“Stuff” Father Dougal Says – True Level of Ability

True Level of Ability

https://supercoachtalk.com/luck-skill-and-circumstance/

https://supercoachtalk.com/luck-skill-and-circumstance-2020/

 

Hi Everybody!

Every player has an actual ability level. How well a player scores is based on that True Level of Ability (TLA) but affected by luck and the circumstance in which they played.

Luck can easily account for a 5% variation on a player’s average each season, even if everything else is the same, which means a 100 TLA player averaging  95-105 would be pretty normal. Bigger swings are certainly possible, although over 10% seems rare.

Circumstances, so many circumstances…..other than age: Position, club success, where they play, injury, weather, opposition, bizarre coaching decisions, etc. Trying to understand these is a big part of SC strategy. More midfield time? Solo Ruck? Over that injury. Full pre-season? We talk about these at length and good guesses pay off, bad guesses hurt.

Age, well, there seem to be some common age brackets:

0 -20 = Youth

21-23 = Early Career

24-26 = Middle Career

27-29 = Late Career

30-32 = Hanging On

33+ = Victory Laps

Middle and Late Career players are pretty reliable as for scoring, Early career players are mostly reliable and have the best hopes of increasing, but 30+, well they are playing Frogger and tend to drop even when they avoid the beer truck.

Oh you already made a Frogger reference!

I made some other ok but not newsworthy either way projections.

Also, for some reason, I looked at how Nat Fyfe has been affected by his broken leg and projected that onto Tom Mitchell. Before last season they tracked pretty well. Last season, not so much.

 

Year	Tom’s  Games	Projected averages	Tom’s age	Toms real averages
2018	22	NA	24	129.1
2019	0	0	25
2020	17	113.6	26	113.5
2021	22	118.7	27	117.2
2022	21	122.8	28	96.0

He looked so promising.

Yeah, the Hawk’s situation changed, and his role changed. In th same role maybe he could have kept it up, but, even if his True Level of Ability would have allowed him to go for 122 in his favored role, he wasn’t in that role, so he did far less well. I think he had a groin issue pre-season, which also mattered I’m sure.

Luck and circumstance, they really matter, skill alone is not enough.

Does this apply to cows?

Oh my yes! A guy who played inside mid in the VFL and did great might score well as an inside mid in the AFL, but then gets played in the forward pocket, and of course scores like a small forward and not an inside mid.  That’s why we care so much about where a cow will be played as well as where he will be played.

 

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