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Fantasy Tips From the Fantasy King

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Selby Lee Steere has won AFL fantasy two years in a row. He is the coach of Moreiras Magic and through selling his fantasy guide donates a lot of money to the Starlight foundation. I was lucky enough to do an interview with him talking about his strategies in winning fantasy.

AFL fantasy scores as opposed to supercoach scores are able to be fully derived from the box-score statistics. Why this is good it means if we wanted to, and I guess we do for the purposes of this post lets do a few things

  1. Lets get the fantasy scores for all players as far back as we can go
  2. Now that we have fantasy scores going back years and years, lets compare players. In the podcast, it was pointed out that maybe Brayshaw will see an increase in useage because Neale has left, are their stats similar in their first years? Can they be similar in their second.
  3. Maybe like Kane Cornes you believe that Powell-Pepper can be the next Dusty Martin, so lets compare the pair.
  4. Another one of Selby fantastic tips was to think about points per minute, we can actually calculate this too!

Step one Get the data!

library(tidyverse)
## ── Attaching packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse 1.2.1 ──
## ✔ ggplot2 3.1.0       ✔ purrr   0.3.0  
## ✔ tibble  2.0.1       ✔ dplyr   0.8.0.1
## ✔ tidyr   0.8.3       ✔ stringr 1.4.0  
## ✔ readr   1.3.1       ✔ forcats 0.4.0
## ── Conflicts ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── tidyverse_conflicts() ──
## ✖ dplyr::filter() masks stats::filter()
## ✖ dplyr::lag()    masks stats::lag()
dataframe<-fitzRoy::get_afltables_stats(start_date = "1897-01-01",end_date = "2018-10-10")
## Returning data from 1897-01-01 to 2018-10-10
## Downloading data
## 
## Finished downloading data. Processing XMLs
## Warning: Detecting old grouped_df format, replacing `vars` attribute by
## `groups`
## Finished getting afltables data

Step two data checks

One of the things about AFL data is that statistics are being collected from different points in time, no one was recording the meters gained back in the 1960s.

A quick way to check when a statistic is first being collected would be to do a search or hopefully there is a data dictionary.

But in this case, lets use R and the tidyverse to do it.

library(tidyverse)
dataframe%>%
  group_by(Season)%>%
  summarise(meantime=mean(Time.on.Ground..))%>%
  filter(meantime>0)
## # A tibble: 16 x 2
##    Season meantime
##     <dbl>    <dbl>
##  1   2003     81.8
##  2   2004     81.8
##  3   2005     81.8
##  4   2006     81.8
##  5   2007     81.8
##  6   2008     81.8
##  7   2009     81.8
##  8   2010     81.8
##  9   2011     81.8
## 10   2012     81.8
## 11   2013     81.8
## 12   2014     81.8
## 13   2015     81.8
## 14   2016     81.8
## 15   2017     81.8
## 16   2018     81.8

So what we can see from this, is that time on ground was first being collected in 2003. So if we were to work out points per minute we could only start in 2003.

Come up with a column of fantasy scores

We know that AFL fantasy scores are worked out as follows:

df<-data.frame(stringsAsFactors=FALSE,
           Match.Stat = c("Kick", "Handball", "Mark", "Tackle", "Free Kick For",
                          "Free Kick Against", "Hitout", "Goal", "Behind"),
       Fantasy.Points = c("3 Points", "2 Points", "3 Points", "4 Points",
                          "1 Point", "-3 Points", "1 Point", "6 Points",
                          "1 Point")
    )
df
##          Match.Stat Fantasy.Points
## 1              Kick       3 Points
## 2          Handball       2 Points
## 3              Mark       3 Points
## 4            Tackle       4 Points
## 5     Free Kick For        1 Point
## 6 Free Kick Against      -3 Points
## 7            Hitout        1 Point
## 8              Goal       6 Points
## 9            Behind        1 Point

Now all we have to do is create a new column using the above as a formula so we can work out the fantasy scores going backwards, we can use mutate to do this.

dataframe%>%
    mutate(fantasy_score=
               3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
               3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
    group_by(Season)%>%
    summarise(meanfantasy=mean(fantasy_score))%>%
  ggplot(aes(x=Season, y=meanfantasy))+geom_line()

Looking at the graph, what we can see here is that roughly in the 60s there was a sudden jump in the statistics being collected that went on to be used to derive the AFL fantasy scores.

To find out when the statistics are first being collected we might want to do this graphically. What I am thinking what if we just had a heap of lines with each line representing one of the statistics. When it comes to plotting multiple lines on a graph its a good idea to practice the use of gather from the tidyverse

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  group_by(Season)%>%
  summarise(meanfantasy=mean(fantasy_score), 
            meankicks=mean(Kicks),
            meanhandballs=mean(Handballs),
            meanmarks=mean(Marks),
            meantackles=mean(Tackles),
            meanfreesfor=mean(Frees.For),
            meansfreesagainst=mean(Frees.Against),
            meanhitouts=mean(Hit.Outs),
            meangoals=mean(Goals),
            meanbehinds=mean(Behinds))%>%
 gather("variable", "value",-Season) %>%
  ggplot(aes(x=Season, y=value, group=variable, colour=variable))+geom_line()

Looking at this graph, it would seem as though if we used 2000 as a cut off, that would be fine as all our data is being collected then. What we don’t want there to be an example of, is a statistic like meters gained that was only started to be tracked in 2007.

Next what we want to do now that we have the fantasy scores and a rough timeline of when it makes sense that all our data is being collected lets see the average fantasy scores by player and year.

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  group_by(Season, First.name, Surname, ID)%>%
  summarise(meanFS=mean(fantasy_score))%>%
  filter(Season>2000)
## # A tibble: 10,933 x 5
## # Groups:   Season, First.name, Surname [10,879]
##    Season First.name Surname     ID meanFS
##     <dbl> <chr>      <chr>    <dbl>  <dbl>
##  1   2001 Aaron      Fiora      911   34.6
##  2   2001 Aaron      Hamill     171   71.4
##  3   2001 Aaron      Henneman   362   32.9
##  4   2001 Aaron      Lord       574   48.7
##  5   2001 Aaron      Shattock  1093   31.3
##  6   2001 Adam       Contessa   457   49.9
##  7   2001 Adam       Goodes    1012   71.5
##  8   2001 Adam       Houlihan   593   54.7
##  9   2001 Adam       Hunter    1072   23.3
## 10   2001 Adam       Kingsley   825   66.9
## # … with 10,923 more rows

But! We know that with AFL fantasy we don’t want to include finals that’s because finals aren’t included in the competition so lets exclude finals.

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
  group_by(Season, First.name, Surname, ID)%>%
  summarise(meanFS=mean(fantasy_score))%>%
  filter(Season>2000)%>%arrange(desc(meanFS))
## # A tibble: 10,926 x 5
## # Groups:   Season, First.name, Surname [10,872]
##    Season First.name Surname        ID meanFS
##     <dbl> <chr>      <chr>       <dbl>  <dbl>
##  1   2014 Tom        Rockliff    11787   135.
##  2   2012 Dane       Swan         1460   134.
##  3   2018 Tom        Mitchell    12196   129.
##  4   2017 Tom        Mitchell    12196   127.
##  5   2012 Gary       Ablett       1105   125.
##  6   2010 Dane       Swan         1460   123.
##  7   2018 Jack       Macrae      12166   123.
##  8   2011 Dane       Swan         1460   121.
##  9   2017 Patrick    Dangerfield 11700   121.
## 10   2018 Brodie     Grundy      12217   120 
## # … with 10,916 more rows

So what did we originally want to do, we wanted to see how Neale did in his second year to get a sense of his improvement and is that comparable to Brayshaw?

To do this we want to find the player IDS, this makes it easier to filter out the players, secondly we want to add the count of games played in season. I think the second point is important because we don’t want to be misled by a small number of games played.

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
  group_by(Season, First.name, Surname, ID)%>%
  summarise(meanFS=mean(fantasy_score), 
            count=n())%>%
  filter(Season>2000)%>%arrange(desc(Season))%>%
  filter(ID %in%c("12055","12589"))
## # A tibble: 8 x 6
## # Groups:   Season, First.name, Surname [8]
##   Season First.name Surname     ID meanFS count
##    <dbl> <chr>      <chr>    <dbl>  <dbl> <int>
## 1   2018 Andrew     Brayshaw 12589   66.8    17
## 2   2018 Lachie     Neale    12055  100.     22
## 3   2017 Lachie     Neale    12055  100.     21
## 4   2016 Lachie     Neale    12055  111.     22
## 5   2015 Lachie     Neale    12055  102.     22
## 6   2014 Lachie     Neale    12055   82.3    21
## 7   2013 Lachie     Neale    12055   77.1     9
## 8   2012 Lachie     Neale    12055   42.1    11

So looking at the Neale vs Brayshaw comparision, Neale actually averaged less fantasy points in his first AFL season, but he picked it up to 77.1 in his second year and a slight imporvement to 82.3 in his third.

But as Selby pointed out, he’s looking at points per minute as his metric. So lets add that in.

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
  group_by(Season, First.name, Surname, ID)%>%
  summarise(meanFS=mean(fantasy_score),
            meantimeonground=mean(Time.on.Ground..),
            count=n())%>%
  filter(Season>2000)%>%arrange(desc(Season))%>%
  filter(ID %in%c("12055","12589"))
## # A tibble: 8 x 7
## # Groups:   Season, First.name, Surname [8]
##   Season First.name Surname     ID meanFS meantimeonground count
##    <dbl> <chr>      <chr>    <dbl>  <dbl>            <dbl> <int>
## 1   2018 Andrew     Brayshaw 12589   66.8             66.7    17
## 2   2018 Lachie     Neale    12055  100.              80.2    22
## 3   2017 Lachie     Neale    12055  100.              77.6    21
## 4   2016 Lachie     Neale    12055  111.              81.6    22
## 5   2015 Lachie     Neale    12055  102.              77.0    22
## 6   2014 Lachie     Neale    12055   82.3             68.8    21
## 7   2013 Lachie     Neale    12055   77.1             73.9     9
## 8   2012 Lachie     Neale    12055   42.1             59.2    11

What we can see here, is that Brayshaw average time on ground was 66.7, Neale when he was getting just a little bit more game time (68.8 and 73.9) was getting an extra 10+ fantasy points on average. But what we can see is that his mean fantasy score and his mean time on ground is virtually one to one.

Lets see Brayshaw on a scatter plot for his debut season

dataframe%>%
    mutate(fantasy_score=
               3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
               3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
    filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
    filter(ID =="12589")%>%
    ggplot(aes(x=Time.on.Ground..,y=fantasy_score))+geom_point()+geom_abline(intercept = 0)+ylim(0,100)+xlim(0,100)

Lets now look at Sam Powell Pepper vs Dustin Martin comparisons.

First lets find their player Ids

dataframe%>%
    mutate(fantasy_score=
               3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
               3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
    filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
    filter(Surname =="Powell-Pepper")%>%select(ID)
## # A tibble: 37 x 1
##       ID
##    <dbl>
##  1 12494
##  2 12494
##  3 12494
##  4 12494
##  5 12494
##  6 12494
##  7 12494
##  8 12494
##  9 12494
## 10 12494
## # … with 27 more rows
dataframe%>%
    mutate(fantasy_score=
               3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
               3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
    filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
    filter(Surname =="Martin", First.name=="Dustin")%>%select(ID)
## # A tibble: 193 x 1
##       ID
##    <dbl>
##  1 11794
##  2 11794
##  3 11794
##  4 11794
##  5 11794
##  6 11794
##  7 11794
##  8 11794
##  9 11794
## 10 11794
## # … with 183 more rows

Now lets do the same comparisions as we were doing for Brayshaw and Neale

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
  group_by(Season, First.name, Surname, ID)%>%
  summarise(meanFS=mean(fantasy_score),
            meantimeonground=mean(Time.on.Ground..),
            count=n())%>%
  filter(Season>2000)%>%arrange(desc(Season))%>%
  filter(ID %in%c("11794","12494"))
## # A tibble: 11 x 7
## # Groups:   Season, First.name, Surname [11]
##    Season First.name Surname          ID meanFS meantimeonground count
##     <dbl> <chr>      <chr>         <dbl>  <dbl>            <dbl> <int>
##  1   2018 Dustin     Martin        11794   92.4             82.9    21
##  2   2018 Sam        Powell-Pepper 12494   75               74.6    16
##  3   2017 Dustin     Martin        11794  114.              85      22
##  4   2017 Sam        Powell-Pepper 12494   69.9             68      21
##  5   2016 Dustin     Martin        11794  107.              83.1    22
##  6   2015 Dustin     Martin        11794  104.              79.8    22
##  7   2014 Dustin     Martin        11794   97.6             82.9    21
##  8   2013 Dustin     Martin        11794   97.0             81.8    22
##  9   2012 Dustin     Martin        11794   84.8             80.4    20
## 10   2011 Dustin     Martin        11794   89.5             84.4    22
## 11   2010 Dustin     Martin        11794   71.5             78.2    21

Lets now look at a similar scatter plot.

dataframe%>%
  mutate(fantasy_score=
           3*Kicks +2*Handballs+ 3*Marks +4*Tackles+Frees.For -
           3*Frees.Against+Hit.Outs+6*Goals+Behinds)%>%
  filter(!(Round %in% c("EF", "PF", "SF","GF","QF")))%>%
  group_by(Season, First.name, Surname, ID)%>%
  summarise(meanFS=mean(fantasy_score),
            meantimeonground=mean(Time.on.Ground..),
            count=n())%>%
  filter(Season>2000)%>%arrange(desc(Season))%>%
  filter(ID %in%c("11794","12494"))%>%
  ggplot(aes(x=meantimeonground, y=meanFS))+geom_point(aes(colour=as.factor(ID)))+geom_abline(intercept = 0)+ylim(0,140)+xlim(0,140)

So hopefully now what you have is a rough framework in place so you can easily filter out players you think are similar, track their careers and use 2 time afl fantasy winners tips by looking at time on ground as well!

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