2021 trading, drafting and list management: players and personnel

[bandwagon]

Bloody annoying/retrograde.

I'm sure they would provide the information for appropriate remuneration

Centre clearances are a mystery. We lost the centre clearance differential in 11 games, and won it in 11 games. In 7 games where we won the centre clearance differential we actually lost the match. Over the whole season our differential was +4. Our most dominant games was a differential of +13 against... the Demons in round 8.

[MattW]

I'm sure they would provide the information for appropriate remuneration

...

Maybe, but I don't think so.

Their website doesn't have an ostensible offer to the public to subscribe to the deep stats. They are the official stat provider of the AFL, so I suspect the terms of the contract between the two limits access to those deeper stats to the AFL and related commercial entities (media, clubs etc).

[Nico]

That's nasty Ludwig, shot down an unsubstantiated opinion by using FACTS :-)

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. I have never seen what is categorised as a centre clearance. Is it the team that gets first hands on it or possession/disposal regardless of the quality. Are secondary ball ups included? Is it the team that exits the centre square regardless of how long it has been since the first ball up? What I see is opposition teams whisking the ball away too often unchallenged. Most times we get a clearance it is a scrappy kick or sloppy handpass.

[stevoswan]

All those restrictions will be gone next season.

We can only hope....

[Ludwig]

I have no idea who decides what the stats are or how they are measured. Tom Hickey was the 3rd best ruckman in centre clearances and ahead of both Tom Mitchell and Callum Mills. Who would have picked that?

Is the centre clearance a meaningful stat? I think the centre clearance is meaningful, but maybe the stat is not. So it's left to an interpretation of quality that no one will agree upon. Good luck with this one.

[neilfws]

They don't make it all publicly available

Champion Data make very little available, most of what they do is proprietary. That's their business model of course, but it frustrates recreational sports analysts no end!

For years as many will know, we have relied mostly on the AFL Tables website, which is lovingly compiled by one guy after each game from the basic stats provided by the AFL website and multiple other sources.

That has changed this year, as someone has figured out how to extract the play-by-play data used in the AFL app. They have dumped it online and it is an absolute goldmine of data, with every "chain" (sequence of plays) throughout the game, times and positions of players on the field.

Every chain of play starts with one of five "states": ball up, centre bounce, kick in, possession gain or throw in. And every event has a description, such as "Goal". So we can, for example, count how many goals for each team came from what starting state. Here are the counts for the grand final:


Showing that Melbourne dominated in goals from centre bounces, presumably reflecting the latter part of the game when they were just waltzing out of the centre and scoring.

Anyway - just wanted to let all the stats fans know that we have new, exciting possibilities available now. Expect even more fun charts from me next season

[mcs]

Champion Data make very little available, most of what they do is proprietary. That's their business model of course, but it frustrates recreational sports analysts no end!

For years as many will know, we have relied mostly on the AFL Tables website, which is lovingly compiled by one guy after each game from the basic stats provided by the AFL website and multiple other sources.

That has changed this year, as someone has figured out how to extract the play-by-play data used in the AFL app. They have dumped it online and it is an absolute goldmine of data, with every "chain" (sequence of plays) throughout the game, times and positions of players on the field.

Every chain of play starts with one of five "states": ball up, centre bounce, kick in, possession gain or throw in. And every event has a description, such as "Goal". So we can, for example, count how many goals for each team came from what starting state. Here are the counts for the grand final:


Showing that Melbourne dominated in goals from centre bounces, presumably reflecting the latter part of the game when they were just waltzing out of the centre and scoring.

Anyway - just wanted to let all the stats fans know that we have new, exciting possibilities available now. Expect even more fun charts from me next season

Wow that is some serious data gold mine material Neil! I have a friend that was exceptionally good at turning such mumbo jumbo into useful data sets - shame he is a busy entrepeneur living overseas these days haha and wouldn't have the time!

[MattW]

I have no idea who decides what the stats are or how they are measured. Tom Hickey was the 3rd best ruckman in centre clearances and ahead of both Tom Mitchell and Callum Mills. Who would have picked that?

Is the centre clearance a meaningful stat? I think the centre clearance is meaningful, but maybe the stat is not. So it's left to an interpretation of quality that no one will agree upon. Good luck with this one.

Not your point and totally off topic, but Tom Hickey has been such a great pick up. Seems a fantastic guy, and is a very honest and good(!) player. Played well through injury. He's brought a lot to the team and club. One of my favourites already. Ideally suited to our club and I'm proud that after 4 clubs, it's ours that he's felt at home.

[707]

Not your point and totally off topic, but Tom Hickey has been such a great pick up. Seems a fantastic guy, and is a very honest and good(!) player. Played well through injury. He's brought a lot to the team and club. One of my favourites already. Ideally suited to our club and I'm proud that after 4 clubs, it's ours that he's felt at home.

Good post

[Aprilbr]

It looks like Crows will be playing handball with us and trying to force us to take their number 23 pick given they are ruling out splitting picks etc:

"However, the Crows plan to hold their top pick and go to the draft as they push for more top-end talent, with their future first-round pick also not expected to be a part of any Dawson deal.
Adelaide list manager Justin Reid told Continental Tyres AFL Trade Radio on Wednesday that discussions with the Swans over a trade for Dawson were in their early stages.
"We've had preliminary conversations with Sydney. We'll pick up those conversations again early next week," Reid said.
"The focus and sole focus for us is Jordy Dawson and working through that through the Trade Period and then a draft focus."

Trade Radio

[Mark26]

It looks like Crows will be playing handball with us and trying to force us to take their number 23 pick given they are ruling out splitting picks etc:

"However, the Crows plan to hold their top pick and go to the draft as they push for more top-end talent, with their future first-round pick also not expected to be a part of any Dawson deal.
Adelaide list manager Justin Reid told Continental Tyres AFL Trade Radio on Wednesday that discussions with the Swans over a trade for Dawson were in their early stages.
"We've had preliminary conversations with Sydney. We'll pick up those conversations again early next week," Reid said.
"The focus and sole focus for us is Jordy Dawson and working through that through the Trade Period and then a draft focus."

Trade Radio

I'm sure someone on here can clarify this for me. If we are unsatisfied with what Adelaide offers, can we match their contract offer and keep JD?

[dejavoodoo44]

I'm sure someone on here can clarify this for me. If we are unsatisfied with what Adelaide offers, can we match their contract offer and keep JD?

My understanding is, that since Dawson hasn't been playing long enough to reach free agency, we are under no obligation to trade him or even match Adelaide's offer. We could just say to him, the trade that Adelaide offered was unacceptable, and because our salary cap space is tight, we're just going to repeat our original offer. However, the risk with that is, Dawson could then refuse to sign with us, and then place himself in the pre-season draft. In which case, Adelaide would probably get him and we'd get nothing in return. The slight risk for Adelaide and Dawson in that scenario, is that he could be taken by a club with an earlier pick, like North.

[Roadrunner]

Develop Amarty as a defender.

He has pace, a great leap, can take a contested mark, reads the play well and provides a good contest.

Joel can provide the chop out ruck in defence, leaving Hickey as the outlet down the line.

We did it with Tommy McC, so should be able to with Joel.

I would leave McLean to develop into CHF, with Logan as FF.

I'm not sure about Paddy Mc being a key defender just yet as from watching him on TV, he was obviously better than most others in the reserves and seemed to coast along. Perhaps this was key to him not being drafted midseason as well as his brainfart.

Good thinking there Sprite. His goal kicking is too unreliable at this stage and we can’t afford to have a forward spraying them. I can see the possibility of Joel becoming an Allir type defender. More so than a replacement for Jordan as his kicking is not accurate but can be deep.

Hopefully the coaches are prepared to experiment as clearly we need another tall defender/intercept player down back.
Trial in the ressies for a while? McLean forward/ruck as he is a much better kick for goal.

[Markwebbos]

He’s out of contract so under no obligation to return to the Swans. But as you say deja he’d have to risk going in the PSD.

AFL reported yesterday that Tigers had offered pick 7 and later picks (poss 15) for Crows 4 and been knocked back.

Dawson deal gets complicated as Crows turn down pick swap

[707]

He’s out of contract so under no obligation to return to the Swans. But as you say deja he’d have ti risk going in the PSD.

AFL reported yesterday that Tigers had offered pick 7 and later picks (poss 15) for Crows 4 and been knocked back.

Dawson deal gets complicated as Crows turn down pick swap

So there's a player in the first four of the untied players that the Cows want, that won't be there at pick 7. Otherwise Cows would do the pick swap with Richmond and give us pick 15 for Dawson.

A new top 30 prospects from Twomey up on the VFL website this morning so it's one of the players rated 4-6 the Cows want. I saw Horne-Francis live over the SANFL senior finals (BOG in the Prelim), so Daicos must be an unbelievable player to still be ranked at 1 ahead of JHF. Please bid on Daicos at pick 1 Norf, make Pies pay full price.

There will be a lot of pick swapping taking place, we may even be involved, Dogs will be offloading pick 17 (19) for maximum points to pay for F/S Darcy around pick 3/4