Moneyballin’ – Round 14

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Port Adelaide vs Melbourne

BEST PICK: Clayton Oliver ($9,300 MID)

Oliver experienced a dip by his lofty standards a month ago after undergoing surgery on his troublesome finger, and that understandably affected his tackling numbers. So this is to let you know that he’s back in tackling form, laying 10 hugs last week to form the foundation of a season-high 135. Oliver’s success is largely built around this potent pressure stat, as he’s produced totals of 114, 125, 105, 122, 119 and 135 when he’s reached 8 tackles this year.

BEST STAT: Ollie Wines ($8,700 MID)

Once again, we’re seeing Wines follow a loose formula; he starts the year with a bang, experiences a clear and sharp mid-year dip, then finishes the season strong with a flurry of tons.

                 Start:  Slump:  Finish:
2016:         102         81           107
2017:         116          84          102
2018:         113          81          138*

Put a simpler way, Wines’ averages post-bye over the past few seasons is 106, compared to 94 pre-bye. Basically, this dribble is all to say that after significant research, we have good reason to believe that Wines’ current form (138, 137 in the past fortnight) is for real.

Looking specifically at Friday night’s match-up, you’ve got to be buoyed by the fact that Melbourne concede the 3rd-most tackles per game this year. When Wines hits 6 tackles this year, his scores read 125, 100, 138 and 137 – it’s no coincidence that these are his four highest scores for the season.

BEST VALUE: Chad Wingard ($7,100 MID)

A clear role change into the midfield has seen Wingard pump out 121 and 124 over the past two weeks, which has him oozing value after a horrid start to the year.

As a FWD:  Averaging 16 touches and 1 tackle
As a MID:  Averaging 30 touches and 8 tackles    

Now, it’s worth mentioning that Wingard will be highly owned based on these recent numbers, so he looms as a strong fade candidate in the hope that he bombs and you capitalise by zigging while everyone else zags. Port Adelaide have a raft of players who can swing forward or into the guts as they please – Wingard, Gray, Boak and Rockliff – and they often do this with very little warning or for seemingly no reason externally. The Power are one of my favourite teams to pivot, so keep that in mind.

BEST RETHINK: Joel Smith ($3,600 DEF)

Smith came in to replace Lever and offered up 80 in his first game for the year, but can we trust his scoring punch? He averaged just 30 in 3 games for the Demons last year, and obviously they were without Lever then, too. Like Logan Austin last week, Smith will regress back to his natural ability at some point, and you want to be fading the chalk when he does.

Hawthorn vs Gold Coast

BEST PICK: Jaeger O’Meara ($7,700 MID)

Where do we start on the basket case that is the Gold Coast Suns? They’ve allowed the most tons per game over the past 5 weeks, at a huge 5.4 per game. They concede easily the most points to MID’s this year, largely due to the fact they give up easily the most raw disposals to their direct opposition.

That’s where Jaeger comes in. He’s quietly posted 112, 80 and 114 in his last three starts, and will not doubt be looking forward to styling on his former team. Jaeger scales really well with extra access to disposals, producing totals of 93, 93, 126 and 114 when racking up at least 23 touches this season. If it’s a Hawks stack you’re looking at this week, Jaeger has to be in there.

BEST STAT: Tom Mitchell ($11,200 MID)

Career scores vs Suns: 131, 163, 132, 115 and 141.
Career scores at UTAS: 125, 132, 143, 118 and 147.
137-point average over the past month.
Absolute beast.

BEST VALUE: Daniel Howe ($6,700 MID)

Like Jaeger above – and players like Liam Shiels and Isaac Smith for that matter – Howe’s in a really great spot to exceed value here. Howe’s produced 93 and 91 in his last two games playing as inside midfielder, and there’s literally no more favourable match-up you could conceivably have in fantasy than what Howe and the Hawks face this week.

Brisbane vs GWS

BEST PICK: Josh Kelly ($9,900 MID)

Brisbane conceded a hefty 5 tons to midfielders alone when these teams met in Round 6 this year, with all of  Whitfield (126), Deledio (116), De Boer (112), Coniglio (102), and Taranto (100) capitalising… And Kelly didn’t even play that day. While all Giants are worth looking at from a match-up point of view, Kelly has the biggest ceiling of the lot, which is why you target him this week.

Since coming back from injury, Kelly had posted 4, 4, and 2 tackles…. Then busted out with last week’s 7. For those that followed him closely last year, the reason why he was able to finish the year as on of the competitions premier fantasy players was his unique combination of accumulator who tackles like a mad man. So this tackling increase is a significant factor, as over the past 2 seasons:

Less than 7 tackles:  100 average from 16 games. (9 scores under 100)
At least 7 tackles:  129 average from 14 games. (lowest score of 105)

BEST PICK: Stefan Martin ($9,700 RU)

The last time Lobb was missing for the Giants was a 4-game stretch where:

• The lowest score a ruckman posted against them was 92.
• Giants, as a team, lost the hitouts 110-170
• The Giants trialled all of Simpson, Patton and Keefe as their starting rucks.

There’s a reason why GWS didn’t just plug in Simpson and be done with it – he’s just not that good. So what will Stefan Martin, who boasts a lowest score of 92 in his past 10 games, do to him? How hard do you think it will be for Stef to add another gem to his career scores of 100, 116, 111, 104 and 92 against the Giants?

BEST STAT: Dayne Beams ($9,100 MID)

Beams loves playing these guys, producing (uninjured) scores of 113, 130, 123 and another 113 against the Giants over his entire career. I saw “uninjured” because he also registered a 5-point score against them in 2017 where he snapped his collarbone in the first minute… Which means he was technically on track for about 300 points that day. You want to target Beams in GPP’s for his ceiling, as only Titch and Grundy boast more 110+ scores than Beamer since Round 6.

BEST VALUE: Allen Christensen ($6,900 MID)

That concussion score of -3 has kept his price nice and low in Moneyball, but it’s also masked just how well Bundy has been scoring lately. With scores of 92, 100 and 99 in his last three games where he’s hasn’t stopped for a mid-game snooze in the centre square, Christensen is going under the radar as a high-reward pick in an awkward price range.

Western Bulldogs vs North Melbourne

BEST PICK: Shaun Higgins ($8,500 MID)

Higgins’ former team have conceded 5.2 tons per game over the past 5 weeks, putting them just slightly behind the Gold Coast in the red carpet they’re rolling out for the opposition lately. Macrae’s absence and niggles to Bontempelli and McLean certainly aren’t going to help in that regard either.

Meanwhile, Higgins is playing the best footy of his career with 119 and 123 in the past fortnight, finding a heap of the footy with 38 and 30 touches in those games, respectively. That’s an excellent omen for this week, as Higgins has scored 119, 117, 105, 119 and 123 when reaching the magical 30-touch mark this year.

BEST STAT: Todd Goldstein ($7,700 RU)

The Western Bulldogs have conceded the most hitouts per game (53) of any team this year, which understandably ranks them #1 for points conceded to rucks over past 5 weeks. As we spoken about here before, Goldstein scales extremely well with hitouts, averaging 89 from games where he wins at least 35 hitouts this year. If you’re looking to save $2k on Stefan Martin in the Saturday Special, you could do worse than the blokes who’s posted 2 of his last 4 highest scores against the Bulldogs (112 and 114).

BEST VALUE: Paul Ahern ($3,800 MID)

He sparkled on debut with 92 MB from 29 disposals, but slowed with a lukewarm 51 in his second game. That might be enough to have punters going cold on him, but I’m actually still optimistic given that he showed off his ability to score quickly with 39 of those points in the first half. The Bulldogs are ranked 2nd for points conceded to MID’s over the past 5 rounds, so Ahern has a chance to obliterate his value point here.

BEST RETHINK: Ben Brown ($6,300 FWD)

Unfortunately for Roos fans, Brown struggles as the big banana when Jarrad Waite is out of the team. With the veteran alongside him, he averages 3.7 goals and 73 MB points; but when the defense is focused on just him alone, that drops dramatically to a single goal and 55 MB per game. Pass.

Collingwood vs Carlton

BEST PICK: Jack Crisp ($8,700 DEF)

Did you know that Crisp is cruising along at 118 over the past 5 weeks, the most of any defender in fantasy? It’s incredible how well his scoring synergises with Collingwood’s strong form – as does the output of other defenders such as Howe and Scharenberg for that matter.

Collingwood will have complete ball control over Carlton this week, and we all know how much they like to share it in the backline and launch their attacks from defense. Crisp scored 115 against Carlton earlier this year and has posted scored of 115, 147, 119, 109 and 114 when reaching 6 marks this year – all the metrics point to another belter from the free-wheeling rebounder.

BEST STAT: Brodie Grundy ($10,700 RU)

Grundy is averaging 123 since Round 2, which is enough to rank him as the top dog in that timeframe. So you could say he’s having a massive year, but guess who his best score was against this year? No, it wasn’t him showing off on a part-timer like Lobb, Ratugolea, Trengove or Apeness, and it wasn’t against the ruck-friendly Nankervis or Hickey either. It was against the mighty Kreuzer all the way back in Round 3 where he racked up 25 touches, 6 marks and 8 tackles for 141 Moneyballers. Yum.

BEST VALUE: Jacob Weitering ($5,100 DEF)

Weitering is starting to build some confidence and it’s showing in his scores, increasing with every game he’s played this year: 38, 38, 41, 45, 56, 71 and 83. Collingwood concede the 4th most marks this year, and Weitering’s scores over his career when he hits 9 marks reads 106, 118, 94, 114 and 71. Realistically, he probably won’t get that high in what we expect to be a heavy loss, but it’s worth a flutter as a unique at that price.

BEST RETHINK: Adam Treloar ($10,100 MID)

What is it about Carlton that Treloar can’t deal with? Answer: Ed Curnow. Whether it’s a hard tag or just extra attention at stoppages, the Blues have held him to 96, 75, 82 and 84 in their last four meetings. That 84 came in Round 3 against Carlton earlier this year – Treloar’s lowest score for the year – surely you’ll feel more confident taking Pendles, Sidebottom or Phillips here instead?

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