Who’s the most valuable player in the AFL on the trade table? Not the best, not the best young player, not the best key forward. Who is the most valuable player in the AFL as far as trade value?
For many years Bill Simmons wrote what he called “The Trade Value Column” for the NBA. In this column, he would do exactly as the title says – rank players in terms of trade value. He did this by taking into account contract length, salary, age, injury history, off-court reliability and positional value. He ranked it basically by running the list in reverse order i.e. if we say Joel Embiid is number 6 on the trade value column then players 1 through 5 are all players whom Daryl Morey and 76ers would say at least “we need to have a meeting and talk about this” if not “done deal. Call it into the league”. Beyond that, the 6ers would not trade him from any player ranked from 7 down.
It's not about picks necessarily and who is worth how many picks but it takes place in a vacuum where you can only trade players one for one. I also note this isn’t really about loyalty to a specific player.
The vacuum I just mentioned also assumes that there is no emotional attachment to these players. For instance, there was a time where Dustin Martin was probably number 1 on this list. He might have occupied top spot from 2017-2019 or even 2020. After his kidney injury, his age, and his massive salary it would be difficult to make the argument that he is number 1 today. However, given Richmond’s love for and commitment to Dustin, in addition to his knack for turning it on in big spots I find it very hard to believe they would trade him for anyone above him on the list – but the reasons why are not purely football.
It's a great idea and one that I think we should repurpose for the AFL.
Before we get going, some football specific ground rules. Firstly, given we don’t know with any certainty how much every player in the AFL is on like we do in American sports, contract size will be approximate. Really, length of contract will be the key indicator and that can swing either way.
Given the recent news about large American broadcasters entering negotiations to show like AFL games, it stands to reason that the salary cap will rise for the foreseeable future as the cap is inherently tied to league revenue. At the very least, this offshore interest is certain to raise the cost for Australian broadcasters if the AFL wants to keep the product at home. Additionally, the most recent CBA signed in 2017 - and running through to 2023 - saw the players negotiate for 28% of the league revenue. This is extraordinarily low in the context of global sport. It is more akin to the UFC in terms of revenue split than it is to the NFL or NBA. It is likely that players will and should push for a larger slice of the revenue pie.
With the facts of a new broadcast rights deal and CBA incoming, and the likelihood that the AFLPA will push for a larger slice of the revenue pie, in my view having players signed to long-term extensions now is a positive if the player has proven themselves resilient. I take this position because their money is certain and negotiated without concrete knowledge of what the new broadcast rights deal and resultant salary cap will be. Anyone out of contract in the next 2 years, or holding a long term deal from now, is more valuable from a purely contractual point of view because of the potential explosion of salaries that is coming.
Secondly, positional value and scarcity are paramount. The most valuable players in football at the moment are the forward half mid/forward type players of which Christian Petracca is the modern stereotype. An explosive beast out of the contest and ravenous within it, but also an exceptionally talented player inside the forward 50. Indeed, he seldom goes in the back 50. But because modern defence is so good and so team-based, players that can conjure goals for themselves or teammates from disadvantageous situation are inherently more valuable.
This dovetails nicely into the question of positional scarcity. How many really good key forwards are there in the AFL? Maybe 8-10, generously. It’s a difficult position to find in the modern game because, again, of the way defence is played and the aerobic and anaerobic beast that you have to be to be a modern day key forward. Frankly, there just aren’t that many 6’6 people in this country, let alone ones that can run like a deer, bench press a car and jump higher than Wesley Snipes ever thought a white man could. At the opposite end of the spectrum, it feels like there are 100 capable midfielders in the AFL so they are inherently less valuable, with the exception of the truly excellent ones.
Certain positions are also less valuable. The way the two dominant sides of the last 5 years, Richmond and Melbourne, have won is off of forward half turnover production. As a result, the contest is somewhat less valuable, making the pure midfielders and ruckmen less likely to make the list. You would be hard-pressed, for instance, to make a list of the 5 best players in football at the moment and not include Max Gawn. However, he is not in my 20 because he is 30 years of age but also because he is a pure ruckman whose forward craft is still coming along – even despite his goal kicking spree in the 2021 AFL finals series. In order to strengthen this point, if we look at West Coast in 2018, they won the premiership with their best ruckman (Nic Nat) on ice.
On a similar line of thinking, defence today is played based on zones and contributed to by the entire team so key defensive players also are, in my view, less valuable and can be supported by strong systems. The defenders on the list are the players around whom I think that you can build a system. This is not a knock on the health of the state of defence in the modern AFL, indeed I would argue modern defence is too healthy. Instead I am saying that modern defence is no longer Carey vs Jakovich but instead a team-wide effort.
Finally, it is important to note that this column takes place in a parallel universe where AFL trades are decided not by the players but by the teams. All players can be traded anywhere, trade requests be damned. It takes place in a pure meritocracy where the best deal for the football club wins, not on the whims of a player who wishes to be traded back to his home state.
I have ranked what I think are the top 15 players and have included their age, number of years left on their contracts and how much money is left on their deals if that is publicly available. I also have 5 honourable mentions. I will tier the players as follows:
· Honourable mentions
· “We’re listening, but we’re not excited to hear you talk”
· “We are going to need a child from you if we are to trade this player”
· “Even with the kid. Not going to happen.”
· “Untouchable.”
With all of that said, let’s start with our 5 honourable mentions:
Toby Greene (28. 4 years left. Money unclear.)
Jordan De Goey (26. Last year. $700,000)
Ollie Wines (27. 4 years left. Money unclear)
Jeremy Cameron (29. 3 years left. $2.7 million left)
Tom Stewart (29. 2 years left. Money unclear)
These honourable mentions are kind of a hodgepodge group so we’ll deal with the two most interesting players here, Toby Greene and Jordan De Goey. Both are undeniably talented players but there are disciplinary misgivings that would give you pause in trading for them if you’re an opposing team.
Greene is locked up long-term and will be 32 when he’s up so he’s about as expensive as he’s going to get, but he’s a pure forward and kind of a tweener size-wise. This is both his best asset and biggest curse as a player. However, the real issue with Greene are his on-field indiscretions. Greene has been suspended for 14 games in his career and has racked up over $30,000 in fines. There’s a little Russell Crowe to him. Incredibly talented and has headlined in the past. But he’s hot-headed and troubled in some way. You have to wonder how he’s actually going to age. ‘Rusty’ was great relatively recently in The Nice Guys but as he’s aged, films like that have gotten fewer and farther between. This is probably a mixture of both his deteriorating physical looks and also his reputation as being challenging to work with. I wonder if Greene will go the same way, not in terms of fitness, but just that his idiotic acts will get harder to overlook as he gets older. This is particularly because his misdeeds are generally rushes of blood in the heat of competition. He's only 28 now so he is still in his prime but, as he ages, it seems likely to me that he would become less able to control his moods as he gets more frustrated by what his body can no longer do. I make this assessment based on the examples set by other ageing and increasingly grumpy greats like Cotchin, Selwood and before them Luke Hodge.
Jordan De Goey is a similar, but darker, conversation. He’s younger than Greene and a free agent this year, meaning if you trade for him, you’re going to have to pay him. Trading for him also removes a club’s leverage. If you trade for him and give up a lot, you have told him how much you value him and he can hold the club over a barrel for a contract. Given that he is represented by Ralph Carr who was successfully able to get Dustin Martin paid with hard negotiation, it’s difficult to see how De Goey gets less than $900,000 a year.
Would you be in a hurry to pay him that? I certainly wouldn’t.
If Greene is Russel Crowe, then De Goey is Kevin Spacey before he was officially and undeniably cancelled. I make this comparison not in terms of the nature of the allegations but the whole toxic package of being undeniably talented, undeniably difficult to work with, and shrouded in darkness and allegations.
He is absolutely the physical prototype in terms of the most positionally valuable players in football, but he doesn’t have the obsessive professionalism of his contemporaries in a physical sense – Dustin Martin and Christian Petracca. Dusty specifically was not the ultimate professional early in his career but is now. De Goey shows no signs of such maturity, even with more midfield minutes being played this year. Additionally, after the recent debacle in New York where troubling allegations were levelled at him – ironically the day after the “best shape of my life” articles came out, touting his newfound commitment to football – there are serious character concerns with De Goey.
This lack of professionalism, aerobic capacity, and maturity all combine to make De Goey a difficult asset to rank. Frankly I just did not feel comfortable rating him ahead of the ultimate professionals on the list.
“We’re listening. But we’re not excited to hear you speak.”
Lachie Neale (28. 1 year left. Money unclear.)
Charlie Cameron (27. 3 years left. $2.1 million left.)
Jake Lever (26. 2 years left. $1.6 million left.)
Patrick Cripps (27. 5 years left. $5 million left.)
Here, to me, the two most interesting players are Cameron and Cripps. However, I’ll briefly touch on Lever first.
Lever is not my highest ranked defender. In fact, I don’t think he’s the best defender on the Dees – a distinction that belongs to Steven May in my view. May, realistically, is the player that the best defence in football is built around because of his impeccable disposal combined with his ability and size to lock up a player. But he’s 30 now, expensive, and can’t have more than 3 or 4 years left. But if May is Tony Soprano, Lever is Silvio. Almost equally as integral to, and the brains of, the operation. He is an incredibly valuable understudy who complements the lockdown work of Petty and May with his ability to read the ball in flight and get to aerial contest after aerial contest. He is also a good judge of when to mark and when to spoil, something of a lost art in the modern game. Beyond that Lever is still young and relatively well-priced even if he does probably one more big contract coming. Put simply, defensive players are most valuable if you can build a defensive system around them. The best defensive system in the AFL is at present built around Lever and May and Lever is younger, priced roughly the same, and likely to play for longer so Lever makes the trade value list.
Now let’s get to Cripps. Last year, I do not think Cripps would have made this list. He’s a contested ball beast with average, at best, disposal who can theoretically go forward but hadn’t shown that ability since he kicked 4 against Brisbane. Every number had been down for 2 years straight and the AFL’s effort to open up the game appeared to be negatively affecting the game’s best stagnant ball player. Beyond that, he had been injured and already seemed to be affected by the unconscionable burden Carlton forced him to carry. Then the Blues gave him 5 more years at the top 1% of the salary market. Absurd and hilarious, I thought. While these issues are still likely to prop up in the back end of his fat contract, the fact is that Cripps is likely going to set a Brownlow Medal record if this pace keeps up. He has been incredible and has been unlocked by the additions of Cerra and Kennedy who have deepened the midfield and given him a chop out in the middle which has allowed him to kick 13 goals from the 7 games he’s played at the time of my writing this. He kicked 13 total last year. Whilst I do not believe that scoring predominantly from stoppage is likely to lead to a premiership for the Blues, Cripps is the best in the league at manufacturing these situations. I can’t help it. He is a beast. He’s on the list.
I think that the player that will raise the most eyebrows on this list is Charlie Cameron, he of the 3 word tweet. But hear me out. Cameron is comfortably the best pure small forward in the AFL. He can do everything in the air but more so on the ground and he is a hard worker defensively. Additionally, he is a creature of the forward 50 who wreaks havoc and causes panic every time he gets near it. If it is accepted that the way to win consistently in the AFL is fashioning goals from half chances and generating forward half turnovers, players like Cameron are incredibly valuable. Beyond that, he is relatively inexpensive for the best player at his position and is likely on his last big contract. You get him for his last three years in his physical prime at a relative discount, then you can let him walk and get compensated because one of the dumb teams will inevitably sign him to one more big contract. Cameron is an incredible asset when you consider how winning is done today, his age and contractual status, and his rare abilty as a pure footballer. I do acknowledge that he has been subdued in finals recently but regardless I think his total package as a footballer warrants a place on the list.
“We are going to need a child from you if we are going to trade this player.”
Clayton Oliver (24. 1 year left. Money unclear.)
Dustin Martin (30. 2 years left. $3 million left.)
Shai Bolton (23. 1 year left. $600,000.)
Sam Walsh (21. 4 years left. 3.3 million left.)
Dustin Martin is the oldest player on this list by 2 years with Lachie Neale the next closest. He also has the highest average annual salary on this list, with about $1.5 million per year left on his deal. What are you going to do? Not have him? No player in the AFL is trusted in a big spot more than Dusty and his return to footy has been impressive going over 20 disposals in each game since his return and kicking 5 goals.
But really, you can’t quantify what Dusty is worth just by his numbers. When you see Dusty in a final lined up for the other team, the value of that terror is impossible to gauge. He’s like the shark in Jaws. You know he’s there and you know that at any moment he could tear your leg off and leave you licking your wounds for a decade, just like he did to Adelaide.
At this part of the list we have the last two pure midfielders: Walsh and Oliver. I cannot in good conscience put a pure midfielder any higher on the list knowing how many good mids there are the in the AFL. They are this high because they are young and are just unequivocal superstars. You can’t not have them on the list, but you can’t have them any higher. Oliver has kicked 1 goal this year and has only 6 goal assists. Walsh has also kicked 1 goal this year and has only 4 goal assists. They are possession winners through and through but not pure accumulators in the manner of a Tom Mitchell or a Darcy Parrish. They’re extremely damaging players and two of the best handful in the AFL.
Undeniably they are better players than Shai Bolton, but you would be hard pressed to describe them as more valuable in my view. By way of comparison, Bolton has less impressive disposal and clearance numbers by quite a distance but has kicked 16.12 for the year and has 8 assists. He’s also a freak with ball in hand and is virtually impossible to tackle because of his slipperiness. Imagine trying to catch an eel with your bare hands. That is what tackling Shai Bolton appears to be like.
As such, I am not comparing necessarily Bolton with Walsh and Oliver as players but instead saying that Bolton is the kind of player that impacts winning in a way that players like Walsh and Oliver can’t, just by virtue of the position he plays. Having said that, Oliver is a bigger man than Walsh and could take a leaf out of Christian Petracca’s book and work on his forward craft, something that he has been doing in recent years. If he is able to hone that, Oliver I could see moving into the “untouchable” category.
I will note that Walsh is locked up long-term already while Bolton and Oliver need to be paid soon, but they will be up before the new CBA and TV rights deals so will likely end up signing contracts that will look like bargains in 4-5 years.
“Not going to happen. Even with the kid.”
Luke Jackson (20. Last year. Money unclear.)
Aaron Naughton (22. 2 years left. Money unclear.)
Harris Andrews (25. 3 years left. Money unclear.)
Now we get to the key position players. Young, prototypical keys. While Jackson is a ruckman and I question the overall value of ruckmen in the modern game, Jackson is a unicorn. He has taken the mantel off Nic Naitanui for the best athlete in the modern game. Indeed, he separates himself from Naitanui in that he can go forward and be an asset kicking roughly 1 goal a game this year, and does not require as many rotations due to his superlative endurance. He’s also only 20 years of age and about to be handed a new, likely long-term contract extension from somebody. You could make the argument that Luke Jackson ought to be bumped up to the next category, he is that good and that valuable after only 2 years in the AFL.
The other two are modern day prototypes for their respective positions. Naughton is 195cm and 93kg who started his career in defence, finishing fourth in the club best and fairest that year. Since then, he has moved forward and has taken his vice like hands and impressive leap with him. He was been the first banana in the forward for the runner up in just his fourth season and is just maturing into his body at only 22 years of age. This year from 8 games he has kicked 19 goals, which is a somewhat down output given his 47 last year. However, it is important to note that he is the only viable forward at the bulldogs as it stands and is therefore the focus of every shred of defensive attention and he’s still kicking better than 2 goals a game. His kicking for goal needs improvement with 14 behinds already but his marking is exceptional and he is a player on the upswing at the most important position on the ground. Beyond that, he has been extremely durable and looks likely to spend another decade as a dominant AFL footballer.
Harris Andrews is the highest ranked defender. He is ranked this highly despite my previous discussion on defence because he is the player that every team is looking for to build their defence around. Andrews is 202cm and 98kg while Lever, the other key back on this list is 195 and 92kg. Andrews is closer to prototypical key position size. Beyond that Andrews covers the ground extraordinarily and is able to play effectively as a chop off player while also, if necessary, able to lock up a key forward in a way that Lever simply can’t.
I am not meaning to denigrate Lever here but just explain why Andrews is this much higher. If you were an expansion team looking for a bedrock upon which you can build an elite defence, Andrews is the player that you start with and you work it out from there. Beyond that, he’s only 25, a 2 time All-Australian and has been very durable over his career, never playing less than 16 games.
He is the highest ranked defender on the list, but now we move to the true untouchables who would require a Gretzky-like package to even force a club to have a meeting in person to discuss the trade.
“Untouchable.”
Christian Petracca (26. 7 years. $6.5 million left.)
Marcus Bontempelli (26. 3 years. Money unclear.)
Harry McKay (24. 2 years left. Money unclear)
Max King (21. 5 years. $3 million left)