Jason Taylor - visionary or overrated

[Deespicable 2,886]

Sounds like this topic is one we will all want to comment on and tomorrow I will drop the 2014 draft.

It was good to see the undercurrent of support for Taylor and how many are quick to defend his status as being more of a luminary than overrated.

A couple of you were disappointed that I could rate his 2013 draft that year as just a 5/10, a couple of you wanted to make the point that Salem, Hunt and Harmes are all potential 200 gamers - which shows that Taylor was pretty much on the money.

My own view is that you seemed to have missed the point in my overall comments - 2013 was one of the best draft years ever and while 2001 will always get the “best draft ever” tag, 2013 isn’t far behind.

I mentioned five clubs have current captains from that year - in fact it is six as I forgot Alex Pearce, who was taken with pick 37.

Three clubs - Giants, Bulldogs and Blues - snared superstars of the game (Kelly, Bont, Cripps) and Hawthorn (Sicily) and Essendon (Merrett) would also claim their recruiter did way better than Taylor that year.

Salem, Harmes and Hunt are all good role players, but none are stars of the game in my view.

And on the good average player selections basis, Port smashes us with Impey (21), Byrne-Jones (52) and Amon (68) all still going and all still a chance to make it to 200 games - if that is our gauge of success.

Sydney’s draft guru would also feel he fared better that year as well, even if Hewett (32), Nankervis (35) and Aliir Aliir (44) are all at other clubs.

And neither Port or Sydney had access to a high pick like us - which is my point in the 2013 pre-amble that one or two of you seemed to ignore - as I said oh to be a fly on the wall at the meeting when Taylor was asked who he planned to take with pick 2, before Viney and Roosy agreed to the Tyson trade.

So I am quite comfortable with Taylor’s rating of 5/10 for that year and I feel Viney’s trade rating of 3/10 is on the money given we ultimately gave up Kelly for Tyson and the second rounder for Vince cost us access to Merrett and many other quality picks in a quality draft year.

But Taylor fans don’t get too aggrieved - I suspect you might like how I rate his 2014 effort.

One final correction to “what, say what” who clearly has got very excited by the topic and has jumped forward already with lists of talls etc.

But in his original negative post, he seemed to be trying to allude to the fact that Jimmy Toumpas (who was drafted pre-Taylor) was the right choice and that he wasn’t injured in his draft year.

Toumpas was brilliant in his pre-draft year(2011), standing out as a 16yo in the SANFL, and then captaining SA at the 2012 carnival winning AA honours. But towards the end of the year he sustained hip issues and had surgery, as a result missing all the pre-draft testing camps. That’s why it was a bit of a gamble because we didn’t really know how fast he was, although he clearly was a nice kick, something we lacked back then with only Jones and Watts able to hit targets at training. Viney wanted Wines, but was outvoted, which is what happens. End story.

[Demonstone 23,573]

13 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

*not sure who came after Laurie

Very, very few good players.  McCreery probably the pick of them.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_AFL_draft

[Axis of Bob 11,945]

11 minutes ago, Engorged Onion said:

*not sure who came after Laurie

The picks between Laurie and our next pick (aside from academy selections etc) were Brayden Cook, Matthew McLeod-Allison, Nathan O'Driscoll, Sam Berry, Seamus Mitchell, Caleb Poulter, Liam McMahon, and Shannon Neale.

[Demonstone 23,573]

Josh Treacy was selected in the Rookie Draft.  18 clubs overlooked him prior to that!

[Guest]

He has done a very, very good job.

Loudly pointing at a few that don't make the grade is lazy reductionism.

As a body of work he has done a lot with what he has had to work with.

[middleagedemon 325]

1 hour ago, whatwhat say what said:

derek hine at the filth

How do you split them? 

Again, I don't know the numbers but to my mind they're pretty on par. 

[Axis of Bob 11,945]

2 hours ago, Deespicable said:

Three clubs - Giants, Bulldogs and Blues - snared superstars of the game (Kelly, Bont, Cripps) and Hawthorn (Sicily) and Essendon (Merrett) would also claim their recruiter did way better than Taylor that year.

Interesting. You talk about one player from each of those teams in the 2013 drafts, which is very convenient because each of those teams only really drafted one good player! The only possible exception is GWS, who also drafted Rory Lobb (who went home) and Cam McCarthy (who went home) with top 30 picks.

They selected the 5 players you mentioned with picks 2, 4, 13, 26 and 56, so we only had access to Cripps and Merrett (over Salem) and Sicily (over Jay Kennedy-Harris). Placing Taylor behind GWS and Bulldogs because he didn't draft Kelly or Bontempelli is disingenuous.

Those 4 clubs (GWS, Bulldogs, Essendon and Hawthorn) plus us selected 40 players between them that draft (we drafted 7 of them, including 4 rookie picks). There were 10 of those 40 players that played as many games as Jetta after being drafted. The 4 players you mentioned, Rory Lobb and then 4 players drafted by Taylor (Salem, Hunt, Harmes and Jetta). And only 7 of the remaining players played more than Jay Kennedy-Harris!

The strike rate from those other 5 teams (with, generally, much better picks) was 19% chance of getting a 'Jetta+' players and a 41% chance of getting a 'Kennedy-Harris+' player. Melbourne had 57% 'Jetta+' and 71% 'Kennedy-Harris+' rate.

From picks outside the top 39, where we had 1 successful pick, there were only 4 'Jetta+' players .... and we had 3 of them (the other was Sicily).

I think a 5/10 rating is silly.

 

Team/ND picks (all others rookies/PSD) players selected. Yellow are players selected that played as many games as Jetta, Blue are those that played as many as Kennedy-Harris.

Edited July 9, 2024 by Axis of Bob
Forgot that Clisby was a rookie elevation. 2nd update: completely forgot about Tom Boyd at pick 1!

[whatwhat say what 23,855]

18 minutes ago, middleagedemon said:

How do you split them? 

Again, I don't know the numbers but to my mind they're pretty on par. 

very hard - both have helped build premiership lists

i would argue hine got kotd cos of the dacaii, moore father-son selections plus quaynor as a 'cheap' nga pick before the rules changed to limit access only to outside the top 40 unless yr a franchise 'club'

 

[Fat Tony 5,337]

1 hour ago, Demonstone said:

Very, very few good players.  McCreery probably the pick of them.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_AFL_draft

We did pull forward our draft pick from the future to take Laurie, so that needs to be also considered.

[Demonstone 23,573]

9 minutes ago, Fat Tony said:

We did pull forward our draft pick from the future to take Laurie, so that needs to be also considered.

I suspect we did so with the intention of drafting Holmes, but we were gazumped at the 11th hour.

 

[Fat Tony 5,337]

3 minutes ago, Demonstone said:

I suspect we did so with the intention of drafting Holmes, but we were gazumped at the 11th hour.

 

That could be right, but that possibility needed to be considered in making the trade. And we could have aborted and found a live trade back to the previous year. The 'out' on the picks being poor after Laurie is only telling half the story.

[Axis of Bob 11,945]

2 hours ago, Deespicable said:

I mentioned five clubs have current captains from that year - in fact it is six as I forgot Alex Pearce, who was taken with pick 37.

Three clubs - Giants, Bulldogs and Blues - snared superstars of the game (Kelly, Bont, Cripps) and Hawthorn (Sicily) and Essendon (Merrett) would also claim their recruiter did way better than Taylor that year.

Just another one here because I missed it the first time around.

GWS had picks 1 and 2, and whiffed on pick 1 (Tom Boyd) and selected Kelly at pick 2. Kelly is a very good player and a very good pick, but Tom Boyd played 9 games and was out of GWS at the end of the year. He only played 61 games in total and, barring one glorious half of football, was a total bust. 

Hawthorn chose Billy Hartung two picks before Zach Merrett. How come they get a pass on that whilst Taylor doesn't for selecting Salem 17 picks before him, even though Salem has been a high level player in the competition for many years whilst Hartung was not?

If Melbourne was a 5/10 in 2013, what ratings would you give to GWS, Bulldogs, Carlton, Essendon and Hawthorn in 2013?

[Foopy on the telly 534]

I’d go as far as to say it was almost ALL down to player development during the Bailey/neeld years.
 

The vast majority of players we drafted back then were objectively the highest-rated players in their respective drafts (yes, even Jimmy Toumpas). A classic example is that almost any other club would have taken Jack Watts at pick 2 if we didn’t take him with number 1.

To then say they “stuffed up the draft picks” would be wildly incorrect and simplistic, especially considering that you couldn’t possibly get that many picks wrong even if you deliberately tried. I mean think about it.

Anyways, hard to believe that was 10-15 years ago now.