Our First Pick - The Deficit - We have pick 10!

[Joao]

We got ahead of the two before Henry. Credit where credit is due. Some people have a perfect world mentality. Best case scenario we get Henry without a deficit but close behind is we get two top class players before we pick up a little gun for shrapnel. Making sure we got Menaro (although a little expensive) should also pay off. We had a brilliant draft and all the couch geniuses on here can think about is us not bidding on a player we didn't want.

I never said they don't deserve credit for the other moves. I said they deserve a whack for the obvious issue we have now that based off previous evidence of other teams trading ahead of top 10 bids and still maintaining adequate points.

The only explanation I will accepts is that the Port deal is literally the best they could do. In that case I guess we had no choice.

 

[Nothing]

From memory someone did the sums and if we bid on Green we still ended up with a deficit of about 205?

I think it was under 200, which is ignored. I'll try and find something concrete though.

 

[Johnny Dalmas]

Yes we would have looked stupid if they didn't match. Unlikely, but unless you are certain, you could cut off your nose to spite your face. We clearly wanted Serong

And so far have been proven quite right in rating Serong as highly as we did.

It obviously would have been much better to have had enough points stockpiled to totally meet the bid. But the other question that needs to be asked is did we pay too much for Henry? Was he worth #10 and a (potentially) 5 pick downgrade? If he was, then the downgrade this year is unfortunate but not the end of the world.

 

[beetz]

Green was touted as top 3. GWS swapped picks to get ahead of everyone they could. As he continued to slide their play became even shrewder. If we rated him at all (and he was touted top 3) a bid at pick 7 would not have been screwing them, it would have been a shrewd bid to ensure we got a touted top 3 pick or GWS pay a fair price. Instead, we overpay (slightly - Henry was expected top 20 but not top 10) and GWS get an even better bargain.

It's not maintaining integrity, it's screwing yourself (AFL is not win/win, it's a zero sum game). We gave GWS a highly rated player cheaper than necessary and we over paid for our player.

I see it as Freo had their hearts set on Young, Serong and Henry. Why bid on a player that they don't ultimately want whilst "settling" for one of those trio? Green is another big bodied contested mid so would have never been a target for Freo anyway, plus we ended up with Serong who is far superior up to this point.

 

[apuchar]

And so far have been proven quite right in rating Serong as highly as we did.

It obviously would have been much better to have had enough points stockpiled to totally meet the bid. But the other question that needs to be asked is did we pay too much for Henry? Was he worth #10 and a (potentially) 5 pick downgrade? If he was, then the downgrade this year is unfortunate but not the end of the world.

Freo said they would have matched any bid for Henry, so they at least don't think they overpaid. Time will tell, but that is the case for every draft pick.
People seem to be bit hysterical with Henry. He said the game was quicker than he expected. He needs time to pick up the tempo and then we'll see if he has the spare capacity do his thing at the level.

 

[Tbonefreo]

It is not a bad thing having a deficit in this draft. 3 top 10s last year, and this draft is pretty well ****ed.

The recruitment team did a terrific job.

Deficit schmecefit

 

[Joao]

It is not a bad thing having a deficit in this draft. 3 top 10s last year, and this draft is pretty well f’ed.

The recruitment team did a terrific job.

Deficit schmecefit

Inb4 some WA bloke goes the pick before us and goes on to win 3 brownlows.

 

[Tbonefreo]

Inb4 some WA bloke goes the pick before us and goes on to win 3 brownlows.

Don't be paranoid haha

 

[Snuffaluphagus]

Eh, think it was brilliant drafting/recognition of talent, poor trading. You can easily criticise one area while lauding the other and things dont have to be all sunshine and rainbows so long as people frame in a context for actual discussion with some actual argument behind it.

Two SA team trades were horrendous (particularly the Adelaide one which wasnt live) and I would have liked us to show a bit of courage and bid on Green. GWS were always matching a bid.

Said it earlier though, excellent trading makes drafting easier, excellent drafting makes trading almost irrelevant

 

[arsesmart]

AFL is not win/win, it's a zero sum game

This is not true. There's plenty about the AFL that can be win/win, especially the draft. For example we wanted Young and Serong more than Green, grabbed Young and Green and we win and GWS win by getting Green.

The points deficit is just another to throw on the pile about disliking Carltoon. It's unfortunate, but not crippling.

 

[Megalon]

Who gives a sh*t. We got Serong (favourite for the Rising Star), Young (best kick in the draft) and Henry (arguably best skills in the draft).

I have zero patience for annoying people who whinge for the sake of whinging, and fail to look at the big picture.

edit - and we picked up a talent at pick #61! But yes lets fire our whole recruitment team because they left us with a deficit.

Love this post All of our national draft players from last year have debuted and they are all wins IMO, strike rate of 4/4. Early days with Henry but he's come back from a long term injury (knee dislocation) and had no exposure at WAFL level this year, expect him to improve greatly with more games like our other draftees have.

 

[UYD 4 Life]

And so far have been proven quite right in rating Serong as highly as we did.

It obviously would have been much better to have had enough points stockpiled to totally meet the bid. But the other question that needs to be asked is did we pay too much for Henry? Was he worth #10 and a (potentially) 5 pick downgrade? If he was, then the downgrade this year is unfortunate but not the end of the world.

I don't think that represents the situation accurately.
We held pick 10 so we could have just matched Henry with that pick.
We knew there would be a bid before 10 for Henry from either Melbourne or Carlton so we traded to secure Caleb Serong
in: Caleb Serong
out: pick 22
pick 66
2020 2nd round pick Freo
2020 3rd round pick Collingwood
2020 4th round pick Carlton
2020 1st round pick downgrade Freo

It should also be kept in mind that 2nd rounders this year could be pushed back a fair way given the academy selections and potential free agency conpensation

 

[wild side]

What's the point of an academy, if we don't pick our academy kids?

 

[Nothing]

This is not true. There's plenty about the AFL that can be win/win, especially the draft. For example we wanted Young and Serong more than Green, grabbed Young and Green Serong (?) and we win and GWS win by getting Green.

The points deficit is just another to throw on the pile about disliking Carltoon. It's unfortunate, but not crippling.

3 or 4 other clubs win by getting a higher draft pick this year. We lose. In your example, GWS win but we lost on Green (assuming they wanted their highly touted academy pick) vs Henry (who we clearly wanted), in a way that we could have not lost.

It's zero sum because there is only one winner and every decision made that makes it harder to win (like unnecessarily moving down the draft by having a points deficit) makes it tougher to beat another, smarter team. We have not always made smart decisions, this is another example.

 

[apuchar]

If gws make an early bid on Walker than I'll concede we stuffed up.

 

[ignoramus]

The way I see it, the club royally stuffed it by not securing the wooden spoon for three years in a row so that they could get a priority pick or two and pick up Rowell as well as Serong, Young and Henry. Atrocious planning when you think about it.

 

[apuchar]

The way I see it, the club royally stuffed it by not securing the wooden spoon for three years in a row so that they could get a priority pick or two and pick up Rowell as well as Serong, Young and Henry. Atrocious planning when you think about it.

Yeah horrible.

 

[ImperialPurple]

Hasn’t someone from the Carlton recruiting crew said they needed more than their allotted 5 minutes, so they bid on Henry to buy themselves more time? If we passed they hit him, if we matched (which they expected) they had the time they needed to do the trade they wanted to do at the time.

I’ve also heard they badly wanted Young, and when he went their next luck was Serong, so when we took both of them, they bid on Henry to screw with us. But 99% that‘s just someone on BF talking rubbish, because I’m 99% sure it was a time buying exercise.

Maybe 99% one, 1% two.

What happened in part one of the AFL draft

Gold Coast snared Victorian pair Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson with the first two picks of the first round of the AFL draft at Marvel Stadium.

www.google.com.au

Dockers move to stop Blues pouncing on Henry

www.google.com.au

 

[ImperialPurple]

Inb4 some WA bloke goes the pick before us and goes on to win 3 brownlows.

While playing for the weags who somehow wheel and deal their way into the pick right before us.

 

[freodog]

I’m not too concerned about the deficit but I think Freo wanted the marketing of 7,8,9 in a rebuild to sell hope with a change of coach.

Like I doubt anyone will ever Bid on a number 1 pick. One you want the prestige and marketing of a number 1 pick. Plus you would forever more be seen to the AFL world and the player we could have picked any player but we didn’t want you enough to pick you number 1.

 

[blue shark]

This is not true. There's plenty about the AFL that can be win/win, especially the draft. For example we wanted Young and Serong more than Green, grabbed Young and Green and we win and GWS win by getting Green.

The points deficit is just another to throw on the pile about disliking Carltoon. It's unfortunate, but not crippling.

I think GWS are the perfect example of how all the picks in the world doesn't create a champion team.
Their coach is very average, so I'd rather let our development, recruiters keep on our current path.
It's all well and good taking the cream, but it's about balance and finding value, players in the later
rounds.

 

[Alfonz]

Hasn’t someone from the Carlton recruiting crew said they needed more than their allotted 5 minutes, so they bid on Henry to buy themselves more time? If we passed they hit him, if we matched (which they expected) they had the time they needed to do whatever they needed to do at the time (can’t remember what it was).

I’ve also heard they badly wanted Young, and when he went their next luck was Serong, so when we took both of them, they bid on Henry to screw with us. But 99% that‘s just someone on BF talking rubbish, because I’m 99% sure it was a time buying exercise.

Maybe 99% one, 1% two.

Sounds like both are plausible. Does anyone remember that draft where someone took the player we were obviously going to pick, then we looked clueless and panicked. I think it was when GWS took McCarthy and after a mad scramble we called out Apeness in a WTF moment.

Anyway, pick 6 versus 9 ... looking at the last 10 drafts, I would say pick 9 has actually been the better selection. We might also be more inclined to give it up for Bolton, which is my first preference for the pick if we are missing out on the very top end (e.g. McDonald).

 

[wayToGo_]

But we could have had all that and maintained a pick at least 3 and more likely 4 or 5 spots higher in the draft. All because they missed an opportunity. That incremental difference may be the difference in 3 years time.
If we want improvement, not getting stuck with an avoidable points deficit is a start.

I've asked this heaps of times. What trade could the Freo team have done at the time of the Henry bid that could have reduced the deficit to zero (or effectively zero)?

I know plenty on here still think there was one available to us but I am fairly certain there wasn't. I went through and looked at all the possible (and realistic) trades (for points) at the time and there wasn't a single one that could have achieved what we wanted. Did we pay more than we ideally wanted to in the trade to reduce the deficit, yes. Did we really have a choice? No because we didn't want to carry over a massive deficit so the choices were reduce it like we did, or have an even bigger deficit and retain some later picks (which likely would have been a lot worse in review). Very few clubs had multiple picks worth points that they were willing to part with and any that did wouldn't have got good value out of a trade with us - meaning they would have been dumb to do it - which is why we had to settle for what we got.

People will then say we could have planned for it (eg getting sufficient currency prior to trade period to cover the deficit). But there are so many bids, trades and variables that you might end up screwing yourself by setting up your picks assuming one scenario. End result we got 3 top 10 picks and a great late pick-up when we started with not a great deal of currency and we were left with a tiny deficit in exchange for Henry on our list.

Freo fans need to stop treating the deficit in isolation and look at the big picture. We got great value in last year's draft. You can assume we could have done it without a deficit - I stand by my calculations at the time that we couldn't have.

 

[Nothing]

I've asked this heaps of times. What trade could the Freo team have done at the time of the Henry bid that could have reduced the deficit to zero (or effectively zero)?

I know plenty on here still think there was one available to us but I am fairly certain there wasn't. I went through and looked at all the possible (and realistic) trades (for points) at the time and there wasn't a single one that could have achieved what we wanted. Did we pay more than we ideally wanted to in the trade to reduce the deficit, yes. Did we really have a choice? No because we didn't want to carry over a massive deficit so the choices were reduce it like we did, or have an even bigger deficit and retain some later picks (which likely would have been a lot worse in review). Very few clubs had multiple picks worth points that they were willing to part with and any that did wouldn't have got good value out of a trade with us - meaning they would have been dumb to do it - which is why we had to settle for what we got.

People will then say we could have planned for it (eg getting sufficient currency prior to trade period to cover the deficit). But there are so many bids, trades and variables that you might end up screwing yourself by setting up your picks assuming one scenario. End result we got 3 top 10 picks and a great late pick-up when we started with not a great deal of currency and we were left with a tiny deficit in exchange for Henry on our list.

Freo fans need to stop treating the deficit in isolation and look at the big picture. We got great value in last year's draft. You can assume we could have done it without a deficit - I stand by my calculations at the time that we couldn't have.

A bid on Green (once again based on the assumption that we would have accepted him and that GWS would have trumped the bid - as everyone expected them to do) would have meant no deficit. Because of the points deficit, Henry's discount was effectively wiped out (by losing our high first round pick this year for a lower one).
Yes 2019 draft was excellent but it will cost 2020 currency to complete it and that impact needs to be considered in that. If we were sure GWS were taking Green, and all indications were pointing that way, a bid at 7 would have removed this from the conversation. Then you could claim we had a fantastic draft haul and we would have a higher pick this year.
I'm not treating the deficit in isolation, I'm including it in the trade period that it was acquired. It seems you think it doesn't matter though, when it clearly should.

If Freo don't think they can learn from what happened in 2019 then we are stuffed, because I guarantee there are 17 other clubs that would have learnt from it.

 

[apuchar]

Sounds like both are plausible. Does anyone remember that draft where someone took the player we were obviously going to pick, then we looked clueless and panicked. I think it was when GWS took McCarthy and after a mad scramble we called out Apeness in a WTF moment.

Anyway, pick 6 versus 9 ... looking at the last 10 drafts, I would say pick 9 has actually been the better selection. We might also be more inclined to give it up for Bolton, which is my first preference for the pick if we are missing out on the very top end (e.g. McDonald).

Nah. Freo already knew McCarthy would be gone before our pick and a mock drafter then said she had heard we were going to take Apeness