We said a couple of days ago Hayden Crozier probably shouldn’t be best-22 for the Bulldogs, and they’ve secured him cheaply enough that it suggests the Dogs aren’t sure either way.

PAV thought he was more of a forward this year, but he’s also played in defence in the past. The Bulldogs list manager Jason McCartney spoke of his flexibility but mentioned halfback as a particular focus. A change of roles is a prime chance to either improve on his projected output or crash out of the system completely.

The PAPLEY system thinks Crozier, a 24 year old with good numbers of games but little likelihood of becoming a top player, is worth about pick 35.

Historically, some 24 year olds projected in this range have panned out well, with Liberatore and Jarman blooming after this point and Tony Lockett having just hit the nadir of his projected value.

The trade of pick 40 alone works out pretty close to Crozier’s projection by itself. The later picks represent a swap of a likely early fourth rounder for a mid-round fifth. That slightly tilts the trade in the Bulldogs’ favour:

In terms of draft positions, the Dogs now hold picks 9, 27, and 81 this year, suggesting minimal engagement with this draft. McCartney in discussing this deal mentioned draft pick points in 2018, suggesting they rate one of their father-son prospects (perhaps Rhylee West) as a likely draft prospect.

Fremantle now hold 5, 40, 41, 56, 59 (and 78). That’s four 3rd and 4th round picks each individually projecting to an average of 29 PAVs, meaning if they were to take those to the draft and get two decent players from them, they’d be happy at having built some depth. However, it’s maybe not the draft hand a rebuilding club like the Dockers will want to finish up holding.

The Dockers may have further deals coming, including a potential a trade for GWS’ Nathan Wilson which could shuffle some picks around. Freo’s 2nd to 5th current picks are all an upgrade on GWS’ third selection. GWS don’t have much Academy talent available this year but Freo may also consider a 2-for-1 pick swap with a club looking for potential bid-matching value around the second round, like Richmond or Brisbane.

Verdict: Fair, but the later pick swap is a little in the Bulldogs’ favour

Note: This post is part of a series of posts using a valuation method called Player Approximate Value (PAV) to evaluate trades for fairness and balance. Elsewhere, you can read much more about the method and theory behind PAV and also about PAPLEY, the projection method used to derive expected future PAVs. This method expresses both picks and players in terms of expected future value allowing them to be compared on this common basis.

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