Collingwood adds Beams to strengthen their engine room

How much do you pay for an extremely talent yet often injured 28 year old who has some off field history hanging over his head from previous years?

If you’re Collingwood, then you pay this much.

In the 2014 trade period, Beams headed north with pick 67 (Josh Watts) in exchange for picks 5 (Jordan De Goey), 25 (Daniel Nielson later ontraded for Levi Greenwood) and Jack Crisp. At the time, we suggested, using a much earlier version of our future value approach, that Brisbane likely overpaid for Beams. With the benefit of four years of data on all the components, we can see that this outcome came to fruition.

Since the trade in 2014, Beams earned 48.5 PAVs for Brisbane – with Josh Watts’ output added, this gives a total of 48.5 PAVs for that side of the trade. Jordan De Goey has gained 46 PAVs, Crisp another 62.1 and Nielson (let’s be charitable to the Lions here) an extra two. If you want to flip the Greenwood on-trade in for Nielson, it’s another 32 PAVs.

Regardless, it is clear that Collingwood won this deal by a long way. But they will likely lose the Beams trade, round 2.

Collingwood have sent two first round selections and a fourth round pick for Beams and two third rounders. It’s an overpay, but perhaps less than we saw in the first trade. For the Pies, Beams represents perhaps the missing piece that will catapault them to the 2019 flag.

Verdict: Fair trade.

Note: This post is part of a series of posts using a valuation method called Player Approximate Value (PAV) to evaluate trades for fairness and balance. Elsewhere, you can read much more about the method and theory behind PAV and also about PAPLEY, the projection method used to derive expected future PAVs. This method expresses both picks and players in terms of expected future value allowing them to be compared on this common basis.

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