MVP Tommy Boyd - The Grand Final Enigma

[go you pups]

GWS did not secure pick 7 from Carlton until after the Tom Boyd deal
was completed from memory for Jacksch and Whiley, the picks which
were rumored to have been offered originally were 4 and around 20
plus two fringe players the Tom Boyd deal did not break until a day
or two later as if by magic, if you believe in magic that is. Being a big
conspiracy fan i think this was a drive by assault of mega proportions
that the nazi Germany propaganda boys would have been proud of.

Carlton/GWS held up the Boyd Pig Hunter deal.

That was done then our deal was done afterwards, GWS knew they were getting 7 but we didn't want it.

 

[Proffessor]

Some of you guys need to chill the **** out on Boyd. Who gives a s**t if he's on big money, we are taking a gamble on him and we know that. Do you think our list management was expecting a 60 goal return this year? He's a LONG TERM INVESTMENT. It doesn't matter if we pay him $2mil next year and he plays VFL half the year again. Because if he kicks 50 the following year and we win the flag it was all worth it. This was a development year, we weren't supposed to be playing finals. The rest of our team just developed far more rapidly than they were supposed to. Boyd didn't. Who cares? We aren't expecting him to be a million a year key forward at his age. We are paying him more than he's worth and we know that, and we are okay with that. Because there are tangible factors in play that are more important than just goals per game averages.

When I heard we were losing all of my favourite players at the end of last year I had SERIOUS thoughts about turning away from this club which I've supported my entire life. Because I was tired of disappointment. I was tired of showing so much promise but never quite getting there. Having my heart broken year after year. I'd lost interest in footy as our list aged and the future looked bleak. Then last year the announcements felt like a nail in the coffin and it felt like a decent time to think about a new club. You might think I'm a weak piece of s**t but that's how I felt.

Then we committed the biggest trading coup I can remember in recent times. We didn't just bend over and let GWS have their way with us as our captain walked out the door. Once I heard what we'd done and that we got Boyd I decided to hang around and see how things play out. I realised there might still be some life left in this club yet. For the first time this year I actually purchased a membership and made an effort to go to the games. I didn't expect much, especially after Libba did his knee, but there was hope again. It breathed some life back into the club. Beveridge was a big part of that of course, but you can't underestimate the buzz that landing Boyd generated. And it's that buzz and new energy and excitement that carried such a young and developing team into the first final series for five years.

Glad it made people like yourself feel better, but I wouldn't describe it as a trading coup. We paid way over the odds in both salary and trade. A coup suggests we got a bargain. We did not. Any thing is for sale or trade if you are prepared to pay more than that something is worth.

As a club I think we need to start raising our expectations, and stop accepting mediocrity. Tom Boyd had no qualms about asking for an absolute top dollar salary. We should be expecting a top quality return.

Anything less is selling the club short, and I don't think the club should be trying to play down expectations too much either. Boyd brought the pressure on himself with his asking price, and if he is any chance at all to actually be worth it, then he should embrace the pressure rather than shy away from it.

Internally the pressure should be ramped up big time over the coming preseason. We need to start seeing a return on our massive investment.

 

[Igloo]

Thread has jumped the shark now the old "accepting mediocrity" gold nugget has been thrown out there. If there were 2 words together that we could ban from this site, I'd choose those two.

The impatience shown by some people in regards to Boyd is mind blowing to me. No other second year key forward would ever get this kind of criticism.
But I guess it's just down to how you perceive expectation vs output, and throw in some money to make it all a bit trickier.

 

[TheHoneyBadger]

FFS.

He could be on six times as much as he's on or nothing at all and he'd still be developing at a similar rate. He was never going to magic his way into the upper echelon of the comp within a year nor turn the money down because he knew he couldn't do so.

Temper your expectations.

 

[Yojimbo]

Carlton/GWS held up the Boyd Pig Hunter deal.

That was done then our deal was done afterwards, GWS knew they were getting 7 but we didn't want it.

The original deal did not include Boyd at all. Carlton still had 7 ,but it's
just history pups hopefully that never repeats.

 

[lachy]

Glad it made people like yourself feel better, but I wouldn't describe it as a trading coup. We paid way over the odds in both salary and trade. A coup suggests we got a bargain. We did not. Any thing is for sale or trade if you are prepared to pay more than that something is worth.

As a club I think we need to start raising our expectations, and stop accepting mediocrity. Tom Boyd had no qualms about asking for an absolute top dollar salary. We should be expecting a top quality return.

Anything less is selling the club short, and I don't think the club should be trying to play down expectations too much either. Boyd brought the pressure on himself with his asking price, and if he is any chance at all to actually be worth it, then he should embrace the pressure rather than shy away from it.

Internally the pressure should be ramped up big time over the coming preseason. We need to start seeing a return on our massive investment.

Proff like most things with development you want immediate results. Thats your opinion which is fine, but you will be disappointed more than happy more often than not.

Not going to go through all of your statements in this and recent posts i disagree with as i know you will never move from your own paradigm.

Boyd turned 20. He sought and was given a long term contract as all involved knew it would take 3 years to get to the level expected of Boyd and 4 years to deliver his value.

The media, opposition supporters and our supporters like yourself can remain fixated in the short term, that's your choice.

But for those of us who can see the list including now Tom Boyd building to be genuine challenges we are not accepting mediocrity, in fact that is what those with short term views do.

We want to genuinely challenge, not be the 3rd or 4th best team in the comp losing prelims and believing we were close. We want to be first and understand that players like Boyd take 4 to 5 years in the system to grow and mature no matter what coin he is on

 

[Testekill]

Carlton/GWS held up the Boyd Pig Hunter deal.

That was done then our deal was done afterwards, GWS knew they were getting 7 but we didn't want it.

We were also never going to get 4, 20 & two depth players.

 

[Proffessor]

Thread has jumped the shark now the old "accepting mediocrity" gold nugget has been thrown out there. If there were 2 words together that we could ban from this site, I'd choose those two.

The impatience shown by some people in regards to Boyd is mind blowing to me. No other second year key forward would ever get this kind of criticism.
But I guess it's just down to how you perceive expectation vs output, and throw in some money to make it all a bit trickier.

No other 2nd year forward has ever cost so much!
As I said before you can't have it both ways.

If expecting high performance is unreasonable then so too is the massive salary. If the salary is to be reasonable then the performance expectations must also be high.

 

[Igloo]

No other 2nd year forward has ever cost so much!
As I said before you can't have it both ways.

If expecting high performance is unreasonable then so too is the massive salary. If the salary is to be reasonable then the performance expectations must also be high.

High salary doesn't automatically speed up development. That's an unrealistic outlook, which will leave you nothing but probable disappointment with a much smaller chance of satisfaction.
Boyd is a highly rated prospect for what he can be. Not what he currently is. You can hold high expectations for a few years down the track, but deeming anything before that where he doesn't meet those expectations as accepting mediocrity is incredibly premature.

 

[go you pups]

No other 2nd year forward has ever cost so much!
As I said before you can't have it both ways.

If expecting high performance is unreasonable then so too is the massive salary. If the salary is to be reasonable then the performance expectations must also be high.

Putting Boyd on a little bit more than what he may have perceived to be worth happened for a reason.

Just in case you forgot, il refresh your memory

Higgins walked out on us, Cooney was always planned to be moved on, Jones and Tutt refused contract extensions, Gia and Williams retired. We threw money at Lonergan, Henderson and Casboult and they all rejected our offers, we had money to spend on a player with the planned outgoings but no one wanted to come to us.

Then Pig Hunting happened which put our salary cap in a position of peril. It takes ages to re-design and renegotiate existing contracts, and then clubs have list lodgements with Ken Wood that are due straight after the trade period and straight after the draft. Overpaying Boyd and paying Griffen at GWS helped in this regard otherwise we were going to go under the minimum 95% required otherwise wed be in trouble with the AFL, like a reverse Carlton for etc.

Boyd will be getting paid a lot next year, but it was somewhat out of necessity. We will pay 105% or so next season, if we move on Minson and Hrovat on top of Talia and Grant then I'd assume we have some money to trade in a decent player again who will help us immediately.

All of our talented kids re-signed during the season, this all with the big money Boyd is on that was expected to tear us apart. If Boyd isn't showing significant progress by 2018 then I'd be disappointed, but he just turned 20, he has plenty of time to develop. Another 2 long, hard preseasons will get him in good shape I would expect.

 

[Proffessor]

High salary doesn't automatically speed up development. That's an unrealistic outlook, which will leave you nothing but probable disappointment with a much smaller chance of satisfaction.
Boyd is a highly rated prospect for what he can be. Not what he currently is. You can hold high expectations for a few years down the track, but deeming anything before that where he doesn't meet those expectations as accepting mediocrity is incredibly premature.

If you take a simple financial approach to things. We have invested heavily and we expect a positive return on our investment.
We are prepared to have a small return initially but expect that return to ramp up over time so we end up in front.
Boyd appears to be costing us 1 million dollars a year. This year we got about $200k worth, so we are about $800k down. Next year we don't expect him to play at the $1m mark again either but our investment would be looking better if he played at a level of $500k or $750k rather than $200k. Remember for the investment to be a positive one for the club he needs to be performing at a level that is worth $7m across 7 seasons. That means the lower his output is initially the greater his performance needs to be in the latter years to get us back into positive territory.

It is also worth recognising that the longer he goes without performing at top level the less likely he is to get there.

Rather than whinging about expectations being realistic. The club and Tom should just get on with trying to actually meet them.

I think there were similar debates early in McCartney's tenure about expectations being unreasonable. They tried to convince people to be patient. But with such poor performance in his early tenure it became clear that he was so far behind in the investment value equation that he was extremely unlikely to ever be able to get back into positive territory. Rather than pleading for patience he would have been far better off just trying to improve his performance. I hope Boyd's minders heed the example and try to get him performing as well as possible as quickly as possible.

 

[go you pups]

Comparing McCartneys value to Boyds value

 

[TiAn_]

No other 2nd year forward has ever cost so much!
As I said before you can't have it both ways.

If expecting high performance is unreasonable then so too is the massive salary. If the salary is to be reasonable then the performance expectations must also be high.

And you can't just get the premier key forward prospect in the league for nothing! You can't have it both ways. Stop being a hypocrite.

 

[Igloo]

I'll respect the fact that you have your own view on these things, Proffessor, but we'll never reach even a middle ground. The way you've just outlined how you look at such things is just waaaaay too different to how I do.

The day we start looking at players as a price tag on the field will be a sad day for footy. I expect Boyd will be overpaid at the end of his contract. It'll be tough not to, he's getting paid a shitload. But I'll judge him on what he does on the field, rather than if I think he deserves what's in his wallet.

 

[TiAn_]

Melbourne traded picks 3 and 13 for an untried Jesse Hogan and he didn't even play at all his first season. According to Proffessor's logic that trade was an epic fail for the Dees last year. Now it's the best trade ever. How can that be, unless you take a flawed short-term view?

 

[go you pups]

If Boyd wins us preliminary finals during the period of his contract then I really won't give a s**t what he gets paid.

Cookie nearly won us a prelim off his own boot, he was let down badly by our midfield and defence that day who stopped running and expected things to happen late in the game.

If Boyd can contribute to helping us get into the last Saturday of September then it will be well worth it.

We haven't won a preliminary final since 1961, Hawthorn won their first flag against us the next week, they have won 12 more since then and we still haven't been able to find the right formula to get us into the last Saturday of September during those 54 years. Boyd will be a big piece of the puzzle that helps us into the last Saturday of September imo.

 

[Snake Livermore]

If you take a simple financial approach to things. We have invested heavily and we expect a positive return on our investment.
We are prepared to have a small return initially but expect that return to ramp up over time so we end up in front.
Boyd appears to be costing us 1 million dollars a year. This year we got about $200k worth, so we are about $800k down. Next year we don't expect him to play at the $1m mark again either but our investment would be looking better if he played at a level of $500k or $750k rather than $200k. Remember for the investment to be a positive one for the club he needs to be performing at a level that is worth $7m across 7 seasons. That means the lower his output is initially the greater his performance needs to be in the latter years to get us back into positive territory.

It is also worth recognising that the longer he goes without performing at top level the less likely he is to get there.

Rather than whinging about expectations being realistic. The club and Tom should just get on with trying to actually meet them.

I think there were similar debates early in McCartney's tenure about expectations being unreasonable. They tried to convince people to be patient. But with such poor performance in his early tenure it became clear that he was so far behind in the investment value equation that he was extremely unlikely to ever be able to get back into positive territory. Rather than pleading for patience he would have been far better off just trying to improve his performance. I hope Boyd's minders heed the example and try to get him performing as well as possible as quickly as possible.

Proff is always contradicting himself, and here he goes again. All year he criticises the match committee and says we are going to struggle because we are selecting sides that are too young and inexperienced, and they're not ready to compete at AFL level.

However now he's insisting that 19 year old 10-20 gamer Boyd should be playing like a superstar.

Can't have it both ways Proff.

 

[bobby2]

Remember for the investment to be a positive one for the club he needs to be performing at a level that is worth $7m across 7 seasons.

Even if you decide to look at it this way (which in itself is flawed, because a player's pay is not only dependent on his performance and the value that you should get out of a certain amount of money is subjective), this is not necessarily true. After the seven seasons, Tom will most likely stay at the club for about another five years (and probably on reduced terms, given he is already set for life). Those likely extra five years are a key part of our investment. If we hadn't made the initial investment, we wouldn't get those extra five years.

Hypothetically, if Tom ends up being worth $6 million across the 7 seasons, but then he outperforms the amount we spend on him in his later contracts by $1 million, he still will have been a worthwhile investment.

When the club invested in him, they were investing for the future. They were well aware that he wasn't going to have a big impact instantly. In reality, everything is going to plan so far and I was happy with his output this year.

 

[ScragCity]

Yeah I'm a little confused how you could see our players as employees rather than members of our footy club. Boyd chose to become a Bulldog and as a result the team will back him in, encourage him and help him develop. Do you really think putting the pressure on him and asking him to be a top three forward this year based on his salary is going to improve his development? No, it will impede it. Being patient and giving him time is conducive to him being in the right mind set to develop. It's not his fault we were willing to pay him a billion a year or whatever he's on. That was OUR choice and we need to be willing to accept that, rather than hold him accountable for his salary.

If he never becomes the top forward in the competition I'm quite fine with that. As long as he can play his role in the team I'll be happy. If that equates to bringing the ball to ground to give our small forwards a chance and maybe clunking a few per game then I'm more than happy with that. Has his high salary hurt us in any way? Hard to see how when we've managed to re-sign literally every player we give a s**t about this year, including Stringer for another 3 and The Bont for another 4. Also pretty sure we could still currently afford to bring in at least one high-priced recruit if we chose to, given our interest in Carlisle.

So Boyd's salary is essentially IRRELEVANT as it's had no effect on our list. It's money that has to be paid to SOMEONE, so why not him? And given that his contract is presumably front-loaded then it's hard to imagine how it's ever going to have a negative impact on our future.

So in the end what have we really paid for Boyd? Griffen and Pick 6? Please, if Boyd becomes HALF the player he could be then that is massive unders in my opinion. Ryan Griffen was a weak character and not even a top 10 mid in the comp. Add to that the fact that he'd be long past his prime by the time the rest of our list peaks, makes him pretty worthless for us. Add to that also the fact that our midfield is already STACKED and we haven't been able to get a decent tall forward since Barry Hall. Makes it an extremely good trade for us even with losing pick 6.

 

[Proffessor]

And you can't just get the premier key forward prospect in the league for nothing! You can't have it both ways. Stop being a hypocrite.

Who is being a hypocrite?

You say that someone is the premier key forward prospect in the league but say that it would be unreasonable to expect him to actually perform like it.

 

[Proffessor]

Melbourne traded picks 3 and 13 for an untried Jesse Hogan and he didn't even play at all his first season. According to Proffessor's logic that trade was an epic fail for the Dees last year. Now it's the best trade ever. How can that be, unless you take a flawed short-term view?

Not at all. How much have they paid him for his performance so far? This year he played sensationally and would already be ahead in the value equation despite missing a year.

 

[ScragCity]

Not at all. How much have they paid him for his performance so far? This year he played sensationally and would already be ahead in the value equation despite missing a year.

Proffessor, the real flaw in your logic is believing that salary actually matters. It really doesn't matter at all in this case. Overpaying one or two players really makes no difference. Have we had to turn down any gun players because Boyd is taking up a lot of salary space? No. Have we been unable to sign any of our own gun players because Boyd is taking up too much salary space? No. It's just an inconsequential number at this point and has no relevance at all and you're pretty short-sighted for placing so much weight into it.

I think you've been playing too much SuperCoach or watching Money Ball too many times.

 

[bobby2]

According to Proffessor's logic that trade was an epic fail for the Dees last year.

Not at all. How much have they paid him for his performance so far? This year he played sensationally and would already be ahead in the value equation despite missing a year.

Mate, he's saying that if you had assessed that trade a year ago in the same way (without knowing how good Hogan would be this year), your assessment at the time would have suggested that it was a bad trade because they would've been behind in the value equation at the time.

 

[Proffessor]

I'll respect the fact that you have your own view on these things, Proffessor, but we'll never reach even a middle ground. The way you've just outlined how you look at such things is just waaaaay too different to how I do.

The day we start looking at players as a price tag on the field will be a sad day for footy. I expect Boyd will be overpaid at the end of his contract. It'll be tough not to, he's getting paid a shitload. But I'll judge him on what he does on the field, rather than if I think he deserves what's in his wallet.

I too expect that Boyd will be overpaid by the end of his contract because of the ridiculous contract we signed up to. It will be almost impossible for him to be worth it.

But people have to remember that we are playing in a professional league with salary restrictions. The teams that can get the best value out of their playing lists win.

The reason that teams like Hawthorn and Sydney have dominated recent history is that they get good value from their players. They typically negotiate trades that favour them and the rarely overpay players (the Franklin deal by the swans being an obvious exception).

For us to have a good chance of winning a flag we need to get great value from our playing list. So if we are paying Boyd overs then we need to offset that by paying other players unders. This is not easy because most players don't like being underpaid, especially when they are playing along side team mates who are being overpaid.

So unless we get something approaching a reasonable return from Boyd we are unlikely to win a flag. On the other hand if we got get a reasonable return from him and get great value from some of our other players then we give ourselves a chance.

Consider what we might have achieved with someone of the stature of dangerfield or Fyfe or Sam Mitchell
playing for us in this year's finals, because that is what this year's $800k Boyd overspend could buy you.

 

[TiAn_]

Who is being a hypocrite?

You say that someone is the premier key forward prospect in the league but say that it would be unreasonable to expect him to actually perform like it.

"Prospect". By definition a prospect won't perform as highly as the finished product. You're not grasping why your argument is flawed.