Within all the hubub of player exchange, Melbourne continued their efforts to trade into the 2020 draft as discussed earlier.
According to Draftguru the Demons only have a very limited number of list spots. As a result, Melbourne has converted their lower picks down the order to a small number of higher picks.
Sydney swap for bid matching points
The first trade is better for Sydney in raw pick value terms if taken live, but also boosts their bid matching points by 228 points, the equivalent of pick 54.
For Melbourne this trade recognises that they had no room to use the draft picks they acquired early in the period, and instead were only renting their use out to improve their selections up the order.
Verdict: Unfair swap that flags Melbourne not wanting to use the later pick.
Brisbane swap first rounders
Following the Sydney swap and Ben Brown trade, Melbourne then moved to further concentrate their draft picks into this year’s draft by swapping away their first rounder next year.
At this point Melbourne have pulled the full switcheroo, holding none of their first four future picks, which now sit with Adelaide and Brisbane.
As a result of an AFL rule restricting the trade of those future picks, the Dees needed to hold other picks in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rounds in order to shed their future first. Those picks they’ve accumulated from Brisbane, the Bulldogs, and North respectively.
The trade is nicely balanced and simply represents Brisbane preferring to take their value in 2021 while Melbourne bet hard on the a particularly strange 2020 draft.
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. Readers can explore these values with tools such as 5-year player value projection charts and a Salary Prediction tool as well as the HPN Trade Calculator to evaluate potential trades.
Elsewhere, read much more about the method and theory behind PAV. Expressing the value of players and picks in terms of expected future PAV provides a common currency for comparing them in trades and other movements. Players are projected using PAPLEY, a method to derive expected future PAVs.