Deck of Dream Team 2012: Jason Winderlich

Name: Jason Winderlich
Club: Essendon
Position: Midfielder/Forward
Assistant Coach 2012 Price: $246,100
Bye Round: 12
2011 Average: 49.7
2011 Games Played: 4
Predicted Average: 83

Why should I pick him? The reason that Jason Winderlich is getting a run in the Deck of Dream Team is the value he offers (and he was suggested in the comments a few days ago). After going down with an ACL in Round 4 this year, he missed the rest of the season stuck with an average of 49.7. In the game he was injured, he only scored 11 following on from very modest scores of 60, 56 and 72 in the opening 3 rounds. Now while this isn’t all that convincing, the 27 year old came off a season average of 94.1 in 2009 and 87.7 in 2010.

There isn’t much more to say than he is on track for Round 1 and as a MID/FWD at $246K, he has to be considered because he should basically be a walk up best 22 player with the Bombers. With more ‘mid-price’ type players becoming popular this season, you can start with Wonderlicka in your forward line and look to upgrade him during the season with the added flexibility of DPP along the way.

Why shouldn’t I pick him? The reason why Jason Winderlich has never been in any of our teams before is basically purely as a midfielder, you wouldn’t touch him. But you wouldn’t touch him for his games record either. He has never played every game of the season in his 9 year career and over the last 5 years, his games played have looked like this: 17, 9, 18, 19 and 4. Not exactly convincing.

While he is tracking well for round one (Hird has said he is excited by him being available for Round 1 in interviews), he is still on a modified program. The following is from the Essendon website:

Jason is progressing well during the pre-season and is on a modified training regime after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament during the season.

I’m worried that with Essendon’s growth last year, Winderlich may take a backseat to the young midfield blood and the days of the 90+ average he was able to hold onto a couple of years ago are probably long gone.

Deck of DT Rating: Jack. A huge amount of risk here and while very cheap, he is awkwardly priced. If he is right to play pre-season games, then monitor those and we could have one of the biggest bargains of 2012… but then again, he could be a massive fail.

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