Footy Tragic

We’re in the middle of restructuring a bit on Footy Tragic for 2010. With the launch of Toby’s new “Who’d You Rather?” article, I’ll also be doing something a bit different and a bit more statistically themed this year, based on the feedback from the poll last week. Failing being able to think of a different sort of spin this week, I’m just going to do another POTW article, but really smash the stats in.

But in a perverse way, I’ve gone and made it difficult for myself by writing about a kid who’s only played five games. I guess I don’t like giving myself much to work with. Anyway, an option in the midfield that has presented himself in the first two weeks is Jordie McKenzie from Melbourne.

He’s been a mini Dream Team revelation in Melbourne’s midfield with two scores over 100 this year. He’s only in 1883 teams and I dare say at least half of them will be dud auto select teams, so he is unique as all hell. I wanted to bring awareness to him, but not necessarily sell him.

I do quite like McKenzie, but it’s important not to just look at his DT scores and lock him in. At a shade over $200K only Barlow presents better value with the scores McKenzie has pulled so far. However, $200K is an awkward price for a trade in target. Do you want him to be a potential keeper, or will you use another trade to on trade him, using his anticipated price rise?

If you’re looking at McKenzie’s numbers and expecting him to keep it up, don’t be too surprised if he suddenly stops pulling tons. He should remain an efficient enough scorer, I don’t really doubt that, but if you look at the source of his scores he’s racking up an insane amount of tackles. 12 and 11 tackles in his first two games this year! I wouldn’t really be banking on him keeping up numbers like that for the whole year - he’s currently on track to pretty much double the tackle numbers Libba would rack up at the peak of his career.

As I said above, he should still remain an efficient enough scorer, but let’s just say he gets back to a considerably less insane four tackles per game, then you’re already down about 30 points per game. I know I’m speaking hypothetically, but it’s not unreasonable to expect his tackle numbers to drop - in fact, it’s completely unreasonable to think that he’ll keep them up.

The big question you’ll need to ask yourself as a DT coach, is can he make up the disposals? He hasn’t had over 20 touches in a game yet, so there’s the possibility that he can improve his other numbers to supplement any future drop in tackles. Personally I don’t like that there’s more of a higher likelihood that his tackle numbers will drop and no particular evidence to suggest his disposals will go up. They definitely can, but it’s a big risk to use a trade on an awkwardly priced player.

He was never a huge ball winner in TAC Cup, with his best games possession wise hovering around the low 20’s. His kicking isn’t a particularly big strength, so Melbourne have no reason to work the ball into his hands, so I see that as him needing to win a lot of his own ball.

He’ll be a very interesting point of difference for those that do pull the trigger on him. His numbers read potential keeper, but it’s very unlikely that he’ll maintain a 100 average, so if you do trade him in before his significant price rise this week you’d want him to keep generating enough cash over the next 10 or so weeks to bring a falling premium into your reach. The reservation I have with this is that I feel I already have those guys in Trengove and Martin (Barlow potential keeper, dare I say?) and the value of a trade is easily underestimated at this time of year. Maybe if you’ve decided to give up on your mid priced midfield smokey, McKenzie becomes a bit more relevant…