2018 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[stevoswan]

Both jordan Murdoch and Daniel Menzel both got delisted by the cats just now too.

Suns? They'd be handy experience.....

[liz]

Suns? They'd be handy experience.....

The Suns are pretty light on for list spots. The AFL gave them free whack at three experienced state players, which they took, but they weren't granted any additional list spots. They've then gone and traded for some low cost, experienced players as well, such as Horlin-Smith, Hombsch, Ellis and Miles. They already have some highish draft picks they're in danger of not needing to use so I'll be surprised if they go for any more "depth" players.

[Bloody Hell]

Both jordan Murdoch and Daniel Menzel both got delisted by the cats just now too.


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On every AFL forum around Australia punters are starting the same thread titled - "What do you think about Menzel?" No idea why he was cut. If it's because he was asking for 2 years instead of accepting 1 it's criminal.

On field he doesn't apply enough pressure for the game in it's current format, but he's kicking 2 goals a game. We're pretty set for small forwards, but geez...

Rohan will probably take his spot.

[Auntie.Gerald]

Menzel hmmmm

We don’t have a player like him

He can get goals

But I’m not sure if he is a good fit for our forward line

Murdoch I wouldn’t mind at the right price

[707]

Menzel will head home to Adelaide. Port seem to give rookie spot lifelines to a lot of these players, Trengove, Thomas, Barry most recently.

Suns list is in an interesting place numbers wise, as Liz pointed out, already got seven new players. Pick wise they have 2, 3, 6, 24, 29 so maybe they could have a spare pick that will interest us in a swap for a 2019 second?

[S.S. Bleeder]

I have charts on hit rates of picks (live picks only, father/sons etc are excluded):

This one shows the percentage of players taken in each band of picks who get to 100 games. 20 to 40 isn't a huge step down, and even 40 to 50 has a bit of a hit rate. Take several shots in these ranges and you're likely to get something out of it. Three picks in the 30s is probably going to have odds around that of two picks in the 20s.

Barry is right that a 1 in 3 hit rate of 100 gamers from picks 30-40 is a good outcome, but that's also true of all picks past pick 10.

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This one is the log-regressed value we use for each pick at HPN. The main noteworthy feature is, compared to the AFL's Draft Value Index (academy points) the picks in the back end of the second round have more value - the AFL undervalues them compared to what they actually produce. A general rule of thumb is if you've got say pick 22 from early in the second round, you should trade for any two picks before about pick 35 (Port's trade in 2016 that netted us 9 and 19 got them 14, 17 and 31 was a bet something like this that worked out for both parties - Florent and Hayward on one side, Powell-Pepper and Marshall on the other, jury still out on Atley and Drew).

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Example theoretical equivalent expected values are: pick 5 likely to give about what two pick 25s or three pick 43s do. The "sure thing" status of very high picks drops off a lot after about pick 3, and pick 5 usually goes well but has some notably ordinary recruits attached to it such as Xavier Clark, Matt Buntine, Brock McLean and Jarrad Grant.

Those values are all a bit theoretical, and clubs simply would not trade backwards just to get the equal odds suggested here. They'd want significantly greater odds from sacrificing the high pick. In reality everyone puts a premium on the early picks because they're surer things, they have prestige, you have a wider range of choices about who to take, and because list spots are finite. Carrying multiple guys as bets on getting at least one good best 22 player has a cost in terms of list spots. If you did it three years in a row, you might be carrying ten or twelve guys in the hope of getting what 3 high picks could give you.

(Plus I think list managers have a bias towards not trading early picks because of reputation risk).

But clubs do trade backwards occasionally, and to good effect. They do much more in US sports with drafts, and I reckon we're a bit too conservative about trading down to take multiple shots in the AFL. This is, after all an unusually team oriented game, and 22 good players is a lot of players, and hard to get quickly. Quantity has its own value, and spreading your risk over more players means less eggs in one high pick basket who might blow an ACL. I also think the "trade backwards and take multiple picks" approach probably needs to be done as a long term game. There's an unavoidable failure rate to taking a higher quantity of second and early third rounders, but if done consistently over several years it should smooth out the probabilities and ensure enough successful strikes to help build a team.

Upshot: If we get Blakey at 7 that leaves picks 37, 38 and 40, and at least one of those 3 later guys would be expected to work out as well, and sometimes a second guy might work out too. Especially if we choose to believe Sydney are, through Beatson and co, better at drafting and developing from the middle part of the draft than the average club is. These averages and probabilities do, after all, include players selected by the clubs who are worst at drafting and developing players.

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Thanks R1. Great analysis. The fact is that you would always prefer higher picks because there is a greater chance of selecting a better player. The fact that we've selected some duds in the first round is a pure anomaly.

[swansrob]

Murdoch I wouldn’t mind at the right price

He's a delisted free agent, apart from his (likely modest given his delisted status) salary, we can pick him up for nothing

[rb4x]

Interesting that the Cats would take on Gary Rohan but delist Jordan Murdoch. Both are very fast and have booming kicks but if you check their career stats Murdoch's are way better than Rohan's.

Murdoch
2018 SEASON AVERAGE GAMES PLAYED 16
KICKS
9.2
HANDBALLS
5.7
DISPOSALS
14.9
MARKS
4.3
HIT-OUTS
0.0
TACKLES
3.6
GOALS
0.6
AFL FANTASY
68.9

Rohan
2018 SEASON AVERAGE GAMES PLAYED 11
KICKS
6.5
HANDBALLS
2.0
DISPOSALS
8.5
MARKS
2.5
HIT-OUTS
1.1
TACKLES
2.7
GOALS
0.6
AFL FANTASY
43.5

Murdoch has a similar advantage over Rohan for career stats as well and is a year younger.

[R-1]

Menzel will head home to Adelaide. Port seem to give rookie spot lifelines to a lot of these players, Trengove, Thomas, Barry most recently.

Someone's gotta help out the Magpies

[Muttley]

Blakey plus using two picks in the 30s on 2 other kids looks like a reasonable strategy.

[KSAS]

I also wondered about him (Freeman) when he was delisted, but according to a Melbourne acquaintance the explosive pace that saw him so highly rated has completely gone.

That's a shame, wasn't aware of that with Freeman. Thanks for the inside word Ruck'n Roll. Explains maybe why Saints gave him a few late season games before delisting him, so at least he got to taste senior AFL footy if he doesn't get picked up.

[Chookbilly]

Apparently we're into Jacob Townsend. https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/...26-p50c36.html

[Auntie.Gerald]

Jacob Townsend - richmondfc.com.au

Round 5: Townsend crunches Jones - richmondfc.com.au

The next Mitch Morton ??? Lol but opposite

The Leeton league tackling machine

http://m.richmondfc.com.au/video/2015-10-16/townsend-highlights

[Auntie.Gerald]

Every Jacob Townsend AFL Goal - YouTube

[Ludwig]

I noticed that Collingwood traded down, swapping pick 51 for 57 and 60. Now they have 5 picks with value points totalling roughly 1300 points. They want to use them on Quaynor and Kelly. But this would seem to contradict the supposed rule that a club can only take as many picks to the draft as they have spots on the list, which would mean a max of 2 extras if the club limits the list to 38. So you should only be able to use max 4 picks on 2 players, assuming the bids matched equal or exceed the value points of the 4 picks.

I didn't think that rookie elevationals affected this rule as they were determined before the rookie draft. So what's wrong here?

Maybe the rule doesn't apply to Victorian clubs.