Data analysis, Rd 2: Breaking down the key stats

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Round one has come and gone and it is now time to ask why am I ranked in the position I am in?

A large part of this will be the performance of the competition’s most highly owned players.

The performance of these players will play a significant part in where you end up each week as they impact the largest number of coaches comparatively.

Miss out on a few value options and thousands of coaches could be surging ahead of you. Avoid the underperformers and watch your ranking climb!

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To measure the impact of each player let’s create a metric called ‘Pain/Gain points’.

Firstly, we take a given player’s price and divide it by 5441 to calculate their expected score (e.g. Max Gawn at $657k is expected to score 120.8).

We then measure this against the player’s actual score (e.g. Max Gawn 92) and work out the difference (-28.8 for big Max).

This difference multiplied by ownership to give a number for total ‘Pain/Gain points’ (for big Max this is -28.8 * 91,575 owners = -2.6 million points – that’s a lot of points).

For simplicity, I will look at premium and mid-price players only as the rookies should all over perform their price points.

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The gainers:

• These are the players you want to have selected and helped many a coach move up the rankings (and you are likely thinking how you will trade them in right now).
• Rowell is the standout here – scoring 94 points above his price point and rewarding the 51% of owners that went with him (I suspect that number will go up …).
• Someone like Petracca who scored 163 helped their coaches a great deal, but was only in 11% of teams – not owning him didn’t hurt you too much.
• Other highly touted pre-season picks also did well – Coniglio, Neale, Butters and Dunkley. This contributed to the generally high scores seen across the comp.
• Those that did well likely had a couple more players from this list (and probably barrack for Carlton!).

First Name	Own	Score	Price	Exp. Score	Scoring +/-	Pain / Gain Points
Matt Rowell	51%	157	$  342,900	63	94	7,380,809
Stephen Coniglio	75%	80	$  261,300	48	32	3,693,356
Lachie Neale	54%	140	$  543,200	100	40	3,308,507
George Hewett	32%	131	$  399,000	73	58	2,795,289
Patrick Cripps	35%	132	$  454,800	84	48	2,613,997
Zak Butters	47%	114	$  443,600	82	32	2,360,901
Will Brodie	40%	76	$  224,300	41	35	2,107,084
Isaac Heeney	20%	141	$  454,500	84	57	1,718,949
Josh Dunkley	60%	117	$  558,200	103	14	1,319,473
Jade Gresham	15%	109	$  299,000	55	54	1,260,142

The painful:

• These are the players you want to have avoided and importantly – chosen a player instead that performed or exceeded their price point.
• Gawn is the big standout here – costing a whopping 2.6 million points across the competition. Hold fire on the trade though – he should come good.
• Going with someone such as Sicily or Hewett instead of the underperforming defenders below would have gone a long way to helping your ranking. It would have been very easy to have all three of Crisp, Whitfield and Ridley in your side (ouch!).
• Whilst some might be happy with a score of 112 from Oliver, you paid for 123 points!

First Name	Own	Score	Price	Exp. Score	Scoring +/-	Pain Points
Max Gawn	60%	92	$  657,400	121	-29	-2,639,519
Jack Crisp	40%	69	$  571,000	105	-36	-2,210,933
Jack Steele	36%	87	$  685,800	126	-39	-2,126,068
Lachie Whitfield	53%	73	$  502,600	92	-19	-1,577,941
Jordan Ridley	22%	68	$  537,100	99	-31	-1,055,316
Daniel Rich	11%	71	$  582,700	107	-36	-581,344
Clayton Oliver	32%	112	$  672,000	124	-12	-571,876
Tom Mitchell	8%	80	$  638,100	117	-37	-463,151
N. Naitanui	5%	63	$  627,400	115	-52	-385,149
Luke Ryan	9%	70	$  540,300	99	-29	-382,046

Lastly, it is important to remember that one game does not make a trend.

The underperformers should revert back closer to their expected scoring and Matt Rowell probably won’t go 150+ each week (well, maybe).

By all means make a trade if you have an injury, but otherwise try to hold off on that annual Isaac Heeney trade at least until after round two before prices start to change.

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