Jack Steele – Deck of Dream Team 2023

Player	Jack Steele
Club	St. Kilda
Position	Midfielder
Price	$978,000
Bye	12
2022 avg	110.4
2022 gms	18
Proj. avg	118.0
Draft range	First Round

Click here for 2023 Fantasy Classic prices.

Why should I pick him?

Let’s not beat around the bush, Saints skipper Jack Steele is a fantasy gun who should already be heavily under consideration for your team. Poised to be the number one scorer in AFL Fantasy 2023, Steele comes in priced at only 110.4. This may seem a bit steep to those unfamiliar with his scoring prowess but it is actually 11 points under his career-best 121 from 2021. As the fifth most expensive asset entering this year, Steele reminded us late last year why he deserves to be at the peak of Fantasy midfielders posting a 115 avg after returning from mid-season shoulder surgery last season.

Steele has put up some simply sensational numbers over the past two years that make some other premos look like they’re miles off the pace. When looking across the 2021 and 2022 Fantasy seasons he’s managed to play 40 of a possible 44 games, missing only through injury. Across his 40 games, only seven have been under 100 fantasy points including his injury-affected game vs the Cats in round nine 2022 where he posted a respectable 77 having battled through with a ruptured AC joint in a hard-as-nails performance. With very few scores under 100, it quickly becomes apparent that Jack scores fantasy points for fun as seen with 25 returns of 110+ points over that stretch of 40 games. This is the type of consistent scoring at a high clip that coaches should really be looking out for when selecting a potential captain option in their team.

Everyone loves nailing a good captain option each week, no doubt about it. A great captain score will have you up and about, chest puffed out and fist-bumping mates about your genius selection. Jack Steele is the type of guy that’ll deliver you such bragging rights with a scoring ceiling up there with the best of them. In his last two seasons, we’ve seen him post over 130 on 12 separate occasions capped off with some monsters of 162, 157, 154, and 149. His top end is more than suitable for a potential captaincy option in your starting side, paired with his ability to consistently post 100s and avoid stinkers in the process.

But if he’s continuously posting big scores and having such an impact on games, surely he’s a major tag target, right?

Wrong.

Jack Steele avoids tags as if he stinks as bad as Clarrys lid looks. He’s a big-bodied midfielder who does a majority of his work on the inside, often leaving opposition coaches to target other Saints for tags who may be regarded as more damaging. His game certainly is a fantasy-friendly one as he packs the stat sheet in pretty much every key category. Forming the bulk for his 110.4 avg last season were his 27.1 disposals, 5.0 marks and 7.2 tackles per game, making him a rather hard man to slow down in a fantasy sense. If you’re looking to have a successful hat chase this year, make sure the Saints captain is in your fantasy team and watch him outperform his starting price.

Why shouldn’t I pick him?

Ross Lyon returns to the Saints having left his previous coaching post there at the end of 2011. New coaches tend to bring with them fresh ideas, some of them great and some of them plain right bizarre. No one knows for sure at this stage what Ross the Boss plans on doing with the man of Steele in his game plan over at St Kilda. This unknown is a primary concern for coaches wanting to select Steele, who will need to be patient and wait for the practice matches to get a better understanding of how he may be deployed.

With a starting salary of $15.5 million you’ll need to sacrifice a massive chunk of your budget to make room for this scoring machine. $978,000 is far from pocket change when wanting to reduce the total number of rookies starting on field and cash in on some of the tasty mid-pricers and breakout candidates available. Some may be tempted to downgrade Steele to a less proven option if chasing extra salary cap space to fit in alternate options or structure changes leading up to round one lockout.

Look I’m really scraping the bottom of the barrel here to put forward what we’ll begrudgingly call an excuse for a balanced debate, but Jack doesn’t exactly kick many goals. This is compounded by being a player of his supreme quality in a rabble of a team like St. Kilda who’ve failed to win a flag since 1966… He’s only managed a measly 54 snags in 137 games, placing him well below the gold standard as a goal-a-game midfielder akin to Dangerfield, Dusty and Petracca. Yes alright, he plays a ‘slightly’ different role to those three cherry-picked examples but if the school of Calvinator and data manipulation has taught me anything it’s to pick whatever examples you want to suit your point and always have a good captain.

Deck of DT Rating.

ACE

Jack Steele is a walk-up Ace in this year’s Deck of DT. With a starting price 11 points under his career best, coaches have been kissed with the option of a discounted uber-premium midfielder of this caliber. A genuine week-in, week-out captaincy option with a massive ceiling and a high floor, you’d be a brave coach to kick off season 2023 without the man of Steele. You’ll just need to ask yourself, is he your M1 or M2?

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