Top 10/12/4/10 players in each position

Apologies in advance for the mammoth post. When we had 20 trades it was a religious mantra that you couldn't start with any non-rookie unless you thought he would end up in the top 6/7 in his position. Now with 30 trades I think there's a better case for starting with a midpricer as a stepping stone to a full premium, but nonetheless we still want to end up with most of the best players.
It's all too easy to say ‘x is tearing it up, I'm sure he's going to break into the top 6/8', and nominate a heap of players who you think are going to do this, but not so easy to nominate the equivalent number to drop out. I'm going to assume most people will be happy if all their backs are in the top 10, mids top 12, rucks top 4 and forwards top 10. (In reality, you'd prob want maybe 3 of the top 4 in the main positions plus the remainder from the larger group - and others may be more ambitious than me.) Here are my guesses as to who will come in and drop out. Those whom I'm less confident about are lower. Top 10 backs from 2013 Bartel McVeigh Walker Mitchell Murphy Thompson Shaw Hodge Hibberd Hanley (ave 96) To drop out Murphy (old, injured) Thompson (less ball in back half) Shaw (more attention) Walker (more attention, can't back up one good year) To come in Swallow (natural progression, playing midfield) Enright (more ball in back half) Hurn (injury-affected 8 pulled average down) Grimes (the Roos-Messiah factor) Top 12 mids from 2013 (excluding Dangerfield mid/fwd) Ablett Pendlebury Selwood Swan Griffen Johnson Montagna Watson Steven Rockliff Jack (ave 109) To drop out Montagna (even duncier team than last year) Steven (injured, ditto duncy team) Johnson (had a year out of the ordinary, prob worse team) To come in Beams (injured last year) Cotchin (injured last year) Liberatore (natural progression, finished 2013 strongly) Top 4 rucks from 2013 Minson Goldstein Cox Kreuzer (ave 98) To drop out Minson (had a year out of the box and also had Griffen and Libba with years out of the box) Kreuzer (got a feeling in me waters) To come in Sandilands (at least for a while!) Leuenberger (better preseason (I think)) Top 10 forwards from 2013 Dangerfield Riewoldt Harvey Petrie Martin Wingard Westoff Roughead Cloke Mayne (ave 92) To drop out Mayne (more ball to Pav this year) Riewoldt (St Kilda) Petrie (in no other year has he comfortably averaged more than low 90s and now older) Westhoff (average bolstered by first four rounds, then was clamped down upon more) Cloke (more ball to Reid this year) To come in Pavlich (did it for previous 8 years in a row and prob more if records were kept) Franklin (role change, new club, has done it for 4 of past 5 years) Parker (natural progression) Mitchell (natural progression) Gunston (no Buddy)
I'm sure I've missed your favourite breakout candidate... let me know about that, eh?

 

Interesting post. Just my thoughts without spending the time to go into the same detail of answers. Personally I can't see Enright making the top 10 due to his age and likely regression as a result, and think Swallow maybe the only of your 4 ins to make the grade. Tend to agree with the mids. I don't see your logic with Minson in the rucks. You reckon both Griffen and Libba had 'years out of the box' but feel they'll both make the EOY top 12 mids, Libba doing so by improving. I think Minson and Goldy are very good bets (Sandy as well but we know he probably won't play enough games). As for the the 3rd and 4th, you could throw a blanket over about 6 of them. In the forwards I think Westhoff will remain. Cherry picking the best results and removing them is silly to make the argument that player X isn't as good as the average says. They got the score and it all counts, no matter when during the season it was achieved. Franklin probably does come in. Gunston should improve but I don't see him quite making the top 10. Mitchell and Parker certainly could. I have Mitchell in my team but still have doubts just due to age and lack of proven elite scoring.

 

I agree for bottom end of the rucks you could throw a blanket over quite a few of them. Tough position to pick. I can see why you picked me up on the logic for Minson/Griffen/Libba because it seems contradictory but I don't think it is. What I mean is this: Minson and Griffen have enough lower scoring history to suggest that they'll come down a bit this year (Minnow scored 20 points higher than he ever has before; Griffen really only has one other elite year). So I reckon Minnow will drop down enough to drop out of the top 4, and Griffen will also drop but not enough to go from 5th to 13th+. I think Libba will have a harder time of it as a result of Minson's lower output, but he's younger so his natural improvement and the fact that he finished last year strongly (and has started this one strongly with his only down game being when tagged by Crowley) could mean he could overcome that to increase his average enough to get into the top 12 (only needs approx 2ppg more). This could all be wrong though! Re Westhoff: I would agree it's silly to take out his best scores if they were spread across the season, but he started last year with 100, 163, 150, 149, then I reckon opposition coaches realised it wasn't a fluke and locked down on him, and next five weeks he averaged 70 and the rest of the year didn't reach the heights of his start. (Eerily, virtually the same happened with Birchall.) Therefore I'm suggesting the last 18 games of the year will be a better indicator of his 2014 output than his overall 2013 average.

 

Great thread stampede. I agree with most of your predictions, especially the Hurn decision. I have a feeling he's in for a good year Does anyone one know why Pav dropped out last year?

 

Pav was just injured heaps last year - I think he was injured during preseason and played a few games early while really underdone, had a massive break to get right, came back, got injured, then came back a few games before finals and played just ok. For me he's a lock priced at 81. We know Ross Lyon-coached teams can funnel a lot through one champion key forward.

 

@anthak - yeah Grimes is definitely a big question mark I guess. Inevitably out of this list there will be quite a few who drop out or fail to come in purely due to injury, and he'd have to be a good candidate for that, apart from yes the genuine question marks over his scoring. Re Cloke: I do think if Reid plays forward and plays well the Collingwood players are going to enjoy kicking it to someone who's half a chance of kicking straight, but yeah Cloke would have to be the player who'll benefit more than anyone in the comp from the new wrestling rule if they enforce it strictly so who knows. That well-worn image of him standing with the footy in one arm spitting venom at the umpire with his opponent rag-dolled to the ground beside him will presumably not be seen quite as often.. and if so I get the feeling not enough of us have taken this into account sufficiently. (Having said that, has anyone seen much evidence of these wrestling contests being umpired significantly differently this preseason? I don't reckon I noticed a huge amount of change.)

 

Can't possibly see how NRoo drops out of top 10. He was the TOP forward last year in a team that won 5 games!

 

Well they might not win that many this year! No Dal Santo, no Steven for at least two months and it's a foot injury so he'll be underdone when he comes back, no Montagna or Hayes for one of their winnable games in Round 1.... going into his 14th year... maybe Roo won't drop out of the top 10 but hard to see him staying anywhere near the top.