Strategy Trade and List Management Thread Part 7 (opposition supporters - READ posting rules before posting)

[stefoid]

I'm just using a AA as an example. If anything, shortening it to 100 game actually proves my point more.

5 of the 48 players drafted in the 2015-2017 rookie drafts have made it to 100 games, though some like Draper, Amartey and Chol will get there (note not counting Mitch Hinge and Stengle because they were delisted Brisbane and their subsequent success is in the latter, mature age recruit category). So 8/48 = 17%

On the other hand, of the 55 19+ year olds drafted in the 2015-17 rookie drafts, 9 have played 100 games, of which another one (Banfield) will play 100th. So 18%.

And the quality of output is comparable. Sure Houston is an AA player, but mature agers drafted include Papley, Marshall, Baker, Mihocek and McDonald-Tipungwuti, all players who have gotten 10+ career Brownlow votes. 5/10 of the 100 games. Yet only 2 of the players have gotten 10+ Brownlow votes - Houston and Zurhaar. Draper, Amartey and Chol may get there, but no-one else will.

Of course, this is only half the equation.

So among 100 gamers the groups are roughly as good as each other.

But among most of the players who weren't 100 gamers, there is clearly far more value from drafting a mature ager.

27 of the 40 non-100 gamers of the 18 year olds played 3 or fewer games. (57%).
However, only 23 of the 45 non-100 gamers of the 19+ year olds played 3 or fewer games (51%).

I can extend the analysis out to other years but you run into expansion draft issues, and pre-expansion teams different rules, and more recent it's a bit unfair as it's hard to see careers play out. But you can adjust for these factors spending more time on more analysis, and the point I'm making would still hold true.

waaait. the age of the player isnt so important. Im not sure how this became an 18 vs 19+ age thing. Are we not discussing getting rid of 'depth' players to allow us to try more 'development' players? Its fine to test if a quality mature VFL player is able to make the next leap in performance when put into an AFL environment - Picken, Boyd, Morris, etc... all came via this pathway. Great examples of development players that actually developed and improved our best 22.

OTOH you have players that have proven to not be up to the grade at other clubs and continue to stagnate at ours (Poulter, Baker etc...), or have had their time with us and not entrenched themselves in the 22.

How long do we want to keep these guys on the list in the name of stability/depth/good bloke/trainers or whatever?

 

[threenewpadlocks]

waaait. the age of the player isnt so important. Im not sure how this became an 18 vs 19+ age thing. Are we not discussing getting rid of 'depth' players to allow us to try more 'development' players?

I'm using the fact that we can recruit mature agers with the same list spot as a proxy for retaining the same mature ager that happened to be already on our list (given they can be assumed to be roughly as good)

Its fine to test if a quality mature VFL player is able to make the next leap in performance when put into an AFL environment - Picken, Boyd, Morris, etc... all came via this pathway. Great examples of development players that actually developed and improved our best 22.

All of this is ignoring the probability of the above happening given the statistics above. I'm not saying it doesn't happen - I'm openly stating that a rookie listed player is a 15-20% chance of playing 100 games or whatever. Your list of players is just from that 15-20%. Did Luke Goetz improve our best 22? Did Alex Greenwood? They're great examples of development players that failed to develop where recruiting a mature ager (like a Brett Goodes) could have easily improved our best 22.

It goes both ways, but past evidence suggests that there's been more productive value out of recruiting non-18 year olds (or otherwise retaining them on the list, which is the point I'm making) than opening up list spots to take a chance on an 18-year-old flier at the end of the list. Historically speaking, far too many of them just end up playing 0 AFL games, (like Alex Greenwood) which has to be considered.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Knightmare got exposed for pretty much making the vast majority of his content up. He was pretty clueless.

Knightmare got caught out not watching games outside of Victoria because he was too tight to pay for video access.

Still, the point I'm trying to make is that the profile at the time of the draft of someone like Papley was similar to the profile of someone like Lachie McNeil when we drafted them

In both cases, they were short, undersized pressure forwards with a little bit of goal sense and toe, but had no real production in their U18 year, and was drafted as an 19 year old despite not necessarily outstanding in-game statistics in the U19 season. Dismissing the possibility of McNeil ever becoming a 200 gamer jet to suggest that we would want to find a 200 gamer with a 18 year old would just be wrong, because there was always the possibility of a 19 year old rookie drafted McNeil also becoming a jet, just like what happened with Papley.

It's more making the increase in probability for the 18 year old in the rookie draft eventually becoming a jet (Houston types) is really not all that much greater than the probability of a 19 year old, or indeed, a mature ager we retain on our list (an Oskar Baker type) also ever becoming an All-Australian, too. It is more likely, but past evidence shows not so much more likely that it's worth the trade-off for the increased probability that the 18 year old is far more likely to only ever play 0 games.

I don't have a database of players delisted and re-rookied but and example of this was Hawthorn's decision to retain a "list clogger" 20 year old Matthew Suckling on their list after two years of 0 games (or alternatively once he had only played 6 games the following 2 years and was a 22 year old) is an example of this. Similar to Ryan Crowley, who was demoted to the rookie list after two years of zero games at age 20. Neville Jetta played no more than 10 games in an individual year before getting re-rookied and was a cemented best 22 player including an outstanding 2017 season where he made the AA-squad. It happens too.

 

[stefoid]

Good players show themselves early. You can list a handful of players like JJ who finally made the grade after many years, but there is an endless list of players who showed nothing after 2 years that continued to show nothing after 4 or 5 and were delisted.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Good players show themselves early.

...no? Why is this a truism that you're just making up?

Again, we can actually measure these things. We can look at this quantitatively. Teams have actual data scientists as part of their list management teams these days and do this research.

Did Tom Papley show himself early when he was overlooked in the draft as an 18 year old?
Did Rowan Marshall show himself early when he was overlooked in the draft twice before being drafted as a 20 year old?

The 2024 All-Australian squad of 44 players includes 14 players who "did not show themselves early"
Xerri - drafted as an overager, 0 AFL games first 2 years, 12 in next 2 years
Stengle - 2 games in 2 years at Richmond, 2 games in 3rd year at Adelaide
Daniels - 7 games in first year
D'Ambrosio - mid year draftee. 16 games in first 2 years, traded for nothing
Collins - twice a mature aged recruit. Had to prove himself in the state leagues twice.
Cameron - drafted as a 20 year old, 1 game in 3 years on Sydney's list before being traded for nothing
Sicily - 3 games in first 2 years on Hawthorn's list
Dale - 14 games in first 2 years on Dogs' list
Ryan - mature age pickup
Zorko - recruited at 22. Mature age pickup
McGovern - 0 games in first 3 years on West Coast's list
Warner - 2 games in 1st year on Swans list, 13 in 2nd
Waterman - 0 games in first year on West Coast's list
Moore - 0 games in first year on Hawks list. 10 games in next two. Was delisted and re-rookied by Hawks so ie was a "list clogger" that they could have delisted outright to take a swing in the rookie draft.

You can debate the extent whether players like Daniels and Dale were "showing themselves early" but the fact is that as much as 39% of the good players in the AFL were not self-evidently showing themselves in their first or second year in the AFL system or as a 18/19 year old.

but there is an endless list of players who showed nothing after 2 years that continued to show nothing after 4 or 5 and were delisted.

And there's an even more endless list of players who show nothing after 1/2 years, get delisted after 1/2 years (so they don't "list clog" as they were only on the list for 1/2 years), but then get redrafted by an effectively similar player just 1/2 years younger, who last on the list for 1/2 years, get delisted, with the same effective output as if that first player had just been retained on the list for 3-4 years instead that you're complaining about.

The Western Bulldogs rookie listed Gavin Hughes in 2006. He was on the list for two years. He was delisted and we took the open list spot for Chris Ogle, who was delisted after one year. We then took the list spot and gave it to Matthew Panos, who was elevated after two years (but still zero games). After three years, we then took that list spot, and elected to give it to Nick Lower (13 games), as opposed to another rookie. We Lower after one year.

Whether or not we gave Gavin Hughes, Chris Ogle etc. 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, is irrelevant. The decision to draft "flier" 18 year olds netted us 0 games from 3 years of using a list spot. Whether it was one player, two players, three.

We then elected to retain Lin Jong, Jack Redpath and Mark Austin on our rookie list and chose to delist Lower instead. All of whom played numerous AFL games for our team from 2013 onward. Jong and Redpath showed nothing after two years (Jong had literally just broken his leg in 2013 and given he was a raw prospect could easily be justified turning the list over. Redpath had played 0 games in his first two years). All could be considered list cloggers. Our decision to retain them as list cloggers proved correct, as all had greater careers than the 50% chance that their open rookie spot if choosing to draft a 18 year old (like Gavin Hughes and Chris Ogle) would have netted us a 0-gamer.

 

[Mofra]

...no? Why is this a truism that you're just making up?

Again, we can actually measure these things. We can look at this quantitatively. Teams have actual data scientists as part of their list management teams these days and do this research.

Did Tom Papley show himself early when he was overlooked in the draft as an 18 year old?
Did Rowan Marshall show himself early when he was overlooked in the draft twice before being drafted as a 20 year old?

The 2024 All-Australian squad of 44 players includes 14 players who "did not show themselves early"
Xerri - drafted as an overager, 0 AFL games first 2 years, 12 in next 2 years
Stengle - 2 games in 2 years at Richmond, 2 games in 3rd year at Adelaide
Daniels - 7 games in first year
D'Ambrosio - mid year draftee. 16 games in first 2 years, traded for nothing
Collins - twice a mature aged recruit. Had to prove himself in the state leagues twice.
Cameron - drafted as a 20 year old, 1 game in 3 years on Sydney's list before being traded for nothing
Sicily - 3 games in first 2 years on Hawthorn's list
Dale - 14 games in first 2 years on Dogs' list
Ryan - mature age pickup
Zorko - recruited at 22. Mature age pickup
McGovern - 0 games in first 3 years on West Coast's list
Warner - 2 games in 1st year on Swans list, 13 in 2nd
Waterman - 0 games in first year on West Coast's list
Moore - 0 games in first year on Hawks list. 10 games in next two. Was delisted and re-rookied by Hawks so ie was a "list clogger" that they could have delisted outright to take a swing in the rookie draft.

You can debate the extent whether players like Daniels and Dale were "showing themselves early" but the fact is that as much as 39% of the good players in the AFL were not self-evidently showing themselves in their first or second year in the AFL system or as a 18/19 year old.


And there's an even more endless list of players who show nothing after 1/2 years, get delisted after 1/2 years (so they don't "list clog" as they were only on the list for 1/2 years), but then get redrafted by an effectively similar player just 1/2 years younger, who last on the list for 1/2 years, get delisted, with the same effective output as if that first player had just been retained on the list for 3-4 years instead that you're complaining about.

The Western Bulldogs rookie listed Gavin Hughes in 2006. He was on the list for two years. He was delisted and we took the open list spot for Chris Ogle, who was delisted after one year. We then took the list spot and gave it to Matthew Panos, who was elevated after two years (but still zero games). After three years, we then took that list spot, and elected to give it to Nick Lower (13 games), as opposed to another rookie. We Lower after one year.

Whether or not we gave Gavin Hughes, Chris Ogle etc. 1 year, 2 years, 5 years, is irrelevant. The decision to draft "flier" 18 year olds netted us 0 games from 3 years of using a list spot. Whether it was one player, two players, three.

We then elected to retain Lin Jong, Jack Redpath and Mark Austin on our rookie list and chose to delist Lower instead. All of whom played numerous AFL games for our team from 2013 onward. Jong and Redpath showed nothing after two years (Jong had literally just broken his leg in 2013 and given he was a raw prospect could easily be justified turning the list over. Redpath had played 0 games in his first two years). All could be considered list cloggers. Our decision to retain them as list cloggers proved correct, as all had greater careers than the 50% chance that their open rookie spot if choosing to draft a 18 year old (like Gavin Hughes and Chris Ogle) would have netted us a 0-gamer.

Let's not forget Carlton's record games holder didn't touch the ball in his first 3 games, and our premiership CHB was delisted by another cob without playing a game.

We do draft pretty early by world sport standards too. A lot of 18 year olds just aren't ready

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Let's not forget Carlton's record games holder didn't touch the ball in his first 3 games, and our premiership CHB was delisted by another cob without playing a game.

We do draft pretty early by world sport standards too. A lot of 18 year olds just aren't ready

And plenty of players are trending in their first season or two as a future AFL jet before they just never take the next leap. Lukas Webb the prime example for us. His first season was legitimately good for a first-year player. It just happened to also be the best season of his career, despite being on an AFL list for four more years, and even doing a pre-season at Carlton after he was delisted by us.

 

[VitalDread]

Knightmare got exposed for pretty much making the vast majority of his content up. He was pretty clueless.

I'm still waiting for Voss son to be a top 20 pick for this draft

 

[Mofra]

And plenty of players are trending in their first season or two as a future AFL jet before they just never take the next leap. Lukas Webb the prime example for us. His first season was legitimately good for a first-year player. It just happened to also be the best season of his career, despite being on an AFL list for four more years, and even doing a pre-season at Carlton after he was delisted by us.

Jayden Stephenson likes this

 

[Dazb86]

Surely Darcy gets signed up next year. We have so much space in the cap now

 

[stefoid]

...no? Why is this a truism that you're just making up?

Again, we can actually measure these things. We can look at this quantitatively. Teams have actual data scientists as part of their list management teams these days and do this research.

Did Tom Papley show himself early when he was overlooked in the draft as an 18 year old?
Did Rowan Marshall show himself early when he was overlooked in the draft twice before being drafted as a 20 year old?

The 2024 All-Australian squad of 44 players includes 14 players who "did not show themselves early"
Xerri - drafted as an overager, 0 AFL games first 2 years, 12 in next 2 years
Stengle - 2 games in 2 years at Richmond, 2 games in 3rd year at Adelaide
Daniels - 7 games in first year
D'Ambrosio - mid year draftee. 16 games in first 2 years, traded for nothing
Collins - twice a mature aged recruit. Had to prove himself in the state leagues twice.
Cameron - drafted as a 20 year old, 1 game in 3 years on Sydney's list before being traded for nothing
Sicily - 3 games in first 2 years on Hawthorn's list
Dale - 14 games in first 2 years on Dogs' list
Ryan - mature age pickup
Zorko - recruited at 22. Mature age pickup
McGovern - 0 games in first 3 years on West Coast's list
Warner - 2 games in 1st year on Swans list, 13 in 2nd
Waterman - 0 games in first year on West Coast's list
Moore - 0 games in first year on Hawks list. 10 games in next two. Was delisted and re-rookied by Hawks so ie was a "list clogger" that they could have delisted outright to take a swing in the rookie draft.

Its an observation. What is the measurement, because when I say there is a handful of players that are the exception, Im not sure that listing a handful proves thats wrong?

 

[Mofra]

Its an observation. What is the measurement, because when I say there is a handful of players that are the exception, Im not sure that listing a handful proves thats wrong?

That example provided was a sample of elite talent though, not just compared to the average.

Pavlich famously was overlooked the first time he was draft eligible too (for Ken McGregor!).

 

[stefoid]

That example provided was a sample of elite talent though, not just compared to the average.

Pavlich famously was overlooked the first time he was draft eligible too (for Ken McGregor!).

So you think that if a player shows no improvement after 2 years, its best just to wait another 2 or 4 because they usually come good by that time?

Of course every case is different,. Bad luck with injuries and a number of players already in the 22 that play the position might stop a talented player from playing games immediately.

What Im saying is talent shows itself early, and its rare for a player to show nothing early, then blossom much later.

 

[Mofra]

So you think that if a player shows no improvement after 2 years, its best just to wait another 2 or 4 because they usually come good by that time?

Of course every case is different,. Bad luck with injuries and a number of players already in the 22 that play the position might stop a talented player from playing games immediately.

What Im saying is talent shows itself early, and its rare for a player to show nothing early, then blossom much later.

I think we're going around in circles.
Nobody is arguing for an automatic extension for every kid that comes in to the system.

'Good players show themselves early' - in some cases yes, but the argument is that it isn't always the case and we shouldn't discount overagers from draft consideration - especially rucks which is a topic that has been discussed here previously me

 

[BrisDog]

Good players show themselves early. You can list a handful of players like JJ who finally made the grade after many years, but there is an endless list of players who showed nothing after 2 years that continued to show nothing after 4 or 5 and were delisted.

Michael Tuck?

50 games in the seconds before his 426 in the seniors.

 

[scooter600x]

That example provided was a sample of elite talent though, not just compared to the average.

Pavlich famously was overlooked the first time he was draft eligible too (for Ken McGregor!).

I'm pretty sure Pavlich was the exact opposite of this. He was picked up as a 17yo (each team was permitted to take one that year) by Freo @ pick 4.

The famous bit was Richmond used pick 3 on Aaron Fiora.

 

[stefoid]

I think we're going around in circles.
Nobody is arguing for an automatic extension for every kid that comes in to the system.

'Good players show themselves early' - in some cases yes, but the argument is that it isn't always the case and we shouldn't discount overagers from draft consideration - especially rucks which is a topic that has been discussed here previously me

We definitely are.

Thr last I will say is Im not against overagers. That would mean no picko, morris or boyd for a start. But they need to show devleopment Its not good enough to just be 'not terrible' for an extended period of time. We should be a bit more ruthless and move non-improving players on, thats all. Waiting 6 years for the next michael tuck is a list management disaster. And if they are already rejects who have failed to perform after 4 or 6 years in an AFL system, we should have even less patience than when dealing with a physically immature teen.

 

[Northernsoul74]

We definitely are.

Thr last I will say is Im not against overagers. That would mean no picko, morris or boyd for a start. But they need to show devleopment Its not good enough to just be 'not terrible' for an extended period of time. We should be a bit more ruthless and move non-improving players on, thats all. Waiting 6 years for the next michael tuck is a list management disaster. And if they are already rejects who have failed to perform after 4 or 6 years in an AFL system, we should have even less patience than when dealing with a physically immature teen.

We probably should be a bit more ruthless but like most things it’s not black and white. There are plenty of reasons to keep some players such as role depth, culture, competitive Footscray team etc.

 

[Mofra]

I'm pretty sure Pavlich was the exact opposite of this. He was picked up as a 17yo (each team was permitted to take one that year) by Freo @ pick 4.

The famous bit was Richmond used pick 3 on Aaron Fiora.

From Wiki:

Pavlich was recruited by Fremantle with the fourth selection in the 1999 AFL national draft. Pavlich had nominated for the 1998 draft, but was overlooked by all clubs. Most notably Adelaide instead drafted 17-year-old Ken McGregor who went on to play 158 games between 1999 and 2008, and cross town rival Port Adelaide who instead chose 17-year-old Adam Morgan who played only 3 games between 2002 and 2003 for Port.

 

[Mofra]

We probably should be a bit more ruthless but like most things it’s not black and white. There are plenty of reasons to keep some players such as role depth, culture, competitive Footscray team etc.

Sure once they're in the system, but the conversation started around drafting overagers or mature aged players vs 18 year olds.

Sometimes (especially with later picks or rookie spots) you just have to go with the player you think will develop best regardless of whether they're a year older or not.
Not every player shows what they're capable of in their mid to late teens. I'm happy enough to suggest Gags is showing enough to persist with despite him being an overager when we drafted him.

 

[Lindsay_Gilbee]

Some players are very unlucky not to get drafted. It’s pretty common for the “flavour of the month” to be athletes so the footballers gets overlooked, goes the other way too.

And some are just nowhere near ready when they’re 18. Think Tom Stewart is on the record saying he would’ve gone very quickly out of the system if he was drafted when he was 18.

 

[Lindsay_Gilbee]

Paul Roos was a bit advocate for raising the draft age. I don’t get it. I think if you’re good enough to play AFL at 18 then why should you suffer because some other kid isn’t mature enough?

But I haven’t a different view to most on here with that stuff I guess. As far as I’m concerned if Nick Daicos can balance school and footy when he’s 16 then why shouldn’t he be able to do it? Like Hannebery did? I can see why people are against this tho..

 

[Tommycash]

There's a lot to digest in the past few pages, and apologies if I have missed it, but another reason or two of continuing to draft mature players who may only get s handful of games is the importance of having a higher level at training - which in turn helps raise the bar of the young ones you do get in and the level of the team generally.

There's a reason why vfl players don't get to train with the afl list (or in another context why youth squads don't train with the senior team in the EPL) and that is because it does more harm to the top then it is worth to the bottom. If you flood a team with googy eggs then the overall standard at training is likely to decrease which will drag the team down.

Another linked matter is culture points. This seems to be the accepted reason why Tom Campbell

29

Tom Campbell

Age

33

Ht

201cm

Wt

108kg

Pos.

Ruck

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.1

2star

K

4.2

2star

HB

4.8

3star

CL

1.6

4star

HO

17.0

5star

D

5.0

1star

K

3.0

1star

HB

2.0

1star

CL

1.0

3star

HO

2.0

5star

D

7.2

2star

K

4.2

2star

HB

3.0

3star

CL

1.2

4star

HO

13.2

5star

keeps getting on lists despite the fact everyone knows he isn't going to be an AA player. He apparently is an all round good guy and hard worker so helps keep standards up. In a role like the ruck where only one or two of maybe 4 get to play each week, it is important to have guys who will always give their all despite knowing they won't be getting a game on the weekend.

 

[TiAn_]

From Wiki:

Pavlich was 16 years old in 1998. The fact teams were even considering him under the ‘one 17 year old per club’ draft rule suggests he’d shown a bit already fairly early on.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Some players are very unlucky not to get drafted. It’s pretty common for the “flavour of the month” to be athletes so the footballers gets overlooked, goes the other way too.

And some are just nowhere near ready when they’re 18. Think Tom Stewart is on the record saying he would’ve gone very quickly out of the system if he was drafted when he was 18.

Dane Rampe another. Grew up in Sydney, overlooked in the draft, moved down to Melbourne to play for Willy, did a pre-season with us, overlooked again by us. Wasn't "ready" until he moved back to his home city of Sydney and was picked up by Sydney a year later.

By some respects Jack Redpath is ticks both boxes. Was a mature age recruit, but was "clogging" up the list by virtue of 0 games played the first 2 years with us. But then our decision to initially draft and then maintain him was correct, and he had a better than average career from a rookie listed plsyer

Anyway, the broad point I'm making (using recruiting new players as a similar decision to deciding to retain "clogging" players) is that

Pre-2015 ish - approximately 2/3 of "last spot on the list" players were 18 year olds. The 1/3 of delisted or mature ages were significantly better.

2015-now - approximately half of the "last spot on the list" players are 18 year olds. The 1/2 mature agents are slightly better, but the cap is closing

2024-?? Maybe approximately 1/3 of the "last list spot" players will be 18 year olds. They will be exactly as good as the 2/3 of delsited/mature agers/decision to retain players.

I'm not saying don't draft a Johannisen type 18 year old in the rookie draft. I'm just saying only do it 1/3 of the time not the 1/2 of the time that the league does it on average