Draft Watcher Knightmare's 2014 Phantom Draft

[Dunny82]

Don't know if this is already going to be a part of your drafts re-done section but looking through your previous threads I've enjoyed reading your thoughts about how well each club has drafted, if you thought their needs were met and what they'll probably look for in terms of type of player in the next draft.

In answer to your SC/DT question for Balony_pony, my opinion is that I'd like to see how you'd see a particular player eventually slotting into a team (whether they'd be an integral component or just a player doing their part) and a range/projection of where you could potentially see their scoring in their first year, the next 3 years and in their prime around 26 or so. Probably too much work to cover all so you could restrict this to those who you think are fantasy relevant or just the top 20/30 of your power rankings.

 

[Knightmare]

Just for the record, I intend to make videos again in '15 but I reckon I might have networked my way into some more footage to make them a bit more in depth. Would happily let you use them, really like what you're doing here!

That would be much appreciated Skippos! It will certainly make TD happy and I definitely think it would be a feature that people would enjoy with the available footage during the year typically scarce. Just makes fans feel that bit more involved and a bit more informed at least seeing a glimpse of some of the players.

Any resources - stats (more detailed and beyond those just on sportingpulse/sanfl/wafl/neafl websites), game tapes, highlights. At the end of the day the more resources I have at my disposal the better my final product will be for the public.

If it is say YouTube links or whatever I'm more than happy to give you credit such as "thanks to bigfooty user: Skippos for the use of these draft videos." If your vids are on YouTube it should with some luck also get you some additional views and some free promotion which hopefully also helps you in some way.

Don't know if this is already going to be a part of your drafts re-done section but looking through your previous threads I've enjoyed reading your thoughts about how well each club has drafted, if you thought their needs were met and what they'll probably look for in terms of type of player in the next draft.

In answer to your SC/DT question for Balony_pony, my opinion is that I'd like to see how you'd see a particular player eventually slotting into a team (whether they'd be an integral component or just a player doing their part) and a range/projection of where you could potentially see their scoring in their first year, the next 3 years and in their prime around 26 or so. Probably too much work to cover all so you could restrict this to those who you think are fantasy relevant or just the top 20/30 of your power rankings.

Thanks for the feedback Dunny.

I should get back into the reviews shouldn't I? That's a good suggestion and I might just go about adding that one in. Perhaps I can give it the heading - something like - AFL Offseason reviews and go through club by club there. Were the list changes good/bad? Trades/free agent decisions/draftees etc. Will he teams improve/get worse. And make some comments regarding where clubs did well/not so well or whatever else is apparent. I recall doing one for the Hawthorn board which I expect is what you're referring to and I recall doing similar for the WCE board and getting a fair few likes so I think you're onto something there with that being something of interest.

I also like the SC/DT concept of projecting their SC/DT scores ahead a few seasons as a guide to what to look at.
eg. Christian Petracca I may project to play 19 games and have a SC average of 80 and a DT average of 75. And perhaps in season two that becomes 90 and 85 over 21 games. Or whatever I'm expecting.
I may even go with something along the lines of guys who have the ability to become future premiums. Or players with the ability to start to get games or improve their production. I'll play around with some of those concepts and I'm sure if there is something else along these lines people want I'll get further comments along these lines.

 

[TradeDraft]

I don't have those personal relationships with people who would have access to video footage.

I can always put a note in a videos section asking people to send me links to footage if they come across any. But that's the best that I'd be able to do.

Okay - Though I don’t get why they are so Guarded with the Footage?

In America when they play in College then Everyone can get the Foortage

 

[Knightmare]

Okay - Though I don’t get why they are so Guarded with the Footage?

In America when they play in College then Everyone can get the Foortage

With college b-ball those games are nationally televised. That's why all that footage is available with people just easily recoding those games and doing their editing and whatever they do with it.

I don't think with the AFL it's so much guarded as much as there is no real benefit for anyone in the AFL system to share various u18 games online and with those games not nationally televised there just isn't the opportunity for people to create youtube vids in the most part.

 

[Dunny82]

Thanks for the feedback Dunny.

I should get back into the reviews shouldn't I? That's a good suggestion and I might just go about adding that one in. Perhaps I can give it the heading - something like - AFL Offseason reviews and go through club by club there. Were the list changes good/bad? Trades/free agent decisions/draftees etc. Will he teams improve/get worse. And make some comments regarding where clubs did well/not so well or whatever else is apparent. I recall doing one for the Hawthorn board which I expect is what you're referring to and I recall doing similar for the WCE board and getting a fair few likes so I think you're onto something there with that being something of interest.

I also like the SC/DT concept of projecting their SC/DT scores ahead a few seasons as a guide to what to look at.
eg. Christian Petracca I may project to play 19 games and have a SC average of 80 and a DT average of 75. And perhaps in season two that becomes 90 and 85 over 21 games. Or whatever I'm expecting.
I may even go with something along the lines of guys who have the ability to become future premiums. Or players with the ability to start to get games or improve their production. I'll play around with some of those concepts and I'm sure if there is something else along these lines people want I'll get further comments along these lines.

Yeah I pretty much had the review you did on the Hawks board in mind with a couple of extra bits to it. I had to go back to the post and also realised you did a comparison of who the Hawks could have picked up at their turn and compared them to who was actually taken. I enjoyed both of your insightful posts and thought perhaps an element of team needs could have been added to this perspective and taken into account with the types of players that were actually drafted.

I'm not meaning to criticise or get picky about the post but as an example of what I mean by this comment is the Langdon/Ceglar part of the review where it's mentioned that we could have grabbed Langdon, however the recruiters believed the need for the Hawks was another backup ruck. So at some stage I thought the post could have mentioned a better ruck that the Hawks could have picked instead of who they actually picked somewhere amongst everyone who was drafted. Perhaps it's just a matter of having a look at the types of players that were taken in both the national and rookie drafts (say 1 mid, 1 small fwd/def and 1 ruck for the sake of simplicity) and then comparing this to who could have been taken at those picks that could have, in your opinion, delivered a better collection of draftees for those player positions (perhaps the order should have been 1 ruck, small fwd/def and mid to get a superior collection of players) than who was actually drafted. I hope that makes sense!

As for the SC/DT projections, I like the idea of focusing on future premiums and those who'll start to get games. If that takes up way too much time then another idea could be categorising the players in terms of where you think their scoring capacity will end up. Eg, Elite (top 10%) fantasy scorer in 5 years time, Very good (top 20%) fantasy scorer in 5 years time etc.

 

[Knightmare]

Yeah I pretty much had the review you did on the Hawks board in mind with a couple of extra bits to it. I had to go back to the post and also realised you did a comparison of who the Hawks could have picked up at their turn and compared them to who was actually taken. I enjoyed both of your insightful posts and thought perhaps an element of team needs could have been added to this perspective and taken into account with the types of players that were actually drafted.

I'm not meaning to criticise or get picky about the post but as an example of what I mean by this comment is the Langdon/Ceglar part of the review where it's mentioned that we could have grabbed Langdon, however the recruiters believed the need for the Hawks was another backup ruck. So at some stage I thought the post could have mentioned a better ruck that the Hawks could have picked instead of who they actually picked somewhere amongst everyone who was drafted. Perhaps it's just a matter of having a look at the types of players that were taken in both the national and rookie drafts (say 1 mid, 1 small fwd/def and 1 ruck for the sake of simplicity) and then comparing this to who could have been taken at those picks that could have, in your opinion, delivered a better collection of draftees for those player positions (perhaps the order should have been 1 ruck, small fwd/def and mid to get a superior collection of players) than who was actually drafted. I hope that makes sense!

As for the SC/DT projections, I like the idea of focusing on future premiums and those who'll start to get games. If that takes up way too much time then another idea could be categorising the players in terms of where you think their scoring capacity will end up. Eg, Elite (top 10%) fantasy scorer in 5 years time, Very good (top 20%) fantasy scorer in 5 years time etc.

One semi off-topic comment regarding Hawthorn's drafting that you may find of interest. I recall I believe it was in this years AFL Draft TV telecast Graham Wright - Hawthorn head recruited made the comment that (to paraphrase) FA/Trade week is where all needs are filled and the draft is for picking the best guy there. And that is my general view of the draft also.

But back on topic. I can also certainly if a club has clearly gone a theme towards a specific type or whatever the case may be I can also for discussion purposes pose some examples of some alternatives of similar type that I feel at the time may have been a better choice to fill a specific need a club may have set out to fill going into a draft. And that could certainly be a part of that analysis.

I like the SC/DT idea also. SC/DT will be my secondary concern and I may not even launch that aspect of the website immediately with the draft content initially to be my priority - but say if I get the website going around the mid year mark, I may look say January 2016 for the 2016 season to get that content up. But that's another concept I'll look into regarding the categorising the where they may potentially fit (top 10%) by position etc.

 

[Yoda_]

Im always up to help if you would feel VFL results/names/profiles could be useful buddy?

 

[Balony_pony16]

I don't know how long it will take for me to get a website happening if indeed it does happen. It's just a staggering amount to learn and my feel is it will be a gradual process just building that knowledge to go ahead with it.

Additionally just from a content creation perspective I'd like on launch to have a stack of content complete and there are lots of categories I want to cover and I want to cover in depth and to as high a standard as you'll see online anywhere. Or that is my hope.

One learning over the past few days is there is no point buying and launching a website right away without good content firstly ready to put on there but also and equally important that website structure would need to be created which again will take work with the number and the depth of things I want to do with it.

If I go ahead with it then I'll definitely go into some fantasy football content - SC/DT specific. I can't imagine having it up in Jan and I'd consider it a success really if I have it up even by the end of the U18 champs if I look at it realistically and produce the quality of product I expect from myself.

Are you referring specifically to the Supercoach Draft and similar variants of that game? Or something slightly different as there seem to be different people asking me about different fantasy football variants and I'm outside of just the standard Supercoach/DreamTeam/or the Draft variants of those games otherwise fairly out of the loop.
If you link me the rules to the type of game you play I'll learn it and think up some practical player recommendations for that based on the young guys people won't know much about yet.
Let me know the types of questions you would want answered/find interesting to hear this year and over the coming years so that I have a guideline of exactly what information would be helpful in whatever fantasy football games you're playing.
I'd also plan to have a Q+A type format available of some sort so either way yourself and others will get the answers to whatever questions are pressing and of interest/relevance at the time regarding fantasy football as I will with my draft content.


Likely with the 2015 draft it will be a similar story along these lines where I'll be slow to the party and I'd like my draft content to first hit the website if the website looks to be up before draft time next year but hopefully when I bring the content I'll come out with a bang and knock anything else you're seeing out of the water.

On the draft.. the reason I suggest that is because Draft Keepers leagues are getting bigger... the standard DT/SC is pretty basic and most people shouldnt need help as everyone just picks the best players and teams resemble each..for instance, in 2015 everyone will pick Swan & Lids etc... But picking out young guns in draft leagues is where I see you having a big impact

 

[Knightmare]

Im always up to help if you would feel VFL results/names/profiles could be useful buddy?

Will definitely keep in talks re the VFL names next year when I get things up and going.

On the draft.. the reason I suggest that is because Draft Keepers leagues are getting bigger... the standard DT/SC is pretty basic and most people shouldnt need help as everyone just picks the best players and teams resemble each..for instance, in 2015 everyone will pick Swan & Lids etc... But picking out young guns in draft leagues is where I see you having a big impact

Certainly the kids would be my speciality anyway so I can go a focus along those lines. No problem. I get a fare share of PMs along those lines asking questions about those recent or upcoming draftees so with some guidance on what would be most useful at the time I'll post some content along those lines you're talking.

 

[TradeDraft]

With college b-ball those games are nationally televised. That's why all that footage is available with people just easily recoding those games and doing their editing and whatever they do with it.

I don't think with the AFL it's so much guarded as much as there is no real benefit for anyone in the AFL system to share various u18 games online and with those games not nationally televised there just isn't the opportunity for people to create youtube vids in the most part.

True - Guess They think there is no money to be made from it.

The North Ballarat Roosters put full games up from last year on Youtube. Hope other Teams Follow

 

[Levi_Hawk]

To my regular draft followers,

At the moment I'm putting some planning into starting my own website. I'm finding out it's a lot of work and a lot of learning but if I am to go ahead with it I'm interested in hear some ideas and feedback from my regular readers regarding what you'd like to see me include on there.

At the moment my ideas regarding content include:
AFL Phantom Draft (I'll include all my old phantom drafts from over the years and put up my 2015 draft)
AFL Draft Profiles and Power Rankings (As per phantom draft and I'll just separate my phantom draft and AFL Draft Profiles and Power Rankings)
AFL Trades (This might include trade ideas for clubs. Analysis of trades)
AFL Free Agents (Same story as AFL Trades but with regard to Free Agents)
Fantasy Football (I'll go into all the Supercoach and Dreamteam stuff for those into that side of the game. Primarily rookie focused)
AFL Drafts Re-Done (I keep seeing the old re-do this draft and that draft thread so I figure why not have a shot myself - I might go from say 1999 onward with that in my mind where clubs started to get their picks reasonably right and continue to update as applicable *with ongoing updates)
AFL Draft Resources (Might include correct player measurements and testing results)
Collingwood Almanac (As per my thread on the Collingwood board)
AFL Team Notes (I may break down with each club do they draft, trade and develop their own talent well? Strengths/weaknesses of each club)
NBA Draft (I watch my share of college b-ball and also watch Euro-League and I also like to test my ability v the pros with the NBA draft so that's something else that may for a small % of my readers be something else of interest)
NBA Team Notes (Many here may not be aware but I watch as much NBA as I do AFL and given Australia per capita outside the US have the highest percentage of NBA fans I'll hedge my bets and say at least a few of my readers would be interesting in the NBA content I create. Again mostly regarding trade/free agent ideas and analysis of team strengths/weaknesses and where they stand. Perhaps also some historical content regarding all time where guys should be regarded)
About Me (Just a brief who I am so that people can put a face with the name)

--
Let me know whether there is anything I'm missing/could/should include that would be of interest.

Love it mate, I'd be all over it.

 

[hawker39]

Will definitely keep in talks re the VFL names next year when I get things up and going.



Certainly the kids would be my speciality anyway so I can go a focus along those lines. No problem. I get a fare share of PMs along those lines asking questions about those recent or upcoming draftees so with some guidance on what would be most useful at the time I'll post some content along those lines you're talking.

Question 1 - Do you wish to keep it AFL as it it has other things e.g. NBA it will be bombarded and confusing.

 

[Knightmare]

Question 1 - Do you wish to keep it AFL as it it has other things e.g. NBA it will be bombarded and confusing.

I can probably create seperate sections. Perhaps say two news-feed columns so that people only interested in AFL related content don't need to see any of the NBA content.

 

[HawkintheTuarts]

My two cents:

To my regular draft followers,

At the moment I'm putting some planning into starting my own website. I'm finding out it's a lot of work and a lot of learning but if I am to go ahead with it I'm interested in hear some ideas and feedback from my regular readers regarding what you'd like to see me include on there.

At the moment my ideas regarding content include:
AFL Phantom Draft (I'll include all my old phantom drafts from over the years and put up my 2015 draft)
AFL Draft Profiles and Power Rankings (As per phantom draft and I'll just separate my phantom draft and AFL Draft Profiles and Power Rankings)
AFL Trades (This might include trade ideas for clubs. Analysis of trades)
AFL Free Agents (Same story as AFL Trades but with regard to Free Agents)
Fantasy Football (I'll go into all the Supercoach and Dreamteam stuff for those into that side of the game. Primarily rookie focused)
AFL Drafts Re-Done (I keep seeing the old re-do this draft and that draft thread so I figure why not have a shot myself - I might go from say 1999 onward with that in my mind where clubs started to get their picks reasonably right and continue to update as applicable *with ongoing updates)
AFL Draft Resources (Might include correct player measurements and testing results)
Collingwood Almanac (As per my thread on the Collingwood board)
AFL Team Notes (I may break down with each club do they draft, trade and develop their own talent well? Strengths/weaknesses of each club)
NBA Draft (I watch my share of college b-ball and also watch Euro-League and I also like to test my ability v the pros with the NBA draft so that's something else that may for a small % of my readers be something else of interest)
NBA Team Notes (Many here may not be aware but I watch as much NBA as I do AFL and given Australia per capita outside the US have the highest percentage of NBA fans I'll hedge my bets and say at least a few of my readers would be interesting in the NBA content I create. Again mostly regarding trade/free agent ideas and analysis of team strengths/weaknesses and where they stand. Perhaps also some historical content regarding all time where guys should be regarded)
About Me (Just a brief who I am so that people can put a face with the name)

--
Let me know whether there is anything I'm missing/could/should include that would be of interest.

Trim the fat to make less work for yourself.

At end of the day, you can always expand but learning to juggle with 6 balls is a lot harder than starting with 3.

Trades and FA analysis seems unnecessary with the amount of info and discussion already out there during those weeks, and if you're talking list analysis you can always just work that into why those clubs will pick Player X when you do your phantoms.

Magpie Almanac is better off leaving it on the Coll board and NBA stuff brings it back to the walk before you can run stuff: if you get it up and running fine, and there's demand, then do it but I'd leave it as an idea for expansion down the track. Saves you time now.

 

[Knightmare]

My two cents:



Trim the fat to make less work for yourself.

At end of the day, you can always expand but learning to juggle with 6 balls is a lot harder than starting with 3.

Trades and FA analysis seems unnecessary with the amount of info and discussion already out there during those weeks, and if you're talking list analysis you can always just work that into why those clubs will pick Player X when you do your phantoms.

Magpie Almanac is better off leaving it on the Coll board and NBA stuff brings it back to the walk before you can run stuff: if you get it up and running fine, and there's demand, then do it but I'd leave it as an idea for expansion down the track. Saves you time now.

Good comment. And to start with that is roughly the plan.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

Whens ur 2015 draft coming?

2nd rnd onwards.

 

[KissKiss]

I wouldn't mind every once in a while (maybe 5 years after the draft) a retrospective look back at your power rankings (or phantom) just with a quick idea of whether you(and the clubs) got it right or wrong for various reasons

 

[Knightmare]

I wouldn't mind every once in a while (maybe 5 years after the draft) a retrospective look back at your power rankings (or phantom) just with a quick idea of whether you(and the clubs) got it right or wrong for various reasons

Retrospective analysis is important and is something I do regularly anyway. If there is the demand for me to share that retrospective analysis of my drafts and those criticisms on my own draft and where the various clubs went wrong I'll happily produce that type of content also.

 

[Knightmare]

2nd rnd onwards.

I have a top 50 power rankings and a two round phantom draft already complete.

I just won't be posting any of it until I launch the website.

--
Just need to find the time to put some bios together and complete some of the other content before I look to actually create and eventually launch the site.

 

[mustang]

Maybe a full very depth bio of players in remember reading Colin Wisbey's player bio's on lance Franklin when he was first drafted a few years back on wow was a get read. Was like 3 pages long to read
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/colin-wisbeys-ryan-griffen-profile.144084/page-2
This is the write up of Ryan griffen, and franklins if you have never seen his reports.

Franklins is on the page 2 it defaulted to page 1 when posting.

 

[Knightmare]

Maybe a full very depth bio of players in remember reading Colin Wisbey's player bio's on lance Franklin when he was first drafted a few years back on wow was a get read. Was like 3 pages long to read
http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/colin-wisbeys-ryan-griffen-profile.144084/page-2
This is the write up of Ryan griffen, and franklins if you have never seen his reports.

Franklins is on the page 2 it defaulted to page 1 when posting.

I won't necessarily go the same structure as Colin did but he did a terrific job with his drafts.

I went for detail and quantity of detail this year more than previously and I'll look to continue to beef that up further this year.

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

I have a top 50 power rankings and a two round phantom draft already complete.

I just won't be posting any of it until I launch the website.

--
Just need to find the time to put some bios together and complete some of the other content before I look to actually create and eventually launch the site.

Its all good mate,Take your time,Was actually referring to the possible outcome of us not having a 1st rnd pick next draft.Appreciate you and others the time you put in to keep people like me informed.

 

[Membling]

Just throwing my worthless two cents in, but a 'rewind wednesday' could be an idea. Eg, looks back choices teams in terms of draft eg tambling-franklin, how/why player x slide, etc etc. Looks at why the team chose then, predraft rumblings/talk etc etc.

 

[Knightmare]

Just throwing my worthless two cents in, but a 'rewind wednesday' could be an idea. Eg, looks back choices teams in terms of draft eg tambling-franklin, how/why player x slide, etc etc. Looks at why the team chose then, predraft rumblings/talk etc etc.

One feature I'm as we speak working on is a draft hindsight area where I will go through the drafts and order everyone who was of draft age at the time based on quality of career and who you'd take.
Eg. 1999 I'd start with..
1. Dean Cox
2. Matthew Pavlich
3. Jonathan Brown
And yearly I'd add one more year and allow that 15 years so that I can properly get every position completely right and go into substantial depth on their careers and what we can learn about the draft and what clubs may have done right/wrong.

More specifically on your idea. I like it. If I get the time during the year and I want to do something more just beyond the phantom draft I might just do that. It will certainly be a draft content heavy with a focus towards content I myself basically would want to read, so hopefully much of it will be of interest to others also.

 

[Membling]

One feature I'm as we speak working on is a draft hindsight area where I will go through the drafts and order everyone who was of draft age at the time based on quality of career and who you'd take.
Eg. 1999 I'd start with..
1. Dean Cox
2. Matthew Pavlich
3. Jonathan Brown
And yearly I'd add one more year and allow that 15 years so that I can properly get every position completely right and go into substantial depth on their careers and what we can learn about the draft and what clubs may have done right/wrong.

More specifically on your idea. I like it. If I get the time during the year and I want to do something more just beyond the phantom draft I might just do that. It will certainly be a draft content heavy with a focus towards content I myself basically would want to read, so hopefully much of it will be of interest to others also.

I genuinely do like redo the draft segments but it is always done with hindsight, which is often exceptionally harsh on recruiters. More as 'why was 'player x' number 1' as opposed to who would be number one today.

Be interested to see how this website shapes up