List Management for 2020/21

[Happy Days]

Cavarra has potential but has looked really soft since he got to the club to be perfectly frank. Got shaken in a damn seconds game by some rough treatment, was putrid in round one (not on his own of course), and also doesn’t use his speed to do the things we need out of him (like run into other players as fast as he can).

Hayes is inexcusable. If you won’t play him in games you pick him for then what’s the point. I would’ve far preferred the lottery ticket selection at the end of the draft.

[mjp]

I think they are only expecting around 60 players to be taken in the national draft...

I'm betting 40.

[mjp]

Im of the opinion that one of them would have been a great depth compromise. both however is a bridge too far.

With treloar coming in, i cants ee a place for Hayes, unless he totally reinvents himself and turns into Ryan Crowley.

I can see no room for Cavarra based on match-day form.
Hayes 100% needs to become an inside run-with player - pick Crowley or De Boer or whoever you like really - but there is a role for that player not just on our list but in the 22...

[comrade]

Any chance we're keeping Cavarra & Hayes under some sort of "good bloke, hard trainer" policy?

[Dancin' Douggy]

Aren't we supposedly building our list of indigenous talent? And starting to create, nurture and foster an indigenous culture at the club?
I was hoping we'd leave some spaces open on the list to take a punt on some indigenous talent. Richmond has done spectacularly well with plucking fringe players with aboriginal backgrounds, and I thought with Jamarra coming in, this would be high on our list of priorities, but it seems we're just re shuffling the deckchairs.

[Axe Man]

I'm betting 40.

60 was just off the top of my head, you are probably correct that it will be lower than that. Fox Footy are predicting 53. Could be in the 40s, although 40 seems a bit too low.

This only increases the chance that MacPherson isn't bid on by my reckoning.

[soupman]

We are so dumb and predictable when it comes to going out of our way to retain guys just because. We've already cut them, we've done the hard part, just let them go.

Hayes is a hard running winger who we jammed games into in 2019 and he turned into an ok contributor, but then we went right off him and despite Lachie Hunter (who is the closest approximation of what we want Hayes to be) not playing for half the season Hayes managed just two games and was actually dropped by halftime in the second one never to be seen again. How is a backup player with a low ceiling and that you don't actually use when the spot opens up worth giving yet another year to?

And Cavarra. A mid paced crumbing forward that has yet to crumb anything for us, he came to the club as a mature age recruit ready to go and has managed just 3 uninspiring games for us in two years despite his type being exactly the kin of player we need to put in there. Why is he on the list still? His output is on par with Andrew Hoopers.

Yeah I know this years draft is a crapshoot, but would either of these guys even get looked at if they were in the draft pool based on their VFL form these last two years and the players they are? Neither have pushed for selection at all this year, despite both being guys that came to the club with a reputation of really earning their spot and having done stuff the hard way. We were reluctant to play either of them even though there were clearly spots for players of their description in our line up all year. I will be astounded if at the end of 2021 their names aren't on the delisting pile, does anyone actually think they project as regular best 15 or even 22 players at all?

Also those list spots should be going to anybody else. We could pick up two state league quick crumbing forwards who have had promising seasons and even if neither play a senior game at least we have tried. We could use it on some random athletic beast and see what happens. We could grab the biggest and meanest key defender in the country and see if we can make him stick. We could grab Ivan Soldo's cousin (presumably also named Ivan) and see if that family can produce a third Premiership ruckman. These are all potentially dumb options, but at least we would be trying to improve our list instead of giving 6 out of 10s that we refuse to pick another year in the reserves. We could've used these list spots to pick up other players in the trade period. Could have grabbed Lachie Schultz, Brett Bewley, Connor Ballenden, Jake Aarts or Mabior Chol who have either just been demoted back to the rookie list or are still on there.

We also desperately want a dynamic small forward who can kick goals and bemoan how we can't seem to find one. The top goalkickers in the league in that position this season were Charlie Cameron, Daniel Butler, Liam Ryan and Tom Papley. Aside from Butler the other three were rookies. We are frustrated that we can't seem to find any good indigenous talent to put on our list, yet continually overlook the rookie draft where historically indigenous talent has been overrepresented.

Our rookie list atm has 15 and a half seasons to it's name, for a total of 49 games. Three of the guys on there have ceilings that would make them fringe best 22 types at best (Smith, Cavarra and Hayes), two have had no buzz internally or externally about them and have at best been named on the emergency list for what I assume are accounting purposes as we seem to have no intention of using them (Khamis and Sweet) and the only one that might yet establish himself as a proper senior player literally had the phrase "worst player I have even seen in our jumper" attached to half his games this year (Gardner). We are so risk averse and have turned the rookie list which saw such refreshing and important talent as Dahlhaus, Boyd, Picken and Morris emerge for us into a wasteland of guys that we have already decided aren't good enough for a senior list spot. I mean credit to Roarke for seemingly at least half justifying his spot on the list but 7 years not on the senior list to only be a fringe 22 guy is not a great example of how this approach gives us a competitive advantage.

The only former rookie picks on our list that have justified senior contracts atm are JJ and Jong. Thats it. We haven't gotten a single best 22 rookie since those guys in the early 2010s. There isn't a single guy we have demoted back to the rookie list that has re earned his senior list spot. What we are doing is not working.

Cavarra and Hayes seem like nice guys, and have clearly worked hard for their opportunity, but our list spots continue to be handed out out of some misguided sense of loyalty. We should cut these guys, tell them if they want they can stick around at Footscray and try and earn their way back on via the mid season draft, and in the meantime enable ourselves to offer contracts to two players that might actually do something for us and have ceilings higher than mediocre depth role players.

[Grantysghost]

I agree. My philosophy for the rookie list is to use it to punt on at least one untried talent that maybe slipped through for various reasons. Not to keep depth, break glass in case of catastrophe types.
I think it was Reload who suggested one of Hayes or Cavarra and I agree with that. A good balance would be one break glass guy and one untried / slipped through the cracks talent. Very conservative approach from our list team.

[Rocco Jones]

I wonder how much our decisions are based on rookie pick analytics, how many games/value pick x is worth. Do we have any idea on the 'worth' of say pick 35 in the rookie draft?

FWIW I'm with mjp on Hayes though. More the same seems like madness with him. Well, a waste anyway.

[Rocco Jones]

Non-Redrafted Rookies

2014
Roarke Smith
Jordan Kelly

2015
Brad Lynch
Luke Goetz
Jed Adcock

2016
Nathan Mullenger-McHugh

2017
Billy Gowers


2018
Lachie Young
Jordon Sweet

[hujsh]

Should Khamis be added to that list? He's a Cat B rookie right?

[Mitcha]

60 was just off the top of my head, you are probably correct that it will be lower than that. Fox Footy are predicting 53. Could be in the 40s, although 40 seems a bit too low.

This only increases the chance that MacPherson isn't bid on by my reckoning.

By my reckoning this means that neither MacPherson or Raak will be Bulldogs next year.

[Axe Man]

By my reckoning this means that neither MacPherson or Raak will be Bulldogs next year.

Why?

[Dancin' Douggy]

I totally agree. My short post re indigenous talent was basically a brief version of what you have articulated so very very well here.

We are so dumb and predictable when it comes to going out of our way to retain guys just because. We've already cut them, we've done the hard part, just let them go.

Hayes is a hard running winger who we jammed games into in 2019 and he turned into an ok contributor, but then we went right off him and despite Lachie Hunter (who is the closest approximation of what we want Hayes to be) not playing for half the season Hayes managed just two games and was actually dropped by halftime in the second one never to be seen again. How is a backup player with a low ceiling and that you don't actually use when the spot opens up worth giving yet another year to?

And Cavarra. A mid paced crumbing forward that has yet to crumb anything for us, he came to the club as a mature age recruit ready to go and has managed just 3 uninspiring games for us in two years despite his type being exactly the kin of player we need to put in there. Why is he on the list still? His output is on par with Andrew Hoopers.

Yeah I know this years draft is a crapshoot, but would either of these guys even get looked at if they were in the draft pool based on their VFL form these last two years and the players they are? Neither have pushed for selection at all this year, despite both being guys that came to the club with a reputation of really earning their spot and having done stuff the hard way. We were reluctant to play either of them even though there were clearly spots for players of their description in our line up all year. I will be astounded if at the end of 2021 their names aren't on the delisting pile, does anyone actually think they project as regular best 15 or even 22 players at all?

Also those list spots should be going to anybody else. We could pick up two state league quick crumbing forwards who have had promising seasons and even if neither play a senior game at least we have tried. We could use it on some random athletic beast and see what happens. We could grab the biggest and meanest key defender in the country and see if we can make him stick. We could grab Ivan Soldo's cousin (presumably also named Ivan) and see if that family can produce a third Premiership ruckman. These are all potentially dumb options, but at least we would be trying to improve our list instead of giving 6 out of 10s that we refuse to pick another year in the reserves. We could've used these list spots to pick up other players in the trade period. Could have grabbed Lachie Schultz, Brett Bewley, Connor Ballenden, Jake Aarts or Mabior Chol who have either just been demoted back to the rookie list or are still on there.

We also desperately want a dynamic small forward who can kick goals and bemoan how we can't seem to find one. The top goalkickers in the league in that position this season were Charlie Cameron, Daniel Butler, Liam Ryan and Tom Papley. Aside from Butler the other three were rookies. We are frustrated that we can't seem to find any good indigenous talent to put on our list, yet continually overlook the rookie draft where historically indigenous talent has been overrepresented.

Our rookie list atm has 15 and a half seasons to it's name, for a total of 49 games. Three of the guys on there have ceilings that would make them fringe best 22 types at best (Smith, Cavarra and Hayes), two have had no buzz internally or externally about them and have at best been named on the emergency list for what I assume are accounting purposes as we seem to have no intention of using them (Khamis and Sweet) and the only one that might yet establish himself as a proper senior player literally had the phrase "worst player I have even seen in our jumper" attached to half his games this year (Gardner). We are so risk averse and have turned the rookie list which saw such refreshing and important talent as Dahlhaus, Boyd, Picken and Morris emerge for us into a wasteland of guys that we have already decided aren't good enough for a senior list spot. I mean credit to Roarke for seemingly at least half justifying his spot on the list but 7 years not on the senior list to only be a fringe 22 guy is not a great example of how this approach gives us a competitive advantage.

The only former rookie picks on our list that have justified senior contracts atm are JJ and Jong. Thats it. We haven't gotten a single best 22 rookie since those guys in the early 2010s. There isn't a single guy we have demoted back to the rookie list that has re earned his senior list spot. What we are doing is not working.

Cavarra and Hayes seem like nice guys, and have clearly worked hard for their opportunity, but our list spots continue to be handed out out of some misguided sense of loyalty. We should cut these guys, tell them if they want they can stick around at Footscray and try and earn their way back on via the mid season draft, and in the meantime enable ourselves to offer contracts to two players that might actually do something for us and have ceilings higher than mediocre depth role players.

[Mofra]

Any chance we're keeping Cavarra & Hayes under some sort of "good bloke, hard trainer" policy?

The Prudden rule?
I expect Hayes is being kept for his tank more than anything else. Cavarra is extremely lucky, especially with Hannan coming in unless we do something stupid like try to turn Hannan into a wingman (which I wouldn't put it past the MC to do).

If Weightman learns to crumb it makes our list management interesting.