AFL SuperCoach – what gives in 2020?! Part 2

Written by on January 30 2020

There have been a number of SCTers rightly questioning the rationale behind my rant in favour of starting ‘Underpriced’ players.  So, I’ve had a look at the actual numbers based on my DEF line in 2019.  I can’t speak for everyone else but I couldn’t decide which premos to pick last year … and I’m struggling again with DEF premos this year if I’m honest!

My DEF starting 6 were:

Lachie WHITFIELD Zac WILLIAMS Brodie SMITH

Jordan RIDLEY Xavier DUURSMA Marty HORE

Bench: Clark Scrimshaw (I missed Wilkie)

I saw Williams as a likely Premo having played finals at the back-end of 2018 and having a full pre-season.  Smith was similar, but Ridley was a risky pick that didn’t pay off.  I traded him after Rd2 with no sign of him getting decent game-time (he was a late IN, in Rd3 … doh, rookie error) and traded him for Lincoln McCARTHY (FWD) swinging Darcy MOORE into DEF from my FWD line.

To analyse my two Underpriced players vs a Premo and a rookie I’ve tried to make it as fair as possible.  I’ve used the two ‘Underpriced’ players I picked, while using Clark’s pts for Round 2 to cover Ridley (as I did in SC).  I’ve also taken $140,000 off the money made (as the cost of the trade I mistakenly made).

So my structure was 2-2-4 (premos-midpricers-rookies) versus the traditional structure of 3-0-5. In essence, I sacrificed my third choice premo and my fifth ranked rookie for these two players.

My third ranked Premo was going to be LAIRD or STEWART.  Let’s use STEWART as he had a better year (especially when you consider his starting price) and let’s also use CLARK as he would have been my D6 rather than D7 if it hadn’t been for my ‘Underpriced’ picks.

Let’s have a look at the numbers:

First up, the MidPricers

And now for the Premo/rookie picks

Key findings:

  1. I saved $35,400 with the two ‘Underpriced’ picks that I spent improving my ONFIELD team somewhere else (a lot more if I’d used Laird in the example) = approx. an extra 155.8 pts over the course of the season, if spent correctly
  2. Despite being down $140k from the early trade, the two Midpricers still managed to make more money than the rookie come Round 8, $28,600 more
  3. My cumulative onfield SC pts were also 90 better off by the same time (you don’t want to know how much more, had I used LAIRD in the example!) – that is worth $45,000 and there is no possible way of recouping those lost points
  4. Trading SMITH and a semi-fattened rookie at this point would have afforded me any fallen Premo and a downgrade target. CLARK was nowhere near ready; he ave’d 60-odd over the next few weeks until he made a decent $147k at his bye (another 4 weeks away)
  5. Because of their higher starting prices, I was able to improve my team with an upgrade/downgrade in Rd8 and so improved my weekly score further – this is hard to quantify, but believe me it is a positive as Zac alluded to in his 2019 Review and tips & tricks the other day
  6. It also only cost me two trades at this point, rather than the approx. 2.5 trades needed to make the move (when you start with traditional Guns & Rookies)
  7. And if I hadn’t picked two ‘Underpriced’ players, I would have had to pick another rookie, likely Collins or Burgess, at F8 … yuck!

 

Summary

I could have used ANY premo DEF in this analysis and the numbers would be more emphatic (even Lloyd and Hurn because of their starting prices).  STEWART is the best example to use if I were wanting to write the case for Guns & Rookies and yet it still doesn’t stack up.

To put all this in perspective, there is one final piece in this jigsaw and that is surrounding the magic number.  As Father Dougal rightly states, his magic number is a fixed number at the start of any given SC season.  2020’s is 5430.19155.  This is the number used to calculate all player prices for the following year based on averages, though players who played 7 or less games the season prior receive some sort of discount. FD then uses this constant (using a multiplier each week, based on price history) to forecast future prices.  I do it slightly differently and integrate that multiplier into the magic number to create a blessed number each week, based on price changes.  Neither are exact and I may have lost you now(!), but the chart below demonstrates how I/we use these figures to estimate prices during the course of a season, or to forecast prices based on scoring patterns.  The grey line is last year’s actual blessed number and the orange line is an averaged version of FD’s and my methods.  The point is, all other things being equal, a player who played more than 7 games last year AND maintains his previous year’s average each week will drop significantly in price from season’s start through to the end of the byes:

So, the more you spend on premiums, the more the value of your team will drop over the course of the season AND therefore you will be paying more per trade to maintain the same team value as someone who starts one or two less premiums and picks more ‘Underpriced’ players; but you still have to pick the right ones!

As I said in the previous piece, I will be looking to start more ‘Underpriced’ players in 2020 should they be available.  I will be writing a couple of pieces during and after the Marsh series to help try and identify who the viable options are, so stay tuned for that.

 

And finally …

Freo Tragic asked about Tom DOEDEE specifically.  I have looked at how he would go based on two scoring scenarios.

First, what will happen if he scores exactly how he did in his first year in AFL football (not unreasonable) and second if he were to average just 65 and have just one spike as in Rd2 of his first season (again not unreasonable).  Either way, I remain bullish about starting him in 2020.  The numbers are detailed below.  You can compare these to Clark above, but given the comparative quality of this year’s draft compared to last, I don’t think we will enjoy either the depth and/or SC numbers among our DEF rookie crop in 2020.  I digress.

Scoring as he did in his rookie year:

… and at a 65 average:

Of course I will have to find another ‘Underpriced’ player to accommodate Doedee, but that shouldn’t be too difficult!

Please note that the Blessed number used for these calculations, is a combination of Father Dougal’s [magic number*multiplier] and mine based on last year’s price changes.  FD’s historically tend to be slightly underestimated and mine tend to be over-estimated, so I’d hope that the combined is pretty close (please ignore post-Rd14 as I haven’t calculated those yet!).

All thoughts / counterpoints as ever are most welcome.

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22 thoughts on “AFL SuperCoach – what gives in 2020?! Part 2”

  1. I kept a complete update fo all SC PLAYER scores and prices in 2018 until round 12.
    I will most likely do the same in 2020 as I have time on hand over the next few months.

    The % reductions to the calculated players new round price varied from 1.78% with the maximum reduction being 2.60%. The first three reductions were 2.18%, 1.86% and 1.78%. The reduction correction for rounds 10 -12 were 2.6%, 2,44% and 2.41% (Round 11 included one bye for China Game.)

    Would be interesting to follow up and access the back end of that season to compare reductions to that of the first half.

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  2. Hi AS

    With Doedee, are you picking him because 118k profit is enough on a midpricer, or because you think he will do better than that and make 150k?

    You seemed to suggest that maybe less than 150k was needed in cash generation because you only need 2 trades, not 2.5. I just wanted to be sure I was following your logic correctly. Previously I had assessed all rookies and stepping stones on the 150k threshold, but your logic is making me rethink that, so I want to push you further on that point, if I may.

    Thanks

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  3. Great food for thought there.

    Does this mean you’re an advocate for starting players in the ‘awkward’ price range of 250-350k who are too expensive to easily make 150k (or will make it slowly) and yet won’t be keepers?

    Players like Doedee, Bewley, Roberton, Patton, D Smith, Ahern, Watts etc.

    Because a team featuring many of them is surely going mad, midpriced madness!

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    1. hey Duffer
      Price is actually the last thing I look at when considering non-Premos who aren’t rookies. I’ll get back to you and Phil later on.

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  4. I note Dusty is right on the magic number! Exact 100 ave for $543,000. Not sure why the figure isn’t a straight 5430.00
    So is .191 a round up/down option?

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    1. Because 5430.19 translates to $543,019. So in his case he’s $19 cheaper! Some are slightly over and some are slightly under, but never by more than $49.99.
      That $19 is nothing to fuss over. I’m still not starting him 😉

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    2. Prices are rounded off to the nearest $100 so the magic number for each player range is generally $5425 to $5435.

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      1. Hey 1DER
        Prices are rounded that’s correct, but there is no ‘range’. The magic number is actually EXACT. You can try that number with ANY player who played more than 7 games last year. If it looks wrong, it is because their average has also been rounded to one decimal point, so if it appears to be out, divide their total points from last year, by no. of games to get their precise average!

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        1. That’s correct the magic number is constant @ $5430.

          Also can be misleading that Supercoach list averages to one decimal point, however, all the score calculations include exact average of the three round rolling average with the final value rounded to the nearest $100.

          The range calculation that I arrived at was their average in 2019 to one decimal point .

          Cheers.

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  5. Great piece AllSaints. Food for our thoughts and another way to dispell misconceptions.
    I would still only pick mid pricers if there is lack of Rookies or if it is a gun returning from injury.

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  6. Hey AS – nice write up / info again mate.

    The one key factor here is LUCK! Yes, you can pick returning players in the mid price range … but it is a RISKY pick … in the scenario from last year, Williams could have gone down injured yet again (how many times were we all holding our breath when he was limping around?) … and you would have burned a trade and had to downgrade to a rookie anyway … costing you more than their starting price.

    Of course, the same applies to any rookie who gets injured / dropped … or premo for that matter – though they are easier to cope with as you have a larger value to choose (hopefully) another.

    I wonder how a calculation works if you allow a factor for risk??? … Doch for instance has to be classified as a significant risk … great quality player … but one ACL let alone two is significant to overcome …

    I’m thinking and considering … but it all comes down to your appetite for accepting risk … and how lucky you are … I think!!! … just my thoughts mate … and again, thanks for the efforts!!

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  7. Smith ended up being a keeper for me was about to trade him out before that stretch of the good scores after round 16

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    1. I don’t mean I’m ruling him out. I have a couple of structures I’ve saved with him firmly as #2 pick and I may still go that way, but a grade 2 medial strain is a horrible injury for a ruckman!

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        1. reckon it depends how long he’s out for, if at all. I won’t be making any judgment call until we know a lot more. Both are good options I reckon. Also like Lycett (with no Ryder or Frampton). And I like Preuss if he’s out for a while!

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