BigFooty Forum

There's a lot of talk and resentment on here regarding the Eagle's poor drafting. My gut feel has always been that it's slightly under par, but nowhere near as bad as many people make out. It's very easy to spot a gun player who was taken 10 players after a player we choose than turned out less than average. It's very easy to say, "why didn't we take Chad Warner!?".

Historically, the footy community thinks some stupid shit. Just ill thought out surface level stuff that is easy to digest and repeat. We're starting to learn that because the #1 pick is unlikely to end up the best player, it's a stupid reason not to take the best player. We now know that taking outside mids in the top 10 is a mugs game. We also know not to spend top 10 picks on KPDs, as you can get them in the 20s and 30s. We know that most successful list profiles are built on an elite midfield taken at the top of the draft, a strong KPF or two, and the rest of the team are role players. We know the vast majority of players will play well in good sides, but poorly in bad sides.

We know the rough percentages of draft success. The chances of finding that A+ player is way higher in the top 5 than anywhere else. But what about later in the draft? One thing that is really obvious, is that when you're using data sets of 10 or so drafts, you can see that the closer you move to the pointy end of the draft, the more likely you will find a better quality player. It's not perfectly linear, but fugg me if it doesn't look like a Christmas tree.

So if the top 12 is the Sunset Strip, laden with stars, then the rest of the draft is The Valley. An endless wasteland of shit with occasional gems. I could have split them up by rounds, but there's an obvious flaw in that, which is the huge gaps between the top 5, and picks in their teens. This is a much wider gap than a mid 20s pick and a mid 30s pick. So why did I choose 13? My gut says the number is somewhere between 13 and 15. I chose 13 because the Eagles have two fails in Brander and Venables and I wanted them included.

So about these numbers:

This is all drafts between 2009 - 2019, from pick 13 onwards.
I've graded players A+, A, B, C, and F. Some people may disagree with some rankings (it's hard to maintain a consistent base), but it's a case of swings and roundabouts.

The AFL average number of picks in this period is 43. All clubs hover around this except Suns (26) and GWS (29). I figure it is because these clubs had more picks in the top 12 than anyone else.

The AFL dud rate, which is a percentage of picks from #13 onward that end up being duds is 76%. So let's be clear here, you have a 1 in 4 chance of a player having a reasonable career after pick 12. All the clubs hover around this 76%. GWS and Hawks have a crazy good 55%, Sydney near as good with 56%, Fremantle good with 62%, and Gold Coast the worst with 88%. The stark difference between GWS and GCS can only be down to who sits in the seat. That campaigner at the Suns needs to go to Specsavers.

The average position of each clubs draft picks is similar. The AFL average number of picks inside 30, is 10. The outliers are Melbourne only 4, Hawthorn 7, and those greedy Lions had 17. There were only 7 A+ players out of a total of 776. Fremantle had two in Neale and Fyfe.

So how do the teams rank?



Warren Buffet Level

Fremantle



Sydney



Rene Rivkin Level

Hawthorn



Melbourne



Geelong



The Index

West Coast



Adelaide



GWS



Western Bulldogs



Brisbane



Mum & Dad Level

Collingwood



Essendon



Port Adelaide



Richmond



Nick Leeson Level

Carlton



Gold Coast



North Melbourne



St Rabble