Opinion 2023 AFL Draft Prospects

[dergert]

Very. He has intel. Does say that that Hawks pick is still 50-50 but named Watson.

Total BS that Walter gets bid on at 3 instead of 2.

 

[Struggle]

How is Watson physically? Worried about him getting brushed off on tackles against men like half of the team. We can't handle another liability on that side of the ball
Is he closer to Pickett than Caleb on that front?

 

[ossie_21]

How is Watson physically? Worried about him getting brushed off on tackles against men like half of the team. We can't handle another liability on that side of the ball
Is he closer to Pickett than Caleb on that front?

Not our concern, he will be a Hawk.

 

[Charlie Bucket]

How is Watson physically? Worried about him getting brushed off on tackles against men like half of the team. We can't handle another liability on that side of the ball
Is he closer to Pickett than Caleb on that front?

Any lack of strength and size is balanced out by his pace and agility.

He’ll be buried every now and then, but it won’t matter when he’s regularly running rings around opponents.

 

[House_of_Dahl]

How is Watson physically? Worried about him getting brushed off on tackles against men like half of the team. We can't handle another liability on that side of the ball
Is he closer to Pickett than Caleb on that front?

I'm not too worried on this front. He's aggressive and hard at it. Force = mass x acceleration. He lacks in mass but has acceleration in spades.

 

[Libbaaaa]

The problem with the Naughton contract is that we can't sign everyone on big money.
If I had to pick a player to let go between Bontempelli, English, Ugle-Hagan and Naughton, I'd be letting go of Naughton.

The new salary cap changes everything though. Plus the four you mentioned are all in different phases of their career. Naughton just signed his monster forever deal, Marra will sign his hefty but slightly discounted deal to fake him through to free agency, Bont won’t bleed the club for the money while English is looking for a pay day in a market that doesn’t value rucks.

Total BS that Walter gets bid on at 3 instead of 2.

North probably has an agreement on the side with the Suns to help out on something else in the future by pushing their bid to 3 or not bidding at all. Similar to the Viney and Daicos shenanigans.

 

[weltschmerz]

Knightmare content. Lewis refers to Tom Lewis, a 178cm SANFL mature age midfielder and his 17th ranked player.

Knightmare has admittedly watched no junior footy this year and is filling the power rankings with state league shitters. It's extremely funny.

 

[hatescaptcha]

Joel Freijah would be an amazing get late.

Also keen on Billy Wilson.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[dogwatch]

I don't get why everyone is upset that clubs bid when they do.

The integrity of the FS system and the Academy system (where bids are permitted) depends very much on clubs bidding on those players at roughly their true market value. Kudos to Dalrymple and Sydney if they happen to be the ones who are doing the right thing. And presumably they wouldn't be disappointed if one day the club with the rights to match the bid chooses to pass.

Those with short memories will have forgotten how pissed off we all were that Nick Daicos didn't get a bid at #2. Maybe there was some funny business there or maybe there wasn't, but it underlines how important it is that some club bids when they should. For recruiting managers it's like the old footy saying: "When it's your turn to go, you go." Whoever is in that sweet spot for the tied player should really be making the call.

Don't forget we bid on Fletcher last year before we took Busslinger. Some called that a revenge bid for Brisbane pinching Dunkley but I reckon it was about right. Fletcher will be a decent player and would fit beautifully into an area of need for us. He has already played 14 games in his debut year.

 

[weltschmerz]

I don't get why everyone is upset that clubs bid when they do.

I think I get more pissed off when clubs don't bid when everyone and their dog knows there's a better player at their pick. Handshake deals and petty shit.

 

[dogwatch]

I think I get more pissed off when clubs don't bid when everyone and their dog knows there's a better player at their pick. Handshake deals and petty s**t.

Exactly. Flipside of the same coin.

 

[Del203211]

I think I get more pissed off when clubs don't bid when everyone and their dog knows there's a better player at their pick. Handshake deals and petty s**t.

Should be classified as draft tampering

 

[Golden_6]

Total BS that Walter gets bid on at 3 instead of 2.

There’s clearly something to it if Twomey is running with that order. More often than not his phantom drafts this late are based on fact rather than option.

 

[Euku]

He’s had a ridiculously good season statistically. Just doesn’t have the X factor that Watson has. You could argue we are getting the third best mid in the draft.

Could argue he's the best midfielder in this draft

 

[Del203211]

Could argue he's the best midfielder in this draft

Absolutely. Has all the skills.

 

[VitalDread]

Knightmare content. Lewis refers to Tom Lewis, a 178cm SANFL mature age midfielder and his 17th ranked player.

Knightmare has admittedly watched no junior footy this year and is filling the power rankings with state league shitters. It's extremely funny.

Shocked we don't have a Voss top 10

 

[Bonti 5416]

 

[weltschmerz]

Shocked we don't have a Voss top 10

He features pretty high, fear not

 

[Bulldogs85]

Knightmare content. Lewis refers to Tom Lewis, a 178cm SANFL mature age midfielder and his 17th ranked player.

Knightmare has admittedly watched no junior footy this year and is filling the power rankings with state league shitters. It's extremely funny.

He was had a thing for mature age players

 

[PurpJuice]

Write up on Sanders, some of y’all are seriously underrating him.

 

[dogwatch]

A frequently overlooked aspect of the draft field each year is the Relative Age Effect, or the month that each prospect was born in. Everyone's sort of aware of the issue - that some kids are 6 to 12 months younger than others in the draft and therefore haven't had the same physical development and coaching - but this typically gets disregarded or just clean forgotten when everyone starts to salivate over videos of the top 10 picks. We sort of assume they're all from the same draft class so they're all on an equal footing, right?

Wrong. The kids with late birthdays are at some sort of disadvantage, but how much of a disadvantage is debatable.

There have also been some interesting studies in major world sports about the disproportionate number of players at elite level who have birthdays in the first six months of the administrative year (Jan-June for Australia). The theory goes that those kids get identified and mentored more during their junior years because they are on average six months older than their peers born in the second half of the year. They are bigger and more adept so they get noticed. The latter group don't come on as much or they lose interest sooner leaving a higher proportion of elite players with Jan-June birthdays. Those born in the last quarter of the administrative year seem to fare the worst.

So here's some intriguing numbers from this year's draft nominees.

Total nominees: 115
Nominees born in 2005: 107 - the other 8 were born in 2004 (5) plus El Nour (2001), Chatfield (2000) and van der Heuvel (1998)

So let's focus on the 2005 babies:
Jan-March birthdays: 23 (21.5%)
April-June birthdays: 34 (31.8%)
July-Sept birthdays: 28 (26.2%)
Oct-Dec birthdays: 20 (18.7%)

That's less of a split than I thought it would be - only about 53% to 47% in favour of first half year birthdays. The last quarter is noticeably smaller though.

Top 10 picks (Cal Twomey phantom):
1 Harley Reid APRIL
2 Colby McKercher APRIL
3 Jed Walter JUNE
4 Zane Duursma AUGUST
5 Nick Watson FEBRUARY
6 Ryley Sanders JANUARY
7 Caleb Windsor JUNE
8 James Leake OCTOBER
9 Ethan Read JULY
10 Daniel Curtin MARCH

So of those top 10, seven were born in the first half of the year. Ethan Read was born in early July. The only two genuine outliers are Duursma (late August) and Leake (early October).

Furthermore, after James Leake there are no other kids with a birthday between October and December until you get down to Twomey's 26th ranked player, Logan Morris, then Wil Dawson at pick 28. So there are only 3 of them in the top 30 when on a random distribution you'd expect 7 or 8.

One suggestion has been that as these kids move into their 20s the maturational differences should even out. The late birthdays should start to blossom and the early birthdays should come back to the field a bit. This is not strongly supported by the evidence however, except in the "Underdog Effect" where there is a reverse correlation - a high representation of late birthdays among the very pinnacle of the elite. This intriguing phenomenon is discussed in the article from fivethirtyeight (below). Kobe Bryant, Harry Kane and our own Marcus Bontempelli

4

Marcus Bontempelli

Age

30

Ht

194cm

Wt

96kg

Pos.

Mid

Career

Season

Last 5

D

22.5

5star

K

12.3

5star

HB

10.3

5star

M

3.6

4star

T

4.8

5star

CL

4.4

5star

D

18.4

4star

K

9.7

4star

HB

8.8

4star

M

2.6

3star

T

4.1

5star

CL

4.0

5star

D

12.0

3star

K

5.8

3star

HB

6.2

4star

M

2.0

3star

T

3.8

5star

CL

1.8

4star

are examples of this.

If you place a bit of credence in this (as Simon Dalrymple appeared to do while at the WB) then here's a list of possible bargains, the kids with late birthdays:

Wil Dawson	201 cm	20/12/2005​
Zane Zakostelsky	196 cm	14/12/2005​
Brayden Laplanche	190 cm	30/11/2005​
Matthew Carroll	188 cm	28/11/2005​
Cam Nyko	178 cm	25/11/2005​
Riley Weatherill	197 cm	21/11/2005​
Kade De La Rue	185 cm	19/11/2005​
Archie Roberts	184 cm	18/11/2005​
Joel Freijah	191 cm	14/11/2005​
Geordie Payne	184 cm	6/11/2005​
Mahmoud Taha	183 cm	4/11/2005​
Luca Slade	182 cm	3/11/2005​
Oskar Smartt	180 cm	26/10/2005​
Hugh Byrne	194 cm	19/10/2005​
Cooper Trembath	193 cm	17/10/2005​
Henry Maerschel	190 cm	11/10/2005​
Jack Callinan	180 cm	7/10/2005​
Logan Evans	189 cm	7/10/2005​
Lachlan Smith	203 cm	5/10/2005​
James Leake	188 cm	2/10/2005​

Does anyone spot any good value there?
The only names I can recall regularly mentioned in this thread have been de la Rue and Freijah, both November babies.

LINKS

Month of birth determines who becomes a sports star

The month of your birth influences your chances of becoming a professional sportsperson, an Australian researcher has found. Scientists studied the seasonal patterns of population health and found the month you were born in could influence your future health and fitness.

www.sciencedaily.com

Relative age effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Politics News | Breaking Political News, Video & Analysis-ABC News

ABC News is your trusted source on political news stories and videos. Get the latest coverage and analysis on everything from the Trump presidency, Senate, House and Supreme Court.

fivethirtyeight.com

 

[dergert]

Sandra Sully with the late news here.. going to be an interesting night.

 

[PurpJuice]

Sandra Sully with the late news here.. going to be an interesting night.

If melb get ahead of us and take sanders, that leaves us with Watson. Would be super disappointed


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[olimauldon]

Like the look of Arie Schoenmaker if we were to trade back into the second round

 

[doggiesin08]

A frequently overlooked aspect of the draft field each year is the Relative Age Effect, or the month that each prospect was born in. Everyone's sort of aware of the issue - that some kids are 6 to 12 months younger than others in the draft and therefore haven't had the same physical development and coaching - but this typically gets disregarded or just clean forgotten when everyone starts to salivate over videos of the top 10 picks. We sort of assume they're all from the same draft class so they're all on an equal footing, right?

Wrong. The kids with late birthdays are at some sort of disadvantage, but how much of a disadvantage is debatable.

There have also been some interesting studies in major world sports about the disproportionate number of players at elite level who have birthdays in the first six months of the administrative year (Jan-June for Australia). The theory goes that those kids get identified and mentored more during their junior years because they are on average six months older than their peers born in the second half of the year. They are bigger and more adept so they get noticed. The latter group don't come on as much or they lose interest sooner leaving a higher proportion of elite players with Jan-June birthdays. Those born in the last quarter of the administrative year seem to fare the worst.

So here's some intriguing numbers from this year's draft nominees.

Total nominees: 115
Nominees born in 2005: 107 - the other 8 were born in 2004 (5) plus El Nour (2001), Chatfield (2000) and van der Heuvel (1998)

So let's focus on the 2005 babies:
Jan-March birthdays: 23 (21.5%)
April-June birthdays: 34 (31.8%)
July-Sept birthdays: 28 (26.2%)
Oct-Dec birthdays: 20 (18.7%)

That's less of a split than I thought it would be - only about 53% to 47% in favour of first half year birthdays. The last quarter is noticeably smaller though.

Top 10 picks (Cal Twomey phantom):
1 Harley Reid APRIL
2 Colby McKercher APRIL
3 Jed Walter JUNE
4 Zane Duursma AUGUST
5 Nick Watson FEBRUARY
6 Ryley Sanders JANUARY
7 Caleb Windsor JUNE
8 James Leake OCTOBER
9 Ethan Read JULY
10 Daniel Curtin MARCH

So of those top 10, seven were born in the first half of the year. Ethan Read was born in early July. The only two genuine outliers are Duursma (late August) and Leake (early October).

Furthermore, after James Leake there are no other kids with a birthday between October and December until you get down to Twomey's 26th ranked player, Logan Morris, then Wil Dawson at pick 28. So there are only 3 of them in the top 30 when on a random distribution you'd expect 7 or 8.

One suggestion has been that as these kids move into their 20s the maturational differences should even out. The late birthdays should start to blossom and the early birthdays should come back to the field a bit. This is not strongly supported by the evidence however, except in the "Underdog Effect" where there is a reverse correlation - a high representation of late birthdays among the very pinnacle of the elite. This intriguing phenomenon is discussed in the article from fivethirtyeight (below). Kobe Bryant, Harry Kane and our own Marcus Bontempelli are examples of this.

If you place a bit of credence in this (as Simon Dalrymple appeared to do while at the WB) then here's a list of possible bargains, the kids with late birthdays:

Wil Dawson	201 cm	20/12/2005​
Zane Zakostelsky	196 cm	14/12/2005​
Brayden Laplanche	190 cm	30/11/2005​
Matthew Carroll	188 cm	28/11/2005​
Cam Nyko	178 cm	25/11/2005​
Riley Weatherill	197 cm	21/11/2005​
Kade De La Rue	185 cm	19/11/2005​
Archie Roberts	184 cm	18/11/2005​
Joel Freijah	191 cm	14/11/2005​
Geordie Payne	184 cm	6/11/2005​
Mahmoud Taha	183 cm	4/11/2005​
Luca Slade	182 cm	3/11/2005​
Oskar Smartt	180 cm	26/10/2005​
Hugh Byrne	194 cm	19/10/2005​
Cooper Trembath	193 cm	17/10/2005​
Henry Maerschel	190 cm	11/10/2005​
Jack Callinan	180 cm	7/10/2005​
Logan Evans	189 cm	7/10/2005​
Lachlan Smith	203 cm	5/10/2005​
James Leake	188 cm	2/10/2005​

Does anyone spot any good value there?
The only names I can recall regularly mentioned in this thread have been de la Rue and Freijah, both November babies.

LINKS

Month of birth determines who becomes a sports star

The month of your birth influences your chances of becoming a professional sportsperson, an Australian researcher has found. Scientists studied the seasonal patterns of population health and found the month you were born in could influence your future health and fitness.

www.sciencedaily.com

Relative age effect - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Politics News | Breaking Political News, Video & Analysis-ABC News

ABC News is your trusted source on political news stories and videos. Get the latest coverage and analysis on everything from the Trump presidency, Senate, House and Supreme Court.

fivethirtyeight.com

Maybe kids born April to September get footballs for their birthday presents while kids born October to March get cricket bats …

** not serious