How Crow Can You Go? An Adelaide Football Club Saga

Where will Adelaide finish?


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btdg

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One my part to the rant (I’m unusually steamed this morning - too much coffee perhaps).

If we love Stocker as a prospect that much, why on earth did we wait until pick 19? You think Adelaide wouldn’t have fired on 13+future first for our pick 1/2? Or Port with any of their 3 picks?

Furthermore, If he was a prospect worth giving up pick 1/2 in a future draft for, why the hell would you wait and do it under pressure on draft day. If you went away from trade period knowing you wanted two midfield prospects this year and Walsh/Stocker were your guys, then you lock that in early. Particularly if there’s a few guys you like (Rozee, Rankine, etc).

Why didn’t we do that? It’s simple - we didn’t rate him as highly as we said we did. Then, we made a poorly thought out, panicked move under pressure.
 
Sep 16, 2014
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I should add, anyone who expected we were getting out of the bottom 2 this year at the time of that trade was utterly deluded.

Once we missed on Shiel, it was clear our player profile was going be even younger than last year, with veterans who had carried our few recent wins getting older, and literally none of our young crew hitting age 23-25 and entering their primes. No matter how positive you are on the young guys this was always going to be another development year, and while you could hope for some luck that hasn’t occurred, there was no reason to predict a huge jump (unless you somehow thought that Newman, McGovern and Docherty coming off a knee reconstruction were worth 7-8 wins, which is delusional). You can’t start the year with one best 22 midfielder aged 23-29 and expect anything other than bottom 4.

In that case, you just don’t trade your future first pick, unless you are getting a proven star. The choice that comes with pick 1 or 2 is worth so much more than the actual player.
Anything you want to say about Adelaide Football club
On the pick swap, it ultimately comes down to our assessment of Stocker. That was our target and he needs to be a superstar or this was an exceedingly poor trade.

But I want to point out that while I approve of trading to get a player you like in theory, the implementation was forced to be poor because of poor prior moves.

In particular, Getting McGovern (when we already had Curnow, McKay, Casboult, TDK, Silvagni and Kerr was a ridiculous move to start with that reeked of desperation (“I’ve promised Bolts we will get mature players but we missed on Shiel and he’s all we can convince to come”). We bought high on a guy who has minimal impact on games, is injury prone, and whose best skills duplicates something we already have in spades with younger, more talented players.

Had we not that move we could have traded directly with the Swans for 13 and used that on Stocker, then used the academy pick more flexibly.

Or, if you are desperate for McGovern then move on one or two of the young bigs, stockpile assets another way. Or figure out a different way to get Setterfield.

Point is, we stripped the cupboard bare of assets prior to the draft - no picks in the second or third round this year, or the second next year. Then realised a guy we loved was available and went after him with zero to offer except arguably the most valuable thing we had our list other than Cripps (and at the time maybe Curnow).

It should be said that if Stocker isn’t a star (or we somehow eke out 5 more wins this year), this trade will be brutal for 15 years, in the same way that that the Hamill/Livingstone or Jaksch/Boekhurst schemozzle was. Knightmare’s player comps for Anderson and Rowell are De Goey and Selwood, and both seem reasonably safe bets.
You'll just have to wait and compare Stocker and whoever we draft or trade in against Rowell, Anderson or whoever they draft and then you'll have a winner.
 

btdg

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Anything you want to say about Adelaide Football club

You'll just have to wait and compare Stocker and whoever we draft or trade in against Rowell, Anderson or whoever they draft and then you'll have a winner.

Adelaide played us like Banjos????

And my point is that its not just comparing Stocker vs whoever the Crows pick. It is about comparing Stocker to all of the potential options that we could have had

What if, say, Josh Kelly wants to move to Melbourne and GWS make it clear that they'll only let him go for a top 3 pick and a future pick. We're out of a conversation we would have been front runners for otherwise.

What if we evaluate our list and decide we desperately need, I dunno, a dynamic small/medium forward. Adelaide pick Rowel (pure mid) but had we held the pick, we could have taken Anderson (dynamic small/medium forward).

The reason you don't trade pick 1 is because it has so much versatility. Want a KP player - you get the best one available. Want a midfielder - you get the best one available. No tough decisions, no compromises - you get your guy. Want to trade it for a mature player? The team you are trading gets that same benefit. It's also independent of the strength of the draft. Weak draft? You get one of the few sure things available, or the guy with the most upside, and make the best of it. Strong draft? You get the best of the bunch, with the added bonus that you have seen them up against stronger competition (and likely a chance to get a second great prospect, unless you have traded your second pick too, which of course we have because we are insane). Top-heavy draft? You are guaranteed to be getting one of the good prospects before it falls away. Superstar available for trade? You are right in that discussion. Someone else falls in love with a top prospect and is prepared to overpay? You are right in that discussion.

We'll feel this at trade time, I guarantee. There's going to be a conversation that we are just out of, or relegated to the sidelines because we are both shite, and don't have the assets. We wouldn't be in the Shiel discussion, for example, because GWS would have no interest in starting with pick 17 or 18 (or whatever we end up with after academy selections, etc). So its not just about the player picked vs who we took. It's about choice.
 

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Sep 16, 2014
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Adelaide played us like Banjos????

And my point is that its not just comparing Stocker vs whoever the Crows pick. It is about comparing Stocker to all of the potential options that we could have had

What if, say, Josh Kelly wants to move to Melbourne and GWS make it clear that they'll only let him go for a top 3 pick and a future pick. We're out of a conversation we would have been front runners for otherwise.

What if we evaluate our list and decide we desperately need, I dunno, a dynamic small/medium forward. Adelaide pick Rowel (pure mid) but had we held the pick, we could have taken Anderson (dynamic small/medium forward).

The reason you don't trade pick 1 is because it has so much versatility. Want a KP player - you get the best one available. Want a midfielder - you get the best one available. No tough decisions, no compromises - you get your guy. Want to trade it for a mature player? The team you are trading gets that same benefit. It's also independent of the strength of the draft. Weak draft? You get one of the few sure things available, or the guy with the most upside, and make the best of it. Strong draft? You get the best of the bunch, with the added bonus that you have seen them up against stronger competition (and likely a chance to get a second great prospect, unless you have traded your second pick too, which of course we have because we are insane). Top-heavy draft? You are guaranteed to be getting one of the good prospects before it falls away. Superstar available for trade? You are right in that discussion. Someone else falls in love with a top prospect and is prepared to overpay? You are right in that discussion.

We'll feel this at trade time, I guarantee. There's going to be a conversation that we are just out of, or relegated to the sidelines because we are both ****e, and don't have the assets. We wouldn't be in the Shiel discussion, for example, because GWS would have no interest in starting with pick 17 or 18 (or whatever we end up with after academy selections, etc). So its not just about the player picked vs who we took. It's about choice.
Premature evaluation mate, if SOS wants to trade the pick for a player there's plenty of options. Again i must say he didn't trade pick 1.
 

btdg

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Premature evaluation mate, if SOS wants to trade the pick for a player there's plenty of options. Again i must say he didn't trade pick 1.

There's a pretty good chance it'll be pick 1. At at the time, there was no reason to expect it would be anything other than pick 1 or 2. You would hope we would get above GC, but given they have a weird home ground to play on, if 1-2 teams travel there and have low-scoring stinkers and they eke out another couple of wins, it'll be pick 1.

At this stage, that Adelaide pick looks likely to be in the 15-18 range after academy selections. That takes us out of the conversation for any A-grader who is available. In this, shallow draft, it takes out of the tier A draft prospects, out of the tier B prospects, leaves us hitting something pretty speculative (I'd say on current analysis it's probably comparable to pick 25-30 last year).

Stocker better be worth it... and if he is that good, why wait until pick 19? And what did we see that others didn't - it's not like we're renowned for plucking draft gems that others overlooked...
 
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There's a pretty good chance it'll be pick 1. At at the time, there was no reason to expect it would be anything other than pick 1 or 2. You would hope we would get above GC, but given they have a weird home ground to play on, if 1-2 teams travel there and have low-scoring stinkers and they eke out another couple of wins, it'll be pick 1.

At this stage, that Adelaide pick looks likely to be in the 15-18 range after academy selections. That takes us out of the conversation for any A-grader who is available. In this, shallow draft, it takes out of the tier A draft prospects, out of the tier B prospects, leaves us hitting something pretty speculative (I'd say on current analysis it's probably comparable to pick 25-30 last year).

Stocker better be worth it... and if he is that good, why wait until pick 19? And what did we see that others didn't - it's not like we're renowned for plucking draft gems that others overlooked...
That's just it, we never had 19, we wanted Stocker so we invented a way to get him. Ok mate i'm not trying to sway your opinion but i'll disagree with it(but respect it).
 

btdg

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That's just it, we never had 19, we wanted Stocker so we invented a way to get him. Ok mate i'm not trying to sway your opinion but i'll disagree with it(but respect it).

No, I get that, and I'm also of the view that we have to wait and see. We can't reverse it now - so lets just hope Stocker comes on for the sake of all our sanity.

If, as seems likely, Stocker turns out to be a solid B-grader, though, it's going to hurt - there's going to be a fair bit of 'what if' surrounding it for a decade. On that scale, I'd probably liken it to the Judd trade - you can argue that Judd was a good decision for us at the time, but it's also caused a fair bit of hurt.

If Stocker doesn't come on; it'll be Boekhurst level bad for us.

For this trade to look good, and no one wants that more than me, we're hoping for long shots. For Stocker to become Luke Hodge (not impossible based on what we've seen so far; probably a 1:10 chance?). For pick 13 to be Patrick Cripps rather than Matthew Kennedy or Jesse Lonergan.
 

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RoarLike44In24

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Adelaide suck, I hope they get kicked out of the comp and each supporter is forced to eat a bag of whatever genitalia they are not sexually attracted to.

Now I assume the above gets me safe entry into the conversation.

Reckon btdg has the right measure here. The numbers simply do not stack up if it turns out to be pick 1 or 2 and the Crows pick turns out to be 12+.

You simply dont trade 1/2 away for 12+ (Crows likely finishing range) and 19. Heck, lets give you guys 6 for Stocker and say thats what Adelaide gave you, then lets be equally fair and give Adelaide thr pick they currently hold (15).

Are many teams doing 6 and 15 for 1/2 in a draft that mant consider weak and the top 2 are streets ahead of the rest? Remember 6 is pretty generous considering that the actual currency is 19 (whether you rated 6 or not....who really knows how true that was).

I totally get why supporters want to play the long game and say 'lets wait 15 years to compare everyone's careers' - well yeah there is an Element of logic there but what happens if one of the players that are picked this year/Stocker are traded? Do we then have to analyse the replacements too?

Even if you want to persist with the idea that there is a long term winner, you must equally acknowledge there is a short term winner and unless you can put some more runs on the board (like tonight hopefully for you) then the short term result is clear. At least the Suns lost.
 

TiAn_

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On the pick swap, it ultimately comes down to our assessment of Stocker. That was our target and he needs to be a superstar or this was an exceedingly poor trade.

But I want to point out that while I approve of trading to get a player you like in theory, the implementation was forced to be poor because of poor prior moves.

In particular, Getting McGovern (when we already had Curnow, McKay, Casboult, TDK, Silvagni and Kerr was a ridiculous move to start with that reeked of desperation (“I’ve promised Bolts we will get mature players but we missed on Shiel and he’s all we can convince to come”). We bought high on a guy who has minimal impact on games, is injury prone, and whose best skills duplicates something we already have in spades with younger, more talented players.

Had we not that move we could have traded directly with the Swans for 13 and used that on Stocker, then used the academy pick more flexibly.

Or, if you are desperate for McGovern then move on one or two of the young bigs, stockpile assets another way. Or figure out a different way to get Setterfield.

Point is, we stripped the cupboard bare of assets prior to the draft - no picks in the second or third round this year, or the second next year. Then realised a guy we loved was available and went after him with zero to offer except arguably the most valuable thing we had our list other than Cripps (and at the time maybe Curnow).

It should be said that if Stocker isn’t a star (or we somehow eke out 5 more wins this year), this trade will be brutal for 15 years, in the same way that that the Hamill/Livingstone or Jaksch/Boekhurst schemozzle was. Knightmare’s player comps for Anderson and Rowell are De Goey and Selwood, and both seem reasonably safe bets.

Yep. The draft capital that SOS has wasted trading in players that haven’t moved the needle for you (Kennedy, McGovern, etc) has an opportunity cost as well as a real cost. I can’t get my head around SOS stans that are convinced he’s been brilliant.

Stocker looks a decent, steady if unspectacular, player, but the player that gets taken with pick 1-2 looks likely to immediately be better than him next year. Anderson looks incredible. You might find someone decent with the late first rounder this year, but if it is a weaker draft you’re relying on luck more than anything.

If the trade had never happened and this year the Crows offered Stocker & pick 14 for pick 1-2, you’d laugh in their faces. There will be much better on offer for pick 1-2 this trade period. The worst case scenario might be if SOS turns the Adelaide pick into another McGovern level mature player, though. That would crystallize the whole transaction as a desperate swing.
 

btdg

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Yep. The draft capital that SOS has wasted trading in players that haven’t moved the needle for you (Kennedy, McGovern, etc) has an opportunity cost as well as a real cost. I can’t get my head around SOS stans that are convinced he’s been brilliant.

Stocker looks a decent, steady if unspectacular, player, but the player that gets taken with pick 1-2 looks likely to immediately be better than him next year. Anderson looks incredible. You might find someone decent with the late first rounder this year, but if it is a weaker draft you’re relying on luck more than anything.

If the trade had never happened and this year the Crows offered Stocker & pick 14 for pick 1-2, you’d laugh in their faces. There will be much better on offer for pick 1-2 this trade period. The worst case scenario might be if SOS turns the Adelaide pick into another McGovern level mature player, though. That would crystallize the whole transaction as a desperate swing.

It’s more like Stocker/18 after concessions but yeah....

A different way of looking at it is that the Adelaide pick for all intents and purposes replaces and slightly upgrades what we gave up for Setterfield ( give or take a bit of swapping around picks in the 40s and 50s)

So effectively it’s pick 1 for Stocker and Setterfield. In those circumstances I can see why we did it - 2 guys we like for the price of 1, plus a slightly earlier pick in a shallow draft is good.

But we wouldn’t have done that for last year’s pick 1 because Walsh. And I’d rather we hadn’t done it for a future pick 1 because of the unknown and how it restricts us this year. If we end up nabbing a big fish (I know Kelly resigned, but hypothetically), but it costs us one of our young stars... we’ve been down that road before

That said, you can support the overall strategy we have taken without each individual move being a moment of brilliance. I don’t think there are any SOS Stan’s, really, just Carlton supporters who can see the bigger picture, appreciate that given our history of short term thinking and lack of any real strategy, even if quite a few of the moves have been utter head scratchers
 

skittlebrew

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Cats at geelong and local derby after the bye will test them. From there it opens up a bit for them.

We can't beat Cats at their home. Haven't done so in a decade, let alone the fact they are the form team of the comp.

Port is always 50/50 regardless of where each team is on the ladder.
 
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Personally i believe sos thought the CFC would be alot better than what they have shown this year and mis read the lay of the land , He probably thought carlton would be placed 10-14 at worst and the crows would fall and decided to take that chance.

That's just it, we never had 19, we wanted Stocker so we invented a way to get him. Ok mate i'm not trying to sway your opinion but i'll disagree with it(but respect it).

There is a bit of mixed messages coming from carlton and sos here if you look closely

Just to put it out there, If Carlton did rate Stocker as highly as whats being mentioned why would they have used the assets they had to trade for McGovern who was a complete luxury with McKay,Curnow,SOSOS,Kerr etc

Would you not hold that pick for a player you rated.

Its all going to depend on stocker and how he develops and if he becomes the payer carlton hope but the way they did the trade was not really perfect
 
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Personally i believe sos thought the CFC would be alot better than what they have shown this year and mis read the lay of the land , He probably thought carlton would be placed 10-14 at worst and the crows would fall and decided to take that chance.



There is a bit of mixed messages coming from carlton and sos here if you look closely

Just to put it out there, If Carlton did rate Stocker as highly as whats being mentioned why would they have used the assets they had to trade for McGovern who was a complete luxury with McKay,Curnow,SOSOS,Kerr etc

Would you not hold that pick for a player you rated.

Its all going to depend on stocker and how he develops and if he becomes the payer carlton hope but the way they did the trade was not really perfect
I can't see why it can't be a win win situation, if Stocker and McGovern play finals football for Carlton i'll be happy. Those arragant flogs over there hiding behind a closed thread are only looking at a top two pick, they can't see any further. A lot to play out yet.
 

El Topo

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There's a pretty good chance it'll be pick 1. At at the time, there was no reason to expect it would be anything other than pick 1 or 2. You would hope we would get above GC, but given they have a weird home ground to play on, if 1-2 teams travel there and have low-scoring stinkers and they eke out another couple of wins, it'll be pick 1.

But for a few slices of luck and a handful of 50/50 decisions we would have gone into the bye with 4-5 wins - and that's after Docherty going down, which is the biggest variable nobody mentions. With the information available on draft night it was a well calculated risk.


Personally i believe sos thought the CFC would be alot better than what they have shown this year and mis read the lay of the land , He probably thought carlton would be placed 10-14 at worst and the crows would fall and decided to take that chance.



There is a bit of mixed messages coming from carlton and sos here if you look closely

Just to put it out there, If Carlton did rate Stocker as highly as whats being mentioned why would they have used the assets they had to trade for McGovern who was a complete luxury with McKay,Curnow,SOSOS,Kerr etc

Would you not hold that pick for a player you rated.

Its all going to depend on stocker and how he develops and if he becomes the payer carlton hope but the way they did the trade was not really perfect

Carlton had been into McGovern since 2016 and clearly rate him extremely highly, even if supporters and neutral spectators don't agree with the assessment. He's definitely not viewed as a luxury or surplus player.

As for the opportunity cost of the trade, Stocker would likely have been gone by those late 20s picks either way - wasn't the story that Richmond were keen on him? The point being that the McGovern trade is separate - as you say, it all comes down to Stocker.
 
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But for a few slices of luck and a handful of 50/50 decisions we would have gone into the bye with 4-5 wins - and that's after Docherty going down, which is the biggest variable nobody mentions. With the information available on draft night it was a well calculated risk.




Carlton had been into McGovern since 2016 and clearly rate him extremely highly, even if supporters and neutral spectators don't agree with the assessment. He's definitely not viewed as a luxury or surplus player.

As for the opportunity cost of the trade, Stocker would likely have been gone by those late 20s picks either way - wasn't the story that Richmond were keen on him? The point being that the McGovern trade is separate - as you say, it all comes down to Stocker.
Spot on, there's a lot of Crows supporters and even one of our own can't see past pick one or two. I'll be happy to call it a win or loss in five years.
 

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Spot on, there's a lot of Crows supporters and even one of our own can't see past pick one or two. I'll be happy to call it a win or loss in five years.
If it was at the end of this year and SOS traded pick 1 for pick 12 + 16 he would be crucified for it.

Hopefully the punt on Stocker pays off but the trade in hindsight is massively under what we could have got for it this year.
 
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