the time of drafting).

If Year 3 salaries were used, then there are 13 available data points for Picks 1 & 2 (only a small sample). As I said in an earlier comment, the median salary should then have then been calculated as a better measure than a simple arithmetic mean (which is what I suspect has been used) which is likely to be skewed by one or two atypical values.

I wonder, however, if either current salaries, or average salaries over the AFL contract life of the players, have been used to throw up such large differences between Pick 1 & 2.

Just for interest, I looked at who the players were whose salaries went into the allocation of a value of 19 points for Pick 72. They were as shown below - which gave them at most seven data points (and only six if Year 3 or later salaries were used, as one player was de-listed after his first year) which is far too small a sample to be able to claim it can be used to represent a robust value. This example shows I think that the 'accuracy' of the values allocated needs a very close examination before they are adopted.

I hope the Swans are putting a fine tooth comb through all the data and assumptions as there is so much importance for the academies attached to the agreed outcome at the end of this process.

The No.72 draft picks, with club (value = 19 points)
2000 Pass Hawthorn
2001 Tristen Walker Collingwood ? delisted 2006
2002 Brad Fisher Carlton ? delisted 2010
2003 Adrian Deluca Carlton ? retired 2006
2004 Pass Richmond
2005 Pass Essendon
2006 Pass Hawthorn
2007 Blake Grima Nth Melbourne ? delisted 2008
2008 Will Young Adelaide Crows ? delisted 2011
2009 Sam Jacobs Carlton ? now Adelaide Crows
2010 Pass Fremantle
2011 Pass Fremantle
2012 Michael Evans Melbourne ? delisted 2014
----------------------
2013 Pass GWS
2014 Pass GWS

[Steve]

They have tried to come up with their version of what the NFL and NBA have for the salary scale of draftees, but the huge difference between picks 1 and 2 is perplexing any way you analyse it.

I can only think it is there not because any data suggests it should be, but rather just another safety net to appease the non-academy clubs because the perception of us having preferential rights to the No.1 player would be far more emotional, and nothing less than an extreme price we'd have to pay would be acceptable to them.

[Meg]

Someone may have already raised this point but - under this proposed system the cost of being pushed back a pick by another club being awarded a free agency compensation pick in front of your first pick could be very high indeed.

[S.S. Bleeder]

Someone may have already raised this point but - under this proposed system the cost of being pushed back a pick by another club being awarded a free agency compensation pick in front of your first pick could be very high indeed.

My understanding is that in reality no-one gets pushed back.

Lets say (fictitious example only) we have picks 10 and 20 and we have to use both of them to get our player. There are some additional bonus points left over and we are given pick 30. Whomever had pick 21 won't be promoted to pick 20. Pick 20 will effectively be skipped.

The net result for us being that we have lost one pick and also gained one. The net result for the club with selection 31 would be that they previously had 30 selections before them and there are now 29.

This is my understanding.

[Nico]

They have tried to come up with their version of what the NFL and NBA have for the salary scale of draftees, but the huge difference between picks 1 and 2 is perplexing any way you analyse it.

I can only think it is there not because any data suggests it should be, but rather just another safety net to appease the non-academy clubs because the perception of us having preferential rights to the No.1 player would be far more emotional, and nothing less than an extreme price we'd have to pay would be acceptable to them.

What makes the NBA and NFL the perfect models in the eyes of the AFL? Do they have a F/S rule? What it appears to me is that it is a deliberate attempt to shaft the F/S rule for the northern states. This rule effectively doesn't affect 15 clubs. All this does is disenfranchise 3 clubs from an age old tradition in our game.

Frankly we are better off abandoning the academy yet still identifying home grown talent. Let the other states search for very young talent in the northern states. They won't bother.

The other states already have their "academies" in the form of their Under 18 comps. The TAC Cup in Victoria is funded by the AFL as far as I know. Victoria has a huge pool of young talent who have eaten AFL for breakfast all their lives and get a great opportunity to play top level football from about Under 14 in the suburban leagues. Take the Eastern Ranges as an example. There is an Auskick structure for boys from 5 upwards run through the Eastern Ranges. Ranges scouts are watching boys in the Eastern Football League junior comp from Under 12. So there is a pathway from 5 to 19 for boys in the region. All other regions operate the same. They have paid employees to run the Auskick structure. Auskick clubs can apply for sports grants through the State Government.Those junior comps are very strong right across Melbourne and there is poaching from so called stronger clubs, and parents are a party to it in the belief that their son is more likely to be noticed. The talented boys in the country are playing against men at 16.

In the Eastern Region there an Auskick Round Robin each year and the emerging talent is very obvious. So even at 11/12 they are playing at the highest level. Damian Cupido was identified at 10 by Essendon.

In NSW and Qld they have to be nurtured. As it appears, the academies have to go out and find these kids that are nowhere near as obvious as the boys in Melbourne.

Isn't it ironic that a GM at 2 of the wealthiest clubs in Melbourne has to become GM of Brisbane for his eyes to be opened.

[Ludwig]

Frankly we are better off abandoning the academy yet still identifying home grown talent. Let the other states search for very young talent in the northern states. They won't bother.

This is the weapon that the northern clubs have. The AFL would shutter at the thought of abandoning the academies.

The northern clubs should stand together in their fight against limiting access to its academy players, at least without getting proper compensation. It appears that Brisbane is ready to make a stand. You would think GC and GWS would too, since they don't have access to FS selections, so the academies will be a critical source of talent as the move out of the startup concession period.

It riles me that Essendon can hold the AFL hostage by threatening to boycott the NAB cup games if their doping penalties are too harsh in their opinion. Just that kind of threat alone should bring sanctions for bringing the game in disrepute. But, of course, Essendon are too powerful to get any such penalty. It's not like they haven't been penalised, but it's been pretty mild so far given what they've done and how they've gone about fighting the AFL and ASADA with impunity.

No single northern club has the power of an Essendon or an Eddie McGuire, but perhaps the 4 together can make a tough stand.

[Meg]

My understanding is that in reality no-one gets pushed back.

I was referring to AFL-allocated free agency compensation picks. For example last year Melbourne were allocated pick 3 as compensation for Frawley moving to Hawthorn as a free agent. That happened before the draft period commenced so every team from the original holder of pick 3 (GWS) downwards dropped back one pick.

Under the proposed new points system, GWS would lose 200 points by being pushed back from pick 3 to pick 4 - which would be 200 points less they have to 'pay' for one of their Academy players.

[S.S. Bleeder]

Frankly we are better off abandoning the academy yet still identifying home grown talent. Let the other states search for very young talent in the northern states. They won't bother.

That was my initial thought too. But we would then lose the benefits of the academy. I think that the ideal scenario would be to wind the academy back to only about 20 boys. We would select the best pre-teens which were recommended to us by our scouts and by their results. This squad would gradually be whittled down to 1 or 2 by the draft age.

This way we get the best of both worlds. We spend very little on the academy. The AFL and the other clubs would get very little benefit in the form of the promotion of the code and recruitment of players we have invested in. Yet, we would still have the pick of the crop. The occasional player might slip through to the other clubs but that would only be on the rare occasion that there was more than one selection (ie. this year).

It probably wouldn't last too long however as the AFL wouldn't be too happy about this.

- - - Updated - - -

I was referring to AFL-allocated free agency compensation picks.

Oops, missed "free agency". Good question.