Draft mechanisms under review

[Sainter1873]

According to Cal Twomey:

THE AFL has told clubs it will be reviewing the bidding system, Next Generation Academy incentives and draft value index as it embarks on the off-season. Clubs were told in a memo from the League's football boss Laura Kane this week that they would be working with clubs to find further improvements in a range of areas, including the operations of the bidding system for father-sons and Northern Academy players. It also said it would be reviewing the restrictions on matching bids for NGA prospects – currently clubs can only match bids outside the top 40 selections – and the discounts that are applied to matching bids as well. The structure of the draft value index is also expected to be looked at, with the draft points system first introduced in 2015 and having remained the same value per pick throughout that time. Some clubs feel there is an opportunity to take stock of the draft, bidding, Academy and NGA system in one hit with a lower number of draftees getting selected in recent years and expected again this season.

What changes would you like to see and what do you think will actually change?

 

[btdg]

The obvious change is that bidding on F/S and academy prospects should take place prior to the trade period, and using 'original' picks only.

You should have to use your own natural picks and if you cannot match the points using your OWN picks (only) you cannot select the player. If you have traded your original picks then you cannot use them to match, and you also cannot use picks you traded IN to match.

This eliminates the double benefit clubs get from F/S and Academy. It is enough to get a right of refusal on the player. That doesn't need to be stacked with the ability to move draft picks around to get them as cheaply and efficiently as teams can now.

Of course, the cynic in me says that the AFL is only changing this because Carlton has two F/S picks available next year worth bidding on...

 

[The Tilt]

You should have to use your own natural picks and if you cannot match the points using your OWN picks (only) you cannot select the player. If you have traded your original picks then you cannot use them to match, and you also cannot use picks you traded IN to match.

This eliminates the double benefit clubs get from F/S and Academy. It is enough to get a right of refusal on the player. That doesn't need to be stacked with the ability to move draft picks around to get them as cheaply and efficiently as teams can now.

I agree with your view of the problem - especially the bolded bit - but not with your solution to it. I have no issue with clubs trading to position themselves to match bids on F/S or academy selections. The point is they should be trading up towards the top of the draft in order to match a bid on high-end talent, rather than trading out of the first round altogether (harvesting the points by accumulating a dozen picks b/w 35 and 60).
Changes that would encourage this:

• in order to match a bid, the picks being used to match need to include one worth at least 50% of the bid pick. e.g. if you're matching pick 1 (worth 3,000), you'd need to have have pick 8 (1,551 points) or higher to even be eligible. If your highest original pick is 18 (having just won the flag) and you have a F/S prospect who's the best player in the draft, then you have some work to do to move up the draft order (your future first, trading established players etc.) Note: adjust the 50% threshold if that sounds too harsh (or too lenient!).
• remove the points discount. I'd consider going further and introducing a fee for matching to encourage clubs to pick the player rather than waiting to match a bid.
• review the points allocation: it's pretty clear the points system undervalues first round picks.

 

[Dirty Bird]

What ever you do, allow clubs time to plan and change what they're doing.

Rash changes would be bs.

Clubs are already trading future draft picks for next year with their long term plans set.
Making a change for effect even in next years draft period would be bs and could screw over clubs who've already traded or made list changes accordingly.

If you make changes effective the 2025-26 offseason. Be my guest. But don't make any changes for the 2024-25 offseason. Should've done that before free agency opened up a week or so ago.

 

[Rotayjay]

I'd like to see all the many compromises to the draft done away with, except the father-son rule. I think that's a good tradition.

I'm sick of high-ranking destination clubs being able to draft promising kids ahead of struggling ones. I don't care if they invested a lot in their junior development - the results of junior development should be accessible to all clubs. That's what the draft is for.

 

[RUNVS]

I firmly believe that the AFL should move to an entirely points based trading and drafting.

Teams are given points based on where they finish on the ladder, with more points going to the bad teams.

Then points are used for trades, so you never get a situation where a team just doesn't quite have the picks in the right range to trade for a certain player. Teams could go "I think my player is worth 425 points" and the other team say "no, that is dumb, he is worth 310" and then after some negotiation they settle on the player being worth 380 points.

Then you have the draft, so pick 1 comes up, every team enters a silent auction where they are allowed to put in how many points they are willing to bid for pick 1 for, and the player they want. After 2 minutes it is announced which team has the highest bid, then that team gets the player they nominated, and then onto pick 2 with the same process.

If an Academy kid gets bid on then the team that has the rights to that player has 1 minute to decide if they want to match the bid, so match the number of points the bidding team said they were willing to pay and if they do match they get said player.

To me this is a much better system and would solve a lot of issues.

 

[stallon]

Give every club access to academies a little earlier, maybe pick 20-30 areas, and only 1 per club. They can give struggling clubs an extra academy kid or slightly earlier access rather than making up random draft picks.

Needs to be some way to stop clubs trading out of their early picks for points(GC this year). Either have a pick within so many picks of the bid, or something like that.

F/s and academy bids get no discount, that has been a disaster, allowing some clubs huge advantages(Brisbane and Collingwood more recently). They could assist the newer clubs who wont have any f/s prospects by giving them access to an extra academy kid or something.

No F/s or academy bids in the top 10 of the draft. If you want to draft the next Daicos, you have to trade up to get him

 

[Dirty Bird]

I firmly believe that the AFL should move to an entirely points based trading and drafting.

Teams are given points based on where they finish on the ladder, with more points going to the bad teams.

Then points are used for trades, so you never get a situation where a team just doesn't quite have the picks in the right range to trade for a certain player. Teams could go "I think my player is worth 425 points" and the other team say "no, that is dumb, he is worth 310" and then after some negotiation they settle on the player being worth 380 points.

Then you have the draft, so pick 1 comes up, every team enters a silent auction where they are allowed to put in how many points they are willing to bid for pick 1 for, and the player they want. After 2 minutes it is announced which team has the highest bid, then that team gets the player they nominated, and then onto pick 2 with the same process.

If an Academy kid gets bid on then the team that has the rights to that player has 1 minute to decide if they want to match the bid, so match the number of points the bidding team said they were willing to pay and if they do match they get said player.

To me this is a much better system and would solve a lot of issues.

Sounds incredible in theory.

Probably be slow and tedious in the real world. To the point foxtel alone will try and block it.

 

[RUNVS]

Sounds incredible in theory.

Probably be slow and tedious in the real world. To the point foxtel alone will try and block it.

Well my idea is that every club would have 2 minutes for every draft pick, so the first 10 picks would be done in 20 minutes which isn't too bad, 30 minutes if you wanted a minute between picks.

 

[Liam Boy]

0 Points discount. No matching bids on F/S in the top 5, No matching bids on NGA in the top 20/first round, whichever comes first. Same rules apply for every club. Borders of NGA zones within states carefully redrawn every year by an independent body to ensure every club has as equal a number of prospects as possible.

Either that or abolish the club-run NGA system entirely, establish a QLD academy and an NSW academy, players from those academies can be given special dispensation to stay in their home state if they've got good reason to, but they don't get to choose a club. Those academies are doing the important work of getting kids from those states into footy but it's just not fair if the clubs get to massively benefit, and other clubs don't have an equivalent system that abides by the same rules.

 

[The 747]

0 Points discount. No matching bids on F/S in the top 5, No matching bids on NGA in the top 20/first round, whichever comes first. Same rules apply for every club. Borders of NGA zones within states carefully redrawn every year by an independent body to ensure every club has as equal a number of prospects as possible.

Either that or abolish the club-run NGA system entirely, establish a QLD academy and an NSW academy, players from those academies can be given special dispensation to stay in their home state if they've got good reason to, but they don't get to choose a club. Those academies are doing the important work of getting kids from those states into footy but it's just not fair if the clubs get to massively benefit, and other clubs don't have an equivalent system that abides by the same rules.

I would like to see some version of this, the NSW and QLD academies are great for the development of football and need to be retained in some way - but it is problematic when the teams from those states are strong. The other NGA should GTFO. NGA for VIC, SA, WA, Tas - no. Or maybe just have NT NGA which could be cool.

 

[deck]

What I would be doing is make clubs use a pick in the round they are matching in if it comes before there pick.

So club with F/S finishes 2nd and has pick 17. A bid comes at pick 6 for F/S, so they must match with pick 17 plus other picks to add to points. If they have traded away said pick then they don't have the right to match the bid unless they trade in a lower pick than 17.

 

[JasRulz63]

The points value of picks needs to be reworked +/- removing the discount depending on how much you reduce the points values of second and third round picks relative to first round picks.

I also like the idea of teams needing to keep and use said pick as points to match a player in the same round as the one the player is taken in.

Agree with the above that it should ideally not be brought in next season because teams have already traded their future picks and made plans based on current rules.

 

[Blackhawk42]

Whatever stops there being another Nick Blakey

22

Nick Blakey

Age

24

Ht

196cm

Wt

83kg

Pos.

Def

Career

Season

Last 5

D

9.9

3star

K

7.0

3star

HB

2.9

3star

M

2.3

2star

T

2.4

4star

MG

189.1

3star

D

8.1

2star

K

6.3

3star

HB

1.9

1star

M

2.1

2star

T

2.6

4star

MG

189.1

3star

D

7.2

2star

K

5.2

2star

HB

2.0

2star

M

1.2

2star

T

1.2

3star

situation would be welcomed.

Father/son will always remain, so it should be a priority over an academy. In Blakey's case, North should have retained priority access, and Sydney should have been forced to pay up far more than if he was a straight forward academy player.

By that, I mean the equivalent of a top 3 pick.

Gold Coast having 3 academy players rated inside the top 20 is also an area of concern.
For the record I'm not even Victorian, but there's no way that clubs outside of the Northern states should be hamstrung by the 'inside 40' rules for NGA talents while the Suns can hoarde multiple elite first round talents. Limiting it to one per round would be way fairer.

 

[RUNVS]

Whatever stops there being another Nick Blakey situation would be welcomed.

Father/son will always remain, so it should be a priority over an academy. In Blakey's case, North should have retained priority access, and Sydney should have been forced to pay up far more than if he was a straight forward academy player.

By that, I mean the equivalent of a top 3 pick.

Gold Coast having 3 academy players rated inside the top 20 is also an area of concern.
For the record I'm not even Victorian, but there's no way that clubs outside of the Northern states should be hamstrung by the 'inside 40' rules for NGA talents while the Suns can hoarde multiple elite first round talents. Limiting it to one per round would be way fairer.

Remember though, a few years ago those 3 first round Gold Coast players would not exist, so lets say the 12th ranked draftee this year would have been the 10th ranked in years gone passed.

Also remember that as a result of these academy kids Gold Coast is not drafting from other states, so a Victorian, South Australian or Western Australian player or players Gold Coast would have drafted can now go to a different club.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

The obvious change is to get rid of the discount.
Maybe they can work out which team has benefited the most from FS since the points came in and allow all clubs a discount of up to that amount. Eg if Bulldogs have had the most points discounted on FS with say 800pts then clubs can still get discounts until they reach that limit. From then on, no more discounts, it Might stop abit of sooking from clubs like Adelaide and possibly my club next year who have had stuff all FS.

Change the points to value higher picks more and lower picks less.

If a club uses more then two picks to match then they get a points fine/tax or something along those lines. Eg if a club trie to match a pick of 1000 points with say two picks of 500 and 400points then the 100 points that they didn’t cover gets taxed say 500% so they have to pay an extra 500pts. That will stop clubs trading down too far.

 

[HavUEvaSeenTheRain]

Remember though, a few years ago those 3 first round Gold Coast players would not exist, so lets say the 12th ranked draftee this year would have been the 10th ranked in years gone passed.

Also remember that as a result of these academy kids Gold Coast is not drafting from other states, so a Victorian, South Australian or Western Australian player or players Gold Coast would have drafted can now go to a different club.

Yeh absolutely no way of us knowing that, they would’ve all been playing football before GC had ever heard of them.
GC is nowhere near the backwater your making out to be.

 

[BulldogMuscle]

I firmly believe that the AFL should move to an entirely points based trading and drafting.

Teams are given points based on where they finish on the ladder, with more points going to the bad teams.

Then points are used for trades, so you never get a situation where a team just doesn't quite have the picks in the right range to trade for a certain player. Teams could go "I think my player is worth 425 points" and the other team say "no, that is dumb, he is worth 310" and then after some negotiation they settle on the player being worth 380 points.

Then you have the draft, so pick 1 comes up, every team enters a silent auction where they are allowed to put in how many points they are willing to bid for pick 1 for, and the player they want. After 2 minutes it is announced which team has the highest bid, then that team gets the player they nominated, and then onto pick 2 with the same process.

If an Academy kid gets bid on then the team that has the rights to that player has 1 minute to decide if they want to match the bid, so match the number of points the bidding team said they were willing to pay and if they do match they get said player.

To me this is a much better system and would solve a lot of issues.

Could 100% get behind a system like this.

 

[Mat Mann]

Remember though, a few years ago those 3 first round Gold Coast players would not exist, so lets say the 12th ranked draftee this year would have been the 10th ranked in years gone passed.

Also remember that as a result of these academy kids Gold Coast is not drafting from other states, so a Victorian, South Australian or Western Australian player or players Gold Coast would have drafted can now go to a different club.

well if they go into the open draft along with everyone else then northern teams can either trade up/down to get them or use the much fabled "go home factor" after 2/3 years to get them.

I do like the F/S rule even tho it hasn't helped my club at all, maybe a pre-polling by the clubs prior to trade/draft and rank them, setting a fair pick expectation, and clubs must have a pick within X range of that.
very hard to make that fair, but what's happened with Daicos simply can't happen again

the pick/points scale needs drastic fixing, we're all pretty clear 2 x 2nd rounders doesn't equate to a top 10 pick in this or any other draft, just look at what CG has turned pick 4 into.

 

[Mat Mann]

I firmly believe that the AFL should move to an entirely points based trading and drafting.

Teams are given points based on where they finish on the ladder, with more points going to the bad teams.

Then points are used for trades, so you never get a situation where a team just doesn't quite have the picks in the right range to trade for a certain player. Teams could go "I think my player is worth 425 points" and the other team say "no, that is dumb, he is worth 310" and then after some negotiation they settle on the player being worth 380 points.

Then you have the draft, so pick 1 comes up, every team enters a silent auction where they are allowed to put in how many points they are willing to bid for pick 1 for, and the player they want. After 2 minutes it is announced which team has the highest bid, then that team gets the player they nominated, and then onto pick 2 with the same process.

If an Academy kid gets bid on then the team that has the rights to that player has 1 minute to decide if they want to match the bid, so match the number of points the bidding team said they were willing to pay and if they do match they get said player.

To me this is a much better system and would solve a lot of issues.

the problem with this is say Pies who have a competitive team could pile all their points into the 1 bid and secure pick 1.

the point of the draft was that the worst team gets the best possible player, and for the most part, it's worked, then we added F/S, (which used to be outside of the draft), Academy's and NGA's, and often as not the best player/some of the best players are no longer available to those bottom sides

how does the points system equalize the talent rather than force the lower teams to bid higher and lose that equalising factor?
it's the same reason why FA compensation will remain as the data says it is the lower clubs who lose talent to higher clubs.

we already see the number of draftees has reduced quite significantly, not many clubs take more than 3 picks.

I just don't see how a points system would be fair for the lower/middle rung clubs.

 

[RUNVS]

the problem with this is say Pies who have a competitive team could pile all their points into the 1 bid and secure pick 1.

the point of the draft was that the worst team gets the best possible player, and for the most part, it's worked, then we added F/S, (which used to be outside of the draft), Academy's and NGA's, and often as not the best player/some of the best players are no longer available to those bottom sides

how does the points system equalize the talent rather than force the lower teams to bid higher and lose that equalising factor?
it's the same reason why FA compensation will remain as the data says it is the lower clubs who lose talent to higher clubs.

we already see the number of draftees has reduced quite significantly, not many clubs take more than 3 picks.

I just don't see how a points system would be fair for the lower/middle rung clubs.

That is actually fairly easily solved as just make it so the team that finishes 18th has so few points it would be really hard for them to bid anywhere near enough to get pick 1. Yes they could do it, but they would need to trade out players to add to their points and there is only so many years a team can trade out players to increase their points, and then blow all their points on basically one player before it begins to affect the list.

Not exactly this of course, but just as a guide something like this

18th position - 4647 points
17th position - 4088 points
16th position - 3740 points
15th position - 3478 points
14th position - 3263 points
13th position - 3077 points
12th position - 2913 points
11th position - 2765 points
10th position - 2631 points
9th position - 2504 points
8th position - 2388 points
7th position - 2279 points
6th position - 2174 points
5th position - 2077 points
4th position - 1983 points
3rd position - 1894 points
2nd position - 1809 points
1st position - 1726 points

 

[Freomaniac]

well if they go into the open draft along with everyone else then northern teams can either trade up/down to get them or use the much fabled "go home factor" after 2/3 years to get them.

I do like the F/S rule even tho it hasn't helped my club at all, maybe a pre-polling by the clubs prior to trade/draft and rank them, setting a fair pick expectation, and clubs must have a pick within X range of that.
very hard to make that fair, but what's happened with Daicos simply can't happen again

the pick/points scale needs drastic fixing, we're all pretty clear 2 x 2nd rounders doesn't equate to a top 10 pick in this or any other draft, just look at what CG has turned pick 4 into.

You say the pick/points scale needs drastic fixing. Its complicated enough as it is.

You say that 2 x 2nd round picks dont equate to a top 10 pick. Pick 20 is worth 912 points , pick 21 is worth 878 points. Add that up is 1790 points. Pick 6 alone is worth 1751 points.

Is pick 20 and 21 equate to a pick 6? no. Would pick 20 and 21 equate to a pick 10 or 11? maybe.

you got pick 34 worth 542 points and pick 35 worth 522 points. that amount of points combined is 1066 points. Pick 16 is worth 1067 points. Is 34 and 35 equate to pick 16? unlikely.

 

[.Shotties.]

Whatever stops there being another Nick Blakey situation would be welcomed.

Father/son will always remain, so it should be a priority over an academy. In Blakey's case, North should have retained priority access, and Sydney should have been forced to pay up far more than if he was a straight forward academy player.

That's right, Blakey was going to be the first father-son raised in Sydney who played his juniors exclusively in the Sydney junior leagues who was going to make it to the AFL.

How exactly do North 'Retain priority access' and why? Why shouldn't the lions have 'retained priority access?'. Whatever that means.

 

[.Shotties.]

. Those academies are doing the important work of getting kids from those states into footy but it's just not fair if the clubs get to massively benefit, and other clubs don't have an equivalent system that abides by the same rules.

You guys get the option of building your team from home state, even home-city players. If we go back to the system the way it was before the academies, there were clubs (mostly Victorian and to a lesser extent WA and SA) who had consistent access to elite talent from their home state or city. This option wasn't available to teams in Brisbane and Sydney which meant that those teams were built mostly from interstate players which made retention much more complex. Was this a fair system?

 

[HugeJohnson]

I firmly believe that the AFL should move to an entirely points based trading and drafting.

Teams are given points based on where they finish on the ladder, with more points going to the bad teams.

Then points are used for trades, so you never get a situation where a team just doesn't quite have the picks in the right range to trade for a certain player. Teams could go "I think my player is worth 425 points" and the other team say "no, that is dumb, he is worth 310" and then after some negotiation they settle on the player being worth 380 points.

Then you have the draft, so pick 1 comes up, every team enters a silent auction where they are allowed to put in how many points they are willing to bid for pick 1 for, and the player they want. After 2 minutes it is announced which team has the highest bid, then that team gets the player they nominated, and then onto pick 2 with the same process.

If an Academy kid gets bid on then the team that has the rights to that player has 1 minute to decide if they want to match the bid, so match the number of points the bidding team said they were willing to pay and if they do match they get said player.

To me this is a much better system and would solve a lot of issues.

Who would get it if every team bids the max for pick 1?