State league fantasy scores give us a good idea of how fringe players perform from a fantasy perspective. We can use this information to identify up and coming fantasy stars to draft in our keeper leagues. Last year, we identified Jordan Dawson as an up and coming fantasy player going by his NEAFL numbers. Tom Mitchell’s fantasy numbers at the state level were immense. Despite not being best 22 at the time, he is now one of the best fantasy performers. Obviously there some players won’t play the same role in AFL, or won’t get a game ahead of other players. I will try not to talk about those players. In this article, we will take a look at VFL fantasy scores of 2019 that are likely to be relevant to our keeper league drafts next year.

In 2019, the highest averaging player in the VFL was Brayden Preuss. This came on the back of an average of 52 hitouts per game. He had a few monster scores for the season, including 189 points in round 17 against Sandringham. Of course, we all know Preuss is behind Max Gawn at Melbourne, and probably won’t be getting too much of a run unless Gawn gets injured. However, he has been a handy scorer at AFL level but still is only worth picking up as a handcuff. Melbourne have also come out this week expressing interest in drafting ruck/forward Luke Jackson. This raises further questions as to where Preuss sits on the depth chart.

Tom Campbell is another player who scored well in the VFL, averaging 124 points per game. He is also unlikely to play over the senior ruck in his team, with Todd Goldstein the clear number one ruck at North Melbourne. Campbell will only probably be useful when Goldstein is injured, which doesn’t happen very often. Despite this, he averaged 23 disposals per game and 33 hitouts. He’s worth picking up as a late pick or a handcuff to Todd Goldstein.

Now we’ll look at a few players who might actually get a game and provide some value to our keeper league teams.

First up is Will Snelling. We wrote about Snelling last week in the SANFL numbers where he averaged 128 points per game. His scores in the VFL were quite similar where he averaged 102 points. He did see some football at AFL last season which is encouraging. Whilst he doesn’t play the same role at AFL level as he does in the VFL, he scores a lot of points through tackles. This is a stat category you can rack up points in no matter where you play. He played 4 games at AFL level and averaged 71 points. All of this was done on the back of coming into an AFL system mid-year with a lot of catching up to do. I’m not 100% sure that his role is suited to fantasy at AFL level, but there is definitely potential there.

The last player we’ll look at in this article is Marc Pittonet. Kaes made a big call in our Trade Period Recap article that Pittonet will average 80+ this season. Whilst I personally think that might be a bit of a stretch, his VFL numbers are impressive. He averaged 98 points per game this season, including an average of 39 hitouts per game. His biggest score for the season came in round 4 against Coburg where he notched up a 144, but also had other big scores of 131, 121 and 113 throughout the year. He moves to Carlton next season playing second fiddle to Matthew Kreuzer. This means it’s likely Pittonet will see some game time given Kreuzer’s likelihood of getting injured. It will be interesting to see what he can do.

Top 10 VFL Averages of 2019

Name Club GP K H M T FF FA HO G B DT Braydon Preuss Casey Demons 10 14.5 3 5.5 3.3 1.1 1.8 52.1 0.7 1.1 132.3 Dale Thomas Northern Blues 1 22 10 9 5 1 1 0 0 0 131 Tom Campbell North Melbourne VFL 17 12.3 10.2 5.4 3.9 2.7 2 33.2 0.8 0.5 124.1 Luke Dunstan Sandringham Zebras 3 20.3 10 6.3 3.3 1.3 0 0 1 0.7 121.3 Michael Barlow Werribee Tigers 13 14.2 16.5 4.6 5.5 1.1 0.4 0.1 0.5 0.7 115.2 Toby McLean Footscray Bulldogs 1 20 10 2 5 2 2 0 2 1 115 Shai Bolton Richmond VFL 4 18 9.5 2.5 8.2 0.8 1.5 0 0.8 0 114.2 Sam Menegola Geelong VFL 4 15.5 11.2 5 8.2 0.5 2.5 0 0.5 0.8 113.8 Corey Wagner Casey Demons 9 15.8 7.1 3.4 9.6 1.2 1.8 0 0.6 0.7 110 Jonathon Ceglar Box Hill Hawks 3 8.3 11 7.7 1.3 0.3 1.3 30.7 0.7 0 106.3

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Members of The Keeper League Podcast will gain access to all of the state league fantasy scores over the coming weeks.