•Brock Mclean: The Luke Ball of 2011?

[inyourcool]

General, sorry but I have very little, if any, confidence that Brock can overcome his injury woes and play any games for the Blues

Our current version of Sporn or Livingston, including the shameful waste of a high draft pick!

 

[NAUGHT5]

What's the deal with Brock?

Every time he get's mentioned we hear the same old lines about him being injured, will play VFL this week etc. but nothing categoric. What is actually wrong with him and will he be in line for selection at any time this decade?

Curnow, Robbo and Ellard are all ahead of him now and are going really well early on. But we invested a lot in Brock so I would like to see him get up and running and go back past these guys.

Anyone know?

 

[inyourcool]

Just simply consider it as a very bad investment – just write it off and move on
To use a common aussie vernacular, stick a fork in him, he’s done!

 

[Silvagnis]

General, sorry but I have very little, if any, confidence that Brock can overcome his injury woes and play any games for the Blues

Our current version of Sporn or Livingston, including the shameful waste of a high draft pick!

Why was it "shameful" to target someone who can play and would address a list weakness?

You can't win them all...

The decision was made from the POV of targeting the type of player we clearly needed to win a flag. You can see how much better we looked with Robinson and Curnow in the middle to free up Judd, Murphy, Gibbs and Simpson. We may have missed out on Pittard or Jetta, but a Mclean would add more to our midfield than another flanker or wingman. Mclean would be in our 22 ahead of Carrazzo who doesn't hurt sides if he isn't tagging. After round one, I wouldn't hesitate to pick a Curnow, Robinson and Mclean ahead of Carrazzo. Carrots is the type of player we need to leave behind to improve.

The Pies became the best team after they moved past the likes of O'Bree, Lockyer and even Medhurst to get a better structured side. Even the Pies blew a pick on Wood before that hack Brown gave their team more as a number two ruck and a resting KPP.

You could argue that we should have made a play for Josh Kennedy, but every "expert" criticising the Mclean trade would have cracked it and whinged after we picked up an unproven player.

 

[jonoman89]

Why was it "shameful" to target someone who can play and would address a list weakness?

Because they targetted a massively injury-prone player and gave a very high pick for him. They gambled on a very high stakes game, and at the moment they're losing badly.

Even at full fitness McLean was not worth pick 11. The difference between pick 11 and say 18 (what he is really worth) is massive.

Everyone needs to take off their Carlton coloured glasses: McLean has been a massive draft bust for us up until now.

I just hope to god he can get his body right and give us something back in return. What's done is done: just need to focus on getting him right and contributing to the team as best he can.

He's got a very long journey ahead of him though with Robinson and Curnow in the wings.

We may have missed out on Pittard or Jetta, but a Mclean would add more to our midfield than another flanker or wingman.

A fit bag of potato chips is better than the best injured AFL player in the world. At least they're contributing on the field.

If you could go back in time and were offered Lewis Jetta instead of McLean you wouldn't take it? Honestly..

 

[Salaryman]

Since '05 Brock has played 20, 18, 14, 14 and 19 games a season.....I wonder what the AFL average would be.....hardly a trend there. He had an existing injury that was known, but the subsequent hip injury was independent which has been pointed out ad-nauseum here.

Hindsight bias.......basically states that once you know the outcome of an event you are much more likely to think that the events were more predictable than they really were.

I'm not talking about harry hindsight in the jargonistic sense, but a very really human bias in decision making.


Probably applies here.

Edit: Just saw this above:

f you could go back in time and were offered Lewis Jetta instead of McLean you wouldn't take it? Honestly..

Thanks for the beautiful and timely working illustration

 

[jonoman89]

Since '05 Brock has played 20, 18, 14, 14 and 19 games a season.....I wonder what the AFL average would be.....hardly a trend there. He had an existing injury that was known, but the subsequent hip injury was independent which has been pointed out ad-nauseum here.

Hindsight bias.......basically states that once you know the outcome of an event you are much more likely to think that the events were more predictable than they really were.

I'm not talking about harry hindsight in the jargonistic sense, but a very really human bias in decision making.


Probably applies here.

Edit: Just saw this above:


Thanks for the beautiful and timely working illustration

Thanks for illustrating what i've said. Brock is injury prone. Even in those games he played he was obviously under duress

And it's pretty obvious it was a hindsight exercise with the Jetta line; would have thought the "go back in time" phrase would have been more than enough for you to realise that.

What we do know is this: when Brock was recruited he had a long history of injury. Pick 11 was over the odds, even if we had a burning need for an inside midfielder. If you think i'm changing my tune then look at my posts the day we recruited him: my opinion hasn't changed at all. We needed an inside mid, but we threw the baby out with the bathwater giving away pick 11 for a player like Brock. If McLean was fit and firing he may have been worth 11....but at that stage he had shown no long-erm fitness, and there were no signs to suggest he could be looking back on his years at Melbourne.

That isn't hindsight, it's just common sense.

Have you been to any training sessions?
Have you heard the involvement McLean has with his fellow playing group, weighing in more than Judd to get the boys going?
You haven't have you?
Let's drop that potato chip comparison because it's clear that what you don't see, you don't understand.

So you're happy to give up pick 11 for a bloke who gees people up at training? Well, i'm not.

And it is clear i wasn't calling McLean a potato chip. If anything you would draw an inference from that line as Mclean being the "best injured player in the AFL". Read it again.

 

[inyourcool]

Because, General, even at the time the trade was announced (a WHOLE week before trade week started!) it was already an awfully one-sided trade. Brock had already been told by Bailey that others would have opportunities ahead of him and he already had a suspect injury report on his ankle at that stage so the need to offer pick 11 was, even at that early stage, completely unnecessary.

Ratts and Riley were simply in love with the bloke and pushed ahead with a poor trade on Carlton’s front which the dees gleefully accepted. I don’t necessarily mind the acquisition of Brock’s services per se as the club identified a need in the midfield for a player of his mould, however, it doesn’t deflect from the fact that the trade was an extremely poor one in terms of what we exchanged.

And since his arrival, those suspect injury concerns have only increased and we now have a player who can barely string a full game together without having the need to take a few weeks off!

I was critical of the trade at the time due to the excessive value of our exchange and as such, I stand by my “shameful” interpretation.

 

[Salaryman]

Does it??

So what is the average for games played per player per season???

Is Brock significantly below that??

Again, nice way to frame an argument.....I can do it too, look!!

"Is pick 11 unreasonable for a formerr top 2 finisher in a clubs B&F?"


see it's easy.


And no, it's hindsight bias !!!!!!!!

Being obvious doesn't make it any less so !

 

[Jeremias]

jono - a fit McLean is easily worth pick 11.

To suggest otherwise is somewhat baffling and makes me wonder if you actually saw him play for Melbourne when he was injury-free.

 

[jonoman89]

jono - a fit McLean is easily worth pick 11.

To suggest otherwise is somewhat baffling and makes me wonder if you actually saw him play for Melbourne when he was injury-free.

You mean like his final in 2006? For sure, that's worth pick 11 no doubt.

But his 2007-2009 form at Melbourne was not. Injured or playing under duress a lot of the time. Sure he had a few great games, but not enough to justify 11 in my mind.

As i said, i think a late first rounder would have been worthy. 18 or something like that.

 

[Salaryman]

did we have a pick 18

or instead we offer what we have and be seen as fair to deal with at the trade table.....that decision may have helped net us Collins instead of sh*t in the Grigg deal.

 

[jonoman89]

did we have a pick 18

or instead we offer what we have and be seen as fair to deal with at the trade table.....that decision may have helped net us Collins instead of sh*t in the Grigg deal.

No, i wwas just saying i thinkthat pick is about what he was worth at the time.

The rationale for his selection was sound

And that's where out opinion differs. I think that, at the time, the club made a very risky decision...and low and behold look at where we are now.

I, personally, wouldn't have taken that risk. That's not hindsight: look at my posts in the thread when the trade as announced. I was excited, but very wary that 11 was over the odds.

That said, McLean is capable of playing brilliant football. I sincerely hope he gets his body right and plays 100 games for us. But i just don't like the chances of that happening.

 

[jonoman89]

Of course you do.
We went for the man and we have him, and nothing will change that.

Exactly right. I wish him all the best: i'd love him to turn into an AA midfielder.

I just find it ridiculous when Carlton supporters suggest that, at the time, the McLean trade was completely in our favour and that anyone who suggests otherwise is just another Harry Hinsidght. That's simply not true, me and many others had our reservations.

You may well be proved to be right about McLean, but we can't pluck things out in isolation and announce a, "I told you so"
Are you happy with Duigan?
Were you happy with Warnock?
Are you satisfied with Laidler?
You're going to tell me that they weren't for selection 11 and you'd be right, but decisions are made and if we get 90% right and 10% wrong then we've done pretty bloody well.
Rejoice in our brilliant rookie selections rather than get down on what you believe for us to have plucked a dud, in McLean

Duigan - great pickup
Warnock - looks to be a future star in the ruck
Laidler - got him for peanuts and looks great

I'm not down about the McLean trade at all, i just think some of us get a little bit defensive when someone suggests Carlton may have not done the right thing. Early days yet, but the way it's panning out at the moment suggests that Carlton may have gotten it wrong. And that's not just in hindsight.

More than happy to be proved wrong though, of course.

 

[Salaryman]

It's not so much getting defensive but trying to have a balanced view, removing hindsight bias and practising some perspective taking of the decision makers in the situation at the time.

It may not work out, but the other side of the coin is in a very competitive market sometimes you may have to take calculated risks in order to gain a performance edge by addressing a need....and no less a need thawas not going to be filled by a Jetta, Pittard, or even a Gysberts

 

[Salaryman]

I'm trying Harks, I'm trying reeealll hard

 

[jonoman89]

It's not so much getting defensive but trying to have a balanced view, removing hindsight bias and practising some perspective taking of the decision makers in the situation at the time.

I understand, but what i'm getting at here is that at the time we recruited him there were big question marks over the decision. So i find it a bit silly that some Blues supporters (not saying it's you) accuse me of being a Harry Hindsight when i was one of those people.

It may not work out, but the other side of the coin is in a very competitive market sometimes you may have to take calculated risks in order to gain a performance edge by addressing a need....and no less a need thawas not going to be filled by a Jetta, Pittard, or even a Gysberts

Agree entirely, the draft and trading is a gambling exercise at the best of times. And we did have a need. We rolled the dice accordingly. Just saying i think we rolled the dice on a bet that i don't think had good enough odds.

 

[Salaryman]

fair enough

 

[Supishnessism]

did we have a pick 18

or instead we offer what we have and be seen as fair to deal with at the trade table.....that decision may have helped net us Collins instead of sh*t in the Grigg deal.

Leaving any reserved judgments about McLean aside, its interesting to note this is one of the major differences between NFL and AFL draft and trade systems. The NFL school of thought to this is if a player is only worth pick 18, do a deal which downgrades your first round draft pick by upgrading a player.

EG Pick 11 for Pick 18 plus Player A,
or Player B + Pick 11 for Player A + Pick 18

Because the AFL still has the romantic element of club pride and culture attached (which by the way i love, and would hate to see players move around purely for money or because the club thought they were a commodity.) they are willing to pay over the odds for players in terms of compensation with draft picks in trade.

This also applies to teams who choose to fill a need before taking the best available in the draft.

In a purely economic sense, it does seem odd to trade for a player for more than they're worth when the possibility to trade for them for their actual value is there.

With that being said, the AFL is moving towards the NFL system of "professionalism" with the introduction of Free Agency, where in 15+ years it may actually be like this.

Im not making a comment on the McLean trade in particular, but just an interesting side note of where the game could be heading.

 

[TNBT]

I just read through 5 pages of this debate, but at last it seems that people have reached some form of common ground. Every single trade in the AFL has possible risks and possible rewards. When this trade went down, lets look at the risks and rewards:

We desperately needed a tough inside midfielder to help guys like Judd win the hard ball and to feed it out to guys like Murphy and Simpson. At the time, Brock McLean was (from what I can recall at the time) just about the best option available to fill that need. The risks? He had had injury problems before. The reward? We could have filled a gaping hole in our midfield with a very talented player.

At this point, we haven't seen the benefits of McLeans addition as much as we have seen the injury problems, but it is silly to say that he should be delisted or he is washed up or whatever else has been said. Like someone else said earlier, Warnock was considered to be an injury-prone bust by some people before last season, and now every Carlton fan is hugging his nuts and drooling over the prospect of him palming the ball down to our midfielders for the next decade. I think we have to consider that when we look at McLean. If you based the trade on what we have gotten from him so far then yeah, you could call it a poor trade. However, I see no reason why he can't get his body right and be that impact player for us that we were looking for when we traded him.

Basically, people are going to make up their own minds about players, and will always have different opinions on whether trades were good or bad. That is fine, as it makes for some great discussion on this board. All I am saying is that if you want to say he has been a bust SO FAR, then say that. However, I think it's crazy for some fans to go saying with certainty that he will never reach any of the goals we have for him. No one knows how things will work out, so I'm firmly on the "I really hope he can get some luck with injury and be a key player for us" wagon.

 

[TNBT]

Yeah, sorry, I haven't been around much lately

As for what you said, I agree. If McLean had been healthy and played like we hoped last season, then there is every chance we would have passed on Curnow and just gone with McLean as our inside guy. The fact that he struggled in his first year though means that we went and got another guy who can play that role, meaning that if McLean can shake the injury bug and play consistent footy, then with he AND Curnow (not to mention Robbo, Ellard, Cachia, etc) we have an abundance of hard-edged midfielders where we previously had virtually none.

 

[BlueMania]

Read in the Hun that Brock has got ankle soreness, I just don't get how a single player can just be constantly injured

Made in China

 

[Sin City]

In the Bullants team this weekend, hope he has a blinder.

 

[thylacine60]

Finally getting out on the park - Brock must be wrapped!

 

[BlueMania]

In the Bullants team this weekend, hope he has a blinder.

Great news. Wasn't sure when he was back. Lets hope that roll of bubble wrap helps.