Dr Tigris
Brownlow Medallist
Just wanted to have a bit of a look at this to see if it is correct.
So I will look at each draft 2005-2015 to see where the best mids are coming from. I will make my criteria that you have to be recognised as being around the level of best 2-3 mids in a top 6 type team for at least about 5 seasons, or look a near certainty to do so in order to make the cut. This way we sort of match your probably loosely applied statement of “generational midfielder." I will split these guys into top 10 picks, later first round picks, and lower round picks.
Top 10 picks: Marc Murphy, Dale Thomas, Scott Pendlebury, Bryce Gibbs, Travis Boak, Joel Selwood, Trent Cotchin, Patrick Dangerfield, Tom Scully, Dustin Martin, Ben Cunnington, David Swallow, Andrew Gaff, Dyson Heppell, Dion Prestia, Stephen Coniglio, Lachie Whitfield, Jake Stringer, Jack Macrae, Ollie Wines, Josh Kelly, Jack Billings, Marcus Bontempelli, Chris Petracca, Angus Brayshaw, Jordan De Goey, Clayton Oliver, Jacob Hopper
Later first round picks(11-20 I will make this): Shaun Higgins, Callan Ward, Steele Sidebottom, Luke Shuey, Nathan Fyfe, Isaac Smith, Patrick Cripps, Isaac Heeney(academy)
Lower round picks: Josh Kennedy(f/s) Jack Steven, Dayne Beams, Dan Hannebery, Rory Sloane, Michael Walters, Mitch Duncan, Luke Parker, Tom Liberatore(f/s) Toby Greene, Tom Mitchell(f/s) Brad Hill, Lachie Neale, Jack Viney(f/s) Zach Merrett, Jack Steele, Touk Miller, Josh Dunkley
Rookie or other draft picks: Michael Barlow, Kane Lambert
So it is roughly a 50-50 split, 28 taken top 10 and 29 thereafter, but when you consider that several of those who were father/sons and academy players would be top 10 now, it could probably be more like a 32 top 10 and 25 non-top 10 split. By the time you get past pick 20 it gets pretty sparse and then once you hit the rookie draft it is virtually crickets.
Then you consider the quality of those taken top 10 versus those outside.
If I picked the top ten top 10 picks it might be Pendlebury, Dangerfield, Martin, Cotchin, Whitfield, Kelly, Bontempelli, Petracca, De Goey, Selwood.
The top 10 from outside the top 10 not including academy or f/s selections: Fyfe, Sidebottom, Higgins, Cripps, Walters, Greene, Neale, Ward, Smith, Hill.
I would say it is fair to say at least slightly the better midfielder are coming from inside the top 10 compared to lower picks. But on average, there are maybe 2 guys per draft taken outside the top 10 who go on to get roughly to the level of best 2-3 mids in a top 6 team for at least 5 years.
Richmond has done exceptionally well from its top 10 picks invested in mids in that time. Cotchin Martin Prestia Conca Vlastuin were probably all attempts to get a gun mid from a top 10 pick. We draft 2 Brownlow Medallists Cotchin, Martin, traded in Premiership year B & F winner Prestia, got a brilliant backman in Vlastuin and fell below expectations but still got an ok player in Conca.
Our non top 10 picks have produced Lambert, Edwards and now Bolton who have been around that level or in Bolton’s case look near certs to get to that level as mids as well.
Would I trade away say picks 15 and 20 to get inside the top 10, probably gets you around pick 9 or 10 to try to get a gun mid in the draft? Probably not, as most of the nailed on gun mids seem to be gone in the top 5 picks. Would I maybe package a useful player, picks 15 and 20 to get to around pick 5 or 6? So trading out Coleman-Jones for pick 20, package that with say Nankervis and our first rounder to get to maybe pick 5 or 6? I might consider that but you would want to be avoiding heavily compromised drafts, which 2020 looks like being.
We are doing really well with our drafting, but I do agree the club should be trying to figure out how to get the next gun mid in the door. Not easy though.
To paraphrase the genuine obvious top players tend to go very early, then it slowly drops off. So unless you're inside top 5 or so there's a trade off of number of picks and quality of picks. i.e. would you be better with pick 10 or say picks 18 and 20? Trading 18 and 20 might get you 10. But in terms of likelihood of getting stars you probably aren't better off.
So getting a top 5 pick is worth gold for A grade talent. After that you really need to make some careful calculations.