Heppell vs Harmes (Laird can swing into the mids)
Good question - I was starting to wonder if Heppell is less of a priority than another non-rookie defender.
I was thinking of Young or Cumming ... not sure of the answer to be honest, but I think for me it’s a two part X vs Y, and depends on who the paired rookies are.
At the moment I have Heppell and have not had Harmes, but as you can see, I’m reassessing.
For mine it comes down to what you're going for.
Heppell I think is highly unlikely to hit premium numbers, there's a chance but his half back days capped out in the 90s for the most part and given the injury last year I think mid 90s is a solid expectation. At that level Heppell matches all but the best rookies and is a strong pick. If you believe stronger in his keeper potential then he becomes a must have but, imo, the realistic outcome is Heppell is a cash cow.
Harmes is harder to predict, in the right role he's a mid 90s guy who, barring a big change in overall defender scoring, would be a premium at that level. On the flipside I have a much harder time saying a 90s projection is a solid expectation for him. I think mid 80s+ is all you can really say with any certainty given his scoring history and a lot more role questions.
Basically... Harmes has better chances of being a keeper and also much better chances of being a poor pick. For mine Heppell should be a pretty safe cash cow pick, the mid rookies probably look good enough at this point to question whether he's needed for that purpose but his JS and scoring potential would justify the premium if you had that cash lying around.
I don't think either are likely to end up as genuinely bad picks barring injury. Harmes can score explosively and at an 85 average generates 100k, not a good pick but not a failure. Heppell makes 130k at 85 which would match his rookie output in the same role. Neither of those outcomes are disasters you can't recover from and there's more than enough upside on Harmes to justify the pick with that as your low end expectation and Heppell the same though the lack of keeper likelihood does lower it.
Ultimately I want to see Harmes' role with all the other mids playing but if his role holds up to what it was in the 1st match, I like him slightly more than Heppell because for me the #1 thing I always look for in a midprice pick is the keeper likelihood and Harmes wins that by the nature of the position he's listed at even if I think Heppell has a higher likelihood of averaging more.
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