List Mgmt. Some list management mathematics for wannabe list managers

[Carmo]

I’m not sure how many of you will grasp this but anyways….



So lets consider a hypothetical 22 man AFL team, made up of players in 11 age brackets, from say 20 through to 30 inclusive (not that that part really matters much, it can be 19 to 29 or 21 to 31). With this many age brackets evenly filled with players, this means we have 2 players per age bracket to have enough for our team 11x2=22. In our hypothetical, each player has played 22 games per season (lets say they are 22 round seasons) and they’ll never have an injury or be omitted.

So our 20 year olds have both played 22 games at the end of their first season, the 21 year olds are both up to 44 games and so on. The average games for the team of this age structure will be the amount of games the middle age bracket is on, which is the 6th year players which will be on 5x22= 110plus 1 at the start of the season and 6x22 =132 at the end of the season, lets say around 120 games to pick a middle ground.



We could bring in more players each year, that’s not impossible, and we can, just from a mathematics perspective note some things about the team that would result.



If we were instead to have 3 players come in each year, then we would have 22/3 age brackets, lets make it seven just for round figures. The average games would be about 70 games.



If we had 4 players, then 22/4, lets just use 6 and the average games would be about 50.



We can also go the opposite way, what about 1 player per year? Well, then we need 22 age brackets and so even if we started them playing at 18 we’d still have a 40 year old on our list. The average games will be played by the 11th year player, so at 22 games a year 242 is the average games played by the team. Kinda sounds like Geelong. You might see some problems here too.



In one respect the 4 players per year/ 6 year age bracket would be great, you could really target having a team of players around the ages where AFL players peak which IMO is 23 to 28.



There’s a few problems for the 3 players per year and 4 players per year models though, besides the lack of experience the team will have, and that’s that thanks to the draft, its very difficult to get 3 or 4 players per year that are likely to be AFL quality and also, just taking the 4 player per year example, you will be discarding them age say 29 with 120 games experience, which is obviously highlights several problems (late getting games into them, likely to be losing them while still in good form, or losing them via trade early in career due to not getting opportunity, etc).



So the ideal seems to be somewhere between 1.5 and about 2.5 players per year, which in a practical sense means in 1 out of 4 years you bring in one player and in 1 out of 4 you bring in three and in about 2 out of 4 years you bring in two.



Please consider this when you talk about how many people you want to chop off the list at the end of each year (are you really cutting 6?), how many debutants you want per season, when to debut players, when to give them regular games, how many players we should draft, how many trades we make and for what sort of players, how many players we’ll never debut, what our mainlist vs rookie list strategies should be, how all this should be adjusted in the context of non ideal age profile teams where you might be needing to get experience into a large crop of young players or need to refresh an older list.



Thank you for coming to my list management TED talk.

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

It all makes sense in a perfect world.

But then when a bunch of players leave the club in their 20s, we have to play catch up.

When we get stripped of draft picks that would have been used to pick players with a higher chance of making it we have to play catch up

When we draft spuds like MacAsey, Galluci and trade for Gibbs we have to play catch up.

So now rather than aiming to add 2 players to the best 22 each year, we have to add 4 per year for x amount of years to play catch up on past mistakes.

What we have seen recently is that when 5 or 6 of that best 22 are out injured, we do not have the quality to replace them. We go back to where we were 3 years ago.

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Depends whether we feel that our rebuild is on track or not

 

[1970crow]

I’m not sure how many of you will grasp this but anyways….



So lets consider a hypothetical 22 man AFL team, made up of players in 11 age brackets, from say 20 through to 30 inclusive (not that that part really matters much, it can be 19 to 29 or 21 to 31). With this many age brackets evenly filled with players, this means we have 2 players per age bracket to have enough for our team 11x2=22. In our hypothetical, each player has played 22 games per season (lets say they are 22 round seasons) and they’ll never have an injury or be omitted.

So our 20 year olds have both played 22 games at the end of their first season, the 21 year olds are both up to 44 games and so on. The average games for the team of this age structure will be the amount of games the middle age bracket is on, which is the 6th year players which will be on 5x22= 110plus 1 at the start of the season and 6x22 =132 at the end of the season, lets say around 120 games to pick a middle ground.



We could bring in more players each year, that’s not impossible, and we can, just from a mathematics perspective note some things about the team that would result.



If we were instead to have 3 players come in each year, then we would have 22/3 age brackets, lets make it seven just for round figures. The average games would be about 70 games.



If we had 4 players, then 22/4, lets just use 6 and the average games would be about 50.



We can also go the opposite way, what about 1 player per year? Well, then we need 22 age brackets and so even if we started them playing at 18 we’d still have a 40 year old on our list. The average games will be played by the 11th year player, so at 22 games a year 242 is the average games played by the team. Kinda sounds like Geelong. You might see some problems here too.



In one respect the 4 players per year/ 6 year age bracket would be great, you could really target having a team of players around the ages where AFL players peak which IMO is 23 to 28.



There’s a few problems for the 3 players per year and 4 players per year models though, besides the lack of experience the team will have, and that’s that thanks to the draft, its very difficult to get 3 or 4 players per year that are likely to be AFL quality and also, just taking the 4 player per year example, you will be discarding them age say 29 with 120 games experience, which is obviously highlights several problems (late getting games into them, likely to be losing them while still in good form, or losing them via trade early in career due to not getting opportunity, etc).



So the ideal seems to be somewhere between 1.5 and about 2.5 players per year, which in a practical sense means in 1 out of 4 years you bring in one player and in 1 out of 4 you bring in three and in about 2 out of 4 years you bring in two.



Please consider this when you talk about how many people you want to chop off the list at the end of each year (are you really cutting 6?), how many debutants you want per season, when to debut players, when to give them regular games, how many players we should draft, how many trades we make and for what sort of players, how many players we’ll never debut, what our mainlist vs rookie list strategies should be, how all this should be adjusted in the context of non ideal age profile teams where you might be needing to get experience into a large crop of young players or need to refresh an older list.



Thank you for coming to my list management TED talk.

But your maths ignores that near half the list aren't playing regularly at AFL level and don't contribute meaningfully to the experience average. It also ignores trading in and accessing players with experience via free agency. Not all list outs are suggested to be replaced at the draft. Seriously, how do you think any of the above has value if you ignore the greatest component to the list churn at the outset.

BTW, good to see your chin is back up after the diabolical outcome from your other posts. Keep punching little guy, we're on your side.

 

[Carmo]

But your maths ignores that near half the list aren't playing regularly at AFL level and don't contribute meaningfully to the experience average. It also ignores trading in and accessing players with experience via free agency. Not all list outs are suggested to be replaced at the draft. Seriously, how do you think any of the above has value if you ignore the greatest component to the list churn at the outset.

BTW, good to see your chin is back up after the diabolical outcome from your other posts. Keep punching little guy, we're on your side.

I didn't ignore anything. I'm well aware that there is a larger player list than 22, however, to keep the whole thing as simple as possible so people can understand the mathematics, I left out those permutations which complicate things.

I also didnt ignore the trade and free agency, see look at this passage from the OP:

Please consider this when you talk about how many people you want to chop off the list at the end of each year (are you really cutting 6?), how many debutants you want per season, when to debut players, when to give them regular games, how many players we should draft, how many trades we make and for what sort of players, how many players we’ll never debut, what our mainlist vs rookie list strategies should be, how all this should be adjusted in the context of non ideal age profile teams where you might be needing to get experience into a large crop of young players or need to refresh an older list.

I can't wait to see 1970's list management plan going forward, who he thinks will make it, who wont, and thus who he'll get games into or not, what that will mean for our average games played level, what that in turn means for likely wins for the season and when he predicts us to return to finals and any other interesting twists he might have for us. It'll be good.

 

[Carmo]

Depends whether we feel that our rebuild is on track or not

See also my other thread re average games of experience and then let me know what you think.

 

[Carmo]

It all makes sense in a perfect world.

But then when a bunch of players leave the club in their 20s, we have to play catch up.

When we get stripped of draft picks that would have been used to pick players with a higher chance of making it we have to play catch up

When we draft spuds like MacAsey, Galluci and trade for Gibbs we have to play catch up.

So now rather than aiming to add 2 players to the best 22 each year, we have to add 4 per year for x amount of years to play catch up on past mistakes.

What we have seen recently is that when 5 or 6 of that best 22 are out injured, we do not have the quality to replace them. We go back to where we were 3 years ago.

Dont disagree with any of that really, though the last sentence might be a bit harsh. The question is though, where are we at, are we really in trouble (dud players, dud coaches or both) or are we potentially quite a good team not yet experienced enough (see my other thread on average games experience).

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

See also my other thread re average games of experience and then let me know what you think.

That we're still inexperienced in Year 5 (supposedly) of a rebuild is worrying

That we're only going to get less experienced in the next 2-14 months when Walker, Smith, Laird finish up is diabolical. Plus ROB moves on? Crouch? Plus realise that guys we've invested in McHenry, Murphy aren't up to it. Jones and Sholl too? Keays?

We haven't actually reached the bottom yet and can't properly begin our rebuild until we do

 

[Pilchard_Adams]

Dont disagree with any of that really, though the last sentence might be a bit harsh. The question is though, where are we at, are we really in trouble (dud players, dud coaches or both) or are we potentially quite a good team not yet experienced enough (see my other thread on average games experience).

I think it's a combination.

I think we are playing dud players because we haven't rebuilt enough to replace them with a better option, and it's made glaringly obvious when we have injuries.

I think Nicks as a first time senior coach has made some great choices. And also some really bad ones. He inherited one of the worst lists in the AFL, and had one of the worst coaching boxes to work with.

Some players have enough experience and aren't up to it. Others need more experience but have shown they should be fine.

We are probably 3 decent drafts away from finishing the rebuild. 2 good draft selections and a decent trade or free agent each year, that's 9 more in the 23 and no need to play Murphy, Smith, mchenry, Jones, obrien, Tex, Laird, Crouch, Berry, burgess anymore.

 

[Carmo]

That we're still inexperienced in Year 5 (supposedly) of a rebuild is worrying

That we're only going to get less experienced in the next 2-14 months when Walker, Smith, Laird finish up is diabolical. Plus ROB moves on? Crouch? Plus realise that guys we've invested in McHenry, Murphy aren't up to it. Jones and Sholl too? Keays?

We haven't actually reached the bottom yet and can't properly begin our rebuild until we do

Calm down Mr Sky Is Falling. Crouch moves on? Far out, he wouldn't go when we tried to boot him out, I doubt he moves on and he's got a few seasons left in him. Walker and Smith are the only two likely to go inside the next 24 months.

It seems that a lot might depend on how we go at the trade table.

Also, every team has the equivalent of some spuds / C graders on it. They are ok as long as they are not too spudish, ideally are durable and don't get injured a lot and will take low contracts and not leave, every team needs a couple of those, especially inexperienced ones to keep the team afloat experience wise while the youngsters are coming up. I believe we got Burgess to be one of these and maintain our depth and experience since we know Himmelberg is off to GWS. I wouldn't be surprised if we get Petty for this reason too.

You can also have have a few B minus graders as well, every team does, to me it looks like Sholl and Jones fit that category, Keays is on the borderline of B minus and C grader and fits the useful C grader category so I'd keep him. Murphy is a C grader so I'd keep him until the younger players take over. McHenry maybe gets another season with us, I think he'll make an alright AFL player, just not so sure he fits in well with our contested gamestyle, I reckon he'd be great at a team like Collingwood or Freo that have pretty open game plans.

 

[Carmo]

I think it's a combination.

I think we are playing dud players because we haven't rebuilt enough to replace them with a better option, and it's made glaringly obvious when we have injuries.

I think Nicks as a first time senior coach has made some great choices. And also some really bad ones. He inherited one of the worst lists in the AFL, and had one of the worst coaching boxes to work with.

Some players have enough experience and aren't up to it. Others need more experience but have shown they should be fine.

We are probably 3 decent drafts away from finishing the rebuild. 2 good draft selections and a decent trade or free agent each year, that's 9 more in the 23 and no need to play Murphy, Smith, mchenry, Jones, obrien, Tex, Laird, Crouch, Berry, burgess anymore.

Yes I agree with the first bolded bit.

Re the second bolded bit. I think the club mostly considers the rebuild done drafting wise as of the last draft. Tex and Smith are the only ones likely to finish up in next 24 months. Ryan is looking like he'll be a good replacement for Smith. Welsh plus the other key players we currently have should be enough to cover for Tex.

We need to get into the era (as was the point of this thread) to only drafting 2 or one players per year, at least on to the main list, since we need to start getting the average games up. I wouldn't be surprised if we only take two players this draft, say Welsh and first pick.

 

[jackster83]

Yes I agree with the first bolded bit.

Re the second bolded bit. I think the club mostly considers the rebuild done drafting wise as of the last draft. Tex and Smith are the only ones likely to finish up in next 24 months. Ryan is looking like he'll be a good replacement for Smith. Welsh plus the other key players we currently have should be enough to cover for Tex.

We need to get into the era (as was the point of this thread) to only drafting 2 or one players per year, at least on to the main list, since we need to start getting the average games up. I wouldn't be surprised if we only take two players this draft, say Welsh and first pick.

There's just the small matter of the midfield though. Would be nice to start rebuilding that area one of these days.

 

[WeeBlake]

I’m not sure how many of you will grasp this but anyways….



So lets consider a hypothetical 22 man AFL team, made up of players in 11 age brackets, from say 20 through to 30 inclusive (not that that part really matters much, it can be 19 to 29 or 21 to 31). With this many age brackets evenly filled with players, this means we have 2 players per age bracket to have enough for our team 11x2=22. In our hypothetical, each player has played 22 games per season (lets say they are 22 round seasons) and they’ll never have an injury or be omitted.

So our 20 year olds have both played 22 games at the end of their first season, the 21 year olds are both up to 44 games and so on. The average games for the team of this age structure will be the amount of games the middle age bracket is on, which is the 6th year players which will be on 5x22= 110plus 1 at the start of the season and 6x22 =132 at the end of the season, lets say around 120 games to pick a middle ground.



We could bring in more players each year, that’s not impossible, and we can, just from a mathematics perspective note some things about the team that would result.



If we were instead to have 3 players come in each year, then we would have 22/3 age brackets, lets make it seven just for round figures. The average games would be about 70 games.



If we had 4 players, then 22/4, lets just use 6 and the average games would be about 50.



We can also go the opposite way, what about 1 player per year? Well, then we need 22 age brackets and so even if we started them playing at 18 we’d still have a 40 year old on our list. The average games will be played by the 11th year player, so at 22 games a year 242 is the average games played by the team. Kinda sounds like Geelong. You might see some problems here too.



In one respect the 4 players per year/ 6 year age bracket would be great, you could really target having a team of players around the ages where AFL players peak which IMO is 23 to 28.



There’s a few problems for the 3 players per year and 4 players per year models though, besides the lack of experience the team will have, and that’s that thanks to the draft, its very difficult to get 3 or 4 players per year that are likely to be AFL quality and also, just taking the 4 player per year example, you will be discarding them age say 29 with 120 games experience, which is obviously highlights several problems (late getting games into them, likely to be losing them while still in good form, or losing them via trade early in career due to not getting opportunity, etc).



So the ideal seems to be somewhere between 1.5 and about 2.5 players per year, which in a practical sense means in 1 out of 4 years you bring in one player and in 1 out of 4 you bring in three and in about 2 out of 4 years you bring in two.



Please consider this when you talk about how many people you want to chop off the list at the end of each year (are you really cutting 6?), how many debutants you want per season, when to debut players, when to give them regular games, how many players we should draft, how many trades we make and for what sort of players, how many players we’ll never debut, what our mainlist vs rookie list strategies should be, how all this should be adjusted in the context of non ideal age profile teams where you might be needing to get experience into a large crop of young players or need to refresh an older list.



Thank you for coming to my list management TED talk.

I agree that experience is underappreciated. One of our biggest problems has been the performance and availability of our most experienced players. Smith, Sloane, Walker, Laird, Crouch should be among our best performers, but they are not this year. Too much is left to our kids.

As to list management, we need to consider performance first. Sloane was obviously cooked and it was counter productive to keep him listed and selected to make our games played numbers better. But also, simply getting rid of a Laird or Crouch and not getting in some extra experience would be a mistake.

The Lions got Hodge during their rebuild.

Caleb Daniel would be a good addition, for a lot of reasons, experience (inc premiership experience) among them.

Also, in response to your original maths post, isn’t this problem offset by delisting mostly younger players who have not improved after 2-4 years? That is, in a rebuild we need to both roll the dice a lot and cut our losses early?

 

[Drugs Are Bad Mackay?]

Calm down Mr Sky Is Falling. Crouch moves on? Far out, he wouldn't go when we tried to boot him out, I doubt he moves on and he's got a few seasons left in him. Walker and Smith are the only two likely to go inside the next 24 months.

It seems that a lot might depend on how we go at the trade table.

Also, every team has the equivalent of some spuds / C graders on it. They are ok as long as they are not too spudish, ideally are durable and don't get injured a lot and will take low contracts and not leave, every team needs a couple of those, especially inexperienced ones to keep the team afloat experience wise while the youngsters are coming up. I believe we got Burgess to be one of these and maintain our depth and experience since we know Himmelberg is off to GWS. I wouldn't be surprised if we get Petty for this reason too.

You can also have have a few B minus graders as well, every team does, to me it looks like Sholl and Jones fit that category, Keays is on the borderline of B minus and C grader and fits the useful C grader category so I'd keep him. Murphy is a C grader so I'd keep him until the younger players take over. McHenry maybe gets another season with us, I think he'll make an alright AFL player, just not so sure he fits in well with our contested gamestyle, I reckon he'd be great at a team like Collingwood or Freo that have pretty open game plans.

The sky has fallen. The 7th year out of finals in a competition that has a salary cap and draft and almost half the teams make finals every year? That's Skyfall. This is as bad as we've ever been in our existence.

I don't care about Crouch leaving or not being picked. It's just about what you are posting about - our games played average. Crouch (or Laird) gets replaced by... Pedlar next season? And our average continues to fall.

"Keep him until the younger players take over" is pretty typical of what some posters have been trotting out for years. There's this utopia around the corner, it just can't happen now, see. Next year it will all be different. And no matter how many years this doesn't come to fruition there's no slow dawning comprehension?

Taylor can't take over from Murphy for instance, because Murphy's in his spot and will never be dropped.

 

[Rags_118]

Also, every team has the equivalent of some spuds / C graders on it. They are ok as long as they are not too spudish, ideally are durable and don't get injured a lot and will take low contracts and not leave, every team needs a couple of those, especially inexperienced ones to keep the team afloat experience wise while the youngsters are coming up. I believe we got Burgess to be one of these and maintain our depth and experience since we know Himmelberg is off to GWS. I wouldn't be surprised if we get Petty for this reason too.

You can also have have a few B minus graders as well, every team does, to me it looks like Sholl and Jones fit that category, Keays is on the borderline of B minus and C grader and fits the useful C grader category so I'd keep him. Murphy is a C grader so I'd keep him until the younger players take over. McHenry maybe gets another season with us, I think he'll make an alright AFL player, just not so sure he fits in well with our contested gamestyle, I reckon he'd be great at a team like Collingwood or Freo that have pretty open game plans.

You’re a very generous marker! If a C-grader is an average AFL player, then a few of those boys are solid Ds

SANFL games are open and McHenry doesn’t stand out in a good way at that level either. D-

 

[FR0GGY]

I agree that experience is underappreciated. One of our biggest problems has been the performance and availability of our most experienced players. Smith, Sloane, Walker, Laird, Crouch should be among our best performers, but they are not this year. Too much is left to our kids.

Not experience, just good players.
We have Murphy and Rob, trouble is they are no good, max and soligo have no experience but they are good players.

 

[George Kramer]

Not experience, just good players.
We have Murphy and Rob, trouble is they are no good, max and soligo have no experience but they are good players.

Yep, no good having experience if they aren’t good players, in fact that’s the worst outcome possible. Your experienced players are supposed to be your better players as they’ve forged an AFL career because they are good, not spuds like Murphy getting to 100 games and now counted as an experienced player. Or ROB sucking. Or Keays spudding it up.

Our list profile is ****ed, no matter what Carmos Magic pills have helped him post.

 

[rabidcrow]

It all makes sense in a perfect world.

But then when a bunch of players leave the club in their 20s, we have to play catch up.

When we get stripped of draft picks that would have been used to pick players with a higher chance of making it we have to play catch up

When we draft spuds like MacAsey, Galluci and trade for Gibbs we have to play catch up.

So now rather than aiming to add 2 players to the best 22 each year, we have to add 4 per year for x amount of years to play catch up on past mistakes.

What we have seen recently is that when 5 or 6 of that best 22 are out injured, we do not have the quality to replace them. We go back to where we were 3 years ago.

Exactly - and this is the crux of our current issues.

Going into this year we had lost 4 of our best 23 from our 2023 group

McAdam and Doedee were let go. We had Murray and Schoenberg with LTI’s

We didn’t get anyone in to replace their spots in our best group - so massively behind the 8 ball from the start

Then we lose Thilthorpe (critical to structure) before the season started so now down 22% of our best squad

Depth wise/experience wise - Sloane also goes

Milera is done in round 2/3
Tex hurts his back and is inconsistent from round 3
None of the above come back in

Worrell breaks his arm round 8 ish

On top of this Pedlar has a poor start to the year and then pops his shoulder

Jones struggles to regain his form from last year after his Lisfranc injury

The year was disaster - in hindsight - before it even began if we had even average injury levels

And that’s not even looking at the loss off field of Rahilly that we didn’t replace

We absolutely bolloxed our off season. We needed to be much more aggressive in bringing in players good enough to be in our first 18.

Understandably - and I think a good thing - we have targeted high end recruits that would be top 12 or higher in our squad (Day, Redman) but we needed to be more rounded and also target guys that would just improve our depth and overall 23. Examples could be Hollands, Noble, Gresham, Ginnivan, Fisher, Jordon

We need to bring in 3-4 players outside of the draft this year to get back on track - and this going to be very hard to do given majority of players with the expanded salary cap seem content to stay where they are and clubs appear keen on signing everyone up early

Reid needs to pull some rabbits out of the hat this year to make up for a poor off season last year


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[rabidcrow]

I agree that experience is underappreciated. One of our biggest problems has been the performance and availability of our most experienced players. Smith, Sloane, Walker, Laird, Crouch should be among our best performers, but they are not this year. Too much is left to our kids.

As to list management, we need to consider performance first. Sloane was obviously cooked and it was counter productive to keep him listed and selected to make our games played numbers better. But also, simply getting rid of a Laird or Crouch and not getting in some extra experience would be a mistake.

The Lions got Hodge during their rebuild.

Caleb Daniel would be a good addition, for a lot of reasons, experience (inc premiership experience) among them.

Also, in response to your original maths post, isn’t this problem offset by delisting mostly younger players who have not improved after 2-4 years? That is, in a rebuild we need to both roll the dice a lot and cut our losses early?

The first bit. Only Crouch and Laird should be in that mix - Sloane, Smith and Tex are all 32 plus. They should be role players more guiding on the field then being best contributors

Even Laird at 30 should be almost transitioning to role player

The issue is not the older players we have. It’s the group below. That 100-200 game bracket 25-29 yr olds

We have Dawson, ROB, Keays and Murphy (and Strachan). Hinge is getting into that group also in terms of age

ROB and Murphy are not the guys to carry the team and arguably the first 2 guys we need out of the 23

Keays feels like he is having a down year on his last few - disposals 20% down, tackles 40% down although goals are tracking well

Jones, McHenry and Rankine are moving into that group through the next 12 months but we need reinforcements in that group or we will be rebuilding for years

So essentially we need ANYONE (2 or 3 actually) that are good enough to be first 18 players in that 24-27 bracket. They don’t need to be guns

And then we need 1-2 more A grade players to properly challenge.
Hopefully we can get a mid from the draft who can play at a high level early (so come in and play like a Wardlaw or Ashcroft straight up), and trade for a ruckman who resembles a footballer and a couple of role players this year and then we will bounce back quickly


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[WeeBlake]

We should get Luke Parker

26

Luke Parker

Age

32

Ht

183cm

Wt

88kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

24.2

5star

K

12.6

5star

HB

11.6

5star

M

3.8

4star

T

5.6

5star

CL

5.8

5star

D

22.1

5star

K

12.3

5star

HB

9.9

5star

M

3.9

4star

T

5.0

5star

CL

5.5

5star

D

21.2

5star

K

11.4

4star

HB

9.8

5star

M

2.0

3star

T

8.0

5star

CL

5.2

5star

for cheap. Murphy out, Parker in.

 

[George Kramer]

Carmo if only you had more time to post here like those of us without a life, you could produce more pearlers like this one

 

[skam85]

I’m not sure how many of you will grasp this but anyways….



So lets consider a hypothetical 22 man AFL team, made up of players in 11 age brackets, from say 20 through to 30 inclusive (not that that part really matters much, it can be 19 to 29 or 21 to 31). With this many age brackets evenly filled with players, this means we have 2 players per age bracket to have enough for our team 11x2=22. In our hypothetical, each player has played 22 games per season (lets say they are 22 round seasons) and they’ll never have an injury or be omitted.

So our 20 year olds have both played 22 games at the end of their first season, the 21 year olds are both up to 44 games and so on. The average games for the team of this age structure will be the amount of games the middle age bracket is on, which is the 6th year players which will be on 5x22= 110plus 1 at the start of the season and 6x22 =132 at the end of the season, lets say around 120 games to pick a middle ground.



We could bring in more players each year, that’s not impossible, and we can, just from a mathematics perspective note some things about the team that would result.



If we were instead to have 3 players come in each year, then we would have 22/3 age brackets, lets make it seven just for round figures. The average games would be about 70 games.



If we had 4 players, then 22/4, lets just use 6 and the average games would be about 50.



We can also go the opposite way, what about 1 player per year? Well, then we need 22 age brackets and so even if we started them playing at 18 we’d still have a 40 year old on our list. The average games will be played by the 11th year player, so at 22 games a year 242 is the average games played by the team. Kinda sounds like Geelong. You might see some problems here too.



In one respect the 4 players per year/ 6 year age bracket would be great, you could really target having a team of players around the ages where AFL players peak which IMO is 23 to 28.



There’s a few problems for the 3 players per year and 4 players per year models though, besides the lack of experience the team will have, and that’s that thanks to the draft, its very difficult to get 3 or 4 players per year that are likely to be AFL quality and also, just taking the 4 player per year example, you will be discarding them age say 29 with 120 games experience, which is obviously highlights several problems (late getting games into them, likely to be losing them while still in good form, or losing them via trade early in career due to not getting opportunity, etc).



So the ideal seems to be somewhere between 1.5 and about 2.5 players per year, which in a practical sense means in 1 out of 4 years you bring in one player and in 1 out of 4 you bring in three and in about 2 out of 4 years you bring in two.



Please consider this when you talk about how many people you want to chop off the list at the end of each year (are you really cutting 6?), how many debutants you want per season, when to debut players, when to give them regular games, how many players we should draft, how many trades we make and for what sort of players, how many players we’ll never debut, what our mainlist vs rookie list strategies should be, how all this should be adjusted in the context of non ideal age profile teams where you might be needing to get experience into a large crop of young players or need to refresh an older list.



Thank you for coming to my list management TED talk.

did you have to take annual leave for this?

 

[skam85]

Got ChatGPT to sum it up because some of us have lives


An AFL team's ideal age and experience balance involves drafting 1.5–2.5 players yearly, maintaining steady experience growth while avoiding premature exits. Too few players skews age; too many limits opportunities. Strategic list management ensures balanced drafting, debuts, and retention, adapting to team needs like refreshing older lists or developing young talent.