Trading: Best Available vs ‘Team Needs’

[shanegrambeau]

What do you reckon..?

I saw this on Melbourne fan forum. (Was trying to find JB comments)

Poster One responded to a quote, and it is supposed to highlight the ‘folly’ of pursuing role players based on ‘team needs’

Quote
“but that's dangerous territory. Drafting needs over best available. It's why the Saints drafted Pat Mccartin over Petracca. Or why we picked Jack Watts full stop. If the club rated O'Sullivan as equal to Windsor then we would've opted for team needs but they obviously rated them as worse players.”

End quote

Now the poster reponds
Start
I understand your point, but sometimes you need to assess what is happening with the league. The market for KPD's is absolutely borked - I can't recall a time when 4-5 clubs were frothing all over themselves to sign a spud like Ben McKay for $5m/6years. Any KPD that had the mildest amount of AFL ability was highly coveted this year.

Hell, the Crows were balls-deep into poaching Petty (busted foot and all) and he wasn't officially on the market.

Paddy McCartin was rated by most pundits as a top 1-2 selection. But the market for KPF at the time was stupid, and the consensus was that you can't win a flag without a spearhead. Tom Boyd was the #1 pick the year before and bounced to the Bulldogs a year later for a $6m/6years which probably spooked the Saints into taking McCartin rather than taking the chance on Petracca and trying to sign/trade for a KPF later.
End

And I wonder about the philosophy of trying shop for players based on ‘what we need’..of course it’s all shades of relativity, but in general, do you think we or some teams have focused too much on team needs?

[Yorkeys]

Take best available footballers and hire a good coach.
Second guessing the future is impossible.
(Presumption: employ recruiters who always thought/think Petracca is/was a better bet than Paddy McCartin (not difficult for most clubs).)

[B.M]

Trade for need

Draft for talent- best available

[B.M]

You are not draft a player for now - you are drafting a 12 year commodity

How do you know your needs in 6-10 years

Keep bringing in talent at the bottom - the top takes care of itself

[B.M]

The decision to draft McCartin shows how amateurish we were

In GTs time we were a joke in the recruiting dept

The non recruiting of Jack Reiwoldt- shows lack recruiting knowledge


List Management and Recruiting is 80% of success

[shanegrambeau]

Mnnn

Wonder why we got Liam Stocker last year?
It seems that it was a case of a medium to good player who was available, rather than a need to fill a hole as it were.

We already had Paton, Byrnes, Hill, Sinclair, Coffield (at the time), Highmore (at the time) .

Sure he has the aggression thing too, but we have given away a few of them over the years.

Perhaps they really did want Ben Long to stay?

[Life Long Saint]

You are not draft a player for now - you are drafting a 12 year commodity

How do you know your needs in 6-10 years

Keep bringing in talent at the bottom - the top takes care of itself

Agree that you draft for future and trade for now.
But at any point in time, you should know the list profile and what the needs will be in 1, 2, and 5 years time and draft accordingly.
If you only have one genuine ruck option, and he's nearly 30 then you'd best be looking for ruckmen in the draft and look to trade for a stop gap solution in the meantime (that is just an example and doesn't refelect what we may need).

[cwrcyn]

Grant Thomas wanted Jack Riewoldt. John Beveridge convinced Thomas that it was not a good idea for the cousins to be in the same team. Beveridge had clearly lost some of his faculties by that stage.

[cwrcyn]

If McCartin was 198cm tall and didn't have diabetes, it may have been a more logical decision. He was a lead up player similar to Tom Lynch who played for us and Adelaide. He was nothing like Fraser Gehrig, or Nick Riewoldt, or Stewart Loewe.

[saynta]

Trade for need

Draft for talent- best available

Wise moves.

[CQ SAINT]

Trade for need

Draft for talent- best available

Wise moves.

Just don't let him pick Billings

[CQ SAINT]

Billing wasn't soft. He ran away because he wanted to play in a better list.

They must be rebuilding. They picked the best draftee available and got him for free.

[Yorkeys]

Billing wasn't soft. He ran away because he wanted to play in a better list.

They must be rebuilding. They picked the best draftee available and got him for free.

Agree JBs not soft. But he had the choice to stay, same money, with a club that had stuck by him, and prove he was a better selection than Higgins and others.
And how much better is Melbourne's list.
They won the same number of finals as us and we are on the up. They aren't.

[B.M]

Billings needed to move

Just like Ball did in 2009

[CQ SAINT]

Billings needed to move

Just like Ball did in 2009

Ball needed to stay or earn his spot at Collingwood.

He got his flag.

[CQ SAINT]

Never really looked that happy about it though, I must say.

[CQ SAINT]

Ross came back

[shanegrambeau]

Never really looked that happy about it though, I must say.

And as a biased fan, I don't think many ex-St Kilda players of the era that encompassed GT through RL would be different.

Goddard in tears.
And it goes on.
At least in my imagination.

Grant Thomas was/is special for St Kilda. As was/ is? Ross Lyon.

Disclaimer: not to diminish the efforts of all the other coaches

[Otiman]

I think you draft for best available once you have set your attribute weighting. For example we might consider ranking based on the following desired traits.

Speed 10
Foot skills 8
Height 5
Tenacity 8
Hand skills 6
Tackling 6

And make sure you don't take too many of the same kind who would be competing for the same spot.

[shanegrambeau]

I think you draft for best available once you have set your attribute weighting. For example we might consider ranking based on the following desired traits.

Speed 10
Foot skills 8
Height 5
Tenacity 8
Hand skills 6
Tackling 6

And make sure you don't take too many of the same kind who would be competing for the same spot.

I wonder if you also have a metric for injury risk?
And whether redundancy is something of an asset.

Thinking completely out of the box
Consider both Kings. Max pops his shoulder because he will, being a tall skinny pack magnet. Ben more if an out front leader and less of a Pac-Man. Having both in your side playing 50/60% of time on the field.

[B.M]

Isn’t there always a risk of injury in AFL footy

[Vazelos]

Recruiting Mc Cartin was a disaster another blunder by that incompetent fool Tony Elshaug.
You always go for the best available player with top 5 picks Petracca was clearly the best.

[skeptic]

Isn’t there always a risk of injury in AFL footy

I think he’s referring more in a ratings sense.

Players like Zac Jones, Dan Hannebery and Dmac for example, are/were obviously AFL caliber but fat lot of good that’s got us over the last 2 years of their respective careers. As part of the metric, it’s reasonable to weigh up whether or not it’s worth persevering with an injury prone player juxtapose to everything else on the list.

[B.M]

They are mature age players with a long history

In saying that

Mason Wood was always injured at North

70 games in 9 seasons

[Yorkeys]

Isn't it interesting that it can be suggested that picking the best available talent might not be in a team's best interests.
Using that flawed approach we made two (at least) of the worst selection blunders in AFL history. Can only wonder how such a nonsense philosophy was allowed to permeate within the whole club in that era.
A common sense/ scientific approach seems the go recently, thank goodness.