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AFL Trades: The Untradeables

18th October, 2016
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Nat Fyfe. Untreadable. (AAP Image/Julian Smith)
Expert
18th October, 2016
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3901 Reads

The lesson of this trade period is everyone is tradeable. Okay, almost everyone.

There remains a class of players that sit above the rest, who couldn’t be moved for anything less than everything.

These, sports fans, are the AFL’s Untradeables.

They are untradeable due to some combination of their importance on the field, commercial value off of it, youth, injury history, discrepancy between their contract and market value, and rarity as a football commodity.

They’re the hang-up players – as in, an opposition list manager may call, and the Untradeable’s team list manager will slam the phone down in disgust.

(With how the AFL is trending, that phone call would be shortly followed by a call from the Untradeable’s manager demanding a trade.)

There are no grand quantitative criteria here, other than to say the fewer games a player has played the better. If they have been outstanding games, their Untradeability gets an immense boost. For example, Patrick Cripps’ 44-game career counts for more ethereal Untradeability Points than James Aish’s 47-game career. Sorry James. You did have a good half dozen games to round out 2016, though.

In effect, this is a combination of the best players in the league and the best prospects in the league. There is no middle ground – there is no room for Jack Steven or Dan Hannebery or Joel Selwood. Through this lens, and in this new AFL paradigm where down is up and up is left and left is a loop-de-loop, everyone is tradeable. Except the Untradeables.

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The implication of this list is that a club would only consider a trade for a player that is listed above their own player. So say Tom Harley from Sydney gave Craig Vozzo from West Coast a call, and said they wanted to build the unholiest of holy forward lines of all time by adding Josh K Kennedy to their list. Under normal circumstances, Vozzo would slam his phone down in disgust at the prospect, because Kennedy is an Untradeable.

But Vozzo knows the Swans also have an Untradeable on their list: Isaac Heeney. Vozzo would ask Harley about Heeney, and Harley would be within his rights to throw his phone into the nearest body of water. That’s how this list works. Confused? Me too!

18. Eddie Betts

…that pretty much says it all, right?

17. Josh K Kennedy
West Coast’s Josh Kennedy is probably the best key forward in the game as of the end of 2016. After two successive Coleman medals as the key forward on a team ranked in the top six on my Offensive Efficiency Rating (OER), Kennedy’s goal kicking chops can no longer be denied. He’s booted 80 goals in the past two seasons – including finals – and this year had a raw accuracy of 69 per cent.

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He is on the end of some good work from the West Coast midfield, but he also cleans up terribly stodgy inside 50 entries as well as any forward – big or small – in the game. Kennedy also applies extensive forward half pressure, laying 37 tackles inside 50 last season (ranked seventh, and second among key forwards behind forward 30 player Tom Hawkins).

JK is the pre-eminent key forward in the game. He’ll probably lose to another Untradeable in the next couple of years, though.

16. Sam Mitchell

Sam Mitchell won 16 Brownlow medal votes, the sixth year of the past seven that he has earned at least 15 votes in a season. Sam Mitchell won Hawthorn’s best and fairest at 33 years of age. Sam Mitchell is a unique piece in that he is as slow as a wet winter yet he is never tackled and never hurried with his disposal. Sam Mitchell opens up worlds of opportunities for Hawthorn and the Hawthorn midfield. Sam Mitchell is an Untradeable, even at 34 years of age, because what he offers as a playmaker through the middle of the ground and off half back is not available anywhere else.

Sam Mitchell was traded to West Coast last week, for a fifth round pick, to help the Hawks clear salary cap space.

What the hell is happening.

15. Dustin Martin
Martin emerged as a top five player this year, a unique footballing force operating on pure, unadulterated dare. He is eminently watchable, in stark contrast to most of the rest of his team, to the point where I found myself watching Richmond games late in the season just to see Martin fend, goose step and shimmy his way around – or through – opponents. He has missed four games in his career to date: one in 2010, two in 2012 and one in 2014. It’s a remarkable record.

Martin finished third in the Brownlow medal after pulling 25 votes, following up a 21-vote performance in 2015. He’s earned the second most votes in that two year stretch, behind Patrick Dangerfield. Yes, really.

Dustin Martin

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Martin is set to hit the market as a restricted free agent next season, and should Richmond stagnate one assumes he’ll test the market. We may not get a chance to test his Untradeability.

14. Lance Franklin
Franklin is one of the top five players in the game, for reasons that are well known (he averaged 18 disposals and three goals on five scoring shots per game, plus an extra four score involvements). But, his age and contract weigh on his Untradeability ranking.

His move to Sydney has been a success thus far, even if it hasn’t yet resulted in a premiership for the Swans. There’s still six years to run – plenty of time, given Franklin has shown no signs of falling away.

13. Scott Pendlebury

Collingwood’s captain is the forgotten superstar. He’s a case study in what happens when excellence is normalised – the fans get attracted to shiny objects like Jake Stringer. Fortunately, the All Australian selectors remain enamoured in the Bullet Time Lord of Composure, as Jay Croucher aptly tagged him.

Pendlebury will enter his 29-year-old season as arguably the best midfielder on his team, and a player still able to exert his influence on any game of football at any time. He isn’t a ball of muscle built to break tackles, and he doesn’t have pace to burn, but like Mitchell, Pendlebury never loses his cool.

He is never injured – no, he never missed games due to injury – and given the low tax style of play he’s got another five years of excellent football in him.

12. Callum Mills
The 2016 Rising Star will play out 2017 for a wage of around $200,000. While that’s the case for most Rising Star winners, Mills isn’t a regular Rising Star. The manner in which he burst onto the scene this year, playing a critical role for the minor premiers as a half back flanker pushing into the midfield, suggest he’s going to be a superstar player in the years ahead.

His production to pay ratio for next year is tasty enough. When the Swans likely lock him up for a four-year stint (Mills’ management would be crazy to sign on for any longer, given free agency service limits are set to fall to six and eight years under the new CBA), he’ll become one of the best assets in the game.

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Mills’ Untradeability hits a snag because he’s a first-year player. This time next year, he could crack the top five.

11. Jake Lever
One of the beauties of a Totally Subjective Power Ranking like this is defenders get their dues. Adelaide’s Jake Lever, the sophomore key defender who slipped from the top three to 14th in the 2014 AFL draft due to an ACL injury which kept him off the park during his final pre-draft year. The Crows look to have hit a home run in taking him where they did.

Lever is an athletic machine, an excellent aerialist, and has shown plenty of attacking capability in his 36 games for the Crows. Young, elite key defenders are incredibly rare commodities – Alex Rance didn’t become Alex Rance until he hit middle age, while Dane Rampe and Jeremy McGovern both emerged as 23-24-year-olds. Lever isn’t quite at that level yet, but working in Adelaide’s extra man scheme with the support of Daniel Talia, there’s no question it is a matter of time.

He’s only signed on at the Crows until the end of next season, adding a year to his rookie contract in the middle of last year. Adelaide would do well to lock him in for longer early in 2017.

10. Nic Naitanui
West Coast’s athletic ruckman won’t play in 2017, but in marketing value alone he ranks high on the Untradeable scale. When fit and healthy, Naitanui is unquestionably the best pure ruckman in the game, as evidenced by his team’s performance with and without him in 2016.

His contract is reportedly value around $800,000 per annum, with a chunk of that provided by the AFL in marketing arrangements. The Eagles would make that back once over on merchandise and commercial arrangements alone.

Ruckmen are the most fungible position in the game, save perhaps scrappy inside midfielder, as evidenced by the roundabout that seems to spin in September and October every year. Not Naitanui.

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9. Josh Kelly
There are any number of Giants that could be candidates for this list, but only one can be considered Untradeable: 2013’s number two pick Josh Kelly.

Kelly is one of the few recent draftees to cement his place in the rising juggernaut, with 60 games under his belt since debuting in Round 2 of his first season on the list. The pacey midfielder has a lethal left boot and is set to become one of the most damaging forward half players in the game.

At 21, he’s still got three or four years of growth and development ahead of him, and he should have ample time and coverage to do that in the Giants’ midfield. Kelly is signed on to the end of 2017 and will be chased hard, but now that the Giants look set to lose their entire 2014 draft class after losing Tom Boyd and Cam McCarthy from Kelly’s year, retention of their budding superstar must be a top priority.

8. Isaac Heeney
Sydney’s own version of Kelly, Isaac Heeney, spent ample time running the wings during the latter part of this season, demonstrating elite midfield abilities. Heeney had been used sparingly as a midfielder in his first two seasons, but like Luke Parker before him looks set to make the full time transition next year.

Heeney is something of a unique proposition – a key forward in a midfielders body with an excellent pair of hands and vertical leap to complement outstanding ground ball skills. His seven contested possession, three inside 50, 17 disposal and a goal a game line hints at his potential – all of these indicators are likely to go up next year.

With Mills, Heeney is set to buttress the Sydney midfield for years to come. Now Tom Mitchell has left, there’s a spot for him to play much more frequently through the middle. We should expect to see him improve markedly next season; we can also expect to see a large, long-term contract lobbed his way before the next trade period.

Isaac Heeney Sydney Swans 2015 AFL

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7. Jacob Weitering
The Blues know what a prize they have unearthed, with Weitering locked away on a super-long term contract (as far as draftee contracts go) to the end of 2021 – a four=year extension on his two year draft contract.

One presumes they will be keen to keep him thereafter, too.

Like Lever, Weitering’s value is his playing ability at such a young age. After playing 20 games this season, Weitering will earn just a shade over $200,000 as the number one key defender on an AFL team. It’s the sort of deal that plays a huge role in teams winning championships in other sports with more modern player management and remuneration practises.

We don’t have the proper metrics to value Weitering, but the eye test says he was great in one-on-one contests, and rarely put a foot wrong with the ball in hand. He is the perfect size to play as a modern key defender – not too tall to be unbalanced, but tall and athletic enough to be a handful for the monster key forwards in the game.

6. Alex Rance
Between Martin and Rance, Richmond have two players who are capable of winning quarters off of their own play. Martin does it with raw offensive power, and Rance does it with raw defensive power.

That’s a deliberate use of the term power: Rance isn’t your typical spoil-from-behind key defender. He can run faster than most forwards, jump higher, take stronger marks, a bring the biggest players to ground without, seemingly, much effort.

His free kicks against count was up a little on last season (1.6 per game, from 1.2), but otherwise every other counting stat was either stagnate at an elite level or slightly improved. Rance took 7.8 marks per game (fourth in the competition) and had three games with ten or more.

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Rance’s powers aren’t just confined to stopping his opponent, though. He’s like a Jedi Knight, sworn to protect the balance in the force and using the threat of his powers to stop opponents in their tracks. The Tigers defence was an issue all year last season – can you imagine life without Rance patrolling the back 50?

5. Patrick Dangerfield
There’s not much more to say about the record-breaking Brownlow medallist that hasn’t been said. He’s a unique talent with a combination of acceleration and straight line pace that makes him difficult to stop. Dangerfield’s disposal quality improved a little this season, albeit likely due to the range of big marking targets he had available across the Geelong side.

He’s been a boon for the Cats, with membership up significantly. The team returned to preliminary final weekend in year one of the Dangerfield era – if he can play another season like the one he just did in 2017, they’re half way there again.

4. Tom Lynch
Gold Coast’s captain-in-waiting, Lynch made his first All Australian team this year – just reward for kicking 66 goals in a side without a stable midfield. He is the new prototypical AFL forward: monstrously tall, outstanding over head, and strong enough to bullock his way around and through double and triple teams of mid-sized defenders helping out the main stopper. He took 62 contested marks in 2016, and 153 marks total (just outside the top 10).

Lynch had a stellar start to 2016, kicking bags of four or five in six or his first seven games as it looked like the Suns might have finally arrived. He had eight Brownlow votes after four games, polling two in each, which is remarkably hard to do as a forward in the modern day Brownlow environment.

Since spending time on the pine in 2013, Lynch has missed just two games, and has been held goalless in just five outings. He is more important to the Suns than any other player on the roster – he is therefore one of the most important players in the AFL.

3. Nat Fyfe

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He’s coming back next year, with a new running mate and a bunch of 20-somethings who are all very good at very narrowly defined roles. Can it be 2017 now please?

2. Patrick Cripps
Cripps and Weitering are the future of Carlton, but Cripps scores higher on the Untradeable rating because he’s backed up a stellar debut (effectively) season with a phenomenal sophomore year. His line is stunning: 16.9 contested possessions, 6.6 tackles, 8.8 clearances, 27 disposals and half a goal a game. Cripps is 21. That’s a stat line that 30-somethings aspire to on the inside.

Players like Cripps are the keys to excellent midfields. The luxury of running out a guy who can carry almost two regular players’ worth of inside work frees the rest of the team up to do more on the outside. That he’s doing this as a youngster is remarkable.

Ken Sakata, a name I implore you to follow, wrote a great piece summarising Cripps’ career to date. His sterling start should have us all scared of what he’s capable of.

1. Marcus Bontempelli
The AFL’s Most Untradeable player is Marcus Bontempelli. There is no other correct answer.

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Western Bulldogs player Marcus Bontempelli

The 20-year-old won a best and fairest in a premiership year, pulled in 20 Brownlow votes, and smashed out an incredible second half of the season in the AFL Coaches’ Association Player of the Year Award. He is the definition of a unique player, ironically summarised by comparing his elite skills to other elite players on this list.

Bontempelli has the poise of Pendlebury, the power of Fyfe, the playmaking abilities of Mitchell, the overheard skills of Lynch and the ground ball strength of Cripps, all rolled into the physical frame of a key forward.

And he’s 20, and has just completed his third season in the AFL. That’s scary. Most teams will come knocking when he comes out of contract in 2019 as a 23-year-old restricted free agent. They will offer everything they have available.

Western Bulldogs’ list manager Jason McCartney will catapult his phone into the nearest body of water.

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