Cow Talk R1 → R2

Small or far away, Father Dougal on Cows

 

Hi Everybody!

So, wow, footy is back! It’s sort of hard to believe in a way. I’ve been afraid to let myself get too excited for fear it would be snatched away at the last minute again, but with it so close, I’m ready!

That’s a lie, you are so not ready. 

I am so ready for footy. I’m just not ready for Supercoach. Not the same.

Yeah, ok

So, I figure I ought to talk some about “The Restart”.

In capital letters even. “The Restart”

Well, yeah, it’s a big deal. Lots of changes. Which will, um mean something to how we play. 

Will they?

Well, not as much as I first thought. The changes seem designed to let us fit the season into the season. 

Squeak!

Sorry, the changes seemed designed to have the 17 week season work as much like a 23 week season as they can. Not mechanically, but in terms of how things go during the season. Basic strategy and such. Fewer weeks of price growth so faster price growth. 

And how does that balance out? 

I, um…Dammit, now I have to try to answer that….

Normally we get a total of 21 weeks of price growth, but the growing season is really weeks 3 to um….thinking

I can smell the wood burning. I was going to say I can hear the hamster wheel spinning, but I really can hear that. All the time. All. The. Time. 

Squeak!

I’m going with weeks 3 to 16. By that point we should be at full premium. Well, those managers who make it to full premo will be. I have yet to manage that, but plenty of people do, so R3 – R16 means 14 weeks  of upgrading. 

 

R1-2 = The Waiting (The hardest part) 

R3-16 = Upgrade Season 

R17-23 = The Run In

 

At the start of  R3 we’ll have 25 trades left (Don’t pretend otherwise)  12 more rounds of 2 trades/round gets to the start of R15. Then 1 trade for the last three rounds…..ok, 3 trades for the last four rounds. The Run In is R14-R17,, everything else must be Upgrade Season.

Duck Season! Fire! 

As long as it is not Hamster Season!

Shush, talking grown up stuff now. 

 

So for this season

R1 = The Waiting. (With extra waiting) 

R2 – R13 = Upgrade Season 

R14 – R17 = The Run In

 

So normally we get 14 weeks of Upgrade season. This year we get 12. That’s not really too different. The big thing is that we have three fewer weeks in which to be burned by injuries! 

I didn’t see that coming. I was expecting something like you have less time to catch up and have to push hard to upgrade faster. 

How can you do faster than as fast as possible? We already wanted to upgrade as fast as possible. Same as when I worked out that the short season changed nothing in regards to Guns and Rookies v Mid-price Madness. The season is still more than long enough for the same logic to apply, so no changes in team set up because of the short season. 

Changes because of all the good looking midpricers though?

Oh yes, we always have to change plans because of the player mix, but but that would have the same for a 23 week season. 

Anyways, the basic idea of fast points beating slow points remains the same. Catch-up is a Bad Plan. I’ve written before about the time value of money and probably will again real soon, but for now, let’s stick to the basics – fast beats slow. 

I got distracted didn’t I?

Squeak.

Right, 12 weeks v 14 weeks in Upgrade Season. That means we need about 14/2 = 1.167 times the normal growth rate for things to be even.  Let’s look at Richo the Rookie:

Starting price of 123,900, and scores 70 a week. Here what he does under the old  system

And here in the new system, with comparisons on the right

I was going to leave deflation off, but then I realized that it starting a week sooner mattered, so there are both raw and adjusted for deflation numbers. 

 

Because price changes start off fast and slow down over time, getting a one round head start matters less and less over time. At R4 the New rules have him 47.2% ahead of the old system. At the beginning of R7, when his growth has slowed down to the point where he’s probably worth cashing in, he is only 6.6% ahead. And as we say above a rate of 16.7% ahead would mean even with a normal season. 

Now even with a normal season isn’t the goal, making the most money you can use, and doing it fast is the goal. I’m not likely to turn down $27.1k or $19.3K profit over a round which means odds are the total cash gen will be a bit lower this season. How much lower? Well, assume we would prefer to cash in at the start of R7 after making $19.3k over R6 and don’t think waiting to make $13.7k over R7 is worth it. We’re 6.6% ahead of last season at a sale price of $172,400 v a sale price of $161,700. We needed to be at 16.7% ahead which would be $188,700 in order to stay even with a normal season’s earnings. We’re $16,300 short. That’s (172,400 / 188,700_ = 0.914% of our goal. 

What does that MEAN! 

It means we’re going to have teams about 9% less valuable when we hit “Full Premo” 

Faints

Well, that is assuming no other factors. 

Un-faints

For one thing we may have more downgrade target who play and make money them selves this season. If we do, and that is very much if, then it will be easier to make money, since we are often short on those. On the other hand, holding some through injury is harder because each missed week is a bigger % of the season. But do we have better backups? No idea! 

So if we assume everything else ends up a Wash…

I like Wash, he’s funny and has a hot wife! 

Er, right, well, assuming that, I’m seeing less total value in teams. Of course if you think the upgrade season of a normal year is really 13 weeks and not 14, then the target is just an 8.3% increase and we’ll see not real difference. And, well, I can totally see that too, how the heck long is the upgrade season really? 

(Sputters). So all you had to do was fiddle with a number and there is no there there? 

There there. Well, firstly I didn’t know until after doing the math, and now that we have all seen how it works, we can use the information even if the end results is 0-10% off. I’m trying to figure this out and be useful, not prove a predetermined point after all.

Yeah, ok 

Plus, we know that we’re not getting extra cash, which was possible after all. I’m sort of glad that everything looks like it could be mostly close to normal sort of.

How definitive and precise…..

Of course there is another big factor, which I should mention, that being…

Kill me now….

Small sample sizes! I know all about small sizes! 

Oh, well, right.  The sample size of each game is smaller, and that means more variation in each game and that means more players will put together a few extra high scores back to back and shoot up in value. When that happens we may sell ‘em and take the cash. Of course if someone puts together a few bad scores in a row, we probably keep them rather than lock in a loss, extra so if they are a good player and just had a few off games. That could well mean more cash, at last for those managers who own the right guys at the right times.

Like Viney?

If Viney backs up his R1 score with a cluster of other high scores, he is either a keeper who you got cheap, or can be sold for a LOT and that money better used elsewhere. 

Let’s look at four cases for Jack. 

 

Goes at 100 the rest of the season. Clearly better than his last few season averages. 

In this case, he never makes enough to be worth selling. You get him at a discount though, which is good. Of course 

 

Goes at 90 but with another 150 thrown in R3. 

In this case, he just barely makes enough to be worth selling. He average much lower than 90, he’s pretty much a bust. But 90 feels like a fair low end for him. 

 

Mixes big and small scores, but with an average of 110. 

In this case, he never makes enough to sell, but does average 110, so who cares. 

 

Has one more big score R2, then goes at 90 for the rest of the season. 

Two big in a row = profit.  About $123k, plus the points. Of course he goes back down fast, and if he scores a 150 in R2 who sells him?  Well…..you wouldn’t sell him until R5, when he’d be up to his max price, assuming he scored a 90 in R3 and R4. That means a lot of people would sell him because it would be obvious that he got lucky and taking the money would be the thing. If he does well in either R3 or R4, then he might have a bit more to make and selling seems silly until he either establishes himself as an uber premium or makes clear his run of luck is done. 

Soooo….???

Well….his downside is he reverts to his established level of ability which is low 90s. His upside is he has somehow raised his level at age 26 and is a good discounted keeper. Given his R1 score, you might think he is suited to this season’s scoring after all. The main thing is that his starting price is so high that it is going to be hard for him to make enough money to be a good cow-like-object unless he scores well enough to be a keeper. And how would we know? If you look at Boak from last season, he would have a great cow-like-object aside from people keeping him because he was doing so well and this missed his selling window. 

Soooo….???

I can see getting him, his making enough cash to be worth buying for cash generation isn’t super likely. He could be good just because you are paying for an 80 average player who could score better than that, with a change of lucky money. I’m far from sure I want him on my team all season and ihe;’s not my kind of punt.

What is your kind of Punt? 

Going with the Three Dog Midfield R1. 

Oh, I’m so sorry. 

I’ve had weeks to come to terms with it. Just because my normal team scored worse than every team in the tech league….anyways, moving on….

Howe is a lot like Viney. Close in Price not as good a score, more history of big scores. Does have a role that could get him more scores. Pretty much the same conclusion, although I suspect his discount is probably less. 

Cunnington is priced way too high to take over Jack or Jeremy. Why pay the extra?

On the other end, Selling the Bont. 

Ohhh, you own The Bont! Gonna sell him? 

Let’s look at some numbers. 

Assume he gets tagged and scores just 985 in R2 and R3, Then he goes back to 112 for the rest of the season. (Pessimistic) 

At R7, when you might have built up cash to get him back cheaper, he’d cost $89,300 less. Of course with deflation he would cost about $32,500 less even if he scored 114.7 every round. So you are ahead about $56,800. Not worth trade. If you brought in Neale, and he averages 125 then you would be 132 points ahead. Not nothing. But that’s a bad case for Bont. He could be kept to 100s and then go at 125 himself. He is a CD favorite, so should score well. If that happens you are just 50 ahead and used a trade. And low discount to buy him back. 

So, are you keeping him? 

Yeah. 

And another reason. Sometimes when you have to catch up, you have to give yourself a chance to have things go well. Try for best case. Best case is Bont does well and I make good use of the trade I don’t use for sideways trading him. The doggies had the Game From Hell in R1, and if that keeps up I’m done for anyways with three of them. I got them all for good reasons and we all know about the perils of sideways trading. It’s gonna be a three dog season one way or another for me. 

. Ok, well….

Don’t forget Jacobs!

Ah yes. He’s a good punt I think. I’m not willing to trade out NicNat to get him and I have Naismith at R3, so I’m out on him, but I bet a lot of people can go to him and have a darn good shot of it working out. 

Here’s a kinda random look at how he could make worthwhile cash. 

Are you on the Ruck Bandwagon? 

Oh yeah. I was on it already, with Naismith at R3 and Ceglar in the front line. I’m not sure there is another one I want to bring in this round, well see what happens with the debutantes after next round. I’m not gonna be long without Gawn though, not if I can help it. Unless NicNat goes bonkers, which is possible….Argh, we’ll have to see. 

 

Anyways, it’s good to be back and thanks for reading! 

 

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