2022 Results
Tonga Bob
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- Oct 26, 2013
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- #1
Hi all,
Just thought I'd share a little something with you.
For those who know my work on this place, particularly on other boards, I'm a bit of a stats nerd. I keep spreadsheets for all sorts of weird stuff, and one such spreadsheet I've got on the go is to do with Doig Results. And given this year's incarnation of the Doig Medal was run and won last weekend, I thought I'd share a stats lesson with you.
So the question is - who's the greatest Docker according to the Doig Medal results. Well it'll probably come as no surprise to anyone that the answer is Matthew Pavlich. But if you look at who are the players below Pav and make up the top few brackets in the Freo Pantheon of Champions, then the answer is a bit murkier.
"Murkier?" I hear you type. "How does the answer get murkier?"
The answer - and the lesson - is because of the data, and more specifically how you interpret the data. Please consider...
The end of each Doig Medal count usually gives us a top 10, from which you can get a top 5, a top 3 and a... well, a top. And although they may tell a similar story, there are differences within the telling. Let's start with the Doig Medal winners:
You could argue that this is the elite of Fremantle players. Pav the GOAT, twice as good as Peter Bell & Nat Fyfe. Lachie Neale & Aaron Sandilands are next best, while there's another 12 players who are in the conversation. Does this tell the whole story though? Is Bell as good as Fyfe? Neale as good as Sandi? Is Andrew Brayshaw as good as Jason Norrish, Peter Mann as good as David Mundy, or Ryan Crowley as good as Adrian Fletcher? According to this data interpretation they are. But what if we take the Olympic podium approach, and view the top 3 results...
As you can see, I've assigned points to Doig placings - 3 points for a win, 2 for a second and 1 for a third. Pav's still on top of course, but underneath there are changes afoot. Fyfe has a small gap on Belly, Sandi's a clear 4th while Mundy jumps into the top 5. Paul Hasleby & Shane Parker, players who haven't won a Doig so were absent from the first list, make the top 10. Likewise Stephen Hill, Michael Johnson & Michael Walters from the top 15. Luke McPharlin, often touted a top 5 Docker all time appears but is outside the top 20, while the likes of Greg Broughton & Chris Tarrant are in the top 38 all time best players for Freo. But what if we expand our data to the top 5...
Same deal with the points - 5 for first and so on. Pav & Fyfe still one-two, but Mundy's joined Bell in third. Dale Kickett & Paul Hasleby have overtaken Lachie Neale while Stephen Hill makes the top 10. Some of the players in our original two lists are dropping as well, with Jason Norrish & Sean Darcy outside the top 23. And it's only now that we see such 'heart and soul' players as Hayden Ballantyne, Paul Duffield, Alex Pearce and Shaun McManus appear, some of whom would appear in punters' Best Freo side. And our current coach pops his head up too.
Now to the final list - the top 10.
And again... 10 points for first all the way to 1 point for tenth. 99 players make this list, where I've also added a column for years in which a player has been in the Doig top 10, because here is where consistency really shows as David Mundy's 15 years of top 10 finishes sees him clear in second place, and even enters the GOAT conversation (he's not, but the conversation is valid with this data).
Conversely Lachie Neale, who was top 3 in the initial list, is now out of the top 10. If he hadn't pissed off to Brisneyland how high would he be? And how high will Andy Brayshaw (one spot below Neale) and Caleb Serong (in equal 29th) get at the conclusion of their careers in purple? This gives rise to the penultimate view - points per year in the top 10:
The obvious flaw here is that it doesn't take into account seasons where a player is outside of the top 10, so the results for many at the top of this list such as Sean Darcy, Brennan Cox, Peter Mann and even Aaron Sandilands are somewhat misleading. So let's go to the final list - points per season played:
Belly gets another feather in his cap, with the highest points per season with Pav second. But there's some real surprises here too - Adrian Fletcher third with 6.5 points per season (so an average of halfway between third and fourth place in the Doig for every season he played) & Brad Hill in 4th for his 3 seasons here. Great to see Brayshaw & Serong in the top 10 of this list too!
So what's the moral of this story? Data is data, but tells different stories depending on how you interpret it.
Anyhoo, back to trading Kia cars for sammiches.
