Liam Baker (born 27 January 1998) is a professional Australian rules footballer playing for the Richmond Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He played junior representative football with West Perth in the WAFL and represented Western Australia at national championships at under 18 level. After being undrafted in 2016, Baker then played senior WAFL football with Subiaco. Baker was drafted by the Richmond tigers in the 2018 rookie draft and made his AFL debut in round 19, 2018. He was an AFL premiership player with Richmond in 2019 and 2020, and in 2020 was named to the AFL's 22Under22 team, recognising the best young players in the league. In 2022, Baker was presented the AFLPA most Courageous in the AFL award. The captain of the Richmond Football Club, Dylan Grimes, presented the award to Baker, with Patrick Dangerfield announcing the achievement.
Early life, junior and state-league football
Baker grew up on a wheat and sheep farm in Pingaring, Western Australia, a town east of Perth. He took up junior football with the semi-local Lake Grace-Pingrup Football Club in the Ongerup Football Association, traveling more than to do so. In 2014 he received the best and fairest award for the Great Southern Colts carnival that June.
He later played representative football in Perth as a junior with the colts program of WAFL club West Perth. While in Perth he attended high school at Aquinas College. In 2016 Baker represented Western Australia at the 2016 AFL Under 18 Championships. There he averaged 17.7 disposals and a goal per game across three matches. Following that season Baker was one of just 12 Western Australians and 80 young players across the country to be invited to the national draft combine in Melbourne in October. At the combine he placed equal-second overall in the goal-kicking test and seventh in the endurance running beep test. Baker was passed over in national, pre-season and rookie drafts that year, before making a switch to play senior football with rival WAFL club Subiaco in 2017.
At the time he recognised the need to improve physically, citing poor sprint testing at the national combine as a factor in his failure to be drafted. In addition, he worked on improving his inconsistent kicking caused by a bad ball-drop technique and a lack of positional versatility that saw him play exclusively as an inside midfielder. Improvements in these areas saw Baker break into the club's senior side while playing predominantly as a small forward. In just his second senior match he played a key role with three goals in a win over . In his side's preliminary final Baker also contributed three goals. He played a total of 13 matches at senior level including a "shining" performance in Subiaco's losing grand final in which he recorded 19 disposals, six inside-50s and five tackles. Baker kicked 19 goals that season and held averages of 16 disposals and three tackles per game. At the state draft combine that year he placed third in the endurance running yo-yo test. Despite his efforts Baker was again undrafted in that year's national and pre-season drafts.
Junior statistics
Under 18 National Championships
|- style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 2016 |Western Australia | 2 || 3 || 3 || — || 32 || 21 || 52 || 14 || 8 || 1.0 || — || 10.7 || 7.0 || 17.3 || 4.7 || 2.7 |- |- class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3| Career ! 3 ! 3 ! — ! 32 ! 21 ! 52 ! 14 ! 8 ! 1.0 ! — ! 10.7 ! 7.0 ! 17.3 ! 4.7 ! 2.7 |}
AFL career
2018 season
Baker was drafted by with the club's first pick and the 18th selection overall in the 2018 AFL rookie draft in November 2017.