Schrodinger’s Draft Pick, or, Not Kane Tenace

The Hamish McIntosh trade got me thinking about value; about the value of draft picks, about an unknown commodity versus the known and about risk versus reward. It got me thinking about the “youth above all else” attitude that seems to pervade a lot of AFL clubs, about specific needs-based recruiting and about the ever-enchanting lure that is potential.

Specifically it got me thinking, when is it ok to recruit ready-made, top-up players and what is an acceptable price to pay?

History shows us that there are particular situations and scenarios where it pays to bring in an established player. Collingwood, for example, in almost all cases over the past five or so years, has only brought in a “recycled” player where there has been a specific positional gap or a “temp” required until younger players were physically ready to step in: Darren Jolly was brought in when it was clear Josh Fraser wasn’t up to finals heat; Chris Tarrant came back after Presti retired and Keefe and/or Reid weren’t quite ready; Leigh Brown and now Q-stick Lynch play “the Leigh Brown role”. These are all well defined positions, made with an understanding that the appropriate progression plans need to be in place.

(Quick aside no 1: Collingwood’s weakness for a few years has been Jolly’s health. He played hurt and was ineffective in the 2011 Grand Final and behind him there is just no-one. With Cam Wood finally delisted, if Jolly goes down again Collingwood’s ruckman will be either Quentin Lynch or Jarrod Witts, who is yet to debut. Yikes.)

Conversely, Brisbane’s 2009 off-season can be looked at as a “what not to do”, when they brought in a mixture of average flankers (Staker, Clarke, Buchannon) on a team already stocked with average flankers (Sherman, Rockliff, Redden, Brennan, McGrath) as well as classic full-forward Brendan “Dildo” Fevola, on a team that already featured Jon Brown and Daniel Bradshaw. Brisbane finished 13th, Fev left town and the rebuild was another year behind.

As far as The Cats go, prior to this trade and free-agency, the GFC has rarely engaged in anything other than minor deals; salary cap concerns, rookie shuffling and trying to accommodate players wishing to move to a new club by taking back mostly token compensation.

The only previous trades that have involved significant players and/or draft picks that I can remember are the following:

1) In 2004, The Cats traded Brent Maloney (a 12th overall draft pick) to Melbourne for pick 16 and then shifted that pick, along with their own pick 9, to Richmond for Brad Ottens.

2) In 2000, Geelong traded pick 11 to Carlton for Justin Murphy, as well as picks 27, 45, 57 to West Coast for Mitchell White. (Also of note that year, pick 42 was moved to North Melbourne in exchange for the immortal Kent Kingsley and Carl Steinfort was traded for pick 44, which was then used on Josh Hunt.)

The Ottens trade was obviously a huge success, although almost by accident: While he was brought in to play a specific role, it wasn’t the one he ended up dominating in 3 premierships. Ottens was originally pencilled in as the key position forward The Cats had lacked since Ablett Senior. Ottens was seen as the last piece in an otherwise full puzzle, considering Geelong’s defensive and midfield strength. However, whenever Ottens was given a short spell in the ruck, the midfield looked even better. The Cats finally accepted this and, coupled with Mooney being settled in the forward line, the rest is history.

The Murphy and White trades were, to paraphrase Marcellus Wallace, pretty far from successful. Justin Murphy lasted just one year with Cats, playing 18 games in 2001. Mitchell White lasted longer in terms of years (3) but not many more in games (23). But regardless of the players output (injuries slowed White and Murphy averaged a seemingly decent 20 disposals a game), the Cats paid too high a price.

To return to an earlier example, Collingwood also brought in Luke Ball, and while not as specifically required positionally as their other previously mentioned inclusions, he was a low-risk/high-reward prospect; a 25 year old former All-Australian and no. 2 overall pick who only cost them pick 30. To give up pick 11 for Murphy, and essentially the rest of that years picks for an injury-prone White, when the team was clearly in need of rebuilding, was, shall we say, Richmond-esque.

(Quick aside no 2: Brendan Goddard makes for an interesting case study and comparison. He’s 27, with 10 years and 200 games on the clock, arguably not as good as he was two years ago and the AFL compensated St Kilda with pick 13. Essendon is a team seemingly full of flankers but, outside of Jobe Watson, lacking any midfield stars and, outside of five good games a year from Michael Hurley, lacking any real key position stars. Goddard is a classic utility, a bit-each-way, who, I get the feeling, would be much more valuable on a team like Geelong or West Coast, as a cherry-on-the-sundae type player, than he will be at Essendon where he’ll be needed to plug multiple holes. And yes, I just passed up a “St Kilda schoolgirl/plugging multiple holes” joke here.)

We can say in hindsight that pick 11 was too much for Justin Murphy, but picks 9 and 16 were definitely worth Bradley Ottens. And while the Hamish McIntosh trade passes the Darren Jolly test in terms of specific positional need (although Jolly did not have McIntosh’s injury history), how do we work out what Hamish McIntosh is worth? Or, to put it another way, what kind of output would we accept from McIntosh vs what kind of output we would expect from pick 39?

To attempt to answer this, I took a look at some numbers from the first two rounds of each draft, starting in 2001, the year after Geelong traded their first rounder for Murphy, and going through until 2009, the year before Gold Coast joined and the draft concessions began. I wanted to assess the players drafted in a couple of areas; first, the number of games of played and second, a more subjective evaluation. I decided on five categories: All-Australian, best 22, potential star, depth and no longer in the league. For example, at Richmond I have graded Brett Deledio as All-Australian, Dustin Martin as potential star, Alex Rance as best 22 and Tyrone Vickery as depth.

In that period, there have been 159 first round picks (including priority picks), of which 18 grade out at AA level and 18 as potential stars. 42 came in as best 22, 46 as depth and 36 are no longer in the AFL. Which means on average, AFL first round draft picks have a 50% chance of become starting 22 players or better.

Geelong’s record over this period has been much stronger, producing four All-Australians (Bartel, Kelly, Selwood, Taylor), two best 22 players (Mackie, Varcoe) and one potential star (Menzel) from their nine first round draft picks, with only one player no longer in the league (Kane Tenace) and one who has struggled thus far (Mitch Brown). So, for those scoring at home, The Cats strike rate with first-rounders is an excellent 77%.

Even more impressively, they’ve been able to identify and then develop elite level talent, as evidenced by the 4/9 all-Australian strike rate, (with Andrew Mackie a 2009 AA squad selection). This is twice the next best, with six teams producing two AA players and seven teams who have not produced one at all. The league average is 1.125 AA players each over this period, meaning the Cats are batting almost four times above the average.

Over the same period, the success of the 137 second round draftees has been considerably worse: Three All-Australians, eight potential stars, 35 best 22, 33 depth and a staggering 58 no longer playing, meaning your chances of drafting a starter in the 2nd round fall to 33%.

Of The Cats 11 Round 2 picks, there is one All-Australian (Dog Johnson), one potential gun (Mitch Duncan), two best 22 players (Lonergan and West), three depth players (Dawson Simpson, Brent Prismall, Tom Gillies) and four players no longer going around (Charlie Gardiner, Cameron Thurley, Nathan Djerkurra and Stephen Fucking Owen), leaving the Cats strike rate for the second round just above the league average at 36%.

(Quick aside no 3: Mitch Duncan is already a good footballer, but he looks like he is capable of being a very, very good one. The areas he probably needs to work on are mostly fitness-based: He needs to get to more contests, stay in the game for longer periods and maybe work a little harder defensively. The comparison that comes to mind, and an idea of Mitch’s ceiling, is Dale Thomas, who, after his haircut, is 80% more likable. Physically they are similar [Thomas: 185cm, 86kgs; Duncan: 187cm, 82kgs] and they play a very comparable style of game.)

This amount of data is not a huge statistical sample, and while it shows that there is a large difference between first and second round draftees and that Geelong have historically drafted above the average, what it can’t tell us is how much of that is good talent identification and how much is good talent development.

What it can tell us is that, statistically speaking, at pick 16 Stephen Wells should be able to find Geelong a 150 game player who eventually slots into the best 22 and that if Hamish McIntosh plays over 50 with Cats games and becomes a starting ruck he’ll be well worth pick 39.