My Thoughts On 2014

[Mr.Craig]

It's that beautiful time of the year when our teams look all shiny and new. Our players are never going to get injured, our mid pricers are going to become premiums and our cheapo picks will all come through.

Then reality hits.

Many of us are shying away from the bloated rookie prices and putting our faith in dirt cheap players who have struggled with injury, changed teams or simply haven't been able to cement a place in the senior team. Michie, Bock, Rohan, Tyson, C.Beams, Polec, X.Ellis, Howard, Longer and Clark have become fixtures in our teams despite playing a combined total of 25 games in 2013, just 3 more than Jaeger O'Meara. How many of these guys will actually be named Round 1, play enough games and score well enough to earn much needed money? My guess would be four at best.

And what of the rookies? Why would anyone want to pay almost half the price of a premium to own a rookie who has no guarantees about their JS, scoring or ability to avoid the vest? Well, price tag aside there are always going to be a handful of first year players who exceed expectation (or meet lofty predictions) and become fixtures in your starting 22 until they become surplus to requirements and get traded for a premium.

So what's the answer from a strategy perspective? I believe the best way to go about it is to consider where a player will end up rather than where they are starting from. If O'Meara had been 270k last year you still could have made 150k+ if you cashed him out at the right time, with the added bonus of excellent M7/M8 scoring. Now Jaeger was a special case and we're unlikely to be spoilt like that again but there are rookies in 2014 who have shown indications they could make a genuine impact. But with such a high outlay picking a winner will be very difficult. Will Matt Fuller, Luke McDonald or Kade Kolodjashnij be a better bet in the backline? There is over 100k difference in their prices but the right pick will be worth its weight in gold.

Even three months out from the start of the season it's worth thinking about what Options B, C, D and E are. And I'm not just talking about the chaos of Round 1 team selections when that player we were hedging our bets on doesn't get a game. What happens if that 135k pick in our forward line is a bust? You better have a back up plan that involves another genuine option at the same price or money in the bank to go shopping. How about if you are running with Sandi at R2, he stubs that big toe of his and your bargain basement bench is nowhere to be seen? If you're lucky you might find someone around the same price who can plug the gap but you'll be left exposed scoring wise. The reality will probably be that you'll need to drop a mid pricer from another position down to a good performing rookie/cheapo and put that money into a solid R2 replacement. On the surface that doesn't seem too bad but it eats up two trades and has the potential to muck up your structure.

What I see is the best strategy is to "embed" value into your team. It's impossible to completely avoid the risk associated with the likes of Claye Beams or Viv Michie because the reward is potentially so high but by having a selection of players between 200k-350k (one on each line if possible) then you have so much more flexibility when it comes to trading. For instance, let's say Matt Crouch gets named Round 1 and has a handful of good games but then his scoring stalls or he gets injured. You potentially have the option to sideways, downgrade or cash out another player early and use any cash reserves to jump on a falling premium. It's true that you could cash out a 135k player in the same situation and use those funds to better your team but you're in a weaker situation to replace them with anyone other than another 135k player and those options are going to be finite.

The changes to DT pricing has put more of an emphasis on taking risks but paradoxically it has also increased the need for risk minimisation. Balancing those factors may be the key to success in 2014.

[Scrads]

The most important thing to remember IMO is that if you do have that premium/'rookie' who gets injured and you need to replace him... There will be a LOT of coaches going through something very similar! ;D

[auscoyote]

Nice write up Mr C
To help prove ya point, atm im tossing up M6 between elite rookie Martin (gun in the making) and D.Thomas (back with his favorite coach). Cant have both haha :( Decisions decisions
Alot of training still to be run and preseason reports to be read but like you i'm keeping options open even this early and implementing plans A,B,C

Happy Coaching :)

[T Dog]

Got it right there Mr C..... 8)

[kilbluff1985]

XV Comps > SC/DT

[Grazz]

Nice right up MrC, raised the heart rate a bit and at the same time the anxiety level lol.  ;)

[Master Q]

I'm pumped all ready  ;)

[browny_wce]

alot of hype over Jack Martin too... he will not be better then O'Meara, not near
he is not the size of Jaeger, will not play the same type of game and name me one Indigenous player who can rack up (consistently) 25 touches a game?
Compare to D.Swallow and H.Bennell in their first years

[Master Q]

alot of hype over Jack Martin too... he will not be better then O'Meara, not near
he is not the size of Jaeger, will not play the same type of game and name me one Indigenous player who can rack up (consistently) 25 touches a game?
Compare to D.Swallow and H.Bennell in their first years

See: Adam Goodes, 2006-2011 and 2 time Brownlow Medalist

[CrowsFan]

alot of hype over Jack Martin too... he will not be better then O'Meara, not near
he is not the size of Jaeger, will not play the same type of game and name me one Indigenous player who can rack up (consistently) 25 touches a game?
Compare to D.Swallow and H.Bennell in their first years

He averaged 20.4 possessions and 6 tackles a game in the NEAFL this year, equating to 97.6 DT points per game. That's pretty impressive for a kid who turned 18 at the start of the year.

[Ziplock]

alot of hype over Jack Martin too... he will not be better then O'Meara, not near
he is not the size of Jaeger, will not play the same type of game and name me one Indigenous player who can rack up (consistently) 25 touches a game?
Compare to D.Swallow and H.Bennell in their first years

Stokes does, players like Christensen, Harbrow, Bennell, Wingard, both Goodes (Adam in his prime) come very close.

That being said, out of the 820+ afl listed players,  only 30 players average over 25 disposals per game

of those 821 players, 79 are indigenous, so  742 are non-indigenous

that means that 29/742 = % of non indigenous players that average over 25 disposals per game= 3.9% of players

1/79 indigenous players averages over 25 disposals per game= 1.3%

so, looks like indigenous players average over 25 disposals per game at 1/3 the rate of non indigenous players. Although, because of the comparatively smaller sample size, a statistical test should be run to demonstrate significance. So I transformed the data into a binary data, where 1 represented averaging over 25 disposals and 0 represented under 25 disposals and did a 1 tailed unpaired ttest assuming homoscedasticity which came up with a p-value of 0.11, which is greater than 0.05 meaning that the two populations are not statistically different.

So basically, race has no statistical significance on whether a player averages over 25 disposals or not.

[Scrads]

alot of hype over Jack Martin too... he will not be better then O'Meara, not near
he is not the size of Jaeger, will not play the same type of game and name me one Indigenous player who can rack up (consistently) 25 touches a game?
Compare to D.Swallow and H.Bennell in their first years

Stokes does, players like Christensen, Harbrow, Bennell, Wingard, both Goodes (Adam in his prime) come very close.

That being said, out of the 820+ afl listed players,  only 30 players average over 25 disposals per game

of those 821 players, 79 are indigenous, so  742 are non-indigenous

that means that 29/742 = % of non indigenous players that average over 25 disposals per game= 3.9% of players

1/79 indigenous players averages over 25 disposals per game= 1.3%

so, looks like indigenous players average over 25 disposals per game at 1/3 the rate of non indigenous players. Although, because of the comparatively smaller sample size, a statistical test should be run to demonstrate significance. So I transformed the data into a binary data, where 1 represented averaging over 25 disposals and 0 represented under 25 disposals and did a 1 tailed unpaired ttest assuming homoscedasticity which came up with a p-value of 0.11, which is greater than 0.05 meaning that the two populations are not statistically different.

So basically, race has no statistical significance on whether a player averages over 25 disposals or not.

Post of the year. Best post ever on ff?

[Ziplock]

alot of hype over Jack Martin too... he will not be better then O'Meara, not near
he is not the size of Jaeger, will not play the same type of game and name me one Indigenous player who can rack up (consistently) 25 touches a game?
Compare to D.Swallow and H.Bennell in their first years

Stokes does, players like Christensen, Harbrow, Bennell, Wingard, both Goodes (Adam in his prime) come very close.

That being said, out of the 820+ afl listed players,  only 30 players average over 25 disposals per game

of those 821 players, 79 are indigenous, so  742 are non-indigenous

that means that 29/742 = % of non indigenous players that average over 25 disposals per game= 3.9% of players

1/79 indigenous players averages over 25 disposals per game= 1.3%

so, looks like indigenous players average over 25 disposals per game at 1/3 the rate of non indigenous players. Although, because of the comparatively smaller sample size, a statistical test should be run to demonstrate significance. So I transformed the data into a binary data, where 1 represented averaging over 25 disposals and 0 represented under 25 disposals and did a 1 tailed unpaired ttest assuming homoscedasticity which came up with a p-value of 0.11, which is greater than 0.05 meaning that the two populations are not statistically different.

So basically, race has no statistical significance on whether a player averages over 25 disposals or not.

Post of the year. Best post ever on ff?

Haha. It'd be up there :P