MVP 2020 Nick "426" Smith Memorial Trophy | Petracca Gets His 1st

[Headless]

Thanks for all your work on this, FootyGuy13.

 

[FootyGuy13]

It's been a season no one has seen before, and hopefully will never see again. The Demons did what the Demons do and we were they to cheer, laugh and cry. So, to start things off, the Top 10 players of the Melbourne Football Club as voted by the BigFooty Melbourne Board for the 2020 AFL season.
Christian Petracca did what so many have done and dominate from the start. He slowed down in the second half of the season but throughout the entire season, he only missed the points thrice and didn't get a vote in only 1 game. He's a Brownlow favourite and a AA hopeful and it's not hard to see why when you look at his highlights package for the year. Everyone has been talking up how good he'd be once he had a breakout season and now it's happened and may it continue to happen.

Speaking of which, May. Who would've thought that Steven May would be head and shoulders above the rest in some stats? He scored the most points in the last quarter of the season, had the most Best On Ground performances with 4 and I think conceded less goals than what Fritsch/Weideman scored. He's been an unmovable wall that stopped the opposition from flooding in goals that we've gotten used to seeing. Now for the media to figure out how he didn't manage to be in the AA40 squad.

Clayton Oliver, even with 5 less available games, went down in points again to finish 3rd. I mean, he's a year younger than Petracca and he's now gotten 4 straight Top 3 finishes. No wonder the Herald Sun already has him being apart of the Top 30 Dees of the AFL era. Meanwhile, Jack Viney has returned to a Top 5 finish after missing by a kick last year and getting Best Finals Player in 2018. It's been good to see Viney have a injury-free season again and now the midfield comprising of Petracca, Oliver and Viney has been motoring along lovely for most of the season. Considering their age, it should keep going for a while yet.

Half-way through the season, I thought Max Gawn would be jostling with Oliver and Viney for podium spots, but after missing those 3 games with injury, only scored points once afterwards. He's still getting mentioned in awards season, but that gave Ed Langdon the perfect opportunity to snatch up 5th spot. This happened last year with Fritsch, they'd be polling most weeks but not scoring points before, all of a sudden, the flood gates would open and they'd speeding home. Watching Langdon just sprint down the wing, picking out the best player to kick towards never gets old, and hopefully the kicking will get better.

It might have taken him until half-way through the season, but once Jake Lever starting going, he did not stop whilst reminding us how good he was back in Adelaide days. If it wasn't May stopping forwards in their tracks, it was Lever and the two of them are working as great as we'd hope they would. Meanwhile, Angus Brayshaw may have been relegated to 4th centre, but that didn't stop him from getting inside the Top 10 again. While I see why people have been putting his hand up for trade bait, he still giving opposition teams something to think about when he's on the field.

Here's another thing not many people would've thought, Trent Rivers as Best First Year Player. Some would've said that we got him due to being friends with Luke Jackson at East Freo, but now we know that he's just someone who cures homesickness. Kysaiah Pickett has been a real livewire in the forward line and Jackson was superb before he got rubbed out for the season, but it's ended up being Rivers who gets top place their with his determination at the end of games. He's been apart of the defensive wall along with Michael Hibberd, who this year is missing his family for more tragic reasons. The fact that Hibberd got onto the field says something, let alone getting enough points to finish equal 9th place with Rivers.

Who else can I took about, I'm surprised I've written this much. Sam Weideman has been a comfort in the forward line this year with his marking and scored 19 goals to be on top with Bayley Fritsch (who didn't score any points) for the Dees goalkicking. 2 other players who didn't score points was Nathan Jones, of which this year might be the first I can't use BnF placings to say he isn't being carried by the team towards game 300, and James Harmes, who has gone from finishing 4th last year to not even being in the team a year later. Hopefully this isn't the last we've seen of either of them.

And now, something different.

Spoiler: Other Awards That I Made Up To Give Other People Recognition

The Cameron Bruce Fast Starter Award
Remember when the footy season started in March, went away as soon as Round 1 ended, then showed up 2 months later only to go say Hi to Fitzroy in Queensland? This award did after I had to shorten it to 4 games to stay being the first quarter of the season. Did that change the winner?

Spoiler: Other Awards That I Made Up To Give Other People Recognition

​	R1​	R2​	R4​	R5​	Total​
Petracca, Christian​	9​	10​	6​	10​	35​
Oliver, Clayton​	​	9​	9​	​	18​
May, Steven​	​	​	7​	9​	16​
Hibberd, Michael​	​	​	8​	8​	16​
Gawn, Max​	​	8​	​	6​	14​

No, it did not. Would have to been one of the highest scoring starts a player has had short of getting 4 BOGs. Petracca would go on to perfect his imitation of the Energizer Bunny and leave everyone in his dust. Congrats Christian Petracca.

The Nathan Jones Late Bloomer Award
Now to the other end of the season, where we agreed to never visit Cairns again, agreed to visit the 90s again and agreed that missing finals feels a little better when you still beat the Dons... I dunno, still sucks. So who did the best going into the pre-season?​

​	R15​	R16​	R17​	R18​	Total​
May, Steven​	8​	6​	9​	10​	33​
Langdon, Ed​	10​	7​	10​	​	27​
Petracca, Christian​	​	8​	7​	8​	23​
Rivers, Trent​	​	9​	8​	​	17​
Viney, Jack​	​	10​	​	​	10​

Langdon was on track to take this home, but May withstood and got crowned the winner. Petracca still managed to feature here, Rivers was also streaking home, but it was all May and Langdon and at the end, Steven May came out top. Congrats Steven May.

Most Best-On-Grounds
Not an award, per say, just some recognition as the title says.​

May, Steven​	4​	v Port​	v Dogs​	v Saints​	v Dons​
Petracca, Christian​	3​	v Blues​	v Tigers​	v Roos​	​
Viney, Jack​	3​	v Eagles​	v Lions​	v Freo​	​
Oliver, Clayton​	2​	v Crows​	v Pies​	​	​
Langdon, Ed​	2​	v Swans​	v Giants​	​	​
Gawn, Max​	2​	v Suns​	v Hawks​	​	​
Brayshaw, Angus​	1​	v Cats​	​	​	​

Another accolade for Steven May. If it wasn't for his performance in the last round, we'd almost have 3-4 people being joint winners. While being best on doesn't always win you the 426, it definitely doesn't hurt to be there. Congrats Steven May

And since we didn't make finals...
The Shane Woewodin Most Handsome Award
Back in the early days, people would give Woewodin votes simply for his looks, and people stopped doing that once he left the club. Until A11dAtP0w3R in Round 18 decided he'd give votes on the best haircut. So, instead of including them there, they're included here.​

​ 5​	Tomlinson, Adam​	I like his haircut, I set my watch to it​
​ 2​	Smith, Joel​	nice beard​
​ 2​	Rivers, Trent​	most sensible haircut of all our youngsters​
​ 1​	Gawn, May​	nice beard but not as good as Smith's​
​ 1​	Neal-Bullen, Alex​	nice eyes, facial hair and jaw line​
​ 1​	Petracca, Christian​	I like his thickness​

And since this is a joke, no he can't change his mind now. It's set in stone. Congrats Adam Tomlinson.​

Edit: Alright so, for some reason, the spoiler thing is split in two and, no matter times I edit it back whole, it's split in two. That's a bummer.
​

Spoiler: Total Votes

Petracca, Christian	660
May, Steven	535.05
Viney, Jack	352.05
Oliver, Clayton	338.55
Gawn, Max	278.5
Langdon, Ed	243.05
Weideman, Sam	123.05
Lever, Jake	120.05
Brayshaw, Angus	99.05
Rivers, Trent	92
Hibberd, Michael	65.05
Spargo, Charlie	50.5
Hannan, Mitch	48.05
Lockhart, Jay	45.05
Salem, Christian	41.55-99
Pickett, Kysaiah	41.05
Melksham, Jake	33.05
Tomlinson, Adam	32
McDonald, Oscar	29.05
vandenBerg, Aaron	24.05
Hunt, Jayden	23
Jackson, Luke	21.05
Brown, Mitch	17
Jones, Nathan	15
Fritsch, Bayley	13.55
Walters, Michael	12
Smith, Joel	11
Sparrow, Tom	10
Preuss, Braydon	8
Bennell, Harley	7.05
Bedford, Toby	6
McDonald, Tom	6
The Knee In Viney’s Face	5
Baker, Oskar	3.5
Neal-Bullen, Alex	2
Wagner, Josh	1
Jetta, Neville	0.05
Topkent	-1
Harmes, James	-1.95

​

And lastly, thank you to everyone that voted. Even if you voted once, stopped half-way through, started half-way through. Whether you agreed with someone, disagreed with someone or didn't care who said what. The 426 is about who the board thinks was the best, who the board as a whole can agree on who has been the best player of the year. It remains to be seen who has received their last vote for the club, but I hope that eveyone that joined in, especially the person reading this (so cheesy ) returns to go again in 2021.

The reason why I go into such a deep dive in to the statistics of the 426 instead of, say, the Bluey Truscott is that, as far as I can tell, you can't look into the Round-by-Round figures of the Bluey Truscott. It's a shame considering it'd be an interesting insight as to how the coaches vote. The 426 allows me to look at how people have voted and into how players have risen and fallen over the years a way I can't go into with the Bluey Truscott. So again, thank you for putting your thoughts into the vote threads the weeks that you do and until next time...cya.​

 

[Headless]

Honestly mate, this has been genuinely fantastic work. It's been one of my highlights of the season. I really appreciate your time and I'm sure many others here do also.

Well done FootyGuy13.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

Yep, awesome stuff FG, many thanks for all your work with the award this season.

 

[CTHORANGE]

Great work FootyGuy13

Had to laugh when I saw James Harmes ended on negative votes, bloody hell Harmesy, even Josh Wagner got 1 vote and a knee to Viney's face got 5.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

The most surprising part being was how he finished on negative votes and not one of those negative votes was from me iirc.

 

[FootyGuy13]

Also, I should say in case you're wondering, I will post updated and, where possible, full lists on what I've shown here at the end of the season. So if you're wondering where on lists such as the BOG list above a certain player is, you're gonna have to wait until September-October to see.

If Chris Dawes is one and Cam Pederson isn't I'm going to be so disappointed in this board

Highest Scoring Season, Biggest Take of Votes in 1 Game, Most Votes in a Season and Most Votes in 1 game.


The Best Players against Every Club using the 3-2-1 System

For this, I took the Top 3 of every game since Round 10, 2001 until Round 23, 2019 and gave it the usual 3-2-1 system. The total Top 3 games only goes back to Round 1, 2004 because something something integrity, so some numbers have an asterisk next to it if that player got a Top 3 result from the 2001-03 seasons.

The left column is the number of times the player finished in the Top 3 in the votes against that particular team. The David Neitz v Footscray example is that he finished in the Top 3 thrice in a row 2003, 2002 and 2002, and so has enough points to be mentioned.

So why does the left column say 0* and not 3? Because the left column only goes back to 2004 due to the 2003 season abruptly ending after Round 3, meaning most teams are missing a game while a handful are missing 2. So why did I include the 2001, 2002, 2003 that do have threads in the right column? Because I still wanted to showcase those feats.

The Best Players Every 100 Vote Threads


Longest Streak of Top 5 Games and Longest Streak of Best-On-Grounds


Attendance of Every Vote Thread and the Season Average


Amount of Players getting Votes across All Games



BTW Headless A11dAtP0w3R jhong , as the only people who voted every game this year, you mind if I post your voting stats for the year?​

 

[Headless]

Go for it mate. Would be interested to see and to compare against general vibe.

FWIW, general vibe would be like:

1. Petracca
2. May
3. Langdon
4. Viney
5. Gawn
6. Oliver
7. Salem

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

No-issue with me. I can't remember anything other than not voting for Harmes.

 

[jhong]

View attachment 969142View attachment 969773


Highest Scoring Season, Biggest Take of Votes in 1 Game, Most Votes in a Season and Most Votes in 1 game.
View attachment 969181

The Best Players against Every Club using the 3-2-1 System
View attachment 969137


The Best Players Every 100 Vote Threads
View attachment 969168

Longest Streak of Top 5 Games and Longest Streak of Best-On-Grounds
View attachment 969192

Attendance of Every Vote Thread and the Season Average
View attachment 969163

Amount of Players getting Votes across All Games
View attachment 969155


BTW Headless A11dAtP0w3R jhong , as the only people who voted every game this year, you mind if I post your voting stats for the year?​

[/QUOTE No issue if you do from me . Very impressive work .

 

[Dancing Potato]

Pretty close to the B&F results. Same top 5 (different order) and the same top 2. I guess we know what we're doing here.

Brilliant work FootyGuy13

 

[FootyGuy13]

And now for the final installment: The Alternate Facts. What happens when you take the votes and put it through a different system? Not saying that I want to change the system being used, just a fun exercise into what might have been if we were like other boards.

First up is the system used by the Giants board. After everyone has voted, votes are tallied and a percentage is worked out to award MVP points out of 100 each week.


Next is the system that had been used by the Freo board. I'm gonna let someone else explain it.

I want to tweak how we count the voting and am open to any comment. One problem I have with our format (which is the case with all 'exclusive systems' like the Brownlow for e.g.) is that the players who weren't necessarily the stars of the show, but still played well by general consensus of the voting frequently get left out of the 7-1 scoring that we ultimately rank them as.

As a bit of a compromise, what I propose is that we still score them 7-1 as we've always done, but where normally only 7 players can get some points, if players that rank after the first seven have enough votes (as a % of all votes given, and enough voters) that they also pick up 1 point for the round.

For the first round for example, making it a cut off of 2% and 5 voters minimum (and making this the cutoff for the whole season), then the following distribution of points would look like this:

7 Fyfe, Nathan - 222 (66)
6 Sandilands, Aaron - 165 (54)
5 Johnson, Michael - 149 (50)
4 Mzungu, Tendai - 131 (51)
3 Ballantyne, Hayden - 102 (47)
2 Barlow, Michael - 68 (27)
1 McPharlin, Luke - 70 (33)
1 Pearce, Danyle - 70 (32)
1 Hill, Stephen - 47 (26)
1 Mundy, David - 32 (17)
-----
- Sutcliffe, Cameron - 13 (9)


Sutty would just miss out in this instance, but only just.

I like to call this the Lee Spurr clause - because last year Spurr is a good example of a player that would often pick up the lower votes, but rarely enough to make our top list. With this method, he would have polled higher in the overall votes, as he did in the club's B&F which rightly had him amongst our best. Ultimately it wont make a big difference to the top end. The top vote getters will always get lots of points, but it rewards those consistent performers that tend to get 'mid-level' votes. The method I'm suggesting would also be particularly useful when we have even performances like last week but would not reward those that just pick up the stray vote and/or when we have less of a spread of votes.

This has ended up being a long post, but there it is. Feel free to shout it down or add suggestion as see fit, but that's what I'd like to do.

The next one is the standard 5-4-3-2-1 system most boards use.


And now, the 3-2-1 that everyone else uses and that I use to compare the early years of the 426. Also, the only system here that lists May as the best player


This is the average votes given out each week. It's like the GWS system, but out of 12 instead of 100.


Which brings us to the 3 people who voted each week. First Headless


Secondly, A11dAtP0w3R which it has finally clicked what the username actually says...


And lastly, jhong


And, because it's all the media talks about, the SuperCoach / Dream Team version.


And that's it, no more posts for this for the year maybe, who knows, I don't wanna promise things.
TheCount TheDarkDwarf May I please get the thread stickied.
Also gonna tag TheInjuryFactory Tonga Bob and harry000 . Reckon they'll like this.

 

[Headless]

So good mate. So good. Thanks for putting that together. Pretty close to what I expected for my votes - Hibberd and Salem a bit stiff (on many occasions, Salem just missed out on snagging a vote), and also Gawn.

Thanks again for all your work this season.

P.S. TheInjuryFactory, Tonga Bob, harry000 - grr!

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

Stunned I gave Gawn the equal second most votes for the year, absolutely stunned. Going to need to have a good look in mirror.

Proud that I gave all flash and no substance Pickett only one and ultra spud James Harmed none.

 

[jhong]

Aside from a few charity votes thrown in , happy with that outcome . Fantastic effort to compile and present this thread . Well done !

 

[Gysberts2Bate]

Stunned I gave Gawn the equal second most votes for the year, absolutely stunned. Going to need to have a good look in mirror.

Even worse when you consider that he missed four games and probably played a few injured.

 

[TheCount]

Absolutely exceptional work FootyGuy13 ... Thread it Stickied for all to see.