Season 2011 - Preperations are A-Happenin'

I am the @Dreamteam_Guru from Twitter, and I have decided to expand from the 140 characters that I normally write by writing a BLOG.  From here, I will write my thoughts and tips throughout the year. 

I have begun doing my preparation for 2011. The @DT_Gurus_Cousin (new to Twitter - follow him too) and I decided last year to go halves in a Prospectus.  This is being sent to him, which means that I have to wait for him before I can scan it for the facts of the season.  However, armed with last year's Prospectus and an Excel Spreadsheet, I have begun to work out how to pick a team for 2011.

I need to look at the whole league this year, rather than just my top 50 or so.  The reason for this is that the @DT_Gurus_Cousin and I are setting up a “Keeper League” this year.  We run a draft, and instead of a salary cap, every player is available once.  You are free to trade and delist, but the idea is that you have them for their entire career.  Serious research is needed.

I have placed all players on an Excel Spreadsheet to help me calculate what they are worth to me (and not the dollar value assigned to them via the AFL website). To do this, I needed to calculate what factors were important when selecting someone.  This is what I deemed as important.

·         Last Year’s average score

·         The players average score for the last 3 seasons

·         Where they were taken in the draft

·         Their age

·         Average games per season over the last 3 seasons.

So value is attributed to players with more career ahead of them, who score high and are durable.

To go further with this, I needed to give a numbered value to each of these stats.

Average score is easy – it is what it is.  If it’s 100, it’s 100.  If it’s 54, it’s 54. 

Draft.  I decided that Father/Son is just as good as being taken in top 10.  I assigned these players 10 points. If you were picked between 11 and 20, I gave the player 5 points.  21-50 got 2 points and above 50 got 0 points.  If you were elevated off the rookie list, I gave you five points too.

Age. 20 or under is worth 10 points to me.  21-24 is worth 8.  25-28 is worth 5. 29 is over is worth -5.  Best part of the career is probably gone, and durability has to be a factor.  Also, if I am drafting for the future, what use is a 33 year old forward to me?

Average games per season.  The David Mundy factor.  It’s better to play each week and score 75 than play 10 games and average 100.  If you average 20 games a season over the last 3 years, I give you 10 points, and an additional point for each game that is over 60 games in this period. 

Is my system unfair for players that have played for less than three years?  Given that a Dustin Martin can’t have played 60 games yet, he can get points for averaging 20 games for the season. I would also work out that his three year average score is just his 2010 average score.

So, I am waiting on the @DT_Gurus_Cousin to provide me with 2010 stats, but so far I am armed with the 2009 and 2008 data which is helping me calculate the 3 year averages.  I haven’t calculated games played yet, and I need the 2010 data to do this.

So far I have calculated

·         Average score from 2008 and 2009 (thanks year old Prospectus)

·         Where they were taken in the draft

·         Age

I will add soon last year’s average score and average games per season.

At this time, I will reveal who I believe the 10 most valuable players to be.

But with 2008-9 data, the top are.

Gary Ablett – 130.5

Jimmy Bartel – 126

Marc Murphy – 118

Nick Riewoldt - 117.5

Dane Swan – 116.

I will expect Swan to jump big time due to his explosive 2010!

Remember that the trouble with formula is that it doesn’t allow you to pick on your gut instincts.  If you think that Jack Ziebell is going to have a big year, pick him even if the stats don’t back it up!!!

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Comment are welcome, but best to do this via twitter the ensure I see it!