I don’t know if you can tell based on the truly insufferable coverage, but the trade period is on!
Even despite the fact that it’s virtually impossible to microwave a team by paying sticker price for players other clubs are willing to let walk, don’t let that stop the chat about whose fortunes Connor Budarick is going to singlehandedly change.
In better news, it’s trade value column time!
Just a word to the wise, this is a Bill Simmons gimmick that I’ve totally ripped off.
The rules of the trade value column are pretty straightforward.
In a world where AFL player movement operates like a competitive market rather than the current racket where players sign contracts and then tell clubs they’re upset and dictate the one club they’ll be traded to, would you trade X player for Y player?
The question is meant to take into account age, contract status, positional value, and general value to the club you play for.
In the AFL, obviously, we don’t know how contracts work or how much money players are on so contracts aren’t really a factor other than length.
Kane Cornes will tell you that a long contract is always a mistake.
In general, I disagree.
Even if we don’t know how they are structured and whether they escalate with the cap, in general cost certainty long-term is a good thing for planning.
If someone is on a short- term deal and plays to the end of it, who knows what you might end up having to pay him.
Just ask St Kilda.
One last thing. Zach Merrett isn’t on the list despite him being either the biggest or second biggest name that’s likely to move this offseason.
He’s getting older, is a pure midfielder, and hasn’t necessarily transformed his own good form into winning.
Not that it’s his fault, but if the market was competitive, I don’t think he’d get as big of a return as the 30 players I’ve got here.
Before we get into it, here’s who’s off the list from last year:
- Charlie Curnow
- Caleb Serong
- Tom Green
- Mac Andrew
- Jamarra Ugle-Hagan
- Jake Waterman
- Lachie Neale
- Hayden Young
- Harry Sheezel
The Kids
30. Josh Weddle, 21, 1 year left
29. Joel Freijah, 20, 1 year left
28. Harvey Langford, 19, 2 years left
27. Murphy Reid, 19, 3 years left
These ones are the flag plants.
These are guys who play the kind of roles that look to me like they’ll be valuable moving forward.
It’s buying stocks in 1993 and hoping one of them turns out to be Apple.
Reid looks like a speedy, high pressure forward half architect who should have been the rising star.
Langford is a beast with explosiveness to be the 2.0 version of Clayton Oliver, whom they’ll need to replace.
Freijah is a mini-Bont.
Weddle is a speedy back half mover who might be able to be a souped up version of the intercepting defender who can provide some bounce the other way.
Like a mix of Harris Andrews, Jeremy McGovern, and Sonic.
I don’t know how bad these picks are going to look next year, but if I’m their clubs I’d be very reticent to move them.
The “I’m Not Sure What to Do With You” Crew
26. Luke Jackson, 24, 3 years left
25. Tom De Koning, 26, 8 years left (post St Kilda offer)
So, the league is telling me I’m wrong about these guys.
I see two ruckmen who can pinch hit a bit as forwards.
I don’t see the ruck as a premium position in any sense.
I see the ruck as a position where it only really matters at the poles.
If you are excellent or terrible it can make a difference and if you have one of the middle 13 ruckmen, it basically doesn’t matter.
You could make an argument that Jackson is an elite ruckman.
In fact, I would make it because of his ability to follow up across the ground.
But I still wouldn’t have traded what Fremantle traded for him, nor would I trade what Melbourne would have to part with if they get him back
But De Koning, especially, makes no sense to me.
In Tom De Koning, I see a talented player who inherently limits what he can drive a team to do because he’s not physical enough.
He’s a unicorn athletically whose midfield last year played better with him not in the ruck.
But St Kilda has thrown the absolute maximum sticker price at him and would presumably be very very loathe to trade him so I think he has to be on the list?
I don’t even know the rules of my own (read: Bill Simmons’) gimmick.
The Prototypes
24. Christian Petracca, 29, 4 years left
23. Isaac Heeney, 29, 3 years left
22. Marcus Bontempelli, 30, 4 years left
The key in footy today is this high impact, attacking midfield type.
These guys, along with the great Dustin Martin, are the originals.
They’re Leo in One Battle After Another.
Still truly great, still the goal for everyone else around them, but heading into the elder statesman phase of their career.
But only one of them is actually looking to get traded, so let’s focus on him.
What is Christian Petracca at this point?
By player rating, he had his worst year since 2019 and averaged two coaches votes per game which is his worst rate since 2017.
He’s not the player that he was.
But, he was still involved in about 30% of Melbourne’s scores with 7.3 a game and still kicked about a goal a game while attending about 70% of centre bounces.
He also still looked explosive and powerful after his injuries, and still had a significant competitive edge which was a big question heading into the year.
On the whole, he’s slightly diminished from his peak, but for a club like Gold Coast who is looking for extra juice in the front half of the field, he could be perfect.
And with four years left on his deal, they’re going to have to part with a king’s ransom.
If it’s Bailey Humphrey, it’s mutually beneficial as each club gets a player that fits their timeline.
Gold Coast gets the more mature version of the player that Hardwick’s system needs, while Melbourne’s second wife looks like their first wife’s picture from 10 years ago.
The Key Forward Hopes
21. Logan Morris, 20, 2 years left
20. Ben King, 25, 2 years left
19. Josh Treacy, 23, 5 years left
Footy runs on key forwards, and this year I spotted that we might be moving into a world where they’re coming back.
Of the top-20 goal-scorers this year, eight were key forwards aged 25 or under.
These three, to me, are the pick of the non-Darcy and Thilthorpe ones from a trade value perspective.
Even though Treacy wasn’t quite as good this year as he was last, his bullocking forward presence combined with his value as a pressure player and his long-term contract makes him the most valuable of the three.
Logan Morris is stylistically the most interesting as this group is a bit jocks v nerd, and Morris is the nerd.
He looks like a jazzed up Jack Gunston who will thrive in teams that move the ball well and can hit his leading patterns.
He’s not going to define games with his physicality, however.
It’s possible, given the game’s move away from pure territory and back to prioritising better entries inside 50 that the ripped beasts become less valuable than the androgynous skinny guys.
If that happens, footy will imitate Hollywood where there aren’t any more Brad Pitts but there are more Timothy Chalamets.
The Bedrocks
18. Jacob Weitering, 28, 6 years left
17. Harris Andrews, 29, 4 years left
16. Sam Taylor, 26, 7 years left
You could make an argument that these guys should be the top-3.
I wouldn’t, because I think the ability to score is more reliant on players than system whereas the opposite is true of stopping scoring.
However, these are three guys that you can build that defensive system around, which is invaluable.
These three are equally good at zoning off and defending for everyone else, or playing on the other team’s best forward and blanketing him.
They just do what the team needs.
This year again, defence showed how important it is.
The final four teams were in the top-six total defences with each of them having one fairly strong intercepting player to centre their defence around.
However, only one of those players belongs on the list: Harris Andrews.
He’s clearly the best intercepting defender in footy and is clearly the best player to build a defence around. I would have handed him Norm Smith.
The other three teams’ players just aren’t on the level, however, or Taylor and Weitering.
But the thing to notice here are the ages.
If footy is returning to the kinds of power forwards like Treacy and King, not to mention some guys that are coming later in the list, and if we’re going to remain in this world where you need a high intelligence player to be able to build around, where is the next generation?
I flirted with Josh Worrell or Mark Keene, but neither of them have the one on one chops, as well as being an elite interceptor like these three.
I wondered about Ben Miller as well, but decided my bias was clouding my judgment.
It’s like comedies in Hollywood now, where’s the next one coming from?
It can’t just be all gritty dramas with a few jokes like One Battle After Another.
If they don’t come, the AFL is going to need to change how it defends.