The Go Home Factor

[Demonland 71,276]

Interesting article with stats about the Go-Home Factor.

What can AFL fans actually expect from first-round draftees?

[Dee Viney Intervention 1,915]

Will be very disappointing if Caleb Windsor requests a trade to Lysterfield.

[Lexinator 1,659]

It is a fascinating topic. I don't have the stats but just feels like some clubs have shifted their drafting strategy to target more local players either draft or trade too. Seeing this with WA and SA teams, and some extent even Geelong. Doesn't seemed to have deterred MFC from drafting lots of interstate players.

[rpfc 28,248]

I don’t think 54 is a lot in 13 years. Also how many were really wanted by their club?

Boyd, JHF, Jackson, Lever…

[drdrake 3,158]

How many of those players left GWS or Gold coast

[58er 6,383]

41 minutes ago, drdrake said:

How many of those players left GWS or Gold coast

About 25/30 I bet. 

[58er 6,383]

1 hour ago, rpfc said:

I don’t think 54 is a lot in 13 years. Also how many were really wanted by their club?

Boyd, JHF, Jackson, Lever…

What do you mean? Don’t understand your point. It’s not correct if you say Adelaide or we didn’t want Lever or Jacko To move

[Jaded No More 68,855]

8 minutes ago, 58er said:

What do you mean? Don’t understand your point. It’s not correct if you say Adelaide or we didn’t want Lever or Jacko To move

He's saying of those who moved, only a handful moved against the wishes of the club. Including Jackson and Lever, who both left despite their original club throwing everything at them to stay. 

[Little Goffy 14,442]

There's some weird use of parameters in those stats, and it completely misguides about what is going on.

The most glaring is 'Games played before exit' including only players who have already finished at AFL Level, meaning that for the incredibly successful 2015 draft where all but one player from the first round is still active at AFL level, that one player (Kieran Lovell) is the entire stat with his 2 games in three seasons before being delisted. Similarly, comparing 'how many seasons before delisted' for a recent draft which will only have early-cut players in the sample with a draft where players have had time to play out full careers is just silly.

I'm going to indulge the 2015 draft tangent:

B:       Burton        B McKay        Himmelberg

HB:     Mills          Weitering         D Rioli

C:      Fiorini          Parish            Kennedy

HF:    Gresham     C Curnow      Milera

F:      Hipwood      H Mckay       Ah Chee,

FOLL:   (M Flynn)   Oliver          Hopper

Doedee, Weideman, Schache, Francis, Cunningham,

Matthew Flynn wasn't taken in the first round but was a GWS academy selection and the first ruck taken in that draft, so I've thrown him in to complete the starting 18 for aesthetic reasons.

2015 was, by a solid margin, the best first round draft ever. The only other first round even in the conversation would be 2005.

Anyway... sloppy use of statistics irritates me.

[rant over]

[spirit of norm smith 16,252]

Is it go home and clubs targeting players who have moved interstate? Probably easier start to discussion or negotiation to have to “bring you home” when trying to attract players.  

[spirit of norm smith 16,252]

Ps. Scully moved after 2 years “away from home” to go interstate ($$$$$$) 

[BDA 22,719]

If you're using a top pick on a player you need to be confident they will stick around. If a prospect says they would prefer to be based at home it would be an immediate deal breaker for me.

 

[Deebauched 1,220]

9 minutes ago, BDA said:

If you're using a top pick on a player you need to be confident they will stick around. If a prospect says they would prefer to be based at home it would be an immediate deal breaker for me.

 

The post draft comments made by all the top draftees is hilarious corporate BS. Theyre basically reading from a script.

The best of course is No1 pick Harley Reid's comments. ..."so excited to being part of this great club (gut churning vomitous tripe) and be part of its exciting future"   blah blah blah.

If the Eagles are still swamp slops after 2 years do you think he wont try and get traded back home in his 3rd year?

My big wish for 2024 is Carlton mupp it  leaving egg all over the AFL's face.  Their huge pile of primetime slots is absurd.

If they play boring crappy football its going to impact on the TV ratings.

 

 

 

[drdrake 3,158]

We also need to remember free agency, not sure when this was introduced.  Clubs more likely to move players on to get a better deal than they would with free agency.

 

Jackson prime example, 2 first round picks and a second instead on a first round pick around 15 to 20

[Ouch! 2,258]

How many stayed?
I reckon more players move for opportunity than they do due to being homesick.

[Ugottobekidding 1,171]

7 hours ago, Dee Viney Intervention said:

Will be very disappointing if Caleb Windsor requests a trade to Lysterfield.

Is he smiling... Think he is gone

[Axis of Bob 11,674]

There’s a lot more to this than the ’54 first rounders have gone home’ headline. It’s 19% of first round draftees, which sounds alarming but I ran some of the numbers myself. The data is extremely heavily skewed by a few things.

Firstly Gold Coast/GWS. 56% of all the first rounders (30 in total) who went home had been drafted to either GWS or Gold Coast, with only 24 of ‘go home’ players leaving other clubs. Victorian teams have the best retention of all clubs, with each club on average only having lost 0.9 first round players across that 12 year span. This equates to an 8% chance (0.08 player per year) of any particular Victorian club losing a draftee in any individual draft year (compared with Gold Coast/GWS who lost an average of 1.25 first round picks per year to their native state). Those players who ‘went home’ from Victoria were: Reece Conca (106 of his 150 games at Richmond), Jamie Cripps (16/228 at St Kilda), Troy Menzel (40/44 at Carlton), Jimmy Toumpas (who was basically delisted, 27/37 at Melbourne), Blake Acres (who didn’t want to be traded and returned to Victoria, 75/145 at St Kilda), Ryan Burton (who didn’t want to be traded, 47/139 at Hawthorn), Sam Petrevski-Seton (94/121 at Carlton), Luke Jackson (52/75 at Melbourne) and Jason Horne-Francis (17/41 at North). If you look at that list there are really only a couple of ‘we were desperate to keep them players’, being Cripps, Jackson and Horne Francis …. Which equates to one good Victorian first rounder going home every 4 years.

Secondly, the data is heavily skewed by the first 3 years of the sample (2010-2012), where a total of 29 players went home, whilst only 25 went home in the next 9 years. The return home rate reduced by 70% after 2012 (0.17 players/club/year) compared with that from 2010-12 (0.54 p/c/y). These were due to the GWS/GC start up priority draft selections where they had great difficulty retaining those players, with GC and GWS losing an average of 8 first rounders each to ‘go home’ across those 3 years. Post 2012, a Victorian club loses 0.06 ‘go home’ first rounders per year …. Only 5 in total, and this includes those that were traded reluctantly (2 of the 5) and one that was given away cheaply.

Basically, the go home factor for Victorian clubs is mostly non-existent. It’s slightly higher for WA and SA clubs, Sydney and Brisbane (0.13 players lost/year) and much higher for GC and GWS (0.88 players lost/year) but it is far lower than it was during the formative years in 2010-2012. In short, despite Jackson leaving, I wouldn’t worry much about it.

I’ve got my working below for anyone interested.

[rpfc 28,248]

Thanks @Axis of Bob.

We all have our hobbies hey

[layzie 33,742]

More manipulating of stats for the sake of click bait.

[No. 31 1,184]

19 hours ago, Deebauched said:

If the Eagles are still swamp slops after 2 years do you think he wont try and get traded back home in his 3rd year?

My big wish for 2024 is Carlton mupp it  leaving egg all over the AFL's face.  Their huge pile of primetime slots is absurd.

If they play boring crappy football its going to impact on the TV ratings.

Agreed that H. Reid will want out if WC Eagles are still garbage in a few years time.

As for Carlton, after digging themselves out of a huge mid season hole and going on a powerful run deep into September, the self belief at Parc de Princes will be very high going into 2024.

They have also culled a few weak links in the list and should have better depth in 2025.

If the injury Gods are kind to the Blues they should do well in 2025 with players like Walsh, Cerra, Weitering, De Koning, McKay, Curnow and Motlop all capable to step up another notch.

[deanox 9,897]

14 hours ago, Axis of Bob said:

There’s a lot more to this than the ’54 first rounders have gone home’ headline. It’s 19% of first round draftees, which sounds alarming but I ran some of the numbers myself. The data is extremely heavily skewed by a few things.

Firstly Gold Coast/GWS. 56% of all the first rounders (30 in total) who went home had been drafted to either GWS or Gold Coast, with only 24 of ‘go home’ players leaving other clubs. Victorian teams have the best retention of all clubs, with each club on average only having lost 0.9 first round players across that 12 year span. This equates to an 8% chance (0.08 player per year) of any particular Victorian club losing a draftee in any individual draft year (compared with Gold Coast/GWS who lost an average of 1.25 first round picks per year to their native state). Those players who ‘went home’ from Victoria were: Reece Conca (106 of his 150 games at Richmond), Jamie Cripps (16/228 at St Kilda), Troy Menzel (40/44 at Carlton), Jimmy Toumpas (who was basically delisted, 27/37 at Melbourne), Blake Acres (who didn’t want to be traded and returned to Victoria, 75/145 at St Kilda), Ryan Burton (who didn’t want to be traded, 47/139 at Hawthorn), Sam Petrevski-Seton (94/121 at Carlton), Luke Jackson (52/75 at Melbourne) and Jason Horne-Francis (17/41 at North). If you look at that list there are really only a couple of ‘we were desperate to keep them players’, being Cripps, Jackson and Horne Francis …. Which equates to one good Victorian first rounder going home every 4 years.

Secondly, the data is heavily skewed by the first 3 years of the sample (2010-2012), where a total of 29 players went home, whilst only 25 went home in the next 9 years. The return home rate reduced by 70% after 2012 (0.17 players/club/year) compared with that from 2010-12 (0.54 p/c/y). These were due to the GWS/GC start up priority draft selections where they had great difficulty retaining those players, with GC and GWS losing an average of 8 first rounders each to ‘go home’ across those 3 years. Post 2012, a Victorian club loses 0.06 ‘go home’ first rounders per year …. Only 5 in total, and this includes those that were traded reluctantly (2 of the 5) and one that was given away cheaply.

Basically, the go home factor for Victorian clubs is mostly non-existent. It’s slightly higher for WA and SA clubs, Sydney and Brisbane (0.13 players lost/year) and much higher for GC and GWS (0.88 players lost/year) but it is far lower than it was during the formative years in 2010-2012. In short, despite Jackson leaving, I wouldn’t worry much about it.

I’ve got my working below for anyone interested.

Fantastic analysis.

One thing that isn't considered here is other types of moves:

- players moving away from their home state 

- players moving from an "interstate club" to another "interstate club" and not going home

It would be interesting to see if the "go home" factor is any more statistically significant than these other types of moves.

I imagine the clubs have done this analysis, understand the likelihood and also have an understanding of factors that may affect a players decision to stay in one place longer term.

I wish AFL journalists would present this kind of analysis in an article, rather than published opinion pieces around go home factor.

Edited November 23, 2023 by deanox

[Axis of Bob 11,674]

2 hours ago, deanox said:

One thing that isn't considered here is other types of moves:

- players moving away from their home state 

- players moving from an "interstate club" to another "interstate club" and not going home

It's interesting because there's a lot of that. One of the more interesting things is that more players are drafted from Victoria than other states, so the number of 'flight risks' that need to be taken is also much lower, which was particularly true the further back in time you go.

Also, the vast majority of the 'return home' players were those returning to Victoria from other states. Of the 54 players who 'came home', 34 of them were players returning to Victoria (which is 63% of all 'Go home' players, 9 (17%) being players who left Victoria to go to their home state, and the remaining 11 (20%) being players who left a non-Vic club to go to their non-Vic home state.

The other interesting thing is how this has changed over time. 20 (out of 34) of the players returning to Victoria did so between 2010 and 2012. Since then only 14 Victrorian first round picks have returned home across the 9 drafts between 2013-2021. Post-2014 no more that two Victorian first rounders have returned home in any given year (and only 1 in total post 2018).

I think that there are some players that can't take being away from home and will return however it's generally a very small minority. There were large chunks leaving GC and GWS early in the decade because they were bad clubs that didn't have the culture to retain their best players consistently. They also missed with a lot of their picks and those players got second chances for a small price in Victoria (where the most clubs are). There are now more players in northern state being drafted too (There was only one player, Trent Stubbs, drafted from QLD or NSW in the entire 2010 draft vs 6 in the 2023 first round alone!!). Despite all the talk, the trend for players wanting to go home is definitely downwards. Melbourne just happened to be on the wrong side of an anomaly.

[greenwaves 489]

I'm always concerned when we draft a West Australian.  They seem to be more afflicted by the go home factor

Edited November 24, 2023 by greenwaves

[Axis of Bob 11,674]

41 minutes ago, greenwaves said:

I'm always concerned when we draft a West Australian.  They seem to be more afflicted by the go home factor

Only 8 West Aussies first rounders have gone home since 2010. Of those only two players drafted in the 8 drafts post 2013 (up to 2021) have returned back to WA. Those players were Luke Jackson (2019 draft) and Sam Petrevski-Seton (2016 draft - traded for a 3rd round pick at the end of 2021).

The only player that has gone back to WA in the past decade that the original team tried hard to keep is Luke Jackson. Drafting for a Victorian team is easy because everyone wants to come here and nobody wants to leave.

[greenwaves 489]

1 hour ago, Axis of Bob said:

Only 8 West Aussies first rounders have gone home since 2010. Of those only two players drafted in the 8 drafts post 2013 (up to 2021) have returned back to WA. Those players were Luke Jackson (2019 draft) and Sam Petrevski-Seton (2016 draft - traded for a 3rd round pick at the end of 2021).

The only player that has gone back to WA in the past decade that the original team tried hard to keep is Luke Jackson. Drafting for a Victorian team is easy because everyone wants to come here and nobody wants to leave.

Thought it was more.  Thanks for the clarification 

Edited November 24, 2023 by greenwaves