Opinion Who is currently the best player in the AFL

[RCAB]

How do you import tables here? With the new upgrade it kept ****ing up my tables. Are you doing it a different way?

Butts was 2nd without the loss penalty which was small

View attachment 2579498


My top players prior to Gather round. Feeling Zac Bailey is jumping up bigtime

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You have to use BBCode for tables to make them look like that.

I just like to use them for Bigfooty because they look nicer than screenshot. But it's extra work.

Bailey performance ranked 97th in 2024, but jumped up to 18th in 2025 in terms of performance. 8th this year based on performance as I showed you in the previous table.


I have weekly rolling ranking (which takes into account the last four-five years, with recency bias) which has Bailey as 27th best player in the comp and ahead of Lachie Neale (30th), so Zac is the no.1 Lion according to my model.

 

[Fadge]

Fairly strong overlap between their top and bottom 12 with yours. Now do the same for a hundred more games and show us a statistical misalignment between your superior judgement (that matches the coaches) and Player Ratings. This would be an attempt at quantifying it rather than just cherry picking whichever examples stand out the most.

As I said, Player Ratings did a reasonable job of last night's game, but I'm confident my assessment will of course be superior to Player Ratings' effort when it comes to alignment with coaches votes, and therefore the best and most influential players on the ground.

And I don't have an absolute howlers in my assessment - channeling the Lachie Schulz Player Rating. Oh boy.

 

[JHF1870]

Currently ranked 86th in my model on 2026 performances. I'd expect him to move up after today.

See Chadwiko you didn't North to grovel for priority picks. They just needed to get their drafting and scouting in order.

Heeney is probably going to get the biggest game coming up on my system

Heeney Final vs GWS was 92

Trembath is such a good player

 

[Mr Meow]

As I said, Player Ratings did a reasonable job of last night's game, but I'm confident my assessment will of course be superior to Player Ratings' effort when it comes to alignment with coaches votes, and therefore the best and most influential players on the ground.

And I don't have an absolute howlers in my assessment - channeling the Lachie Schulz Player Rating. Oh boy.

I'd just like to see you try and quantify your claims that they "rarely" get it right with coaches votes/strong Player Ratings match, or that the success rate is no better than some idiot throwing a dart and lucking out on a triple 20.

I already crunched numbers for 2 rounds of football where there was no evidence for those claims. Being in the coaches votes is a decent predictor of a high Player Ratings score and vice versa.

All you have is the "Oh boy, oh my, wowee" stuff.

 

[RCAB]

Heeney is probably going to get the biggest game coming up on my system

Heeney Final vs GWS was 92

Trembath is such a good player


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Here, four year rolling rankings, with recency bias (including this year till round 4)

Rank	Player
1	Marcus Bontempelli
2	Isaac Heeney
3	Nick Daicos
4	Jeremy Cameron
5	Izak Rankine
6	Zach Merrett
7	Christian Petracca
8	Chad Warner
9	Noah Anderson
10	Kysaiah Pickett
11	Toby Greene
12	Jordan Dawson
13	Zak Butters
14	Ed Richards
15	Jack Sinclair
16	Max Holmes
17	Hugh McCluggage
18	Jai Newcombe
19	Andrew Brayshaw
20	Touk Miller
21	Caleb Serong
22	Tom Green
23	Dylan Moore
24	Jason Horne-Francis
25	Shai Bolton

 

[JHF1870]

COOPER TREMBATH

Obvs still games to go this round but not bad

 

[Fadge]

I'd just like to see you try and quantify your claims that they "rarely" get it right with coaches votes/strong Player Ratings match, or that the success rate is no better than some idiot throwing a dart and lucking out on a triple 20.

I already crunched numbers for 2 rounds of football where there was no evidence for those claims. Being in the coaches votes is a decent predictor of a high Player Ratings score and vice versa.

All you have is the "Oh boy, oh my, wowee" stuff.

I made a comment earlier that there have already been 8 instances this year where the leading coaches vote recipients in games have been outside their top 9 rated players.

If you regularly miss the best player on the ground from the eyes of the coaches in your top 9 rated players, you're not doing a very good job of it.

 

[JHF1870]

Here, four year rolling rankings, with recency bias (including this year till round 4)

Rank	Player
1	Marcus Bontempelli
2	Isaac Heeney
3	Nick Daicos
4	Jeremy Cameron
5	Izak Rankine
6	Zach Merrett
7	Christian Petracca
8	Chad Warner
9	Noah Anderson
10	Kysaiah Pickett
11	Toby Greene
12	Jordan Dawson
13	Zak Butters
14	Ed Richards
15	Jack Sinclair
16	Max Holmes
17	Hugh McCluggage
18	Jai Newcombe
19	Andrew Brayshaw
20	Touk Miller
21	Caleb Serong
22	Tom Green
23	Dylan Moore
24	Jason Horne-Francis
25	Shai Bolton

These look very similar to what I was getting last year even though I've updated my system. The ones that stand out that most people don't see are Tom Greene, Max Holmes, Ed Richards, Max Holmes, Jai Newcombe all did well on last years system. probably not so much this season.

 

[Fadge]

These look very similar to what I was getting last year even though I've updated my system. The ones that stand out that most people don't see are Tom Greene, Max Holmes, Ed Richards, Max Holmes, Jai Newcombe all did well on last years system. probably not so much this season.

A combination of Tom Green and Toby Greene would be some sort of a player...

 

[Mr Meow]

I made a comment earlier that there have already been 8 instances this year where the leading coaches vote recipients in games have been outside their top 9 rated players.

If you regularly miss the best player on the ground from the eyes of the coaches in your top 9 rated players, you're not doing a very good job of it.

And 8 out of 32 times is "regularly" rather than "sometimes" or "rarely", in your eyes?

Why did you pick top 9? Does top 10 or 12 make your conclusion look worse?

 

[RonnieRaven]

Here, four year rolling rankings, with recency bias (including this year till round 4)

Rank	Player
1	Marcus Bontempelli
2	Isaac Heeney
3	Nick Daicos
4	Jeremy Cameron
5	Izak Rankine
6	Zach Merrett
7	Christian Petracca
8	Chad Warner
9	Noah Anderson
10	Kysaiah Pickett
11	Toby Greene
12	Jordan Dawson
13	Zak Butters
14	Ed Richards
15	Jack Sinclair
16	Max Holmes
17	Hugh McCluggage
18	Jai Newcombe
19	Andrew Brayshaw
20	Touk Miller
21	Caleb Serong
22	Tom Green
23	Dylan Moore
24	Jason Horne-Francis
25	Shai Bolton

Serong has won our last 3 BNFs but AB the better performed?

 

[JHF1870]

This isn't too far off. Two of the biggest games historically, one a midfielder, one a forward and the scores are similar

 

[RUNVS]

Heeney ended the match with

33 dispoals
2 goals
2 goal assists
12 score involvements
11 tackles
10 clearances
7 inside 50's
196 supercoach points

So a pretty good effort.

 

[JHF1870]

Serong has won our last 3 BNFs but AB the better performed?

Don't think they were too far apart. FWIW I had him slightly higher

 

[Fadge]

And 8 out of 32 times is "regularly" rather than "sometimes" or "rarely", in your eyes?

Why did you pick top 9? Does top 10 or 12 make your conclusion look worse?

Yeah, there was one player that Player Ratings had as their 10th ranked player who was the highest rated by coaches.

So had I have said top 10, it would have 'only' been 7 players...

You really got me there!

Should I have gone easier on them and gone down to their top 14 players? There have 'only' been 5 players outside of Player Ratings top 14 that have been voted the best players on the ground by the coaches...

 

[JHF1870]

Heeney ended the match with

33 dispoals
2 goals
2 goal assists
12 score involvements
11 tackles
10 clearances
7 inside 50's
196 supercoach points

So a pretty good effort.

Pushing his way into 2nd spot behind Bont. What a player.

 

[Mr Meow]

Yeah, there was one player that Player Ratings had as their 10th ranked player who was the highest rated by coaches.

So had I have said top 10, it would have 'only' been 7 players...

You really got me there!

It's just so transparent how selective your framing is when you pick a number like 9. If you didn't care about the difference, you wouldn't have bothered with that framing.

I'm looking forward to your explanation of 8/32 times being "regularly", with the 24/32 times being them "rarely getting it right".

 

[Fadge]

Heeney ended the match with

33 dispoals
2 goals
2 goal assists
12 score involvements
11 tackles
10 clearances
7 inside 50's
196 supercoach points

So a pretty good effort.

Great game, probably the best we've seen from any individual this year, and importantly against quality opposition.

 

[JHF1870]

Great game, probably the best we've seen from any individual this year, and importantly against quality opposition.

 

[RonnieRaven]

Don't think they were too far apart. FWIW I had him slightly higher

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At least your rankings have the only player ever to win bnf AA and poll 24+ Brownlow votes in 3 consecutive years in the top 20 players

 

[Mr Meow]

Great game, probably the best we've seen from any individual this year, and importantly against quality opposition.

If only we had some sort of clue that Heeney could have games like this. Perhals all of the other games Heeney has had like this.

 

[Fadge]

At least your rankings have the only player ever to win bnf AA and poll 24+ Brownlow votes in 3 consecutive years in the top 20 players

LOL. Albeit in 15th position.

FadgeRatings has Serong as the third best performed player on actual output since the start of 2023.

 

[Fadge]

If only we had some sort of clue that Heeney could have games like this. Perhals all of the other games Heeney has had like this.

Thanks Padlocks V2.

 

[RUNVS]

If only we had some sort of clue that Heeney could have games like this. Perhals all of the other games Heeney has had like this.

What is amazing about Heeney is he is able to have huge impact in the midfield and drifting forward too.

I mean he is averaging 2.5 goals a game this season, which is better than most key forwards.

 

[FreoRicci]

Is it because he plays in Sydney, because Heeney has been consistently elite for years.