New academy bidding system

[Keays2myBeamas]

That is just confusing as s**t. Why the hell is pick 2 worth exactly '2517' points? How the hell do they work out the points or is it just arbitrary?

The points system is based on the player salaries of everyone since the 2000 draft. That means the ratio of the average pick 1's salary to the average pick 2's salary since 2000 has been exactly 3000:2517. Assuming these average salary ratios remain roughly constant, this system is perfectly mathematically water tight. The 25% discount is a true discount and not an illusion. Under the current system clubs would get some sort of discount, but depending on the draft order the discount could be tiny, or massive. It's when one of the northern clubs get a massive discount that Eddie pipes up. All this new system does is keep the discount at 25% every time and Eddie keeps his trap shut. It may seem over complicated but from a mathematical point of view it is much fairer for all clubs. The only debatable point is whether the discount should be 25% or some other number.

What if a club had 3 players rated in the top 5?

If a club's academy has 3 players rated in the top 5, you would expect that club to have to pay quite a lot (in terms of draft picks) to get all three of those players, certainly if the club finished near the top of the ladder (cough Sydney) you would expect them not to be able to afford all 3 of them.

Is this just for the academy or will this pertain to father-son picks as well? Do we get points back when 5 players decide they wanted to go home or is it tough luck? Will the AFL give us the middle finger when we ask for the thousands of dollars in compensation for bringing up a prospect through our youth system but an insterstate club screws us and drafts our academy player because we ran out of points or whatever?

For both. Under this system we spend thousands of dollars on the academies and what we get in return is the discount, not the physical right to the players.

 

[winged1]

It also opens up the possibility of two chummy clubs bidding on one player knowing we will match and then bidding soon after as per Ironmongers example. Frankly this system is open to rort by the southern clique of campaigners.

 

[Redeye Rambler]

The obvious thing missing from that supporting information document on the AFL website is examples where a team wants to take multiple players in one draft through the academy system. Such as ourselves last year.

I’ll have a stab at figuring out how it would work:

Richmond bid pick 33 (31 downgraded after compensation picks awarded) on Liam Dawson – Pick 33 has a points value of 563, minus 25% = 422.25
At this point, Brisbane are given the option of coming up with 422.25 points of value. After the trade period and the awarding of compensation picks they hold picks 44 (362 pts), 61 (135 pts), 65 (90 pts) and 73 (9 pts).

The obvious way to get to that figure of 422.25 is to use pick 44, which is valued at 362 points. That leaves a shortfall of 60.25 pts, which we can get by downgrading another pick, probably pick 65 to 71. 65 is worth 90 pts and 71 is worth 29 points, so that gives us 61 points (90-29 = 61).

So to get Dawson we use pick 44 and pick 65 is downgraded to 71, leaving us with an extra .75 of a point.

Now, having just done all of that maths, three picks later North bid pick 36 on Harris Andrews. Pick 36 is worth 502 pts, or 376.5 pts with the 25% discount.
Our remaining picks are 61 (135 pts), 71 (29 points) and 73 (9 points) and we’ve got that .75 left over. The total value of that is only 175.75, leaving us 200.75 points short in that year.

I think that means the following season we have to cough up 200.75 points of value in some way. Say we finish twelfth in 2015 and hold picks 7, 25, 43, and 61, the easiest way would be to downgrade pick 43 (378 pts) to pick 58 (170 pts).

So essentially it works like this:

Existing system:
Brisbane receive: Dawson and Andrews
Brisbane lose: picks 44 and 61

New system:
Brisbane receive: Dawson, Andrews, two picks at end of 2014 draft, pick 58 in 2015 draft
Brisbane lose: picks 44, 61, 65, 73 in 2014 draft, pick 43 in 2015 draft.

Geez. No wonder the AFL didn’t include that example in the supporting information. It seems pretty bloody complicated.

I’m really not sure the system was designed with that circumstance in mind. But I’ll bet it won’t be the last time two academy players are taken fairly close together in the same draft.

In general I don’t think this system passes the common sense test for mid second round to third round picks. No one seems to be grumbling about northern states clubs getting slight concessions here at the moment, and yet if someone bids a second or third round pick on an academy player and the linked club doesn’t happen to have a pick within six or seven spots, then we go through this elaborate process of downgrading other picks and possibly dipping into the next season.

It would be much simpler if we just restrict this system, or any system, to players on whom top 20 picks are bid.

Apologies for the essay. I’m struggling with this one.

If I understand the proposed system, I think you pretty much have it. Except that we don't get to choose which pick to down grade. The next-most-valuable pick is down graded. If there are left over points, they are deducted from the first round of the next draft. For example, if there are 200 points carry over, draft pick 12 is downgraded to pick 16.

 

[Ironmonger]

If I understand the proposed system, I think you pretty much have it. Except that we don't get to choose which pick to down grade. The next-most-valuable pick is down graded. If there are left over points, they are deducted from the first round of the next draft. For example, if there are 200 points carry over, and we finish in 12 position, draft pick 12 is downgraded to pick 16.

Thanks Redeye. Looking back over the supporting documentation I think you're right about us not getting to choose what to downgrade.

Which would be a mistake on the AFL's part. Clubs who know we're interested in similar players to them further down the order have an extra incentive to bid and force us below them later in the draft.

In any case, the difference in the scenario would be that pick 7 is downgraded to pick 10 for 2015, which I actually think is a pretty significant drop. We would certainly think twice about taking Andrews in 2014 if we thought we might miss out on the likes of Aish, Mayes or Rich in 2015.

Alarm bells are ringing.

 

[Redeye Rambler]

It also opens up the possibility of two chummy clubs bidding on one player knowing we will match and then bidding soon after as per Ironmongers example. Frankly this system is open to rort by the southern clique of campaigners.

I have to disagree. We are under no obligation to draft nominated players so there is little-to-none benefit for a bidding conspiracy. In fact, with the potential bargains being diluted with the proposed system, we are likely to see some nominated players going to the bidding team. It depends on the perceived value of the bid player and drafting strategy of the Lions recruiting team.

If a bidding team ends up with a nominated academy player, they have probably paid overs. They got an interstate player that was valued lower (than they paid) and was well known by the nominated team's recruiting personnel.

 

[whatboutbob]

The points system is based on the player salaries of everyone since the 2000 draft. That means the ratio of the average pick 1's salary to the average pick 2's salary since 2000 has been exactly 3000:2517. Assuming these average salary ratios remain roughly constant, this system is perfectly mathematically water tight.

Is that a fair assumption?

15 years doesn't seem like a lot of data. It'd only take a couple of Tamblings or Watts' to drag down the average, or Tippett/Hird/Goodes to drag it up.

It raises a lot of questions for me. Did they exclude father/sons? What about the Suns/Giants? Have they skewed the data?

 

[Fatcat08]

The points system is based on the player salaries of everyone since the 2000 draft. That means the ratio of the average pick 1's salary to the average pick 2's salary since 2000 has been exactly 3000:2517. Assuming these average salary ratios remain roughly constant, this system is perfectly mathematically water tight.

Its the bolded part I'm interested in hearing more information about. Is it only their first contract salary? Or is it an average of salaries over their whole career? If the second then how do they actually do this given some of the players who have been drafted since 2000 haven't even finished their careers, therefore how can you measure their value over a entire span? If its the first, this is set at different brackets by the AFL therefore its largely irrelevant to actual value. Have they discounted for those who have gone to GWS and GC on overinflated salaries in recent times?

Its far from a watertight system IMO

 

[Fatcat08]

Is that a fair assumption?

15 years doesn't seem like a lot of data. It'd only take a couple of Tamblings or Watts' to drag down the average, or Tippett/Hird/Goodes to drag it up.

It raises a lot of questions for me. Did they exclude father/sons? What about the Suns/Giants? Have they skewed the data?

F@#$%&*@ bob'd again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[whatboutbob]

Yeah, just how many full careers have been included?

You'd have *maybe* 5 years of full career cycles, at most.

And surely they'd exclude the original draftee contract which is set by the League...?

I wonder if they've included Tom Boyd's latest contract. One would think that would've skewed things just a bit.

 

[Keays2myBeamas]

Is that a fair assumption?

15 years doesn't seem like a lot of data. It'd only take a couple of Tamblings or Watts' to drag down the average, or Tippett/Hird/Goodes to drag it up.

It raises a lot of questions for me. Did they exclude father/sons? Off the top of my head, without looking at the data, the slew of great number 7 picks makes me wonder if they were actually worth more than pick 6...

15 years is actually plenty of data, because to calculate the ratio of 3000:2517, etc, actually takes into account the salary ratio of every single draft pick in the last 15 years, not just the 15 pick 1 to pick 2 salary ratios. What it means is outliers like Watts and Tambling wouldn't affect it because you have over 1000 data points, the only reason the assumption wouldn't be safe would be for overall trends, i.e. recruiters gradually get better at identifying talent. This is why I suspect they chose 2000, rather than 1986 or whenever the draft started, because they felt as if the talent identification process was not as accurate the further back you go. It's certainly a much more stable system than the current one where you could either get massive discount or a tiny one, and the higher you finished on the ladder, the huge possible discount for the very best kids, which was the big problem.

 

[Fatcat08]

Yeah, just how many full careers have been included?

You'd have *maybe* 5 years of full career cycles, at most.

And surely they'd exclude the original draftee contract which is set by the League...?

I wonder if they've included Tom Boyd's latest contract. One would think that would've skewed things just a bit.

Not to mention Scully's either. Its a minefield.

 

[Fatcat08]

15 years is actually plenty of data, because to calculate the ratio of 3000:2517, etc, actually takes into account the salary ratio of every single draft pick in the last 15 years, not just the 15 pick 1 to pick 2 salary ratios. What it means is outliers like Watts and Tambling wouldn't affect it because you have over 1000 data points, the only reason the assumption wouldn't be safe would be for overall trends, i.e. recruiters gradually get better at identifying talent. This is why I suspect they chose 2000, rather than 1986 or whenever the draft started, because they felt as if the talent identification process was not as accurate the further back you go. It's certainly a much more stable system than the current one where you could either get massive discount or a tiny one, and the higher you finished on the ladder, the huge possible discount for the very best kids, which was the big problem.

It may be reflective of values over a career for players drafted in 2000-2005/6/7 but for guys only drafted in the last 4 years there's still likely a premium on them associated with their draft position, not their actual playing ability, which would tend to skew the data somewhat. How much I'm not sure. Example Watts, for his second contract do you think he was only paid for his output or is it more likely that he had a bit of a premium on his price given he was a number 1 draft pick. This is most likely gone now, but for that second contract i'd imagine it was still in place.

 

[Keays2myBeamas]

Its the bolded part I'm interested in hearing more information about. Is it only their first contract salary? Or is it an average of salaries over their whole career? If the second then how do they actually do this given some of the players who have been drafted since 2000 haven't even finished their careers, therefore how can you measure their value over a entire span? If its the first, this is set at different brackets by the AFL therefore its largely irrelevant to actual value. Have they discounted for those who have gone to GWS and GC on overinflated salaries in recent times?

Its far from a watertight system IMO

Accounting for inflated salaries at GC, GWS and Sydney would be very easy to do and I'm sure would have been done. Essentially you look at the total money earned of every player drafted with pick 1 since 2000 (not including any extra money due to COLA etc.), the total money earned by every player drafted with pick 2 since 2000, the total money earned by every player drafted with pick 3 and so on. Any factors the AFL wanted to account for would be done (e.g. weight money earned more recently as worth more, or less, depending on what the research shows) What you get is a graph that looks very similar to the one in http://www.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/AFL/Files/biddingsystemfeedback.pdf , the only difference is instead of a perfectly smooth curve it is a quite jagged, because each of the 70 or so points use only 15 pieces of information. However once you apply a trend line to that jagged graph, to get the exact same graph as in that document, what you get is a very accurate estimation of the relative value of each draft pick based on over 1000 bits of information.

 

[Wayne Swan]

I think the 25% discount we get is very fair and it's a big enough discount to stop other teams putting in a spoiling bid just to push up a players price.

You wouldn't want to end up drafting an interstate academy player for 25% more than his own team, who really know them intimately, was prepared to bid. This particularly applies at the top of the draft where you could within two years find your interstater heading home for comparitively meagre reward.

The problem I have is the massive ramp up in points from pick 4-5 ish to pick 1.

Sydney will be really hoping Mills doesn't end up number 1 pick, it would in a way derail our recruiting for this year.

 

[Keays2myBeamas]

It may be reflective of values over a career for players drafted in 2000-2005/6/7 but for guys only drafted in the last 4 years there's still likely a premium on them associated with their draft position, not their actual playing ability, which would tend to skew the data somewhat. How much I'm not sure. Example Watts, for his second contract do you think he was only paid for his output or is it more likely that he had a bit of a premium on his price given he was a number 1 draft pick. This is most likely gone now, but for that second contract i'd imagine it was still in place.

You're right I think, it does work on the assumption that the clubs pay what the player is actually worth. To combat this you could perhaps only include salaries earned after say 5 years or something. This is probably the reason for the massive difference between the points value of pick 10 up to pick 1, because it includes all the money paid by clubs down the bottom of the ladder, usually with salary cap room to give their high draft picks big money for their second contract.

 

[whatboutbob]

If anyone's curious, here's what a 25% discount means in real terms, when things are kept simple.

eg If a team bids pick 7, then pick 12 is the cheapest single pick we could use to match it, thus giving us a 5 pick discount.

Bid | Matched bid | Discount
1 | 2 | 1
2 | 4 | 2
3 | 6 | 3
4 | 8 | 4
5 | 9 | 4
6 | 11 | 5
7 | 12 | 5
8 | 13 | 5
9 | 15 | 6
10 | 16 | 6
11 | 17 | 6
12 | 18 | 6
13 | 20 | 7
14 | 21 | 7
15 | 22 | 7
16 | 23 | 7
17 | 24 | 7
18 | 25 | 7
19 | 26 | 7
20 | 27 | 7
21 | 28 | 7
22 | 29 | 7
23 | 30 | 7
24 | 31 | 7
25 | 32 | 7
26 | 33 | 7
27 | 34 | 7
28 | 35 | 7
29 | 36 | 7
30 | 37 | 7
31 | 38 | 7
32 | 39 | 7
33 | 40 | 7
34 | 41 | 7
35 | 42 | 7
36 | 43 | 7
37 | 43 | 6
38 | 44 | 6
39 | 45 | 6
40 | 46 | 6
41 | 47 | 6
42 | 48 | 6
43 | 49 | 6
44 | 50 | 6
45 | 50 | 5
46 | 51 | 5
47 | 52 | 5
48 | 53 | 5
49 | 54 | 5
50 | 55 | 5
51 | 55 | 4
52 | 56 | 4
53 | 57 | 4
54 | 58 | 4
55 | 59 | 4
56 | 60 | 4
57 | 60 | 3
58 | 61 | 3
59 | 62 | 3
60 | 63 | 3
61 | 63 | 2
62 | 64 | 2
63 | 65 | 2
64 | 66 | 2
65 | 67 | 2
66 | 67 | 1
67 | 68 | 1
68 | 69 | 1
69 | 70 | 1
70 | 70 | 0
71 | 71 | 0
72 | 72 | 0
73 | 73 | 0

 

[Fatcat08]

This wouldn't make a big difference because you have to assume, overall, the clubs get it right with what they pay players. For every Watts that was getting more than he was worth, there was another kid who excelled more than what the club was expecting and you have to assume that evens out over every player drafted in the last 15 years.

Wouldn't what your pointing out there point towards how the figures could be skewed? Or are you trying to say that there are a number of number 1 picks who would be excelling compared to their remuneration? I tend to think that the curve is a little too steep at the pointy end. Still no system is going to be perfect. What is interesting is the thinking surrounding draft picks when they're numbers vs names and faces and then again compared to established players.

Given the ease of movement of even contracted players and the little teams are giving up for them I tend to think that the assessed value of top draft picks may begin to decline. When players rarely moved clubs, and a lot was given up for them, draft picks were sacred. I wonder whether we'll see this change over the next 5-10 years.

 

[Keays2myBeamas]

Wouldn't what your pointing out there point towards how the figures could be skewed? Or are you trying to say that there are a number of number 1 picks who would be excelling compared to their remuneration? I tend to think that the curve is a little too steep at the pointy end. Still no system is going to be perfect.

I agree, I edited my reply

 

[whatboutbob]

Those stats I posted above made me wonder: I bet the League won't give a team "credit" for "overpaying" for a player.

Eg A team bids pick 12 (worth 1268 points) for a player. With a 25% discount, that'd be 951 points, for which pick 18 could be used to match it, if the academy club has it. If they've only got pick 13 though, which is worth 1212 points, then they'd be getting only a 56 point discount (~4.4%).

It might sound greedy, but at what point does the investment become not worth it?

 

[Fatcat08]

Those stats I posted above made me wonder: I bet the League won't give a team "credit" for "overpaying" for a player.

Eg A team bids pick 12 (worth 1268 points) for a player. With a 25% discount, that'd be 951 points, for which pick 18 could be used to match it, if the academy club has it. If they've only got pick 13 though, which is worth 1212 points, then they'd be getting only a 56 point discount (~4.4%).

It might sound greedy, but at what point does the investment become not worth it?

I thought I read somewhere that your next pick got upgraded with the remaining points? Maybe I just imagined that.

 

[whatboutbob]

Can someone clarify what would've happened with Jono Freeman under this system?

On draft night, after getting screwed every which way for the GH5, we were left with 7, 22, 25, 28, 33 and 34, 62.

Adelaide bid pick 42 (395 points, discounted to 296.25). We used our next available pick, 62, worth 123 points, on him.

Thus we had a debt of 173.25 points.

Do they get discounted from our first 2014 pick? Would that mean our pick 5 (used on the Beams trade) would've been pushed back to pick 7? (1878 for pick 5 - 173.25 = 1704.75. Pick 6= 1751 & pick 7 = 1644)

 

[dlanod]

Those stats I posted above made me wonder: I bet the League won't give a team "credit" for "overpaying" for a player.

Eg A team bids pick 12 (worth 1268 points) for a player. With a 25% discount, that'd be 951 points, for which pick 18 could be used to match it, if the academy club has it. If they've only got pick 13 though, which is worth 1212 points, then they'd be getting only a 56 point discount (~4.4%).

It might sound greedy, but at what point does the investment become not worth it?

"If a team has leftover points or is in debt, this would carry over to the next year." (The Age)

Sounds like you can upgrade picks or get extra picks the following year with those left-over points. In this case the 261 points would give us pick 51 (259 points) or maybe upgrade pick 31 to 21 (270 points).

 

[dlanod]

Can someone clarify what would've happened with Jono Freeman under this system?

On draft night, after getting screwed every which way for the GH5, we were left with 7, 22, 25, 28, 33 and 34, 62.

Adelaide bid pick 42 (395 points, discounted to 296.25). We used our next available pick, 62, worth 123 points, on him.

Thus we had a debt of 173.25 points.

Do they get discounted from our first 2014 pick? Would that mean our pick 5 (used on the Beams trade) would've been pushed back to pick 7? (1878 for pick 5 - 173.25 = 1704.75. Pick 6= 1751 & pick 7 = 1644)

We would have had to give up 173.25 points of draft value the following year. That might be a pick 5 to 7 downgrade or we could just give up pick 59 and downgrade 40 to 41 (158 +17 = 175 points).

 

[Keays2myBeamas]

I thought I read somewhere that your next pick got upgraded with the remaining points? Maybe I just imagined that.

I think it's like the Ayce Cordy example in http://www.afl.com.au/staticfile/AFL Tenant/AFL/Files/biddingsystemfeedback.pdf . Bulldogs have to pay 131 pts too much so they get pick 62 as essentially an upgrade from their lowest pick.

 

[Keays2myBeamas]

We would have had to give up 173.25 points of draft value the following year. That might be a pick 5 to 7 downgrade or we could just give up pick 59 and downgrade 40 to 41 (158 +17 = 175 points).

Sounds like you don't get a choice, "Bulldogs have no more picks in 2014, so the remaining 98pts will be subtracted from their first round selection in 2015." It has to be the next years first round selection.