Draft Watcher Young Talent Time - A 2012 Mock Draft

[chopperduck]

We do still need a bit more depth in our midfield. We have some promising kids, but they are still largely unproven. I think we need a genuine on baller rover type mid and/or a classy inside mid. We do still need some KPP depth, however, we've done well in previous years with rookie list and mature players, especially in defense. Merrett, Patfull and Goose all combined cost us bugger all.

Worth noting next year is the first year we get our academy kids through as well.

 

[x_les_x]

Who do you think port will pick up if both sumner and obrien are gone or passed?

 

[Chris25]

Who do you think port will pick up if both sumner and obrien are gone or passed?

Well, I suppose it depends on who you get with your first pick too. All up, I would be looking at one tall and two midfielders with those first three picks. So getting Grundy instead of a midfielder with pick 7 could change what you'd be looking at in the second round. But at least you can cross of a defender from the list. Ideally, I'd be looking for an inside midfielder, an outside midfielder and a key forward. So a bit of everything.

Either one of Sam Colquhoun or Tim Broomhead would be solid picks if available, Matt McDonough would also be a good fit for Port Adelaide. I think all three will develop into good midfielders, who can also play at either end of the ground. And one of the second tier Victorian midfielders should be available too - Graham, Pongracic, Atkins.

If O'Brien was gone, then I would perhaps abandon my search for a KPF. Although Spencer White would be a very nice partner for Schultz/Butcher. But picks 30/31 may be too early for a Brant Colledge (who'd also be a good fit), Michael Close or Marco Paparone. And that is probably the case for picking Brodie Grundy if available, because the midfield stocks are far better than the KPP stocks in the second round.

 

[Chris25]

We do still need a bit more depth in our midfield. We have some promising kids, but they are still largely unproven. I think we need a genuine on baller rover type mid and/or a classy inside mid. We do still need some KPP depth, however, we've done well in previous years with rookie list and mature players, especially in defense. Merrett, Patfull and Goose all combined cost us bugger all.

That's my thinking too. Taking a couple of midfielders in the early rounds could finish off that midfield for the next few years, because you do have some young talent already there. It's just that the depth isn't quite there yet, so injuries and inconsistent performances can expose a few players who might not be up to the standard.

If a Tanner Smith or Aidan Corr were available in the second round, then I would probably take them if I were Brisbane. But otherwise there will be some decent mature aged KPDs available in the rookie draft - Matt Sully, Simon Deery, Aseri Raikiwasa just to name a few. So you could afford to take best available, which would likely be a midfielder with those early picks.

 

[captainrich]

Hey Chris, you've got broomhead going pretty high for the Lions, where do you see him fitting into a team like the lions, is he going to be an outside player or can he play inside too, thanks

 

[x_les_x]

Thanks man good insight. What if we pick up mayes with our first?

 

[Nemisis]

When he was at the Lions and GC he was pretty terrible. As should be indicated by his delisting from both clubs. Only played 1 senior game with us.

However, from what I understand, he's really thrived at SANFL level. Perhaps the jump from NEAFL to AFL was too high? Not sure, but he's definitely a better player now than what he was.

Joel Tippett is a ready made AFL tall backman. A very good reliable kick and takes a decent grab. He will surely get picked up -

 

[SumTingWong]

Hi Chris,
I'm just as interested in later picks than early picks. Concerning Richmond who have picks 32,34 and 43 the talk is that we will look at goalkicking midfielders or half forwards who can run through the middle. Could you throw out a few names that you think will be available at those picks?

 

[Chris25]

Hey Chris, you've got broomhead going pretty high for the Lions, where do you see him fitting into a team like the lions, is he going to be an outside player or can he play inside too, thanks

I see him lining up on a wing. At this stage, he is largely an outside player - and will be so until he puts a bit more weight on. But that's no issue, because he is good enough to be just an outside/flanker type. Best case scenario, he'd be a little like Dale Thomas.

Thanks man good insight. What if we pick up mayes with our first?

Hope Tim O'Brien is available in the second round?

Hi Chris,
I'm just as interested in later picks than early picks. Concerning Richmond who have picks 32,34 and 43 the talk is that we will look at goalkicking midfielders or half forwards who can run through the middle. Could you throw out a few names that you think will be available at those picks?

My pick would be Matthew McDonough from SA. I think people really underrate his midfield abilities, admittedly it's still improving but he has shown very good signs. And he is just a natural goal kicker. Laine Wilkins is the other one I'd be looking at, he has played all over the ground but I like him on a wing pushing forward.

Otherwise, I probably prefer a few players who'll be later round picks or even rookies - Tullio DeMatteis, Tim Sumner, Sam Rundle, Harry O'Meara, Harrison Gill, Ben Kearns, Chris DeLuca. The likes of Louis Herbert, Brodie Murdoch, Josh Scott and Mason Wood all look like good medium forwards, but I'm not sure they have the midfield capabilities.

 

[Tazwegian]

Is Jackson Thurlow the most underrated prospect?

I used Noz from fanfooty's list of the DT scores for the NAB under 18s carnival and combined that with your phantom draft to create a feel for how the combine performances feed into phantom draft selections. I used your draft for two reasons. I rate it highly, and it is pretty representative of most phantom drafts on here - I think due to the respect that other phantom selectors pay to yourself and KM's drafts. Anyway, here is what I came up with:

Top 10 Dream Team scores for the Championships:

1. Ben Kennedy - 486 - South Australia (Pick #20)
2. Jackson Thurlow - 474 - Tasmania (Pick #65)
3. Brodie Grundy - 464 - South Australia (Pick #2)
4. Matthew McDonough - 458 - South Australia (Pick #28)
5. Nathan Hrovat - 448 - Vic Metro (Pick #33)
6. Jackson Macrae - 445 - Vic Metro (Pick #11)
7. Jed Anderson - 412 - Northern Territory (NT Zone)
8. Matthew Scharenberg - 410 - South Australia (Ineligible)
9. Isaac Conway - 409 - Queensland (Ineligible)
10. Jack Martin - 407 - Western Australia (Mini Draft)

So we can see that three of the six guys eligible for the draft on this list are first round selections. Thurlow is 32 picks away from the next eligible player on the list and that player is Hrovat, who many have going within the first round and you yourself have admitted that you are conflicted about putting him so low. If Thurlow is actually selected 65th overall, then he has probably just scraped in for selection with maybe another 10 actual picks left. Ostensibly, this is a large discrepency between performance and draft position (especially seeing Thurlow backed up his championships with a strong season for Launceston).

Limitations of this analysis are pretty obvious. DT scores, whilst fairly predictive of a player's ability, are not a 100% reliable indicator of performance. They don't take into account things like contested possessions, DE and one percenters. However, Thurlow's DE was pretty solid and should rank up there with the other players on the list and his contested work was also solid. Also, the majority of Thurlow's games were against Div 2 teams, where Div 1 players played against Div 1 sides in the (slight) majority of games. However, Thurlow's highest DT scoring game was against a Div 1 side.

Just to ram my point home a little more, on another rainy day, I may throw up a list of the All-Australians and add their predicted positions to see how Thurlow rates against his fellow AAs according to phantom drafters.

PS: This isn't a knock on any phantom drafters, you guys could well be right to have him going where you do and ranking players outside the major states would be incredibly hard. I also certainly agree that throwing him in the first round would be a bit of a wild selection. Even I am guilty of not being 100% confident he will even get drafted, but I think he certainly ought to on merit. I was just bored and thought I'd throw this out there

 

[george2]

Hey Chris just wondering if you think that Nathan Wright is any chance of being available at freos second pick 37? I watched him pretty closely at the u18 champs and think hey would be a perfect fit for the Dockers. We have always struggled with small quick forwards and he seems to be able to control them but also able to rebound with a lot of run and pace

 

[dlanod]

Is Jackson Thurlow the most underrated prospect?

I used Noz from fanfooty's list of the DT scores for the NAB under 18s carnival and combined that with your phantom draft to create a feel for how the combine performances feed into phantom draft selections. I used your draft for two reasons. I rate it highly, and it is pretty representative of most phantom drafts on here - I think due to the respect that other phantom selectors pay to yourself and KM's drafts. Anyway, here is what I came up with:

Top 10 Dream Team scores for the Championships:

1. Ben Kennedy - 486 - South Australia (Pick #20)
2. Jackson Thurlow - 474 - Tasmania (Pick #65)
...

So we can see that three of the six guys eligible for the draft on this list are first round selections. Thurlow is 32 picks away from the next eligible player on the list and that player is Hrovat, who many have going within the first round and you yourself have admitted that you are conflicted about putting him so low. If Thurlow is actually selected 65th overall, then he has probably just scraped in for selection with maybe another 10 actual picks left. Ostensibly, this is a large discrepency between performance and draft position (especially seeing Thurlow backed up his championships with a strong season for Launceston).

Limitations of this analysis are pretty obvious. DT scores, whilst fairly predictive of a player's ability, are not a 100% reliable indicator of performance. They don't take into account things like contested possessions, DE and one percenters. However, Thurlow's DE was pretty solid and should rank up there with the other players on the list and his contested work was also solid. Also, the majority of Thurlow's games were against Div 2 teams, where Div 1 players played against Div 1 sides in the (slight) majority of games. However, Thurlow's highest DT scoring game was against a Div 1 side.

Just to ram my point home a little more, on another rainy day, I may throw up a list of the All-Australians and add their predicted positions to see how Thurlow rates against his fellow AAs according to phantom drafters.

PS: This isn't a knock on any phantom drafters, you guys could well be right to have him going where you do and ranking players outside the major states would be incredibly hard. I also certainly agree that throwing him in the first round would be a bit of a wild selection. Even I am guilty of not being 100% confident he will even get drafted, but I think he certainly ought to on merit. I was just bored and thought I'd throw this out there

I think your usage of DT stats is very misleading here, given Thurlow scored 164 (!) of that 474 in a single game in which Tassie was comprehensively flogged. If he'd played to his average excluded that game he would've finished on 387.5 points and you'd have had to find some other metric to use instead.

I would actually be more interested in the AA list by comparison, as it's unlikely to be so distorted by Thurlow playing kick to kick in a game they lost by almost 100 points.

 

[Tazwegian]

I think your usage of DT stats is very misleading here, given Thurlow scored 164 (!) of that 474 in a single game in which Tassie was comprehensively flogged. If he'd played to his average excluded that game he would've finished on 387.5 points and you'd have had to find some other metric to use instead.

I would actually be more interested in the AA list by comparison, as it's unlikely to be so distorted by Thurlow playing kick to kick in a game they lost by almost 100 points.

Yeah, but what happens if you take out all the other player's best games as well? I am sure it would effect most players. For example, Ben Kennedy got 37 touches and four goals in the same game that Menzel kicked 9. Should we throw that out as well? Thurlow still had to have the work rate and ability to actually play that game as well as he did. Since it was against first grade competition, I see no reason to exclude it. It's not like Hayden's 380 vs Zimbabwe or Tendulkar's run feat on Bangas. If I had of excluded Thurlow's worst game and argued that Thurlow's average is now the best in the comp, would you have agreed with that? It would be almost as justified, it was his game vs the NT where he only got 46 points in a quiet one. It is actually slightly more of an outlier than his 160, if you do the comparison with respect to his next highest/lowest score. e.g 160 as a factor of 114 and 46 as a factor of 69. Not a statistician, so not sure if that is the best way to do it

Moreover, there are plenty of examples of games where a team gets beaten by 100 or more points. How many of those games to guys from the team getting flogged wrack up 45+ touches? I can't think of any of the top of my head.

Even so, 387.5 is still only just outside the ten (without removing any of their best games), so no big deal. Also, I did add a section outlining the limitations of DT scores, so I am aware of them.

I think your comment about Thurlow playing kick to kick is pretty misleading and a bit disrespectful. He put in the yards and was rewarded with possessions. He also contested very well along the backline all day and was used further up the ground at times. I think he comprehensively annihilated his opponent one on one that day.

 

[dlanod]

Yeah, but what happens if you take out all the other player's best games as well? I am sure it would effect most players. Thurlow still had to have the work rate and ability to actually play that game as well as he did. Since it was against first grade competition, I see no reason to exclude it. It's not like Hayden's 380 vs Zimbabwe or Tendulkar's run feat on Bangas. Or even like Menzel's freakish 9 goals vs Tas, who are a weaker team. If I had of excluded Thurlow's worst game and concluded he was the top DT scorer on average, would you have agreed with that?

Even so, 387.5 is still only just outside the ten (without removing any of their best games), so no big deal. Also, I did add a section outlining the limitations of DT scores, so I am aware of them.

His was just so far outside his own norm and and in unusual circumstances as to render it blatantly misleading, and in a "season" of only five games it has an outsized impact. I would say exactly the same about Menzel's nine goals against Tasmania. If you wanted to be fair I'd suggest using the median rather than a total or an average, as that would hopefully give you a bit of a better idea while reducing the impact of massive outliers, or publish both the average and the standard deviation to give the context that some of the players are very boom or bust. Overall I get what you're trying to say, and I don't have a position on Thurlow one way or the other, but I think the use of the stats here is misleading at best.

Looking at the AA team you can make a stronger case using that - only Boston and potentially Neade would have been ranked around or below Thurlow's average ranking.

 

[Tazwegian]

His was just so far outside his own norm and and in unusual circumstances as to render it blatantly misleading, and in a "season" of only five games it has an outsized impact. I would say exactly the same about Menzel's nine goals against Tasmania. If you wanted to be fair I'd suggest using the median rather than a total or an average, as that would hopefully give you a bit of a better idea while reducing the impact of massive outliers, or publish both the average and the standard deviation to give the context that some of the players are very boom or bust. Overall I get what you're trying to say, and I don't have a position on Thurlow one way or the other, but I think the use of the stats here is misleading at best.

Looking at the AA team you can make a stronger case using that - only Boston and potentially Neade would have been ranked around or below Thurlow's average ranking.

I know, it isn't perfect. Also, I added a bit more to my response as you were typing yours about outliers. I do take on board your suggestion about the median, but it would be a lot of work to work out the median of all players, and it would still suffer from being a small sample anyway. But we can both agree that it is not meant to be a 100% perfect analysis, just something to talk about and I think it is pretty fair to leave them in there, considering how much work it would take to go through all the performances and rerank them and considering Thurlow still did have to play exceptionally well to get that result. A little harsh to remove it completely, because in such a small sample, it also will bias the results considerably.

His results in reverse order were 46, 69, 81, 164, and 114. So we take his median at 81, mutliply that by 5 and it would put him at around 405. I'd say that would still be either top ten, or very close to it, if we did that for all players considering 407 was 10th. Needless to say, he would still have the highest negative correlation between DT ranking and draft pick position out of all the eligible players tipped to be drafted. Can we at least agree on that?

I'll do the All Australian one soon, it's a rainy day here and it's good fun taking a quasi-Billy Bean approach to the draft

 

[Tazwegian]

NAB Under 18s All Australian Squad with Chris #25 Draft Order (eligible players only):

Sam Colquhoun - #22

Jimmy Toumpas - #4

Nick Vlastuin - #7

Oliver Wines - #9

Lachie Whitfield - #1

Brodie Grundy - #2

Jonathon O'Rourke - #15

Nathan Hrovat - #33

Taylor Garner - #13

Ben Kennedy - #20

Joe Daniher - #10 (f/s)

Matthew McDonough -#28

Andrew Boston - #60

Dayle Garlett - #18

Jackson Thurlow #65

Pretty easy to identify two massive outliers in Andrew Boston and Jackson Thurlow. Not surprisingly, they are both the only eligible players from Div 2 states. The lowest selection outside Div 2 is Hrovat at #33. Hrovat is so low due to his size (174cm), but that is obviously not a factor for Thurlow (189cm and 79kgs) or as much of an issue for Boston (180cm) who is only slightly undersized in height, but is pretty skinny (75kgs). As predicted, Jackson Thurlow is the lowest pick of all eligible All Australians in Chris25's phantom draft.

<Size should count in Thurlow's favour, better build than most draft age prospects>

<Lots of lean muscle mass>

Six out of the 15 players on this list are top 10. Only 5 are outside the top 20, and only Thurlow and Boston are outside the first two rounds. Jake Stringer (#3) and Lachie Plowman (#5) missed the champs.

Again, not a knock on Chris25, and I actually think he will be pretty spot on. There are also limitations to this method, one being the possibility of AA selectors choosing less worthy players from Div 2 teams just to add variety to the team and show an ostensible lack of bias. However, considering Thurlow's outstanding champs, I don't believe this to be the case in his case. If anything, he is unlucky not to be named on the half back, rather than interchange. I think we can eliminate this limitation in Thurlow's case, but am happy to listen to objections.

Just for comparison, in reverse order, Boston scored 86, 62, 110, 67, and 19 for a total of 344. I think it would be fair to remove that outlier, was he injured in the first game?? Without the first game, he averaged 81, which is around the same as Thurlow taking out Thurlow's high outlier (which is a bit unfair on Thurlow). So both those players definitely performed well, and I suspect are probably the two most underrated players.

So two separate analyses have now turned up Thurlow as arguably the most underrated player in the phantom drafts. A possible explanation, which is corroborated somewhat by Boston also factoring in as almost as underrated as Thurlow in the AA analysis, is that it is harder for phantom drafters to gauge the abilities of Div 2 state players. Another explanation is that Div 2 players receive less coverage in the media. A third possible explanation is that these players are rated correctly by phantom drafters, and that my analyses are flawed or are at least invalid for these two particular players. Or that NAB championships are such that Div 2 players tend to look better than their Div 1 counterparts in the particular analyses that I have chosen. One last factor could be that Thurlow and Boston played out of their skins at the champs, but are not normally that good. This factor is harder to judge, but Thurlow has been consistently among Launceston's best players against much more mature bodies this season, so I think it would be fair to discount it somewhat.

Anyway, something to consider and we won't really know until draft day, and possibly until the conclusion of their respective careers.

My predicted pick for Thurlow, based on merit as a result of my analyses, would be around the #38 mark (I am allowing for the Tassie slide factor). Will be interesting to see who gets closest on the day, but tbh I would just be happy for him to be drafted anywhere

 

[Nemisis]

Chris I like your Port picks, especially obrien - I am still spewing that Port have announced they are only having three picks - there is plenty of depth - Amato for instance!

 

[Buddysurkidsdad]

Chris thanks for ur efforts mate. It's a brilliant read and blokes like yourself and Knightmare make the offseason all the easier to get through. Apologies if u have already answered this but I'm keen to know where u would have had Jed Anderson going in the draft. Everything I've heard has me staggered we were able to pick him in what was effectively a straight swap for Gilham.

 

[Chris25]

I might need a bit of time to read through this DT analysis properly before I reply.

 

[swansfan51]

Thurlow is clearly the latest Div 2 love child. Weren't Richard Tambling, Anthony Corrie, Dylan McNeil, John McKenzie and Jake Furfaro all Hunter Harrison medallists?

 

[footymaad]

Not sure DT points mean much at all. eg Boston injured in first few minutes of first game and spent very little time on the ground after that, so as u suspected that result meaningless. And the defender getting cheap possesions coming out of defence will always get more points than the key position player who's role on the day is to stop a key opposition player.

 

[Tazwegian]

Not sure DT points mean much at all. eg Boston injured in first few minutes of first game and spent very little time on the ground after that, so as u suspected that result meaningless. And the defender getting cheap possesions coming out of defence will always get more points than the key position player who's role on the day is to stop a key opposition player.

That's why Boston's first game was eliminated.

For your second comment, I wouldn't use the fact that Thurlow racked up a lot of possessions to argue that Thurlow is better than a KPD or a KPF. It is a measure of his performance though, because I would like to see how many other defenders rack up 45 touches a game, even for games where their side has been pummeled by 100 points or more. I suspect it happens not much at all. Sam Fisher plays that run out of defense role quite often, and his career high is 33 posessions. Heath Shaw's highest is 36 (they won that game by 36). In Collingwood's 65 point loss to Hawthorn in 2008, he got 34 touches with 16 marks. Grant Birchall's highest is 36 (Hawthorn 61 point win). To get that many touches, it takes a high work rate, the ability to run off your man and make space, the ability to read the play well... and to get 45 touches, you will usually need to be winning a fair bit of your own ball too.

I think people are underrating Thurlow's performance to get 45 touches in that game as though it is just a given, because they got thrashed, but in fact if you look at the history of the game, it is actually very rare for a defender to ever get 45 touches regardless of the scoreline (think his 45 touches is the highest ever recorded at the champs, which shows it is rare). And getting thrashed doesn't seem to correlate very highly with defenders getting massive touches either, just with a quick look at some stats on footywire. Intuition is often wrong, so it pays to look at the evidence. I probably get carried away with stats sometimes, but they do help highlight certain things very well.

The fact that Thurlow still contests very well in the air and is a solid tackler says that he doesn't play unaccountable football by any stretch. Thurlow could easily play as that 190cm Grant Birchall/Sam Fisher style role where he can go third up effectively in the air.

Here is draft video, it shows his areal ability, his quick hands, and his speed to get away from packs and find space. He is also good in contested situations when the ball hits the ground:



Probably talking him up too much now, but I am sticking by my early season prediction that he is one of the best allround prospect Tassie has produced since Darley. Not saying he is better than Lonergan, or even Green, but just that he is an exciting utility type that can do pretty much everything to a good standard.

 

[Tazwegian]

Thurlow is clearly the latest Div 2 love child.

Not yet, I am trying to make him one though! It's still Lonergan, but all aboard the Thurlow bandwagon!!

 

[footymaad]

My second comment wasnt specifically referring to Thurlow - more to the my own lack of enthusiasm in ranking players using DT points - at under 18 or any other level.

 

[Tazwegian]

My second comment wasnt specifically referring to Thurlow - more to the my own lack of enthusiasm in ranking players using DT points - at under 18 or any other level.

I agree. I am not using them to rank players though. I wouldn't argue along the line of because Thurlow was second in terms of dream team points, then he was the second best player at the champs, or anything like that. That would be completely invalid.

Instead, I am just using DT points as a bit of a guide. Like I said in the post, DT points are predictive of a players qualitative performance. Usually if player X scores 120 DT points, player X will be said to have played well. DT points also map on well, but not perfectly (particularly for KPPs), to how well a player is judged to have played compared to another. So for example, if Ablett gets 160 DT points, 40 points more than the next best, more times than not it will also map on to Ablett being qualitatively judged best on ground, or at the very least, among the BOG. DT points are very predictive of player performance. There aren't many AFL players who average 100+ in a season who are poor players, for example. So there is some validity in using DT points as a measure of performance, but as I said, it has limitations and it is not perfect. But no quantitative measurement is ever going to be, when it comes to AFL. They are just useful evaluative tools.