Can Hawthorn succeed while ignoring the elite end of the draft? - Part 2

[hawkman]

Stratton and Puopolo retiring

 

[Hot Diggity]

Wingard and Impey turn us down to play bottom 4 footy for the prime of their careers at Hawthorn.

WWSD remember a few weeks ago you said Mitchell is better than Bont? One of the worst calls I’ve ever heard on this website.

I think Wingard and Impey made their decisions based on the law of averages...

 

[Pessimistic]

Just looking at the decisions suggesting traded in players Burgoyne Frawley McEvoy Gunston will stay only perhaps Henderson Brooksby Micnchington trade ins to leave, while Stratton, Puopolo and maybe half a dozen drafted players leave.

This will make it seem like the list is even older and more traded in next year, even if every incoming player is drafted

 

[bluespooner]

Wingard and Impey turn us down to play bottom 4 footy for the prime of their careers at Hawthorn.

WWSD remember a few weeks ago you said Mitchell is better than Bont? One of the worst calls I’ve ever heard on this website.

Your club never offers anything at the trade table to make trades happen. You think that you will land champion players with a couple of fourth round picks. Not everything gets handed to you on a platter, although I can understand how you might think that given how the bulldogs get umpired relative to Hawthorn.

 

[PAFC_1870]

and BTW: Port 2017

Garner, Hayes Farrell are all great selections at those picks.

Obviously don't know much about them and are just going off goal tallys....

Rocky has been above serviceable. McKenzie is borderline AA Squad.

We did ok for those selections.

We also gutted out Port Magpies experience that year so we grabbed some of those for the juniors development.

 

[Bulldog1954]

Your club never offers anything at the trade table to make trades happen. You think that you will land champion players with a couple of fourth round picks. Not everything gets handed to you on a platter, although I can understand how you might think that given how the bulldogs get umpired relative to Hawthorn.

Strange post, not just the use of the word champion in a post about Wingard and Impey, but the Dogs never offered anything in a trade for Wingard or Impey because thankfully they chose Hawthorn. It wasn’t a case of Port choosing the best offer or the Dogs offering unders.

 

[Pessimistic]

Garner, Hayes Farrell are all great selections at those picks.

Obviously don't know much about them and are just going off goal tallys....

Rocky has been serviceable. McKenzie is borderline AA Squad.

We did ok for those selections.

We also gutted out Port Magpies experience that year so we grabbed some of those for the juniors development.

Im not disrespecting it, just informing a poster that what they are claiming is economical with the...

 

[bluespooner]

Strange post, not just the use of the word champion in a post about Wingard and Impey, but the Dogs never offered anything in a trade for Wingard or Impey because thankfully they chose Hawthorn. It wasn’t a case of Port choosing the best offer or the Dogs offering unders.

Your supporters thought they were getting both, which was the sentiment expressed in the post that I was responding to. You don't think Wingard is a champion player, an all-Australian at age 20 or 21 and regarded by many as the best SA talent of the last 10 years.

 

[Walshawk]

Your supporters thought they were getting both, which was the sentiment expressed in the post that I was responding to. You don't think Wingard is a champion player, an all-Australian at age 20 or 21 and regarded by many as the best SA talent of the last 10 years.

Wingard is not anywhere near a champion player. Good player, but has gone backwards steadily since he was 20 or 21.

 

[Saint]

Wingard is not anywhere near a champion player. Good player, but has gone backwards steadily since he was 20 or 21.

Seems like one of those guys determined to show every now and then the glimpses of what he could be, just to remind people.

But steadfastly refuses to take the next steps to make those performances the norm rather than the exception.

 

[The_Flying_Egg]

Your club never offers anything at the trade table to make trades happen. You think that you will land champion players with a couple of fourth round picks. Not everything gets handed to you on a platter, although I can understand how you might think that given how the bulldogs get umpired relative to Hawthorn.

Yep the Dogs really stuffed up expecting everything on a platter and not offering more for Chad Wingard.

I lay awake at night upset that the club drafted Bailey Smith instead, what a stuff up

 

[TylerDurden]

Seems like one of those guys determined to show every now and then the glimpses of what he could be, just to remind people.

But steadfastly refuses to take the next steps to make those performances the norm rather than the exception.

Was electric the first 4 rounds. Then, like a lot of his team mates, turned his toes up when they went to the hubs.

 

[Bulldog1954]

Your supporters thought they were getting both, which was the sentiment expressed in the post that I was responding to. You don't think Wingard is a champion player, an all-Australian at age 20 or 21 and regarded by many as the best SA talent of the last 10 years.

We obviously have very different views on what makes a player a champion. He is super talented and was on track to being a champion, but is as it stands he is no more than a good player. You must have a long list of players that are champions if Wingard is on it.

 

[Iceman!]

This thread has taken a lot of weird turns but Dogs fans coming and flexing at getting rejected by players is definitely one of the more odd ones.

 

[Rusty Brookes]

Lol you are dreaming if you think Hawthorn's list right now is even remotely comparable to Port's.

They've actually been using first rounders and succeeding with them. Zak Butters alone would be a top 3 player at Hawthorn right now, possibly even your best player. Then they have guys like Rozee, Duursma, Powell-Pepper, Marshall, Georgiades and others.

Instead of drafting an array of quality youth like Port did, you splurged all your picks on O'Meara and Wingard, and you're left with a dearth of talent in the 18-23 age bracket. Even if you were to start landing your picks now, there's nothing you can do about the colossal trainwreck Clarko started from 16-18, and by the time your younger players start hitting their strides, all the old farts you recruited will either be declining or retired.

if I were a Hawthorn fan, I'd be spewing.

Way to totally miss the point of what I wrote. I said never said the list was the same as Port's. What I said was I don't think it would have made much difference if we'd gone to the draft or gone the trade route.

Here is the list of players that from 2016-2018 were selected using picks given away by Hawthorn (either initially or subsequently) from 2016-2018:

Todd Marshall, Ben Long, Josh Battle, Harrison Macreadie, Willie Rioli, Tom Williamson, Pat Kerr, Hunter Clark, Liam Ryan, Oscar Clavarino, Joel Garner, Xavier Duursma, Tom Joyce.

The players traded in for Hawthorn during that time have been Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O'Meara, Chad Wingard, Jarman Impey, Jack Scrimshaw, Tom Scully, Ricky Henderson.

Do you think Hawthorn would be knocking on the door of the four with the first list (of course having to remove Mitchell, et al)? Sure there's top talent there (Ryan, Rioli without pot, Duursma are all excellent players) but I'm not convinced we'd be in any better shape with those players in - maybe a few more wins but I'd hazard a guess we'd be in the no-mans land of just outside/inside the eight. We finally get a real go at the top end of the draft - last we did that was in 2004 and that worked out pretty well for us.

NB - I'm going off what's on Wikipedia so happy to be corrected if I've got it totally wrong.

 

[master bate]

Just looking at the decisions suggesting traded in players Burgoyne Frawley McEvoy Gunston will stay only perhaps Henderson Brooksby Micnchington trade ins to leave, while Stratton, Puopolo and maybe half a dozen drafted players leave.

This will make it seem like the list is even older and more traded in next year, even if every incoming player is drafted

Don't most people make a distinction between the likes of:

A) Burgoyne, Frawley, McEvoy and Gunston who were part of the premierships and
B) the recent big name additions of Mitchell, Wingard, O'Meara and Impey and
C) the top ups of Scully, Frost, Patton and the likes of Hartley, Brooksy and Micho?

A was a very good idea and you keep those guys whilst they are worth more too you than without them
B was probably worth the gamble and just hasn't paid off, mostly due to injuries
C is probably where the Hawks went wrong

In earlier rounds this year it looked like the Hawks had significantly more guys over 30 and trade ins than guys under 23 in the side. It's pretty easy to change that balance so at least there's more young talent than under-performers bought in from other clubs.

 

[hk89]

Don't most people make a distinction between the likes of:

A) Burgoyne, Frawley, McEvoy and Gunston who were part of the premierships and
B) the recent big name additions of Mitchell, Wingard, O'Meara and Impey and
C) the top ups of Scully, Frost, Patton and the likes of Hartley, Brooksy and Micho?

A was a very good idea and you keep those guys whilst they are worth more too you than without them
B was probably worth the gamble and just hasn't paid off, mostly due to injuries
C is probably where the Hawks went wrong

In earlier rounds this year it looked like the Hawks had significantly more guys over 30 and trade ins than guys under 23 in the side. It's pretty easy to change that balance so at least there's more young talent than under-performers bought in from other clubs.

If C) are our biggest mistakes then I'm fine with that. Cost us **** all at the trade table, and some cap space we can probably afford right now. Not sure how many Hawthorn games you've watched this year (admittedly they have been hard to watch as a fan of the club, so I'd forgive you not having seen many), but Frost is a genuinely good defender with quite decent disposal, which is not what Melbourne fans had led me to believe. He sometimes makes a wrong decision, but less than some of our other defenders have this year. I think when he does they are highly visible as they are often at the end of a massive and eye catching run. His actual ability to hit targets is actually very reasonable under normal conditions, its the having to dispose of it in a rush at the end of one of those wide-eyed runs where he hasn't really thought about what he'll do when he gets tackled that bump up his blunder rate. Seriously, have a look at his standard field kicking, very rarely misses when not biting off more than he can chew when getting tackled.

Patton is still not clear (not looking good so far), but again cost us nothing in picks. Scully hasn't played like a #1 pick for us (never really did for anyone), but a lot of very good pure outside runners haven't blown the competition away this year, probably due to the shorter quarters. Not having the expanses of the MCG in all but 2 games hasn't helped his running game either. The others were brought in as depth, and like all depth, it is mediocre, and you're almost unhappy if you get games out of them because it usually means you've got form or injury issues with your best 22. If you totalled up all the picks we used on the players in C) and went to the draft with those picks, so late were most of them, that we'd be lucky to get more than 10 games each by at least half the players we picked that late.

I think O'Meara and Wingard were bigger problems than the C) players, because the picks we gave up will add to the length of the rebuild, and their performance probably doesn't justify the pick values given. However, they are both still young enough to justify the risk, but we'd need to turn the current list around quickly to justify the picks we gave up, as having them playing well deep into finals is really the only thing that can justify the picks we paid for them, and even then, the opportunity cost will still be arguable either way.

 

[The_Flying_Egg]

This thread has taken a lot of weird turns but Dogs fans coming and flexing at getting rejected by players is definitely one of the more odd ones.

Not flexing, just relieved

 

[Stecklp]

Here is the list of players that from 2016-2018 were selected using picks given away by Hawthorn (either initially or subsequently) from 2016-2018:

Todd Marshall, Ben Long, Josh Battle, Harrison Macreadie, Willie Rioli, Tom Williamson, Pat Kerr, Hunter Clark, Liam Ryan, Oscar Clavarino, Joel Garner, Xavier Duursma, Tom Joyce.

The players traded in for Hawthorn during that time have been Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O'Meara, Chad Wingard, Jarman Impey, Jack Scrimshaw, Tom Scully, Ricky Henderson.

What's the point of disingenuous comparisons like this? All of this implies those are the players Hawthorn would've taken, had they kept those draft picks.

With the Hunter Clark pick in particular, back in the 2017 draft, everyone knew Hawthorn desperately needed new key-position players at both ends of the ground. None of your development prospects like Litherland, Brand and O'Brien ever came good, you never replaced Lake, and you still relied heavily on an aging Frawley and Roughead. The obvious candidate for that 2017 first round selection would've been Aaron Naughton, who's already proven himself an A-Grade talent at either end of the ground, and every single club in the AFL would have him in a heartbeat over any currently listed Hawthorn player.

Your club instead opted to piss away the pick, along with 3 other picks for O'Meara.

Do you think Hawthorn would be knocking on the door of the four with the first list (of course having to remove Mitchell, et al)? Sure there's top talent there (Ryan, Rioli without pot, Duursma are all excellent players) but I'm not convinced we'd be in any better shape with those players in - maybe a few more wins but I'd hazard a guess we'd be in the no-mans land of just outside/inside the eight. We finally get a real go at the top end of the draft - last we did that was in 2004 and that worked out pretty well for us.

NB - I'm going off what's on Wikipedia so happy to be corrected if I've got it totally wrong.

Another thing you're discounting: long-term value.
On paper, it might not seem like much of an improvement compared to the guys you got (except it probably still is, especially when you remove selective bias), but you'd also be bringing in guys who will likely be at the club for the next 12 years, and you'd be able to properly develop them into exactly what you need in their younger years. Meanwhile Clarko playing moneyball and picking all his favorite players from opposition teams not only yields only short term value, but you potentially run into the very real problem of having a group of players who have already developed under very different systems with very different coaches. Judging by just how bad Hawthorn are this year, chances are they're feeling those very effects.

 

[Richo83]

Don't most people make a distinction between the likes of:

A) Burgoyne, Frawley, McEvoy and Gunston who were part of the premierships and
B) the recent big name additions of Mitchell, Wingard, O'Meara and Impey and
C) the top ups of Scully, Frost, Patton and the likes of Hartley, Brooksy and Micho?

A was a very good idea and you keep those guys whilst they are worth more too you than without them
B was probably worth the gamble and just hasn't paid off, mostly due to injuries
C is probably where the Hawks went wrong

In earlier rounds this year it looked like the Hawks had significantly more guys over 30 and trade ins than guys under 23 in the side. It's pretty easy to change that balance so at least there's more young talent than under-performers bought in from other clubs.

I don't mind A and C was obviously stupid. The B group ranges from trades which everyone thought were great trades like the Mitchell trade to trades which many thought were way too risky like the O'Meara trade. So it's not really a grouping which is all the same. I liked the Mitchell trade and thought the swans got robbed. The O'Meara trade ended up giving up a lot of picks and the Wingard trade gave up too much, including one of the hawks' best players. And he's been playing as a small forward anyway, and it's a lot to give up for a small forward. I think teams stay on top not by constantly making moves, but making smart moves bringing in either you or stardom. Geelong is a classic example of this. Hawthorn did neither and paid through the nose.

 

[hk89]

What's the point of disingenuous comparisons like this? All of this implies those are the players Hawthorn would've taken, had they kept those draft picks.

With the Hunter Clark pick in particular, back in the 2017 draft, everyone knew Hawthorn desperately needed new key-position players at both ends of the ground. None of your development prospects like Litherland, Brand and O'Brien ever came good, you never replaced Lake, and you still relied heavily on an aging Frawley and Roughead. The obvious candidate for that 2017 first round selection would've been Aaron Naughton, who's already proven himself an A-Grade talent at either end of the ground, and every single club in the AFL would have him in a heartbeat over any currently listed Hawthorn player.

Your club instead opted to piss away the pick, along with 3 other picks for O'Meara.

It would have been fairly hard to guess we'd go from top 4 to bottom 8 the next year, which is what we'd have needed to have foreseen to have Naughton in our sites if we'd not traded the future pick. O'Meara ended up a lot more costly than we had wanted because of a combination of our big drop in 2017 and Cochrane's insane bargaining strategy that ended up giving Saints trading material GC could have had themselves. Our top 4 H&A finish the following year in 2018 showed how hard it was to predict our lowly 2017 finish.

O'Meara was an overpay, but given he was traded in year that was bookended by two top 4 H&A finishes, it was a reasonable risk to take IMO. Much easier to see it as a mistake given our finish this year, but the story will not be fully written until he retires.

 

[Gavin Excell]

It would have been fairly hard to guess we'd go from top 4 to bottom 8 the next year, which is what we'd have needed to have foreseen to have Naughton in our sites if we'd not traded the future pick. O'Meara ended up a lot more costly than we had wanted because of a combination of our big drop in 2017 and Cochrane's insane bargaining strategy that ended up giving Saints trading material GC could have had themselves. Our top 4 H&A finish the following year in 2018 showed how hard it was to predict our lowly 2017 finish.

O'Meara was an overpay, but given he was traded in year that was bookended by two top 4 H&A finishes, it was a reasonable risk to take IMO. Much easier to see it as a mistake given our finish this year, but the story will not be fully written until he retires.

Do you think O’Meara has plateaued and this is his best?

 

[Pessimistic]

What's the point of disingenuous comparisons like this? All of this implies those are the players Hawthorn would've taken, had they kept those draft picks.

With the Hunter Clark pick in particular, back in the 2017 draft, everyone knew Hawthorn desperately needed new key-position players at both ends of the ground. None of your development prospects like Litherland, Brand and O'Brien ever came good, you never replaced Lake, and you still relied heavily on an aging Frawley and Roughead. The obvious candidate for that 2017 first round selection would've been Aaron Naughton, who's already proven himself an A-Grade talent at either end of the ground, and every single club in the AFL would have him in a heartbeat over any currently listed Hawthorn player.

Your club instead opted to piss away the pick, along with 3 other picks for O'Meara.


Another thing you're discounting: long-term value.
On paper, it might not seem like much of an improvement compared to the guys you got (except it probably still is, especially when you remove selective bias), but you'd also be bringing in guys who will likely be at the club for the next 12 years, and you'd be able to properly develop them into exactly what you need in their younger years. Meanwhile Clarko playing moneyball and picking all his favorite players from opposition teams not only yields only short term value, but you potentially run into the very real problem of having a group of players who have already developed under very different systems with very different coaches. Judging by just how bad Hawthorn are this year, chances are they're feeling those very effects.

afl wide, 40% of draft picks make it. What is the range between the best and worst clubs performance? Hawks still are going some 45% with their second rate draft picks

 

[hk89]

Do you think O’Meara has plateaued and this is his best?

No, because this isn't his best, that was probably middle to late-middle 2018. None of our mids were at their best this year. Every one of them have had better years, most of them MUCH better years. Some people say his best was at GC, but that is confusing potential and talent with actual on field performance. Got 1 and 4 Brownlow votes in his two years at GC (4 in his first year was impressive!). Has had 11 and 13 at Hawthorn in 2018 and 2019. Mind you, stealing Brownlow votes from Garry wouldn't have been easy!

It is possible that 2018 form was the best we'll see of him. At 26, he should be close to career peak, but even ignoring how much his injury has impacted his ceiling from a physical point of view, it is important to keep in mind that he played 6 games in 3 years, so in terms of years of development wise, he's more like a 23 old than a 26 year in terms of years on the park. From that point of view there is some hope he's got some improvement in him. More importantly if the side plays better around him, he will not be continuously forced into doing too much in the middle which is often an issue for him.

I've found it hard to get a read on him overall. Looks like an A-grader some weeks. Can have games when he looks more like a B- though. I've seen examples of him having outside pace, but you don't see him use it often. When he kicks without pressure (which isn't often) he's also a fairly precise kick, but he's often hitting pitching wedges into our forward line to be repelled by opposition tall defenders with regularity. Thought he'd be better with TOM coming back, and being able to play a slightly more outside role. His better games tend to occur when that happens, because his disposal takes a big jump in the positive direction under those conditions. Have a look at his game against Richmond, a bit less of his possessions were contested compared to usual, and his disposal efficiency jumps to 91% (instead of sitting around 55-65% most weeks). Can hit a target when he can find space. His kicking under tackling pressure really is poor. However this year, the entire midfield has sucked post hub-life (we beat Lions and Tigers in the midfield before then). Seems we have a bunch of mummies boys who have had trouble keeping their shit together away from home.

We need to get the midfield right, and see what he's like when used a bit more often as the link guy for TOM, instead of shouldering as much - if not more - of the inside load as what TOM does. If he's still performing at current levels by then, then yeah fair to say we've massively overpaid at a time when the view from 3rd bottom says we should have been drafting. Still fine with the decision made through the lens we had at the time (i.e. recruited in a year that was bookended by two seasons when we made top 4 after H&A - easy to say topping up looks dumb now when we will finish bottom 4, but I was happy to take the shot at the time).

 

[master bate]

If C) are our biggest mistakes then I'm fine with that. Cost us fu** all at the trade table, and some cap space we can probably afford right now. Not sure how many Hawthorn games you've watched this year (admittedly they have been hard to watch as a fan of the club, so I'd forgive you not having seen many), but Frost is a genuinely good defender with quite decent disposal, which is not what Melbourne fans had led me to believe. He sometimes makes a wrong decision, but less than some of our other defenders have this year. I think when he does they are highly visible as they are often at the end of a massive and eye catching run. His actual ability to hit targets is actually very reasonable under normal conditions, its the having to dispose of it in a rush at the end of one of those wide-eyed runs where he hasn't really thought about what he'll do when he gets tackled that bump up his blunder rate. Seriously, have a look at his standard field kicking, very rarely misses when not biting off more than he can chew when getting tackled.

Patton is still not clear (not looking good so far), but again cost us nothing in picks. Scully hasn't played like a #1 pick for us (never really did for anyone), but a lot of very good pure outside runners haven't blown the competition away this year, probably due to the shorter quarters. Not having the expanses of the MCG in all but 2 games hasn't helped his running game either. The others were brought in as depth, and like all depth, it is mediocre, and you're almost unhappy if you get games out of them because it usually means you've got form or injury issues with your best 22. If you totalled up all the picks we used on the players in C) and went to the draft with those picks, so late were most of them, that we'd be lucky to get more than 10 games each by at least half the players we picked that late.

I think O'Meara and Wingard were bigger problems than the C) players, because the picks we gave up will add to the length of the rebuild, and their performance probably doesn't justify the pick values given. However, they are both still young enough to justify the risk, but we'd need to turn the current list around quickly to justify the picks we gave up, as having them playing well deep into finals is really the only thing that can justify the picks we paid for them, and even then, the opportunity cost will still be arguable either way.

Frost's disposal took big strides the last two years at Melbourne and in a more settled backline he wasn't going to be the same liability with the ball that he was in his early Melbourne days and those moments he went full Frost-ball. His biggest issue is defensive decision making and back when Melbourne were playing an all out zone with little upfield pressure it was a disaster. Give him a clear role and structure he'll be good. I never had a problem recruiting him given the age of Hawthorn's other defenders, the surprise was they didn't move one of them (Stratton) out and even added McEvoy back in for the first few weeks. That should correct itself for next year.

But overall it's the topping up philosophy that has hurt more than any of the individual moves. The grand total of draft picks, salary cap and games put in to Patton, Scully, Minchington etc. Not only does it cost you the chance of bundling cash for a free agent, snagging a gem in the draft or picking up a good mature age recruit it also seemed to prolong the inevitability of the rebuild.

O'Meara and Wingard do hurt more, but both are young enough to catch success in the next wave up. At least they were bold moves.