Sydney_Demon

Refer my other post under AFL Stats Resource: Wheelo Ratings. There's nothing as simplistic as using a formula. Multiple simulations are run of every game for the reminder of the season with the outputs of those simulations aggregated. I don't really understand your point about predicting outcomes of finals games. The same process I assume as for H&A games. I'm hoping @WheeloRatings might provide some clarity re chances of a Melbourne Premiership, but I agree with you it doesn't make a lot of sense at face value.

Swans current injury list: Joel Amartey Hamstring 2-4 weeks Peter Ladhams Ankle TBC Paddy McCartin Concussion Season Tom McCartin Concussion TBC Logan McDonald Ankle 7 weeks Callum Mills Calf 2-4 weeks Luke Parker Suspension Round 14 Dane Rampe Neck 1-2 weeks Sam Reid Hamstring Season Matt Roberts Knee 4-6 weeks Marc Sheather Foot TBC

Fair point about the Sydney game. Its extremely likely they'll have a much better team on the park than they've had in recent times, but we did comprehensively beat them earlier in the year at the MCG when they were near full-strength. One player they are missing who I think was crucial to them last year (especially against Melbourne) was Sam Reid and he won't be back. Neither will Paddy McCartin. Sydney are currently 12th (with a game in hand) with a tough draw and I would predict the 11 teams above them are all morely likely to stay above them than not. They also have 3 teams below them in Richmond, Carlton & GWS who will their fair share of games for the rest of the year. It all depends on whether the Swans have something to play for. I don't think they'll be competing for a finals spot in Round 24 but a long way to go. Will the Buddy factor make enough of a difference?

I love your analysis @WheeloRatings which is a fantastic resourse you have made available. One thing though that I'm not fully understanding is how your simulations are producing Melbourne as Premiership favourites: https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_simulations.html The prediction at the end of the H&A is Collingwood 1st, Port 2nd, Brisbane 3rd, Melbourne 4th. That to me would lead to likely Qualifying wins for Collingwood & Port, highly likely Semi-Final wins for Brisbane & Melbourne, but then I would would think Port should be favourites against Melbourne (conversely, if Brisbane beats Port in the Qualifying, Brisbane would be favourites against Melbourne). So logically Melbourne would be most likely to exit at Prelim stage. You have Melbourne a 39.4% chance of playing in the Grand Final with Collingwood only a 35.4% chance. I would have thought that having Collingwood only a 53% chance of winning if they make the Grand Final seems remarkably low, given they would be favourites against Melbourne & strong favourites against either Port or Brisbane. Melbourne is given a 59% chance if they make the Grand Final, which seems high given very likely their opponent would be Collingwood. I know I'm only looking at likely opponents and your simulations would include a number of different scenarios with Melbourne coming from other positions than 4th but the numbers seem a little incongruous, given that since the current AFL Finals 8 system came in in 2000 no team has won from 4th!

I know Fox Footy's analysis goes a bit deeper than just looking at average percentages of opponents for the rest of the season, but pure averages can be very misleading. In Melbourne's case we have 11 games to go but 6 of them are at the MCG and only 3 interstate (1 of which is a home game in Alice Springs against GWS, 1 is against North Melbourne in Hobart, with the final round of the season against Sydney who probably won't have much to play for). We have no games in Western Australia, South Australia & Queensland. Other teams will have tough away games against Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Brisbane, Gold Coast & Fremantle . The average percentage of opponents for Melbourne is dragged up by games against Collingwood & Brisbane, both of which we play at the MCG. I'd say, especially with Western Bulldogs & Adelaide losing yesterday we are very-well placed. Wheelo has us a 96.4% chance Top 8, a 73.5% chance Top 4 as of this morning: https://www.wheeloratings.com/afl_simulations.html

17 of the 23 are Melbourne-listed players. At least the Sub will be genuinely Casey! (plus probably one to come in for the Melbourne Sub). The team listing is still not on the AFL website.

The official AFL argument for changing access to academy players was: "the switch for NGA programs to be overseen by the AFL's talent pathway with support from the clubs. The drawback in investment from clubs into the NGA area, largely as a result of the COVID-19 slashes to football department spending, meant the League also wound back the potential draft windfalls out of the system. The model, the AFL said, allowed for the elite talents to be available to all clubs whilst ensuring prospects later in the draft can make it onto lists of the clubs that have supported their development." What I don't think was fair was lack of recognition of past efforts made by Clubs in this area. e.g. Melbourne would have provided support pre-2020 to Mac Andrew's progress. It seems fairly obvious to me that negative reaction to Ungle-Hagen's drafting in 2020 was the major reason for the changes in 2021 & 2022. Clubs are now seeking reversal of changes but it's not going to happen this year. https://www.afl.com.au/news/882556/clubs-push-to-increase-access-to-own-nga-talent-amid-program-review Having said that, I don't think we really missed out on Mac Andrew. Would Melbourne really have matched a pick at No. 5 even being able to bundle picks and applying the 20% points discount? I disagree with you about the Sydney & Brisbane Northern academies. It's not about the Swans & Lions. It's about enlarging the AFL talent pool in States where Australian Rules is not the preferred sport. Players can still only be taken using the same rules as father-son (bundling picks, 20% points discount) so it's not about them getting free access to players they've developed.

No idea. It's been a course of frustration for me that Casey's most important player has been out injured for some time and I have absolutely no idea of the nature of his injury, expected time for return etc. The reality is that because he's not a Melbourne-listed player the Club clearly doesn't believe it's their responsibility to keep us informed. Is Casey part of the Melbourne set-up or not?

Still no listed team on the AFL website. The games on in 24 hours!

Agreed. Would need to fly back Saturday morning I'd assume which does leave it reasonably tight (1:20 flight, 30 minutes time difference, 1:15 from Airport to Casey Fields). Might have to get up pretty early in Adelaide but business travellers catch early flights all the time between Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide. I would assume that. Get the emergencies to Melbourne late tonight. e.g. there's a 9:10 Virgin flight.

Why would Harmes be a shoe-in? JJ had 10 possessions in half a game last week (35% total game time) and Harmes wasn't in the side. I know there are those who think JJ shouldn't be picked because he had the temerity to put contract talks on hold. If I was him I would have done exactly the same thing to actually see whether Melbourne thinks he's in their best side this year. IMO JJ should be selected ahead of Harmes purely on merit. Why would you say that? Melbourne are regularly picking JJ ahead of Taj at the moment. I like Taj and I'm glad he, along with Laurie, JJ & Joel Smith have been named in the 26. Let's see who plays sub tonight. That might give us a better idea of the pecking order.

No team details yet? I'm assuming the Melbourne emergencies (and even sub depending on playing time) will get back from Adelaide in time for thus match.

The club hasn't fully committed to him. Play him in the 22 every week and that might encourage him to sign.

Not named in Melbourne's 26 this week.

Not to mention Dean Bailey and Chris Connolly taking the blame for the so-called Melbourne tanking scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_Football_Club_tanking_scandal

Agree with you about Nick Larkey, but Ben McKay? Seriously. I might chase Harry McKay if was available. Choco might be able to teach him how to kick for goal.

You can't expect the system to create total equality of outcome, and I'd still like to think there's some room for good list management, coaching and club culture. However, I agree that free agency generally runs counter to the AFL's equalisation strategies. The fact that Geelong had the capacity to pick up the Jack Bowes Contract and Pick 7 in the 2022 Draft shows something is not working the way it should. Having said that, I believe the current combination of the salary cap & the draft including priority picks & preferential draws based on ladder positions is working reasonably well. I actually like the Draft as an event. I have no problem with showcase events per se, but the NBA lottery is just a gimmick that I believe is all about media hype, is fundamentaly unfair, and produces outcomes that run counter to eqialsation policies the AFL should be persueing. I can't talk about the NBA but I don't believe the AFL has a tanking problem. I'm sure sides that can't make the 8 send players away early for season-ending operations, play younger players earlier & experiment with players in different positions but this is all aimed at long term gain so I have no problem with it. Teams who finish 9th or 10th get better draft picks than Finals teams. They also get better draws for the next season. Why should they get access to a lottery? You might possibly have a point that it's better to finish 18th than 9th purely in terms of access to future talent, but actually winning games has it's intrinsic rewards as well.

Fritschy, your initial comment was that being the 24th player at Melbourne is better than being the 5th/6th midfielder anywhere else except maybe Geelong or Collingwood. I accept your comment regarding Jayden Hunt but the point is fringe players get pushed out of successful clubs, or don't get offered the sort of contracts they would elsewhere. Yes, players are driven by all sorts of motives. The point is that being the 24th player at even a successful club is not where you want to be. I have no idea whether Harmes is happy. I also don't know what he's paid, or if he could get more elsewhere. On Tradies they were suggested he's on $500k, the average AFL salary is somewhere just over $400k. They speculated he accepted a lower amount than what he wanted originally in exchange for contract certainty. He signed that contract extension at the end of 2019, 2 years before his existing contract was due, through to the end of 2024. I'm not saying he definitely wants to leave but logically surely how much he plays for the rest of 2023 will have some effect on his attitude. If the Club told him they'd be happy for him to explore other options during the trade period that also might affect his commitment. I'm not saying this is where it's at. Instead, the Club might want him to stay. Regardless, IMO it makes sense for Melbourne, and Harmes, to try and sort it out one way or another before or during this year's trade period.

Look, at the end of the day I suppose it depends on where you are coming from, whether you care primarily about the fairness of the competition, or are more focussed on bums on seats and finals excitement. Yes, having a play-in in the AFL would keep more interest in the competition for more fans and would mean more teams have more to play for until later in the season. They've introduced it in the VFL (the Wildcard Round) but there's 3 more teams in the VFL than the AFL so including the play-in games means you're still slightly under 50% of teams getting through to that stage. Yes, it would have been nice from a Melbourne perspective to make the play-in stage in 2017 & 2020 but frankly if you're not good enough to finish Top 8 of 18 teams my take is you don't deserve to play finals. The other point that would need to be considered (and this will obviously impact VFL this year) is that the play-in scenario negatively impacts the 7th & 8th teams. As you point out it's extremely hard to win from outside top 4. Obviously home ground advantage helps and the higher you finish on the ladder the more home finals you get, but ignoring that for the moment, teams 1-4 each have an 18.75% chance of winning, teams 5-8 each have a 6.25% chance. With play-ins 5-6 obviously stays at 6.25%, 7-10 becomes 3.125%. So, its extremely difficult to win from 5th or below now and it would become almost impossible from 7th or below. Your point about player movement is well-made. I would hate something like the NBA system coming into the AFL because it means poor list management would have no consequences.

Footballers are professionals. Jayden Hunt probably also falls into this category as does Sam Weideman. I'm surely likelihood of premiership success is important but at the end of the day if some other club offers you more years on better money you have a responsibiiy to your nearest and dearest to not opt to be the 24th bet player at Melbourne above every other consideration. Regarding Jackson, we have been fortunate to get Grundy in as a replacement with his contract partly paid by Collingwood. I'm not sure you would be so dismissive of Jackson if that hadn't happened. That applies of course to Kade Chandler this year as well. I remain optimistic about all the players you have listed. They have all shown definite improvement but we won't be able to fit them all in! Everyone is of course entitled to their opinon but I respectfully disagree. Whether he will make it or not remains to be seen.

I don't know about the NBA but do you have any evidence that tanking is an issue in the AFL? I think most of the stuff is made up by disgruntled supporters who don't like to see their competition having easy percentage-boosting wins against the bottom teams. Personally I hate the play-in tournament in the NBA and that it has been introduced in the VFL this year. I like basketball and obviously the standard in the NBA is elite. But you have a ridiculous situation where they play 82 games to eliminate 10 teams out of 30. Then, and let's forget the play-in tournament for a moment, you have an elimination tournament where the only advantage of finishing higher up the table is you get a marginal home court advantage of 4 games to 3. The NBA system is totally unfair to the top teams, and because they play so many games there are numerous games that have meaningless results, whole starting 5s are rested etc. etc. The play-in tournament IMO has nothing to do with stopping tanking and everything to do with maximising revenue. This is what happens now. Priority picks are allocated based on performance over multiple years. This works in conjunction with the annual reverse-order draft. The system works and doesn't need changing IMO. Why is this good? I'm sure Spurs fans are ecstatic and Detroit due to bad luck miss out on the top 4 picks despite having the worst record in the NBA. Why do they deserve this result? Did they actually tank more than San Antonio? What do you like about the way the NBA is run? You like lots of meaningless games, with only 1/3 of the teams eliminated. Miami finish 8th, lose to Atlanta (7th) in the play-in tournament, beat Chicage (10th), then go on a streak that could see them win the whole thing. They beat Milwaukee despite winning 14 less games during the season. Jimmy Butler only turns up when the finals start. This is all very exciting but any system when the entire pre-finals is largely irrelevant seems to be something we shouldn't be talking up. I do agree with you about excessive player movement, but this is the route people want to go down for the AFL. Of course none of the so-called experts provide any in-depth analysis supporting thir arguments.

Sorry DistrACTION but as I said tanking is not an issue in AFL IMV. So why have a lottery at all applying to the bottom 4, 5 or even all 18 teams? Having a sliding scale discourages tanking for a particular position as there is no major cut-off. Funnily enough, that's exactly what we have now. Unless the No. 1 draft pick is always superior to No. 2 there is no massive incentive to finish bottom in the AFL. What used to encourage tanking was the way priority picks were awarded but that has been tightened up, refer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priority_draft_pick

The lottery is a proposed solution to a non-existent problem. The whole point of having reverse order draft is to even up the competition, so in conjunction with the salary cap, any team can win. This has largely worked. The AFL is such a better competition for fans than say the Premier League because of this. Having a lottery just diminishes the process. IMV tanking in AFL is not an issue and if it is there are much better processes to tackle that than a lottery that has unintended consequences.

The NBA lottery only applies for the sides missing the play-offs and then only for the Top 4 draft picks. For picks 5 onwards it's just reverse order like the AFL. Why? Why is bottom 4 somehow indicative of a poor team whilst 5th bottom somehow means you are so much better than 4th bottom that you have no access to the lottery? The only reason to have a lottery is to stop tanking and, with reduced priority picks at the pointy end of the draft and increased AFL/media scrutiny, tanking is a thing of the past. In fact I would argue that having a lottery and limiting it to say the bottom 4 clubs encourages tanking as it'sa lot easier to tank for 4th bottom than for absolute bottom!

Yes, I know how it works. The point you have repeatedly made is that the betting market is a better indicator of winning chances than fans' often unrealistic expectations. I agree with that but the point I was trying to make is that markets set based on aggregated wagers are also far from perfect ways of assessing risk. They assume perfect knowledge from all participants. I'm not a gambling man but that is because I know I lack the discipline to avoid bias affecting my gambling and you have to be pretty good to overcome the bookies' margins (and I don't have the time or inclination to even attempt to overcome a rigged system). Still I think if someone wants to have a bit of fun using disposable income then good luck to them!