Price Drops: Visible, Hidden, and Irrelevant

Written by Father Dougal on February 28 2019

Hi Everybody!

This is the follow up to my “How Supercoach Prices work” post.

I took a few more players and averaged the multiplier needed to convert their calculated prices to their real prices. Below for your viewing, well, not pleasure, let’s say viewing edification.

1 1
2 1
3 0.9781675011
4 0.9656180724
5 0.9573862336
6 0.9486300001
7 0.9399934816
8 0.9314826892
9 0.9244690915
10 0.9207374746
11 0.9167889818
12 0.9122586675
13 0.9095808703
14 0.904902364
15 0.9025676686
16 0.9009628431
17 0.8991036853
18 0.8974576584
19 0.8955364001
20 0.892762906
21 0.8749783797

This is by round played, since there is no price change for players over their bye. I did not try to take bye rounds into account and that could have made a small difference, but it would be too small to matter. Also, as you can see most of the effects happen before the byes, which is also when we most care.

So, to put this into context, say we have a guy who would calculate as priced at $600,000 every week. Below is what is price would really be.

Week Base Multiplier Loss
1 600000 600,000 0
2 600000 600,000 0
3 600000 586,901 13,099
4 600000 579,371 20,629
5 600000 574,432 25,568
6 600000 569,178 30,822
7 600000 563,996 36,004
8 600000 558,890 41,110
9 600000 554,681 45,319
10 600000 552,442 47,558
11 600000 550,073 49,927
12 600000 547,355 52,645
13 600000 545,749 54,251
14 600000 542,941 57,059
15 600000 541,541 58,459
16 600000 540,578 59,422
17 600000 539,462 60,538
18 600000 538,475 61,525
19 600000 537,322 62,678
20 600000 535,658 64,342
21 600000 524,987 75,013

Rather obviously, this means that players who score what they in theory need to in order to hold up their average, lost money anyway! Let’s look at Elliot Yeo from last year. He had that nasty 27 which hurt his price, but he scored so well that his average went over the 102.1 that he was was priced at and eventually rose close to $80k over his starting price. Oh, except it didn’t.  His week 15 to 19 run pushed his price up to just $577,700. That’s $16,400 instead of $82,900!

A starting price of $577,700 in 2018 would be for a player with an average of 102.1 in 2017.  He had averaged 127 over the last three, and 123.4 over his last five. His average through R14 was 104.1. He was priced to average 102.1 at the beginning of the season, and he scored over that, and yet his price at the end of R14 was $529,300; $22,000 below his starting price. He was not on a bad run then either, his three round average was 117.

Even if you want to ignore the calculated prices, we can see from Yeo’s real prices and averages over last season that player’s values fall, a lot, even when they score what they are priced to. That’s what I’m calling the Visible Price Drop.

Yeo
Real Base
Week Score Price Price
0 561,300 561,300
1 109 561,300 561,300
2 105 561,300 561,300
3 27 519,800 531,388
4 150 509,300 527,739
5 114 506,100 529,125
6 94 532,000 560,860
7 111 532,600 566,794
8 113 531,300 570,786
9 113 538,500 582,485
10 100 539,700 586,220
11 70 521,400 569,320
12 144 521,700 570,848
13 113 526,700 577,950
14 94 539,300 594,272
15 142 547,600 605,598
16 94 545,700 605,387
17 128 558,800 620,805
18 128 562,200 625,956
19 125 577,700 644,021
20 88 571,000 639,244
21 120 540,000 631,996
22 91 x x

The Invisible Price drop happens to cows and cow-like objects, assuming those objects are AFL Players. Let’s take Bayley Fritcsh, who made a lot of cash last season. As you can see, while he made cash he made less that he “should” have. But, since he was priced to average approximately bupkis at the start of the season he went up in price and we were all happy, blissfully unaware of his weekly, invisible price drops.

FRITSCH
Real Base Difference
Week Score Price Price
0 117,300 117300
1 60 117,300 117300
2 60 117,300 117300
3 56 164,900 168609 3709
4 58 199,600 206174 6574
5 90 238,000 248093 10093
6 65 269,700 283655 13955
7 98 310,100 328652 18552
8 87 338,100 361026 22926
9 87 369,000 395385 26385
10 111 397,400 427111 29711
11 85 416,200 449989 33789
12 76 425,100 462108 37008
13 82 417,500 457910 40410
14 102 419,300 462551 43251
15 72 419,300 464199 44899
16 74 415,300 461770 46470
17 47 388,000 434750 46750
18 78 370,400 417233 46833
19 56 349,400 395850 46450
20 77 336,700 393556 56856
21 59 x x x

Does this matter? Well, since everyone’s prices is being affected in a way it doesn’t. We make less money on cows but pay less for keepers. In that sense, it’s all good. If you have money left over and hold onto it, then the purchasing power of your bank is increasing. However, you are probably missing more points from a lot of cash in the bank that you would get from any purchasing power increases. It does mean that if you really have nothing you want to spend leftover cash on, it isn’t the end of the world to spend it week 4-5 instead of R1. If you really didn’t want to spend it.

Where it does matter is our perceptions. Brodie Grundy and Jack Macrae will be cheaper later in the season if they score what they were priced to. But, unless you are using banked cash, which you won’t be, your cash is cheaper too. Exactly as cheaper. (My apologies to any English teachers reading this.)

That is a big deal. I’m gonna say it again, loudly, to pound it into my own head if nothing else:

When buying players who are averaging what they were priced to average, the money used to buy them has been discounted by the same amount as the player being bought. The player’s price may be lower, but they are NOT cheaper. As far as discounts go

I even resorted to a meme to make that point. You can just tell I am all serious.

Here it is in a table. The important column on the far right:

Here’s a non-Supercoach example. You earn $100 / week walking Hansters. A keg of beers costs $100. You can buy your keg each week for all your earnings. The keg is discounted 10%, and now costs $90, but at the same time your weekly salary is cut by 10% and you only earn $90 a week.  The keg costs $10 less, but you are still paying your entire salary for it. Your purchasing power is exactly the same.

(I am so hoping there are no logical errors in that example. But the idea is right. I don’t have it in me to both explain deflation properly and write about Supercoach, so I’m sticking to Supercoach. )

Anyhow, the only way you get a player cheaper later in the season is if he scores lower than he was priced to score and his actual value has declined.  You know how we all talk about “Getting him cheaper later?”

We won’t.

Thanks for reading!

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17 thoughts on “Price Drops: Visible, Hidden, and Irrelevant”

  1. Very interesting. One thing I would point out though is that although the cash we make from cows might be discounted throughout the season, we have a lot more of it later on. So you could argue that even though the money has been discounted as much as the premium we’re using it to purchase, that premium is still effectively cheaper because we have more money.

    To go back to your hamster-walking example: let’s say your wages and the price of beer fall by the same amount. At this point, you’re no better or worse off than before, as you rightly pointed out. But let’s say you then started walking more hamsters – at the same wage, but for twice as many hours, for example. So now you’re making $180. For all practical purposes, that $90 beer is now a lot cheaper for you – it’s now only half your income.

    It’s late and I’m tired, so I might be missing some more subtle point here. Let me know if I am!

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    1. I think you are missing something, which is understandable. My metaphor does not stretch very well.

      The point is the purchasing power of every dollar is going down at the same rate as every dollar in the price of a player. How many dollars you have has nothing to do with the deflation. If, for example, you cashed in two cows you would have more money than if you cashed in one cow. More money is more money. But it is more money at the same discount.

      Say we have two players. They both have the same cost, say $600,000 at the start of the season and they hit their BE every week.

      Round 1 you can sell Bloke 1 for $600,000 and buy bloke 2 for $600,000
      Round 3 you can sell Bloke 1 for $586,901 and buy bloke 2 for $586,901
      Round 9 you can sell Bloke 1 for $554,681 and buy bloke 2 for $554,681

      The cost of Bloke 2 is going down. The number of dollars he costs every week is lower. But since the value of Bloke 1 is going down at the same rate, every week you have 0$ left over from the swap, The dollar value of Bloke 2 going down has not change how many of your resources he costs.

      If Bloke 3 is a cow, his price has to rise to be the same as Bloke 1’s price in order to be swapped for him. That means that his price has to rise to $600,000 times the multiplier. The value needed to buy Bloke 1 stays the same. He won’t have to have a dollar cost of $600,000 R3 or later, but he will have to have $600,000 of value in R1 dollars.

      And I just realized that since the cost of downgrades are not changing, you lose a higher % of your profits the longer you wait to downgrade!

      I may need to add to the post….

      Did that clear things up?

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      1. I love when Father Dougie Howser comes back for the season.

        Is there not some small benefit here:
        Assuming 2 cows do what 2 cows do (spherically speaking).

        a) I start with Macrae, but I don’t have Dusty so I trade him in in Round 8 at a 7% (rough) discount:
        563800 *7% = $39466

        b) I start with Dusty, but I don’t have Macrae so I trade him in in Round 8 at a 7% discount:
        $689700*7%=$48279

        Given that the cows are un-phased by, and ignorant of, scenario (a) or (b), they will give me the same value they were going to give me, but the gap between Dusty and Macrae has dropped from $125900 to $117087.

        Sounds like a $ win to me… as long as I can make up the potential points difference elsewhere, using the $125900 that I save by having Dusty to start, and not Macrae.

        But really – how is any of this relevant in a Bombers Premiership year when all I should be focusing on is tonight’s annihilation of Carlton..

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        1. Since the cows are all affected as well, it still ends up not mattering. The gap is smaller but so is the cow value.

          If you have a bunch of numbers, and multiply them all by another number, the ratios/proportions of their values are the same before and after.

          The only things outside the multiplier are cash in the bank, and the values of players who’s prices are not changing. (From not playing or not yet having played 3 matches)

          Say you have say $100,000 in the bank, and you have two players, one costing $608,000 and another costing $500,000. If they scored their BEs, after about 10 rounds their prices would both have dropped enough that you could then use the $100k you had saved to upgrade from the cheaper one to the more expensive one. I doubt that would be a good strategy though!

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        2. Midwife- I like it, the last part particularly (being a Bombers fan myself!!) … but do be prepared to be banned for a week or two by Mottsy for your last sentence or two!!!

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      2. Damn… that blows a hole in something I was going to write. Oh well.

        In many respects I think telling us that the multiplier doesn’t actually make anyone cheaper is the SuperCoach equivalent of telling the world there’s no Santa.

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