Saints drafting - the hidden story

This unofficial St Kilda Saints fan forum is for people of all ages to chat Saints Footy and all posts must be respectful.

Moderators: Saintsational Administrators, Saintsational Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
InkerSaint
SS Hall of Fame
Posts: 2132
Joined: Wed 07 Jan 2009 3:06pm

Saints drafting - the hidden story

Post: # 1169094Post InkerSaint »

http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/ ... fault.aspx

If you take Nick Tedeschi's view that it takes at least five years to get a proper grip on the true quality of a draft class, and a draftee playing 50 AFL games is the measure of whether a pick was worthwhile, it is possible to compare each year by applying these criteria.

On the BigFooty Drafts and Trading board, Knightmare speculates that there are 4 classes of draft prospect, and it is possible to quantify each year's draft by defining a success rate for each class. I have defined these rates as 100% for the top class, 50%, 40%, and the remaining picks which over the draft years averages to about 25%, to get the following ranges for each year:

Image

Where this gets interesting is by looking at each draft range and finding out which clubs got over the odds, and which struck out. Some interesting results appear.

ImageImage

The rate in the last table above is the return compared to the competition average.

So Collingwood, who in 2006 had a $750k recruiting budget which was triple that of the St. Kilda, over the years 2003-2007 found 9 50-game players out of 22 selections in the national draft where the average return for the drafting range where these players were taken was 10.9. That's 13 players that have been churned through the Magpies' system in that time without a significant contribution.

Where this falls apart is that it implies that all 50-game players are equal. But that notwithstanding, I believe it demonstrates three things:

1) St. Kilda's drafting strike rate is not as bad as has been widely claimed.

2) St. Kilda has overspent on trading picks for players, sacrificing opportunities to trawl the draft for fresh talent.

3) St. Kilda has arguably failed in undervaluing the draft picks it has used in trades.


"... You want to pose a threat to the opposition in as many ways as you can, both defensively and offensively. We've got a responsibility to explore all those possibilities - and we will."
Legendary
Club Player
Posts: 1900
Joined: Mon 04 Aug 2008 11:35am
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 56 times

Post: # 1169100Post Legendary »

Great analysis ... fantastic stuff.

I think the 'equalisation' of all 50-game players is a problem with these calculations.

It would be interesting to add to the analysis with the number of those 50-game players who have "gone on" to play 100+ games.


A good example is someone like Andrew McQualter - he ended up with 80-odd games, so he qualifies as a 100% success in that analysis.

However his matches were scattered across 6 years (except for 2009 and a large part of 2010) and for a first-round draft pick, he probably never fulfilled the definition of a "drafting success".

I wonder if as a club we have held on to some of these "successful" 50 game players longer than we should have? Leigh Fisher and Raph Clarke are two others that spring to mind that might skew our results.

Nonetheless, it shows that at worst we are still average for our recruiting performance in the 2003-2007 period.


Interesting that the bottom 4 clubs for draft performance (2003-2007) have all been regular finals contenders over the last 5 years: Hawthorn, Collingwood, Western Bulldogs and Sydney have played many GF's and Preliminary Finals between them.


fingers
Saintsational Legend
Posts: 4642
Joined: Thu 22 Sep 2005 11:17am
Has thanked: 3 times
Been thanked: 4 times

Post: # 1169123Post fingers »

Isn't it relative though....will there be more "poor" 50 game players in a crap team, than in a good team?


User avatar
Armoooo
Saintsational Legend
Posts: 7281
Joined: Sun 26 Nov 2006 2:28pm
Location: The Great South East
Contact:

Post: # 1169156Post Armoooo »

Yeah not a fan of that system...

Melbourne, Richmond and Carlton have all had kids get easy games in their first few seasons, but still been duds.

Collingwood have been the most overrated recruiters IMHO, they have a lot of players have pretty good starts and Collingwood people rave about them, if somebody managed to get 20 touches in their first game than that must mean they will be averaging 40 touches in a couple of years....

IMO Geelong have been the best recruiters for a decade or so now.

After GC and GWS, Geelong have some of the best youth in the comp. I'm not sure how much of this has to do with the recruiting and how much to do with the development, I'm guessing it's about 50/50, but nonetheless it's still very imperssive.


ROBERT HARVEY A.K.A The Great Man, Banger, Harves, Ol' Man River...
384 games, 4 B&F's, 3 EJ Whitten Medals, St.Kilda Captain, 2 Time Brownlow Medalist, 8 Time All Australian, 2nd Highest Brownlow votes poller.... The greatest of ALL TIME!!
supersaints
Club Player
Posts: 1701
Joined: Fri 18 May 2007 11:13am
Been thanked: 7 times

Post: # 1169183Post supersaints »

Armoooo wrote:Yeah not a fan of that system...

Melbourne, Richmond and Carlton have all had kids get easy games in their first few seasons, but still been duds.

Collingwood have been the most overrated recruiters IMHO, they have a lot of players have pretty good starts and Collingwood people rave about them, if somebody managed to get 20 touches in their first game than that must mean they will be averaging 40 touches in a couple of years....

IMO Geelong have been the best recruiters for a decade or so now.

After GC and GWS, Geelong have some of the best youth in the comp. I'm not sure how much of this has to do with the recruiting and how much to do with the development, I'm guessing it's about 50/50, but nonetheless it's
still very imperssive.
Geelongs recruiting has been about the same as other clubs what has made it good is the number of father and son picks they received at way below their draft order. Ablett, Hawkins, Blake, scarlett etc, etc that have gone on to play many games..... If you gave us all their father son picks at bottom choice like they all were I think we would be pleased.


And the president said " I did not have sex with that woman"
And our former president said " Football is like golf" 

Go Sainters !!!!!
supersaints
Club Player
Posts: 1701
Joined: Fri 18 May 2007 11:13am
Been thanked: 7 times

Post: # 1169184Post supersaints »

Armoooo wrote:Yeah not a fan of that system...

Melbourne, Richmond and Carlton have all had kids get easy games in their first few seasons, but still been duds.

Collingwood have been the most overrated recruiters IMHO, they have a lot of players have pretty good starts and Collingwood people rave about them, if somebody managed to get 20 touches in their first game than that must mean they will be averaging 40 touches in a couple of years....

IMO Geelong have been the best recruiters for a decade or so now.

After GC and GWS, Geelong have some of the best youth in the comp. I'm not sure how much of this has to do with the recruiting and how much to do with the development, I'm guessing it's about 50/50, but nonetheless it's
still very imperssive.
Geelongs recruiting has been about the same as other clubs what has made it good is the number of father and son picks they received at way below their draft order. Ablett, Hawkins, Blake, scarlett etc, etc that have gone on to play many games..... If you gave us all their father son picks at bottom choice like they all were I think we would be pleased.


And the president said " I did not have sex with that woman"
And our former president said " Football is like golf" 

Go Sainters !!!!!
User avatar
InkerSaint
SS Hall of Fame
Posts: 2132
Joined: Wed 07 Jan 2009 3:06pm

Post: # 1169186Post InkerSaint »

fingers wrote:Isn't it relative though....will there be more "poor" 50 game players in a crap team, than in a good team?
There are two layers to the answer to that... first, "crap" teams get lower draft picks which are vital, particularly in the first two rounds. Second, "crap" teams tend to have a higher churn rate. There will be more poor players and more good players, simply because there are more players fullstop.

If players were getting "cheap" games their teams would feature higher on the ladder, not lower. By that measure West Coast are the kings of "cheapies" while Richmond are one of the stingiest.

Murphy, Gibbs, Deledio, and Martin would be handy players at any club.

Every team has selected an average of 22 players over this period. The Bulldogs have had 24, but almost half of those picks have been at the tail end of the draft, with 1 success story out of 11 picks. Sydney are similar but have been without the luxury of early first-round picks, and have had 3 late-1st to 3rd round picks fizzle on them, so have had to be clever with their trading. Their recent record has improved but over the period highlighted it was very poor - particularly compared to their rivals West Coast.


"... You want to pose a threat to the opposition in as many ways as you can, both defensively and offensively. We've got a responsibility to explore all those possibilities - and we will."
User avatar
SaintPav
Saintsational Legend
Posts: 19099
Joined: Wed 16 Jun 2010 9:24pm
Location: Alma Road
Has thanked: 1603 times
Been thanked: 2018 times

Post: # 1169190Post SaintPav »

InkerSaint wrote:
fingers wrote:Isn't it relative though....will there be more "poor" 50 game players in a crap team, than in a good team?
There are two layers to the answer to that... first, "crap" teams get lower draft picks which are vital, particularly in the first two rounds. Second, "crap" teams tend to have a higher churn rate. There will be more poor players and more good players, simply because there are more players fullstop.

If players were getting "cheap" games their teams would feature higher on the ladder, not lower. By that measure West Coast are the kings of "cheapies" while Richmond are one of the stingiest.

Murphy, Gibbs, Deledio, and Martin would be handy players at any club.

Every team has selected an average of 22 players over this period. The Bulldogs have had 24, but almost half of those picks have been at the tail end of the draft, with 1 success story out of 11 picks. Sydney are similar but have been without the luxury of early first-round picks, and have had 3 late-1st to 3rd round picks fizzle on them, so have had to be clever with their trading. Their recent record has improved but over the period highlighted it was very poor - particularly compared to their rivals West Coast.
Is there any sense from your analysis of the value of higher draft picks compared to picks in the top 15? IMO, after pick 5-10, it can be a lottery until pick 50 or so.

Notwitstanding the supposed thin draft, we have done very well to get 4 picks inside 43 this year. When you have later picks, that's when the value of a good recruiting department kicks in.


Holder of unacceptable views and other thought crimes.
User avatar
White Winmar
Saintsational Legend
Posts: 5014
Joined: Tue 02 Jun 2009 10:02pm

Post: # 1169221Post White Winmar »

The cats have not finished in the botttom 4 since the introduction of the draft. That's impressive, even when the good fortune they've enjoyed through the father/son rule is taken into consideration.


I started with nothing and I've got most of it left!
User avatar
InkerSaint
SS Hall of Fame
Posts: 2132
Joined: Wed 07 Jan 2009 3:06pm

Post: # 1169231Post InkerSaint »

White Winmar wrote:The cats have not finished in the botttom 4 since the introduction of the draft. That's impressive, even when the good fortune they've enjoyed through the father/son rule is taken into consideration.
Geelong's father/son selections over this period include Mark Blake, Nathan Ablett and Adam Donohue, and two of their 50-gamers regarded as a "success" by this study are Kane Tenace and Matthew Egan.

It will be interesting to see if they are still regarded as a dynastic team once the likes of Scarlett and Chapman retire.


"... You want to pose a threat to the opposition in as many ways as you can, both defensively and offensively. We've got a responsibility to explore all those possibilities - and we will."
User avatar
meher baba
Saintsational Legend
Posts: 7223
Joined: Mon 14 Aug 2006 6:49am
Location: Tasmania
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 516 times

Post: # 1169232Post meher baba »

I'm not at all surprised that we come out of the 2003-07 period looking ok. Over that period we picked up: Gram, Raph, Chips, Gwilt, Gilbert, Armo, Schneider, Dempster, Steven and McEvoy, who are all still important players on our list as of today (who knows what the next few weeks will bring for Gram and Raph, but I for one hope we hang on to both of them). We also picked up Guerra, McQualter, Fiora, Ackland, McGough, Birss, Gardi, who all gave some value for a while at least (they certainly played more AFL games for our club than a few I'm about to mention).

Yes there were relatively-early picks that weren't used quite so well such as Watts (although who knows if he hadn't been injured: we sure could have used him in 2011) and Howard.

Then we look at the period since 2007, and it's pretty clear that we don't need to wait 5 years to see how well or badly some of our choices since then have worked out. Farren Ray gets a tick as he has played a lot of games for us, although I'm not convinced he's all that great. But Lynch, Stanley, Al Smith, Lovett/Walsh (according to Drain at the time they had to be looked at as a package), Winmar, Pattison, Jesse Smith, Johnson, etc. have collectively produced two-thirds of four-fifths of bugger all at AFL level for our club so far: and obviously Lynch, Lovett/Walsh, Pattison, Jesse Smith and probably some of the others will never have the opportunity to do so. And, to top all that off, we lost Ball in a trade for nothing.

You might say that, at least in 2008 and 2009, our recruitment strategy went "down the Drain".


"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."
- Jonathan Swift
spert
Saintsational Legend
Posts: 9142
Joined: Wed 29 Jun 2005 10:39pm
Location: A distant beach
Has thanked: 1 time
Been thanked: 437 times

Post: # 1169235Post spert »

There's smart recruiting and there's dumb recruiting. Geelong for example have been smart and had a good eye for young talent, and then persisted and developed that talent. We have not been very smart in our recruiting, and failed to persist with young recruits or develop much talent that probably could have gone on to bigger things, and that has plagued us for years. I have a feeling the penny has dropped at the club finally, and we might start to get some smarts happening in this area.


Post Reply