Brownlow Medal 2019: Tim Kelly the mid-season leader on Champion Data predictor

The battle for the 2019 Brownlow Medal is heating up and the mid-season leaderboard presents something of a surprise contender at the top. Check out the predicted top 10.

Brownlow artwork for predictor story

Geelong superstar Tim Kelly could become a modern-day Graham Moss, winning a Brownlow Medal for his club before returning home to Western Australia next year.

While the top-of-the-table Cats are doing everything in their power to convince Kelly to stay beyond the end of this year, it seems certain the 24-year-old will again request a trade back to Perth — as he did at the end of last season.

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He might depart as the reigning Brownlow medallist — as Moss did when he left Essendon for Claremont after the 1976 season — if Champion Data’s 2019 Brownlow predictor is on the money after 12 rounds.

Champion Data has Kelly currently leading its Brownlow Medal predictor at the halfway mark of the season - with 16 votes - leading narrowly from teammate Patrick Dangerfield.

Fremantle’s Nat Fyfe currently sits in third place, while Carlton’s Patrick Cripps is in fourth position, despite his team sitting on the bottom of the ladder.

Moss remains the only Brownlow winner to trade clubs immediately after winning football’s most prestigious individual award, when he quit the Bombers after four seasons to transfer to Claremont in the WAFL.

Herald Sun football analyst Mick McGuane said Kelly - who is currently leading the AFL Coaches’ Association award by seven votes from Cripps - has had an extraordinary season.

“He’s been outstanding,” McGuane said. “He would clearly be in the top three right now, along with Lachie Neale and Patrick Cripps.”

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Despite playing for Carlton, Patrick Cripps has had an outstanding season so far

Kelly joined the Cats under a standard two-year draftee contract at the end of 2017, but he requested a trade to the Eagles last year for family reasons. He and his partner Caitlin Miller have three young children.

The Cats knocked back West Coast’s offer of picks 20 and 22 and a future second-round pick last October, and the Eagles will be hard pressed to satisfy Geelong when the trade request comes again later in the year.

Tim Kelly is the mid-season leader according to Champion Data

Leigh Matthews said Kelly was clearly the best player in the competition at the moment.

“The coaches rate their own players and what they’ve done for their team, and the opposition players for how hard they’ve been to play against. So I always rate the coaches’ award,” Matthews said on 3AW.

“On that basis, you could say after Round 12, Tim Kelly’s been the best performed player in the game.

“Let’s face it, you wouldn’t swap him for (this year’s) No.1 pick, would you? I wouldn’t. He’s (24), so you wouldn’t swap him for an 18 year old who might be as good as Tim Kelly - yeah, you might get an extra five years - but he might not be anywhere near as good.

“If it was an independent panel doing the (trade), it’d be about Pick 1 and Pick 10, I reckon.”

HOW IT WORKS

Champion Data’s prediction is done using six years of historical data, feeding player match stats into a neural network. Player involvements measured by stats such as SuperCoach points, disposals, hitouts, clearances, inside-50s, tackles, and contested possessions are considered by the model, as well as the result and final margin for the player’s team. Adjustments are also made for each player’s polling history. Instead of assigning just a 3,2,1 for each game. The probability of each player polling in each spot is calculated to find each players’ expected votes for any given game.