This seems like a good place for footy nerds to hang out so i thought I would make a contribution. Everyone here loves lists but whenever I would try an put one together I am reminded how selective my memory is, so I wanted to come up with an objective measure of how good players were over their career that I could apply consistently.
So I came up with a points systems where players score points for playing games, best and fairest positions, team success, All-Australians and other club and league honours. I would be interested to know if anyone else has attempted a similar ranking method.
I have made all players with a minimum of 50 games in the 2000s eligible for the list. I first tested it on Crows players throughout history and was very happy with how well it reflected my thoughts since i have watched them since the 90s. After much more data entry, in my first league-wide iteration, I found the final score was too dependent on their total games (particularly at the top end) so tweaked my formula to be more dependent on their honours points. Since it has the most variation from club-to-club, points available from B&Fs depend on ladder position. For example the Top 13 score points for a top 4 team whereas only the top 8 score for a bottom 4 team.
So to sum up, in order to get an objective, rather than a subjective, non-trivial ranking of players is to move the subjectivity to the scoring system so that can be applied to objective data.
While a handful of players are a bit higher (usually players who performed consistently very highly in their B&F) or lower than you might expect i feel it provides a really good guide to the accumulated impact of a player across his career.
The other bit i was unsure of was how to rank players who qualify but played in the 90s too. I did end up giving them partial credit for games pre-2000s.
And clearly players still playing will continue to accumulate points and rise up the rankings as time goes on.
Full list to follow...
So I came up with a points systems where players score points for playing games, best and fairest positions, team success, All-Australians and other club and league honours. I would be interested to know if anyone else has attempted a similar ranking method.
I have made all players with a minimum of 50 games in the 2000s eligible for the list. I first tested it on Crows players throughout history and was very happy with how well it reflected my thoughts since i have watched them since the 90s. After much more data entry, in my first league-wide iteration, I found the final score was too dependent on their total games (particularly at the top end) so tweaked my formula to be more dependent on their honours points. Since it has the most variation from club-to-club, points available from B&Fs depend on ladder position. For example the Top 13 score points for a top 4 team whereas only the top 8 score for a bottom 4 team.
So to sum up, in order to get an objective, rather than a subjective, non-trivial ranking of players is to move the subjectivity to the scoring system so that can be applied to objective data.
While a handful of players are a bit higher (usually players who performed consistently very highly in their B&F) or lower than you might expect i feel it provides a really good guide to the accumulated impact of a player across his career.
The other bit i was unsure of was how to rank players who qualify but played in the 90s too. I did end up giving them partial credit for games pre-2000s.
And clearly players still playing will continue to accumulate points and rise up the rankings as time goes on.
Full list to follow...
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