List Mgmt. 2025 AFL Draft - Draft Analysis

[THE_GUN]

Nobody believes 2 picks in the mid 20's are worth pick 8 generally.

But there are specific cases where they might be.

The only reason north were able to get a trade for #11 was because Carlton got bent over by the eagles bidding at #3 for dean and they were stuck. No other draft would that even come close let alone for pick #8

2nd rounders are usually mid 20's these days and are subject to being tier 3/4 type players and are very much hit and miss

 

[We are back baby!]

Thanks for that. It certainly balances things up a bit. I had only gone back to 2005 to get 15 years. The A, A+, C+ gradings etc are of course all debatable but I think you have done a decent job of it overall.

What we were discussing was the likelihood of getting needle shifting guns with a single pick around 8 versus 2 picks around 26.

No matter how you define it, the gradings are always going to be debatable.

You have in your picks 7 & 9 contingent a few I would grade differently. Certainly if you looked at their salaries some of them wouldn't have been paid like A Graders.

A graders you have: Hale Mackie Ryder Rich Wines Smith Young McEvoy Ziebell Prestia.

A+ Graders you have: Lewis, Vlastuin, Selwood, Darcy Moore, Naughton.

Others may disagree, but to be an A+ player(the highest possible grade) I think you need to be doing something really noteworthy. For Key Forwards winning Colemans or near enough, mids winning Brownlow's or Coach MVP's or consistently finishing near the top for a number of years or be a consistently very strong big game performer.

I would reduce your A+'s to Selwood.

To be an A grader you need to be a marquee wage player, really strong consistent performer over a decent period, reliably stand up in big games, and be a top 10% in your role level player for a number of years.

I would say your A Grade list should be more like Lewis, Wines(just and probably being generous due to Brownlow) Smith, Young, Vlastuin, Prestia, Naughton(I am biased towards him due to a belief he is worth a lot more than his goals.). You could possibly throw in Darcy Moore but you could as easily argue he is not quite at this level.

Mackie is not an A Grader, good player, but he is not a needle shifter.

Hale, same. Neither a top end ruckman nor forward. Very handy second ruck but this is not A Grade.

Rich too many exploitable weaknesses to be considered an A Grader.

Lewis is not A+ he is not in the top shelf of players in the comp ever. Probably an A Grader though.

Moore is not A+ he has probably had a couple of years where he flirted with being in the top 2 key defenders. Has some poor finals.

Naughton I love but is not an A+ Key Forward.

Ryder has not had an A Grade career, very good career but not consistently top few in his position.

McEvoy, Ziebell, just not A Grade careers.

Equally you might be a bit generous with Redden and Seb Ross as A Grade careers.


So for the purposes of the debate I would just reduce it to something like this:

Picks 7, 8, 9

Highest echelon - Selwood, Serong.

Really strong careers - Lewis, Wines, Moore, Smith, Prestia, Vlastuin, Naughton, Young(can raise his rating yet)


Picks 25, 26, 27

Highest echelon - Merrett, Dunkley

Really strong careers - S Edwards, Darling, Viney

Where you can argue some of the A Graders in the pick 7-8-9 cohort are or will be A+, you probably cannot say that with the Edwards, Darling, Viney.


I don't know. I think it sort of supports my view that 2 picks in the mid 20's are almost, but not quite as likely to find you a needle shifter as 1 pick in the 7-9 range. This analysis seems to me to confirm the trading behaviour of the clubs, the value is mainly tilted to the side of one 7-9 range pick over 2 x mid 20's picks but not to the extent you would forever rule out doing a trade like North did with Richmond. If you get exceptional circumstances like a really strong draft v a really weak draft, or particular positional needs, you wouldn't rule that trade out based on the whole relevant history of the picks in question.

Please stop with all this hot air .. It's making my hair frizzy.

Nobody believes 2 picks in the mid 20's are worth pick 8 generally.

But there are specific cases where they might be.

Yep .... you finally got to where everyone else was standing ....


2016 is probably the only exception Logue (pick 8) for 2 of Parfitt (26), Lipinski (27) & Bolton (29) - All premiership players - is probably the only time in draft history that 2 picks in the late 20s was better than pick 8

 

[NZ_Tiger]

In the interview with Richo, Gieschen mentioned there were 'players we moved towards the top of the list a little bit more' on account of us needing speed and outside run.
It proves it's not always 'take the best available' for those who believe this type of pre-draft media fluff:

There’s always a matrix. If you don’t adjust it you’ll have a list of the same types of players.

It also has to be reviewed and iterated. This year we made speed a higher rated factor than say contested ball winning. This ensured we came away with speed while still sticking to our draft order.

We’ve done similar in previous drafts to make
Sure we take key positions players.

 

[RichmondEshays]

Grlj + Hotton = pace
Lalor + Cumming = pace + strength
Smillie + Kmac2 = strength

 

[dean33]

Did he say ' He has all the tools ' ?

Yes, also said he was a "likely type"

 

[dean33]

A few more snippets to help assess draft picks and ranges. Making an AA squad is a pretty good indication of a top-line season - in the top handful of players in the league for their position. Many players are capable of one-off excellent seasons to get a single AA squad selection, but once a player gets 2+ then they are more than just a B-grader who excelled for one season.

So here is the % of players who received 2 or more AA squad selections across their career (whether they make the team or not isn't factored in, they are just in the squad at least):

Pick 1: 40.91%

Pick 2: 40.91%

Pick 3-5: 19.70%

Pick 6-10: 16.36%

Pick 11-20: 14.09%

Pick 21-30: 6.36%

Pick 31-50: 6.67%

Pick 51-70: 2.45%

That one was just for you WABB

It further emphasises why a list is built over 6-7 x years and why you can't afford to sweat the misses too much.

If you had picks 3, 4 and 5 for 5 x consecutive drafts, so 15 x elite juniors....history tells you :

1. 11 of them will never make the final AA team.

2. Only 3 of 15 will make more than 1 x AA squad.

And more sobering than that...if you had picks 21-30 for 5 x consecutive drafts, so 50 x picks early in the second round:

1. 45 of them will never make an AA team.

2. Only 3 of 50 will make more than 1 x AA squad.


I guess all of this tells us why it's clear teams are willing to give multiple firsts for established elite players like Merrett, Butters, Petracca and Curnow. They are bloody hard to find. And when you get a Prestia for pick-6 or a TT for picks 12 and 21....it's a deadset bargain.

I imagine all these percentages increase depending on if the team is Geelong?

 

[_RT_]

In the interview with Richo, Gieschen mentioned there were 'players we moved towards the top of the list a little bit more' on account of us needing speed and outside run.
It proves it's not always 'take the best available' for those who believe this type of pre-draft media fluff:

IMO too many get caught up with the phrase best available literally meaning take the best available. If it was the case then every clubs draft board would look identical to each other, but they aren't, there are always slight differences as club take into account the type of players they need.

I believe that in the AFL all clubs work on a theory of taking the best available while also considering your list needs so it becomes a combination of the 2 approaches throughout the draft and it's also an approach I taken when looking at players I'd like to see us draft and I would encourage fans to take a similar approach when looking at the kids in the draft moving forward.

 

[DickieKnee]

Yes, also said he was a "likely type"

A likely type with all the tools sounds promising.

 

[THE THIN MAN]

A likely type with all the tools sounds promising.