2018 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[AB Swannie]

Having a son play for the same club as his father is a romantic thing which should be preserved. I dont mind having a discount to encourage it. Its fairly rare anyway.

The son can still play for the same club as the father. Eg Will Kelly is bid on at pick 29. Collingwood get the opportunity to take him by paying 653 points.

And if there wasnt a discount for northern academies, why would the swans bother investing in it at all ?
The idea of Swans/GWS/Lions/Suns investing in academies is to provide a pathway to those clubs for local players would can see clear alternative pathways to local clubs in rugby league and soccer.

Same as above. The Swans would still benefit by having access to Nick Blakey, Callum Mills, and Isaac Heeney. With or without the discount, it is beneficial to have priority access to this level of talent.

Overall, I think it would ensure players are bid on at the correct spot and would reduce the pick trading as there would be more risk trading out your first. Basically, the AFL has stuffed up so that the draft is so compromised, it is not funny and every bandaid solution they create adds more compromise.

[Bloods05]

Having a son play for the same club as his father is a romantic thing which should be preserved. I dont mind having a discount to encourage it. Its fairly rare anyway.

And if there wasnt a discount for northern academies, why would the swans bother investing in it at all ?
The idea of Swans/GWS/Lions/Suns investing in academies is to provide a pathway to those clubs for local players would can see clear alternative pathways to local clubs in rugby league and soccer.

Yes.

[ugg]

The last point on this link says the Swans had to re-enact their decision to match the Blakey bid for FOX.

Nine things we learned from the NAB AFL Draft - AFL.com.au

[liz]

[Warning: Very long post. Skip it entirely if you don't like long posts.]

I reckon there are a few different factors/issues wrapped up in the bidding system and in the trade that Sydney pulled off on draft night.

As far as the discount goes, I think it's reasonable on a number of fronts. Firstly it is an incentive. Fans of non-NSW/Queensland clubs and large chunks of the media (and some club officials) may not like it but the AFL outsourced the development of talent in the northern states to the four clubs because they'd shown over the previous decade or so that they had no stomach or no nous to do it themselves. A small handful of Queenslanders were drafted reasonably high over this period (Tippett, Beams, Armitage) but the record in NSW was woeful. Between McVeigh (at no 5 in 2002) and Heeney (effectively at 2 in 2014) there were NO NSW players from above the Barassi line taken in the first three rounds of the National Draft. I am not sure there were any taken later in the National Draft either, apart from Bird (scholarship player) and possibly Walker (also scholarship player - I'm not sure where Broken Hill sits in relation to the Barassi Line).

It's still early days, and I think the talent pipeline has been slow, but the academies are slowly starting to make a difference. But it's completely unreasonable to expect the four clubs to invest their time and other resources without some return. People can say the AFL should take them over, but to date they haven't so there's a price to pay.

The disparity between the investment that the four northern clubs make to their academies, and that made by the other 14 clubs, vs the lack of disparity in the discount the clubs receive does irk me. While I have some issues with the qualification criteria for the NGA academies, I have no issue with expanding the model to other parts of the country. But it hasn't been expanded. Rather the other 14 clubs have something approximating the old NSW scholarship system, whereby they cherry pick players already developed by the existing development pathways rather than adding to those development pathways in some significant way. I reckon the discount should be tied to the number of years a player has been involved in a club's development system, with only a very small discount given for players identified at age 16 or later. That might encourage clubs to actually invest in activities than encompass a larger number of younger boys in the hope that the odd one or two reach an elite level.

Another reason I see for a discount is that the right to match a player at pick X is very different (and less valuable) than having pick X. Pick X gives a club access to a player but it also gives them a choice of player. The right to match doesn't do that. For example, if Sydney had held pick 3 in 2015, maybe they wouldn't have chosen Mills. They might have had a preference for a tall and chosen someone like Curnow, or maybe they liked the look of Oliver as a more dynamic midfielder. That's not to say Mills wasn't a fine acquisition, or that they weren't happy to get him, but they didn't have pick 3. So a discount is appropriate for that reason.

Related to that is that the price set isn't the mean rating of all other clubs for the player concerned. It's the highest rating. And also (somewhat) related, the discount gives some protection against vexatious bidding (though as I stated before the draft, I think there is little to no evidence of that happening yet).

In terms of the relative value of picks and the points value that the AFL has assigned to them, there is clearly a mismatch between pick points values and market value. I don't think that's a surprise because the AFL points index is conceptually an intrinsic value index, not a market value index. It would be very hard to come up with a market value index because there are too few actual trades to compile one, plus market values vary significantly from year to year (and maybe intrinsic values do too). I have a few issues with the AFL's salary based approach and wonder about the shape of the curve they tried to fit, but regardless of those, it is an intrinsic value index.

The authors of Footballistics(*see more details at the end of this post) came up with their own method of calculating an intrinsic value points index for draft picks. Rather than use salaries, they developed their own player ratings system. They didn't use the AFL's own player ratings but the concept behind their system is similar. Unfortunately they didn't provide much detail of the underlying assumptions and value judgements they made when devising it (or publish a list of actual player ratings to assess how reasonable it looks) but there's little reason to believe it doesn't have some validity as a method of rating players relative to each other. Using this system, they then calculated the relative value of draft picks and concluded that the AFL's own index actually undervalues later picks (ie second, third round) relative to earlier picks. That contradicts what most seem to think - that the AFL's system overvalues later picks. What it says to me is that the market is prepared to pay a price for early picks much higher than their intrinsic value, possibly because list managers perceive that the chances of getting an out-and-out superstar are much greater with the early picks. I question whether that's the case but I think that's what market trades tell us.

The perception that the Swans pulled a swifty, and got Blakey for a ridiculously low price, is really a combination of the trade and that a bid didn't come until pick 10. The latter wasn't, of course, Sydney's doing. I'm not overly enamoured by the trade they did. It had a bit of a feel of being clever for the sake of being clever, rather than really adding value. We won't know for another 10 months exactly what the price was, but downgrading our second round pick next year to West Coast's third seems like a hefty price to pay.

I wonder if reaction to the trade would have been different had the first leg been done before the draft. Was it just the fact that the two were so close together that raised eyebrows? Clearly the timing of the first leg was, in part, a response to the lack of a bid for Blakey. The Swans probably expected one earlier and didn't want to downgrade the rest of the current year picks too far if they needed to cover an earlier bid. When the bid still hadn't come by about pick 7 or 8, they wanted to maximise the value of their existing haul. On the other hand, they had clearly anticipated the situation might arise, so it can't have been a complete shock that no earlier bid came for Blakey.

If people agree that the combination of the two trades was against the spirit of the system, how do you legislate against it? During trade week, when players and picks can all be drafted, the AFL has to tick off each trade as a guard against clearly unbalanced trades. This is to protect against side deals that influence trades but aren't explicitly included and dates from more than a decade ago when two clubs entered into an absurdly lopsided trade that also included some agreement relating to not trading another player and instead sending him to the PSD.

The first Swans-Eagles trade clearly fell into that category of absurdly lopsided, and it was obvious when it happened that it was only half the trade. I referred to it at the time (influenced by half a bottle of merlot but still mostly in command of my faculties) as a "repo". Which it was (with a slight net value transfer to provide a weak defence that it wasn't). The problem that the AFL has created with live trading during the draft is that there isn't time to get each trade ticked off. This one should have failed the sniff test, but unless you can be sure to prevent all dodgy trades, it's hardly fair to stop some. On the face of it, the Giants paid a hefty price to trade up to the pick that they used to draft Ian Hill. That might have looked dodgy at the time but proved to be a real trade - ie there wasn't a subsequent trade between the two clubs that shifted value back.

If the AFL wants to stop this apparent gaming of the system, I reckon a far better way would be to rule that a club has to match a bid with a pick within X spots of the bid. Not only would that take away the incentive of a club like Sydney to enter into such a trade, it would address broader complaints around access to a highly rated player with a bunch of lower picks, and reduces impact of the accuracy of the points index on the fairness of trades. What X should be comes down to preference and judgement. I think 10 is about the right number. It still gives clubs a good opportunity to match bids for players they've invested in but brings the cost closer to market value. It also means that if a club that played deep into the finals who have access to the stand-out player in that year's draft (or one of the top two or three), they won't automatically be able to get him. They can still trade up during trade week to secure a pick that will be sufficient to match a bid, but they may need to pay a premium to do so.

* Footballistics is a book published earlier this year (ABC Books / HarperCollins Publishers, Sydney). The named author is James Coventry, who is currently the deputy sports editor at the ABC. He was supported by a group of analysts who brought the quantitative skills to the analysis that underlies many of the chapters. Their details are provided at the back of the book, but most have credible backgrounds in economics, data science, statistics, and similar quantitative endeavours.

One of our own RWOers is one of the contributors but he has been very restrained in promoting it. He (or maybe it's a she) mentioned it in passing a couple of months ago, which prompted me to seek it out. It's a pretty easy read - I got through it in a few days - and I suggest it's essential reading for anyone interested in the analytical side of the game. Some chapters I found far more interesting than others, but there's something in there to appeal to an array of lovers of the game.

If you are inclined to buy it, I can recommend Booktopia. They had it in stock when I ordered (at a discount price) and I received it less than 48 hours after placing the order.

[Ludwig]

I enjoyed reading your last post, liz. I agree, with 2 exceptions:

1. The value points system was designed specifically with Callum Mills in mind, a point I've made on several occasions. We are stuck with a value system heavily skewed to the top end because it targeted making the Swans pay the highest price possible for Mills. Maybe one day the AFL will quietly change it, simply saying they've got a better one.
2. I am fine with some of the more extravagant pick swapping that went on. If the parties to the trade are acting at arms length and not colluding to rort the draft, then just about anything should be fine. i didn't see any trade that didn't have benefits to both parties involved. It's been widely reported that the Swans pulled off some kind of a swindle, but as has been pointed out, the Swans traded down significantly in next year's draft, and WC made out quite well with the trade. They also did another one with similar benefits. I think the current system gives all clubs more flexibility in how they approach the draft and allows clubs with specific requirements, like matching a bid, to trade high draft picks to clubs that want to acquire top end talent, so everyone makes out in the process.

I also think Rowbottom would not have made it to our next pick. There were a lot of other players rated around the same that also went in the second round, a few shortly after Rowbottom, like Sparrow, O'Neill, Hamill, Bytel and Ross. In fact, all the players that i thought were reasonable possibilities for our original pick went before the Mcinerney pick. So I think we did well with the pick swap, even if it cost us a bit next year. There may have been consideration for expectations next year when we have a couple of decent academy players that might get bids in the 2nd round up, like Josh Raynor, so having 2 high picks plus points for the academy picks could do just fine, with a look toward next year.

[Markwebbos]

Liz, an extremely well reasoned post as always. I agree with the majority of it.

Not sure I ageee with the point about pick 3, I think it works the other way. The Academy allows us to get into the draft way higher than we would have based on our ladder position.

Although we could only use pick 3 on Mills, if Mills hadn’t been around our first pick would have been 14 or 15 so we were able to draft a player 10 picks higher than we otherwise should due to the academy.

That gives clubs access to elite talent without having to drop down the ladder and undermines the equalisation Intent of the draft.

[liz]

Not sure I ageee with the point about pick 3, I think it works the other way. The Academy allows us to get into the draft way higher than we would have based on our ladder position.

Although we could only use pick 3 on Mills, if Mills hadn’t been around our first pick would have been 14 or 15 so we were able to draft a player 10 picks higher than we otherwise should due to the academy.

I don't think that contradicts what I said. My observation was that being permitted to match a bid for one specific player isn't as valuable as being the owner of the pick with which a bid is placed. I agree that it is still valuable that you can match a bid on that player, particularly when you don't have access to a pick that high, but it's still not as valuable as owning that pick outright. That's one reason I think some discount is conceptually appropriate.

[liz]

I enjoyed reading your last post, liz. I agree, with 2 exceptions:

1. The value points system was designed specifically with Callum Mills in mind, a point I've made on several occasions. We are stuck with a value system heavily skewed to the top end because it targeted making the Swans pay the highest price possible for Mills. Maybe one day the AFL will quietly change it, simply saying they've got a better one.
2. I am fine with some of the more extravagant pick swapping that went on. If the parties to the trade are acting at arms length and not colluding to rort the draft, then just about anything should be fine. i didn't see any trade that didn't have benefits to both parties involved. It's been widely reported that the Swans pulled off some kind of a swindle, but as has been pointed out, the Swans traded down significantly in next year's draft, and WC made out quite well with the trade. They also did another one with similar benefits. I think the current system gives all clubs more flexibility in how they approach the draft and allows clubs with specific requirements, like matching a bid, to trade high draft picks to clubs that want to acquire top end talent, so everyone makes out in the process.

With your first point I think you are arguing that the AFL's points value index overvalues earlier picks and undervalues later picks (relative to each other). That's kind of what I'm saying, at least if you focus on intrinsic rather than some construct for market value (construct because I don't believe true market value is observable in this system). That view is at odds with most arguments I've read, which is that later picks are overvalued relative to early picks. I don't think there's a wrong or right answer, per se. It mostly depends on whether you think a market or intrinsic value approach is "fairer" (fairer to whom, I wonder).

If you look at the two trades the Swans and Eagles did in conjunction, they don't look utterly lopsided. It did cost the Swans a bit to trade back into the second round but not an abnormally high amount. What was dodgy about the trade was that it was split in two, with each half individually unbalanced. Splitting it in two and timing the two halves before and after the Swans matched a bid was clearly a tactic to use the latest possible picks on Blakey. The AFL signed off on it, so it can't be said to be against the rules. But I can see why some think it was against the spirit of the system.

I wonder if the reaction would have been any different had an earlier bid come that the Swans used picks 26 and 33 to pay for (and maybe part of the next pick), and the Swans then traded back into the second round in a single trade. Maybe they would have been forced to use the Saints' second round pick for 2019 to do so. There wouldn't have been the optics of a trade split in half, but the club would still have managed to access and use a pick in the 20s that, had they held it at the time, would have been applied against the Blakey bid.

This was the tactic The Mase identified as possible in a thread on here a couple of weeks before the draft. I'm not sure he envisaged might exacerbate the outrage by first trading out pick 26.

[tasswan]

What I have a bigger issue with is Free Agency.
I like the concept that a player can nominate a club they would like to go to but I dont think it is fair that the receiving club doesn't have to give anything up.
It would make more sense if the receiving club had to give up the equivalent worth as father/son or academy.
For example this year GC gets pick 3 for Lynch and Richmond gives up picks that make up the value of pick 3.

[chuckie]

I posted the below comments just after Christmas in 2017.
I met up with the same Calder Cannons person this week and I ask him about our draft picks and he said that Rowbottom is a gun and will play seniors in 2019 and rated him much higher than Florent when we drafted him. He also said the other draftees are pretty good, i asked him about Ling and he was pretty keen on him as well.

I spoke to a person who works with the Calder cannons over Christmas and he said that we have a good player in Ben Ronke.
They thought he would have been picked up late in the second round of the draft not as a rookie.
He reminded him of the year Luke Parker got drafted, early that year he was expected to go top ten but kept drifting.
He could be an outside chance of the Papley role.
Like

[707]

Doesn't work when you pick up James Frawley and then have to stump up points the equivalent of the pick 3 that Melbourne received. Frawley was never worth that, Tom Lynch was.

FA distorts equalisation because as we've seen most FA go to the better clubs who pay nothing for them and it also dilutes the draft because innocent clubs have their picks pushed back due to the compo picks.

There should be a reduced points price (say 50% of the compo pick value) to pay if you pick up a FA that has created a compo pick. In effect, if you are pillaging a player from a low ranked club, the compo pick will be higher placed, you'll pay more points penalty to get that player. But that wouldn't get past the ALFPA as it may reduce the options a FA has when seeking to move clubs, he AFLPA is the fly in the ointment here not the bumbling AFL.

[liz]

Doesn't work when you pick up James Frawley and then have to stump up points the equivalent of the pick 3 that Melbourne received. Frawley was never worth that, Tom Lynch was.

FA distorts equalisation because as we've seen most FA go to the better clubs who pay nothing for them and it also dilutes the draft because innocent clubs have their picks pushed back due to the compo picks.

There should be a reduced points price (say 50% of the compo pick value) to pay if you pick up a FA that has created a compo pick. In effect, if you are pillaging a player from a low ranked club, the compo pick will be higher placed, you'll pay more points penalty to get that player. But that wouldn't get past the ALFPA as it may reduce the options a FA has when seeking to move clubs, he AFLPA is the fly in the ointment here not the bumbling AFL.

Or you just abolish compensation picks altogether.

The only justification I can see for compensation picks is to provide some protection to clubs in the situation the Suns find themselves in - in a cycle of losing high quality players (whether through FA or trades) because they can't establish themselves as a competitive force (and to some extent because they are located in an outpost). I'd rather see compensation picks abolished but greater use of the AFL's discretion to award priority picks to teams in extreme situations.

[Ludwig]

Or you just abolish compensation picks altogether.

The only justification I can see for compensation picks is to provide some protection to clubs in the situation the Suns find themselves in - in a cycle of losing high quality players (whether through FA or trades) because they can't establish themselves as a competitive force (and to some extent because they are located in an outpost). I'd rather see compensation picks abolished but greater use of the AFL's discretion to award priority picks to teams in extreme situations.

I agree with this approach to free agency, but it will only exacerbate the problems with the northern clubs, particularly the Suns. Priority picks would be some relief.

What the AFL should have done is grant NGA zones to struggling clubs, even on a short term basis, instead of giving them to clubs that don't need assistance. This would expand the access to quality players to clubs struggling to retain players.

The bigger problem now is players demanding to be traded before they enter free agency. Something has to be done to stop this.

[liz]

The bigger problem now is players demanding to be traded before they enter free agency. Something has to be done to stop this.

I completely agree with this. It's the primary recruitment/retention issue that needs to be addressed. If the Suns had had more protection against losing players like O'Meara, Prestia and Caddy well before those players earned the right to free agency, Tom Lynch and Steven May might have been more inclined to stick around. I wrote a couple of my long, rambling posts earlier this year suggesting how this could be addressed and I'm not going to repeat all that again. But there are some viable ways the AFL could seek to redress the balance that can be applied to all clubs (not just selectively to those they judge need help), but that, in a practical sense, would most benefit the clubs most at risk.

I don't agree with your comment on the selective awarding of NGA academies. If the AFL is going to have academy systems they need to be structured to encourage long term investment in a pool of players, whatever the criteria of entitlement to those players are. The goal surely has to be to increase the total available talent pool, not merely to act as a distortion in the way an existing pool is allocated. The entitlement/bidding system is a distortion but its effects shouldn't be as objectionable if the primary objective of growing the talent pool is achieved.

[Boddo]

Agree with a lot of what Liz has written except I think one thing is missing and to me it’s a massive issue.

It’s that the change from the AFL running junior development in the northern states to northern academies highlights how bad the AFL are at running junior development in this country.

And the knock on effect is with them running junior development they try to structure a lot around churning out draftees and then ignore the health of the game as a whole, perfect example is Tasmania.

Which brings up the issue of should the AFL or clubs be running academies throughout Australia?

Lastly just on the idea of regularly changing zones I believe it wouldn’t work and would open a new can of worms. Struggling clubs could end up developing a player and years of time and resources put into him only to see their zone taken off them just as they’re about to draft the player.

Imagine the time and effort put into Josh Rayner by Sydney over the last five years only to see Carlton have access to him next year. This would almost certainly happen and then you’d find clubs under resourcing their zoned area and try to just cherry pick when possible.