List Mgmt. Crows Salary Cap and Player Salaries (with actual data)

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

In the Lever and McGovern discussion threads there has been a lot of potential contract offers floated about. i.e. Melbourne are supposedly offering Lever $850k/year.

So I thought I'd provide a bit of actual data around what teams pay their players to give some context around what clubs can afford to pay players, while still remaining within the salary cap.

Despite what the media say, the salary cap means that not many players in the competition are on $800k+/year. For example, in 2016 there were only 14 players in the entire competition earning $800k or more.

In addition, breaking down the data shows that paying a couple of players big money will mean that the average salary for the remaining players on your list is a lot lower, which may cause you to lose a few mid-range players to other clubs.

The data below is from this article - http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-03-16/afl-millionaires-club-swells-to-six-players

It is what players were paid in 2016, but I still think it is relevant now. Obviously the number of players in each category would have changed now, but a rough way to update it to 2018 salaries is to just add 20% to each number (as the 2018 salary cap is about 20% higher than the 2016 salary cap).

So a $400k salary in 2016 is equivalent to a $480k salary in 2018. A $500k salary in 2016 is equivalent to a $600k salary in 2018, etc.

The data says that in 2016 there were:

- 89 AFL players that earned $401k-$500k, or about 4.9 players per club (on average).
- 40 AFL players that earned $501k-$600k, or about 2.2 players per club (on average).
- 23 AFL players that earned $601k-$700k, or about 1.3 players per club (on average).
- 18 AFL players that earned $701k-$800k, or about 1 players per club (on average).
- 5 AFL players that earned $801k-$900k, or about 0.28 players per club (on average).
- 3 AFL players that earned $901k-$1m, or about 0.17 players per club (on average).
- 6 AFL players that earned $1m+ (2 that earned $1m-$1.1m, 2 that earned $1.1m-$1.2m and 2 that earned $1.2m+)

If a player earns $400k+ in 2016 dollars (or $480k+ in 2018 dollars) he is almost certain to be one of the top 10 highest paid players at that club. If they are getting more than $500k in 2016 dollars ($600k in 2018 dollars) they will be a top 5 paid player. If they're on $600k+ in 2016 dollars ($720k in 2018 dollars) they are generally one of the 3 highest paid players at their club.

Now the above data is based on the entire competition. Some clubs may have a flatter pay scale, with no players earning more than $700k+/year, but more players earning $500k+/year. Others (such as Sydney), may have multiple players earning $800k+/year and a heap of players on or around $100k/year.

However, on average across the AFL, the top 10 paid players on a list would look like this in 2018 dollars:

1 & 2 - $840k+
3 - $720k+
4 & 5 - $600k+
6-10 - $480k+
11-19 - $360k+

This means the salary cap is heavily skewed towards the top end. In a list of 40 players it is roughly split as follows:

- The 21 lowest paid players (earning $240k/year or less in 2018 dollars) take up about 25% of the salary cap
- The next 8 players (earning about $360k/year in 2018 dollars) take up about 25% of the salary cap
- The next 7 players (earning about $450k-600k/year in 2018 dollars) take up 30% of the salary cap
- The 3 highest paid players (earning $720k+/year in 2018 dollars) take up 20% of the salary cap

Below is the list of current Crows players (excluding rookies). Just for fun, using the above 21-8-7-3 split, let’s see some posters try and re-create the current Crows salary scale based on the start of this season.

If you’re really interested, recreate it for next year, while trying to include Greenwood, Keath and potentially a free agent midfielder, as well as pay rises for players like Lever, McGovern and Milera, who re-signed mid-season.

It’s definitely not an easy task to do and shows just how hard a task the list managers have.

Current Crows main list:
Brad Crouch
Riley Knight
Josh Jenkins
Scott Thompson
Jake Lever
Jordan Gallucci
Jake Kelly
Rory Sloane
Harrison Wigg
Paul Seedsman
Daniel Talia
Taylor Walker
David Mackay
Kyle Hartigan
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Eddie Betts
Rory Atkins
Andy Otten
Charlie Cameron
Sam Jacobs
Kyle Cheney
Richard Douglas
Tom Lynch
Cam Ellis-Yolmen
Rory Laird
Wayne Milera
Myles Poholke
Troy Menzel
Brodie Smith
Elliott Himmelberg
Matthew Signorello
Dean Gore
Harry Dear
Tom Doedee
Ben Davis
Mitch McGovern
Reilly O'Brien
Matt Crouch

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Here’s my attempt at the current 2016 list:

21 players on $240k/year or less
Riley Knight
Scott Thompson
Jake Lever
Jordan Gallucci
Jake Kelly
Harrison Wigg
Kyle Hartigan
Rory Atkins
Andy Otten
Charlie Cameron
Cam Ellis-Yolmen
Wayne Milera
Myles Poholke
Elliott Himmelberg
Matthew Signorello
Dean Gore
Harry Dear
Tom Doedee
Ben Davis
Mitch McGovern
Reilly O'Brien

8 players on about $360k/year
Paul Seedsman
David Mackay
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Kyle Cheney
Rory Laird
Troy Menzel
Matt Crouch

7 players on about $450k-600k/year
Brad Crouch
Josh Jenkins
Eddie Betts
Sam Jacobs
Richard Douglas
Tom Lynch
Brodie Smith

3 players on $720k+/year
Rory Sloane
Daniel Talia
Taylor Walker

And here is my attempt at a 2017 list. This shows just how hard it is when you have a player jump from the bottom category to the second top category and another player also jump up a category when the vast majority of the players in those categories are either already contracted or are playing at a level to justify remaining in the top 10.

End the end I cheated and allowed 1 more player in the $360k/year category instead of the $240k/year or less category, justifying it by having Tex and Rory take slight pay cuts to pay for McGovern jumping up a category.

21 players on $240k/year or less
Riley Knight
Scott Thompson – Delisted and replaced by Hugh Greenwood
Jake Lever - Moves up to the $450-600k/year category
Jordan Gallucci
Jake Kelly
Harrison Wigg – Delisted and replaced by Alex Keath
Kyle Hartigan
Rory Atkins
Andy Otten
Charlie Cameron
Cam Ellis-Yolmen – Delisted and replaced by draft pick
Wayne Milera – Moves up to the $360k/year category
Myles Poholke
Elliott Himmelberg
Matthew Signorello
Dean Gore – Delisted and replaced by Jackson Edwards
Harry Dear
Tom Doedee
Ben Davis
Mitch McGovern - Moves up to the $360k/year category
Reilly O'Brien
Kyle Cheney - Offered a contract, but on reduced money

8 players on about $360k/year
Paul Seedsman
David Mackay
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Kyle Cheney – Moves down to the $240k/year category
Rory Laird
Troy Menzel
Matt Crouch
Richard Douglas
Mitch McGovern

7 players on about $450k-600k/year
Brad Crouch
Josh Jenkins
Eddie Betts
Sam Jacobs
Richard Douglas - Moves down to the $360k/year category
Tom Lynch
Brodie Smith
Jake Lever

3 players on $720k+/year
Rory Sloane
Daniel Talia
Taylor Walker

 

[Rotayjay]

As I've said, being an AFL list manager would absolutely do my head in. I'm sick and tired of Crows players leaving. BUT if Gov and Lever want to become our highest-paid players and earn twice as much as teammates who produce similar output, frankly they can piss off.

 

[Geoffa32]

Hugh Greenwood will be in the $360k category

Maybe even $450-$600k for next year.

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[jo172]

Great post. Puts it into perspective

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Hugh Greenwood will be in the $360k category

Maybe even $450-$600k for next year.

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Ok, that's fine. I can understand that. The problem is who is he replacing in that category?

You can't just add him to that category without trading one of the other players already in that category away or downgrading them (and tell me how you reduce the salary of a player with a contract?).

 

[Mego Red]

Fantastic post - you're a high quality poster and always worth reading.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

As I've said, being an AFL list manager would absolutely do my head in. I'm sick and tired of Crows players leaving. BUT if Gov and Lever want to become our highest-paid players and earn twice as much as teammates who produce similar output, frankly they can piss off.

I had enough trouble just adjusting the list for 1 year. The massive problem you face as a list manager is that players coming out of contract often need to be rewarded with a higher salary, yet it is difficult to adjust down the salary of a player who is playing poorly.

I can understand now why some clubs are willing to offload ok players on sightly overpaid salaries for little in return from a trade value perspective. Sometimes the cap space is more important to stop you from losing a couple of players you really want to keep.

 

[Geoffa32]

Ok, that's fine. I can understand that. The problem is who is he replacing in that category?

You can't just add him to that category without trading one of the other players already in that category away or downgrading them (and tell me how you reduce the salary of a player with a contract?).

Yeah I know.

It is tough.

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[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Fantastic post - you're a high quality poster and always worth reading.

Cheers for that.

I thought I'd just try and bring a bit of rationality to the Lever and McGovern discussion and get those screaming "just pay them what they want" to put their money where their mouth is, so to speak.

Putting the players into 4 broad pay categories probably oversimplifies things a little, but it does make it easy enough for your average poster to show how they might manage the list differently.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Yeah I know.

It is tough.

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Very. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.

It also made me realise that we are unlikely to be getting an A-grade mid unless several of our best paid players are currently on heavily front-loaded contracts (meaning they will get paid very little next year) or we lose one of McGovern or Lever. I just can't see how we would afford it otherwise.

 

[Samcro24]

As I think Scorpus was saying last night, heres the problem.

8 players on about $360k/year
Paul Seedsman
David Mackay
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Kyle Cheney
Rory Laird
Troy Menzel
Matt Crouch

 

[Scorpus]

This chart doesn't have Reilly O'Brien, who I since added but then didn't bother updating the screenshot

Based on estimates, I have slightly different figures. I think we're a club that has a lot of mid-tier contracts with some very low contracts at the bottom and not as many massive contracts at the top.

I have the following breakdown:
700k: 2
450-600k: 10
360k: 10
240k or less: 17

My thinking is we have less players at the top end of the $600k bracket in favor of more around the $400k mark, which then falls away massively to our long-term depth players (CEY, Kelly, Otten) and draftees (fixed contracts).

My estimate has us with $500k of cap space when re-signing McGovern and Lever to large contracts.

As you'll see, some players like Matt Crouch, Laird, Cameron and so forth are on smaller than what you'd expect. I've made those estimates based on when those players were contracted. Blokes like Matt Crouch were performing significantly worse than where they are now, but signed contracts upwards of 3 years ago. They will be up for $200k+ rises to their contracts moving into 2019.

The way I see our list management, we can be successful if we do a few things:

1. We can retain Lever and McGovern on good contracts, so long as we don't massively overpay them. I think somewhere in the $1.1 to $1.2 million range collectively can be achieved, though anything around or under $1.0m would be fantastic.
2. If we retain Lever/McGovern on those figures, we have some cap space for bringing in a player, but not a lot. $500k in 2018 is not massive. However, I think we will be freeing up extra space by pushing contracts into 2017, where I see us having $1.6m of free cap space or thereabouts. Through front-loading players like Jenkins, I can see us turning that $1.6m of space in 2017 to an extra $400k of space per year over four years, thereby raising our free space to $900k over four years.
3. We can then retain players coming out of contract in 2018 by moving on mid-tier contracts who are not best 22. We most likely have Hampton, Seedsman and Menzel on mid-tier contracts when none are playing consistent AFL football. If you're on AFL average money or thereabouts ($370k), you really should be in the best 22, and funnily enough if all three were on contracts reflective of their time in the SANFL (aka $240k or under contracts) my analysis would fit much closer to the 21-8-7-3 split. If we move on two of those players, we can gain $500k per year (factoring in draftees to replace them) which can go to extensions for M. Crouch and Laird. I would also anticipate if we are to retain Mackay and Douglas, they would be on lower money or be moved on.

 

[jackster83]

Yeah I know.

It is tough.

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I think the key is to avoid signing up B graders who suddenly have a career best year in their contract year onto juicy, long term deals. Lobbe, Hartlett, Jenkins and now Liam Jones at Carlton.

It is interesting to watch Port virtually push Pittard out the door to try and free up cap space (and possibly get back into the first round of the draft).

 

[Geoffa32]

I think the key is to avoid signing up B graders who suddenly have a career best year in their contract year onto juicy, long term deals. Lobbe, Hartlett, Jenkins and now Liam Jones at Carlton.

It is interesting to watch Port virtually push Pittard out the door to try and free up cap space (and possibly get back into the first round of the draft).

They will also want to keep Trengove who is a massive lost clogger. Even though he plays each week.

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[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

As I think Scorpus was saying last night, heres the problem.

8 players on about $360k/year
Paul Seedsman
David Mackay
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Kyle Cheney
Rory Laird
Troy Menzel
Matt Crouch

The common theme for 4 of them is that they were players traded in. One of the things about trading is that, in order to get a player to nominate your club, you need to put a decent pay offer in.

If the player doesn't live up to their potential (or gets injuried) a la Seedsman, Hampton and Cheney, you end up carrying a good chunk of salary cap on players that don't add much to your team. Add in a Mackay and suddenly 5 out of 8 players in the 11-18 highest paid players aren't contributing a heck of a lot to your team on the field. On top of that, they normally have a 2-4 year contract, so they can stink up your list for a while.

I guess it shows how important it is to get your trades right as a few bad trades can mess up your salary cap management for a number of years.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

This chart doesn't have Reilly O'Brien, who I since added but then didn't bother updating the screenshot

Based on estimates, I have slightly different figures. I think we're a club that has a lot of mid-tier contracts with some very low contracts at the bottom and not as many massive contracts at the top.

I have the following breakdown:
700k: 2
450-600k: 10
360k: 10
240k or less: 17

My thinking is we have less players at the top end of the $600k bracket in favor of more around the $400k mark, which then falls away massively to our long-term depth players (CEY, Kelly, Otten) and draftees (fixed contracts).

My estimate has us with $500k of cap space when re-signing McGovern and Lever to large contracts.

As you'll see, some players like Matt Crouch, Laird, Cameron and so forth are on smaller than what you'd expect. I've made those estimates based on when those players were contracted. Blokes like Matt Crouch were performing significantly worse than where they are now, but signed contracts upwards of 3 years ago. They will be up for $200k+ rises to their contracts moving into 2019.

The way I see our list management, we can be successful if we do a few things:

1. We can retain Lever and McGovern on good contracts, so long as we don't massively overpay them. I think somewhere in the $1.1 to $1.2 million range collectively can be achieved, though anything around or under $1.0m would be fantastic.
2. If we retain Lever/McGovern on those figures, we have some cap space for bringing in a player, but not a lot. $500k in 2018 is not massive. However, I think we will be freeing up extra space by pushing contracts into 2017, where I see us having $1.6m of free cap space or thereabouts. Through front-loading players like Jenkins, I can see us turning that $1.6m of space in 2017 to an extra $400k of space per year over four years, thereby raising our free space to $900k over four years.
3. We can then retain players coming out of contract in 2018 by moving on mid-tier contracts who are not best 22. We most likely have Hampton, Seedsman and Menzel on mid-tier contracts when none are playing consistent AFL football. If you're on AFL average money or thereabouts ($370k), you really should be in the best 22, and funnily enough if all three were on contracts reflective of their time in the SANFL (aka $240k or under contracts) my analysis would fit much closer to the 21-8-7-3 split. If we move on two of those players, we can gain $500k per year (factoring in draftees to replace them) which can go to extensions for M. Crouch and Laird. I would also anticipate if we are to retain Mackay and Douglas, they would be on lower money or be moved on.

Yeah, my list guess is based off of AFL averages. We have no way of knowing how well the actual Crows salary structure adheres to the AFL average.

It could be that your guesses, which is based on a flatter pay scale are closer to the mark. I guess there needs to be at least one club offsetting Sydney's payment structure, which is heavily skewed to the top and bottom ends of the pay scales.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

I think the key is to avoid signing up B graders who suddenly have a career best year in their contract year onto juicy, long term deals. Lobbe, Hartlett, Jenkins and now Liam Jones at Carlton.

It is interesting to watch Port virtually push Pittard out the door to try and free up cap space (and possibly get back into the first round of the draft).

I don't know that I'd put Jenkins in that category. He's clearly our second best KPF and has averaged over 2 goals a game every year for the last 4 years. Mackay is a much better example of a player on a best 22 salary, yet has been dropped about 4 times in the last 2 seasons.

Hartlett I rate, but his problem is he is too injury-prone. Lobbe is totally surplus to needs, but Port can't trade him if he doesn't want to go.

 

[whitey_1975]

In the Lever and McGovern discussion threads there has been a lot of potential contract offers floated about. i.e. Melbourne are supposedly offering Lever $850k/year.

So I thought I'd provide a bit of actual data around what teams pay their players to give some context around what clubs can afford to pay players, while still remaining within the salary cap.

Despite what the media say, the salary cap means that not many players in the competition are on $800k+/year. For example, in 2016 there were only 14 players in the entire competition earning $800k or more.

In addition, breaking down the data shows that paying a couple of players big money will mean that the average salary for the remaining players on your list is a lot lower, which may cause you to lose a few mid-range players to other clubs.

The data below is from this article - http://www.afl.com.au/news/2017-03-16/afl-millionaires-club-swells-to-six-players

It is what players were paid in 2016, but I still think it is relevant now. Obviously the number of players in each category would have changed now, but a rough way to update it to 2018 salaries is to just add 20% to each number (as the 2018 salary cap is about 20% higher than the 2016 salary cap).

So a $400k salary in 2016 is equivalent to a $480k salary in 2018. A $500k salary in 2016 is equivalent to a $600k salary in 2018, etc.

The data says that in 2016 there were:

- 89 AFL players that earned $401k-$500k, or about 4.9 players per club (on average).
- 40 AFL players that earned $501k-$600k, or about 2.2 players per club (on average).
- 23 AFL players that earned $601k-$700k, or about 1.3 players per club (on average).
- 18 AFL players that earned $701k-$800k, or about 1 players per club (on average).
- 5 AFL players that earned $801k-$900k, or about 0.28 players per club (on average).
- 3 AFL players that earned $901k-$1m, or about 0.17 players per club (on average).
- 6 AFL players that earned $1m+ (2 that earned $1m-$1.1m, 2 that earned $1.1m-$1.2m and 2 that earned $1.2m+)

If a player earns $400k+ in 2016 dollars (or $480k+ in 2018 dollars) he is almost certain to be one of the top 10 highest paid players at that club. If they are getting more than $500k in 2016 dollars ($600k in 2018 dollars) they will be a top 5 paid player. If they're on $600k+ in 2016 dollars ($720k in 2018 dollars) they are generally one of the 3 highest paid players at their club.

Now the above data is based on the entire competition. Some clubs may have a flatter pay scale, with no players earning more than $700k+/year, but more players earning $500k+/year. Others (such as Sydney), may have multiple players earning $800k+/year and a heap of players on or around $100k/year.

However, on average across the AFL, the top 10 paid players on a list would look like this in 2018 dollars:

1 & 2 - $840k+
3 - $720k+
4 & 5 - $600k+
6-10 - $480k+
11-19 - $360k+

This means the salary cap is heavily skewed towards the top end. In a list of 40 players it is roughly split as follows:

- The 21 lowest paid players (earning $240k/year or less in 2018 dollars) take up about 25% of the salary cap
- The next 8 players (earning about $360k/year in 2018 dollars) take up about 25% of the salary cap
- The next 7 players (earning about $450k-600k/year in 2018 dollars) take up 30% of the salary cap
- The 3 highest paid players (earning $720k+/year in 2018 dollars) take up 20% of the salary cap

Below is the list of current Crows players (excluding rookies). Just for fun, using the above 21-8-7-3 split, let’s see some posters try and re-create the current Crows salary scale based on the start of this season.

If you’re really interested, recreate it for next year, while trying to include Greenwood, Keath and potentially a free agent midfielder, as well as pay rises for players like Lever, McGovern and Milera, who re-signed mid-season.

It’s definitely not an easy task to do and shows just how hard a task the list managers have.

Current Crows main list:
Brad Crouch
Riley Knight
Josh Jenkins
Scott Thompson
Jake Lever
Jordan Gallucci
Jake Kelly
Rory Sloane
Harrison Wigg
Paul Seedsman
Daniel Talia
Taylor Walker
David Mackay
Kyle Hartigan
Luke Brown
Curtly Hampton
Eddie Betts
Rory Atkins
Andy Otten
Charlie Cameron
Sam Jacobs
Kyle Cheney
Richard Douglas
Tom Lynch
Cam Ellis-Yolmen
Rory Laird
Wayne Milera
Myles Poholke
Troy Menzel
Brodie Smith
Elliott Himmelberg
Matthew Signorello
Dean Gore
Harry Dear
Tom Doedee
Ben Davis
Mitch McGovern
Reilly O'Brien
Matt Crouch

Makes you wonder how Collingwood could possible be under salary cap while adding Lever as well.

 

[Scorpus]

Yeah, my list guess is based off of AFL averages. We have no way of knowing how well the actual Crows salary structure adheres to the AFL average.

It could be that your guesses, which is based on a flatter pay scale are closer to the mark. I guess there needs to be at least one club offsetting Sydney's payment structure, which is heavily skewed to the top and bottom ends of the pay scales.

Yeah back when I did the original analysis for 2017 I started off by using the AFL averages, but then realized that to figure out roughly how much cap space we have, you really need to slot in players to specific values within the $100k brackets the AFL provides. Because if you have everyone at the top of the bracket, you're well over the cap.

If I did a similar analysis for a team like Geelong or Sydney, as you say, I think these clubs' significant proportion of draftees and depth as well as top end star power would skew things a different way.

I think if my guesses are close to the mark, we have made an error in giving out too many fat mid-tier contracts in favor of an extra star or two. If you look at our list profile it's reflective of this too: we only have a small number of really top-end players, but then pretty reasonable depth down to almost the 30th best player on the list. I'd like to see our depth reduced in favor of better high-end talent.

I also suspect that these mid-tier contracts are what has been holding us back from obtaining top-end talent through trading. I've had a suspicion that we never quite offer the right (high) dollar value to recruits and that's a limitation brought about by having too many depth players. On the other hand, Sydney and Geelong have no issue recruiting top-tier players from other sides, but have rubbish depth. I think we are at one end of the scale and those teams are at the other, and the best structure is naturally in the middle.

 

[Scorpus]

Makes you wonder how Collingwood could possible be under salary cap while adding Lever as well.

Similar situation to Sydney and Geelong. Lots of star power at the top end, then atrocious depth. Collingwood would have close to 20 players on around $100k, and then a handful of best 22 on low contracts in the $200k range as well.

 

[Red mist]

Reid has been in the job since late 2014. How long would it take to get the list ticking over in a way that there is a good amount of cap space being made available every season with an even spread of players going out of contract?

 

[Scorpus]

Reid has been in the job since late 2014. How long would it take to get the list ticking over in a way that there is a good amount of cap space being made available every season with an even spread of players going out of contract?

Most contracts are about three years, so approximately that long.

 

[Rotayjay]

I had enough trouble just adjusting the list for 1 year. The massive problem you face as a list manager is that players coming out of contract often need to be rewarded with a higher salary, yet it is difficult to adjust down the salary of a player who is playing poorly.

I can understand now why some clubs are willing to offload ok players on sightly overpaid salaries for little in return from a trade value perspective. Sometimes the cap space is more important to stop you from losing a couple of players you really want to keep.

And the AFL world is moving towards huge long-term deals for potential, trading future picks, front-loading/back-loading ... soon the best list managers will be the most Nostradamus-like ones.

 

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

And the AFL world is moving towards huge long-term deals for potential, trading future picks, front-loading/back-loading ... soon the best list managers will be the most Nostradamus-like ones.

Yep, if someone like a Josh Kelly signs a long term deal and then gets injured or doesn't live up to the hype he could ruin a club's chances of challenging for a flag for 5+ years.