Jim Park Medal 2016

[crashlander]

With Round 1 just a few days away, I commend you to this thread. The Jim Park Medal is our humble best and fairest award, given to the player who polls the most over the 2016 season.

Each week any member can vote once (nobody has tried to vote twice during my tenure as administrator of this award).

Each person voting has 15 votes to award, as ever he or she sees fit.
Many people use a 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 system, which is easy on the administrator (Me! ). However, you can assign votes pretty much as you wish. I often use half votes.
As long as the votes add up to 15, there are few worries.

There are 2 small restrictions: no player may be awarded more than 10 votes in any one game. There must be at least 3 players mentioned. That is not usually an effort.

Each game is also given a rating, A+ to F-. This allows me to take the team's performance into account and not penalize players. This is because it is usual to have more players deserve votes when we play well.
If you do not rate the team, a default value of 'B' will be awarded.

Please consider voting if you see the game, either in TV or live. The more voters we have, the more representative the award really is. Look for the voting threads; they will appear either shortly before or shortly after the game. This thread will be where I summarize the week's results and keep you abreast of how things are going.

If we had more people being able to see VFL games I would like to run a similar award for the NB's. However, that is not looking viable. Not enough people getting to the game regularly enough. If there is enough interest, I can do this. But at present it is merely a nice idea.

[Amers]

Crash, you do a great job with this, however, I have never understood how you can really split a vote in half? It doesn't make any sense. If 15 votes isn't enough, then give everybody 20 or 30 votes, but 1/2 votes?

[crashlander]

I guess it comes from being a Maths teacher: if the number is real I'm willing to use. I haven't managed imaginary votes yet, but there were times last year when I was tempted.

I guess other things is that I do try to mention most guys who are worth a consideration. A bad habit, but one I'm stuck with.

PS: 'i' is an imaginary number = square root of -1. It doesn't exist, as such, but it can have some surprising real world applications in quantum theory and electronics.
Yes, I am weird.  

[ItsOurTime]

Last year, there were plenty of imaginary performances worthy of imaginary votes  )

[crashlander]

Indeed. Especially before the change of coach.

[crashlander]

Yes, it is only Monday, but voters out there have been up and at it since Thursday evening. And there have been plenty of votes so far.
As I am a bit early, vote if you haven't. I will adjust things as necessary. (It is a school holiday and I can afford to be generous this time.)

At this point, there have been 26 voters: the most we have had for some time. The voters were also quite happy about the performance, although there was considerable discussion about how high to rate a loss. In the end the rating was 8.6: better than a C+, but not quite a B-.
That suggests the voters felt positively towards a team that put a new game plan into action pretty well, but not quite well enough to win the points.

I look forward to beating the Tiggers on our next meeting.

Updated on Friday 1st April:
Thank you to all of you who voted. We ended up with 29 voters, the most we've had in a couple of years.
The rating ended up at 8.55, minimally down on Monday's effort. Still, it was between a C+ and a B-, which suggests that we were reasonably happy in most respects, except that we lost. It would have been nice to win.

The Votes:
365 - Murphy, Marc
263 - Cripps, Patrick
224 - Gibbs, Bryce
102 - Docherty, Sam
72 - Simpson, Kade
70 - Wright, Matthew
59 - Weitering, Jacob
31 - Graham, Nick
30 - Kreuzer, Matthew
22 - Kerrdige, Sam
19 - Phillips, Andrew
9 - Curnow, Edward
6 - Boekhorst, Blaine
6 - Casboult, Levi
3 - Walker, Andrew
2 - Rowe, Sam
2 - Tuohy, Zach

The voting public appear pleased with Weitering, and I am not surprised. he managed 17 possessions and consistently out-marked his opponents.
Gibbs, Murphy and Cripps grabbed most of the votes, as they had most of the possessions.
Wright's 3 goals managed to get him a fair bit of notice, but Kerridge's votes probably show that he did tire late in the game.

[crashlander]

Round 2: Carlton vs. Sydney
Not quite the result we were looking for. Nichevo: we played a good team at the top of their game.

Naturally, with a disappointing loss there were less voters and they were a lot less happy. However, we did rate the effort considerably better than we did this time last year.
The rating value was 6.79, a clear D-.
There were 22 voters this week, also up from this time last year. Thank you to all who voted.

The voting patterns this week were interesting, and showed considerable difference in opinion about a number of players. Fair enough. That is why we have the system we have: a simple 3-2-1 system does not allow us to adequately reward players who made a reasonable contribution.
Alas, I didn't see a single moment of the game, either live or on TV. I hate that.

The Votes:
Thomas, Dale 234
Curnow, Edward 154
Docherty, Sam 130
Kerrdige, Sam 111
Wright, Matthew 108
Weitering, Jacob 83
Simpson, Kade 40
Cripps, Patrick 34
Jamison, Michael 28
Gibbs, Bryce 22
Murphy, Marc 19
Graham, Nick 19
Kreuzer, Matthew 12
Boekhorst, Blaine 12
Tuohy, Zach 6
Casboult, Levi 3
Curnow, Charles 3

Charlie Curnow managed his first votes, a minor contribution, but everyone has to start somewhere and the voting public were impressed enough to recognize his effort.
A number of our prime movers, Gibbs, Murphy, Graham, Kreuzer and Cripps, were down considerably this week.
On the other hand, Daisy Thomas managed his best effort in our colours this round. Considering that I thought he should start in the NBs, results have demonstrated that I am a true Jon Snow; I know nothing.
Sam Kerridge and Matthew Wright continue to justify their recruitment with solid performances, while Jacob Weitering showed for a 2nd time that we made an excellent choice.

Overall:
383 - Murphy, Marc (0)
297 - Cripps, Patrick (0)
246 - Gibbs, Bryce (0)
235 - Thomas, Dale (0)
232 - Docherty, Sam (0)
178 - Wright, Matthew (0)
163 - Curnow, Edward (0)
142 - Weitering, Jacob (0)
133 - Kerrdige, Sam (0)
112 - Simpson, Kade (0)
49 - Graham, Nick (0)
42 - Kreuzer, Matthew (0)
28 - Jamison, Michael (0)
19 - Boekhorst, Blaine (0)
19 - Phillips, Andrew (0)
9 - Casboult, Levi (0)
8 - Tuohy, Zach (0)
8 - Rowe, Sam (0)
3 - Curnow, Charles (0)
3 - Walker, Andrew (0)

Murphy still leads after his performance in Round 1, with Cripps following closely behind. Unlike last year, we have 10 players who have made the 100 mark, with 3 of them being recruits to the club.

[madbluboy]

The Votes:
Thomas, Dale 234
Curnow, Edward 154
Docherty, Sam 130
Kerrdige, Sam 111
Wright, Matthew 108
Weitering, Jacob 83
Simpson, Kade 40
Cripps, Patrick 34
Jamison, Michael 28
Gibbs, Bryce 22
Murphy, Marc 19
Graham, Nick 19
Kreuzer, Matthew 12
Boekhorst, Blaine 12
Tuohy, Zach 6
Casboult, Levi 3
Curnow, Charles 3

The Jim Park medal just took a major credibility hit.

[DJC]

The Jim Park medal just took a major credibility hit.

You mean the folk who post here don't know everything there is to know about footy  :o

There are always anomalies with Jim Park voting but, at the end of the season, the tallies will be pretty close to other awards - except the Brownlow!

[crashlander]

You mean the folk who post here don't know everything there is to know about footy  :o

There are always anomalies with Jim Park voting but, at the end of the season, the tallies will be pretty close to other awards - except the Brownlow!

Indeed. With many people with considerably different views as to how things may go, a considerable variability in the voting is not just an effect, but quite a positive. We usually mention all of the players who deserve to be mentioned. Sometimes that isn't a lot of guys, sometimes it can be a significant portion of the team.
In the end, we usually have a pretty good guide to how players have performed. There is considerable correspondence between our votes and Carlton's B&F.

Compared to the Brownlow, we don't do that well, as Brownlow voting is extremely limited in the number of players who can get a mention each week (only 3). As a result, players from losing teams generally get poor representation, no matter how well they have played. The other thing is that Brownlow voting is done by the umpires. From their position in the game, they cannot but bias their views towards midfielders: these are the guys they see most and who often get the ball more.
I wouldn't change the Brownlow - it has its strengths and weaknesses, but it is a very individual award. But I do consider our sort of voting to be a very good way of determining the best players at our club.