Cow Talk R3 –>R4

Written by Father Dougal on April 7 2021

Hi Everybody!

 

I was going to make this week’s Cow Talk be an analysis of bringing in players after their first price rise and if it was worth it. But, there turned out to be a problem.

That the priest is an idiot?

That it took so long for him to realise he was an idiot?

It did in fact take me annoyingly long to realise that you evaluate players who have had a price rise exactly the same as players who have not. They may be less likely to be worth bringing in but their having had a price rise does not matter.  If they had had a price drop and somehow got to the same place, with the same last two round scores and price, it would not matter. So, good news everyone, all done with that. 

Bad news everyone, he plans to talk about something else instead. 

There’s some sort of rule about sermons, like people show up and they get mad if they travel all that way and then just go home after just a few minutes of “be nice.”  You have to take like an hour to say “be nice” or it doesn’t count.

Um, well, anyways, I was thinking it means I can talk about something else useful, like a two-for-one deal.  

I thought it was a three-in-one deal?  

Like the Pumpkin plant, the pumpkin seed, and the spirit of those seeds we have eaten?

Like the spirit of Cow Talks past, where I talk about something that I haven’t for a while that is currently relevant.  In this case Cow-Pound Interest. 

So, more points is the goal. That means the sooner you get players who score a lot of points the better. But, since the idea is more total points, you can end up getting more points by bringing in a less good player sooner. You pay for someone, and then you get points every round as a payment. Sort of. Well, you get points. 

Now he cut out a part trying to justify the term Cow-Pound interest because it was a waste of time and it’s a good cow reference and does not need explaining. The reference I mean. 

It would waste even less time if you stopped talking about when I cut parts out that don’t work to save time!

Anyways, I’m talking about this now because it might matter now, but more so that it can go into planning. Not much good if I write about something the week after it was relevant.  

The basic version is that how many points you get from a player is their average times the number of rounds they will be scoring. If you bring in a player round seven who will score 100 points a round, then he plays for sixteen rounds, for a total of 1600 points.  Not news to anyone.  But, what if you brought in a cheaper player sooner?  If there was someone available a round sooner who averages 95 a round, that is 95 times seventeen rounds for 1615 points.  Bring in someone who can score 90 a round two weeks sooner and you get 1620 points.  

Now, those numbers only work if you get zero from the player you are replacing.  If they were scoring 60, then you were better off waiting for the 100 average player. Their spot got 1720 points 120 for Rounds 5 & 6 plus the 1600 for the rest of the season. 

Cow scoring = 40 means 1680 for R5+ means a 93.4 average is just a bit better if brought in R5 verses waiting until R7 to bring in a 100 average player. 

Cow scoring = 50 means 1700 for R5+ means a 94.5 average is just a bit better if brought in R5 verses waiting. until R7 to bring in a 100 average player. 

Cow scoring = 60 means 1720 for R5+ means a 95.6 average is just a bit better if brought in R5 verses waiting until R7 to bring in a 100 average player. 

Cow scoring = 70 means 1740 for R5+ means a 96.7 average is just a bit better if brought in R5 verses waiting until R7 to bring in a 100 average player. 

Now in real life, players have different costs per point, which gets into grabbing players with a lower cost per point early can help extra. When a cheap player at a lower cost shows up, not only do you get the extra point but they might cost you less. 

Is that relevant for this week?

Why yes it is!  A lot of players have gone up, but not as far as they will, or have had bad starts and gone down in price. If you can get them in now vs waiting and keeping cash in the bank for bringing in a higher averaging player later, then you can get more points from the lower average player sooner.

Isn’t that another obvious thing that you didn’t need to say?

Not really. The reason it matters is that a lot of people only want to bring in “Top #” players. Like for defenders, if a guy isn’t going to be in the top eight average players they would wait to get someone who was.  Say you have 5 keeper defenders already.  Say you want the seagull.

That’s Jake Lloyd. I watch out for predatory birds!

Yes and let’s assume he will average 113 for the rest of the season. He is going at 112.7 now.  If you can’t afford him now and wait until you can, that means from R4 to say R7 you are playing a cow scoring, say 55.  That’s 1695 from Jake starting R8 and 220 from the cow for a total of 1915.  So, say you bring in some lesser defender right now. In order to be as good as the cow-Jake combo,  They only have to average 100.8.  There are a lot of guys who could do that, and they all cost less now than Lloyd will on R8.  

So, let’s say you bring in Jiath this round planning to keep him. His current average is 102. If he drops off to 100, you get the same points but for way less money. If he drops off to 90, you get 1710 points for way less money, which is a shortage of 205 points.  To be conservative, you save $250,000. Can you make up 205 points with $250,000? I bet you can. If he drops to 85 you need to make up 300 points using that money. That’s 15.8 points a week.  At base cost per point 15.8 points of average costs $84,900.  That leaves  $165,100 you can use to put yourself ahead.   

The other practical application is cow selling. If we assume you can make use of the full sale price of a cow, you will hit a point where the extra money they will make in a round is not enough to justify putting off using them right away.  I show that in the Cow Talk cow table-thingies, and I will give examples and explanations next week when I add those. 

In case you want to calculate cases yourself, which I hope you do. 

(Rookie average * round of their score)  +  (Premo average * rounds of their score) = points total from the waiting case. 

Take the points total from the waiting case, and divide it by the number of rounds left. (Which should be the rounds of rookie score plus rounds of premo score added together)  to get the average you need to equal that total score. 

 

With four rounds of data the projections will start next week. I had been thinking about doing them this week, but was travelling for Easter and with the Monday games I ended up without time. Sorry about that. I feel you need more data for projectons to be meaningful, but we have some weird cows this year and so I figure I should go ahead and do them anyways. 

Dodgy Advice:

Much as I preach about not using trades needlessly, sometimes there’s a need for correctional trades after round three.  Corrections before round three are better, no price issues, although maybe bargains showed up from a bad score for a player you like. Maybe you own Hayden Young. Maybe a player looks a lot better or worse after a third round of information. Whatever the reason, it can be ok to make corrections now if you need to. For sure don’t make marginal ones, but we shouldn’t make marginal ones anyway!  

Remember the Cow Talk guarantee: “All predictions wrong or triple your money back!”  (Offer not valid if money is actually involved.)

I am time zonally challenged.  When Cow Talk goes live, I’m probably asleep, so replies from me may take a while.

Thanks for reading!

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11 thoughts on “Cow Talk R3 –>R4”

  1. Anything in supercoach, even the stupid moves, can be justified by long-winded, reality ignoring essay’s but, that doesn’t means that its valid.

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    1. The maths is sound.

      What the Blessed Father is say is that waiting an extra 5 rounds gets you your chosen premium, if you’re carrying a 50 point rookie to get there it, can be a mistake.

      Especially when it takes TWO trades or even THREE (since most rookies don’t actually make $150k).

      It’s great to have our eyes on a premium player, but it doesn’t mean that tunnel vision is the best outcome.

      Ties into a debate we’ve been having about some other players recently, and the change over points of when it is better to choose a booming midpricer over or even instead of a premium.

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  2. Vince..

    Really.

    FD is trying to help us find a solution to our Defensive cow problems.

    Who are you running at D5-8 ?

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    1. Excellent stuff FD I am applying this to the forwards with Impey and it will work THANKS. FD

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  3. Love your work FD! Very interesting to think about. The overall winners never have the perfect team.

    A query though. Is the 250k saving to spend elsewhere legitimate? Wouldn’t a chunk of that have been generated by the rookie you instead upgrade early and hence it never ends up existing?

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    1. Great question!

      I was assuming trading out a rookie like Dow or H Young who is not generating much cash, since we all seem to have one or more of them. I would be slow to trade out a rookie who had a lot of cash growth left. One who did would change the numbers enough to maybe make going fast less useful. But , given all the cows we have available odds are one will be a trade out target with low growth.

      Also, the savings don’t really come into effect until the time you would buy the premo, meaning a few less rounds for it to apply. Given how much savings I don’t think that is a big enough effect to change the results. But still, good to try and get everything in the example right.

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    2. Potentially some of it is generated by that rookie, but also some of it is “generated” (really saved) by buying your “not quite so premo” earlier on while their price is going up as well.

      There would be no hard and fast rules, because who everybody is trading out/trading in would be different.

      Likewise even with the same average the cash generation missed out on and the price savings will vary, because of starting prices.

      It’s more a guide that perhaps an alternative form of thinking that can be backed up by some maths rather than a gut feel that “player X is the best trade when I can finally afford him”.

      As mentioned by Dee, when we look at the winning teams each season, usually it isn’t because they have the very best 22 premos, but because they were earning more points earlier with some of their selections.

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  4. Im currently considering applying this with trading Clark out this week but can only afford a premo up to 520k. One player I’m considering is Bowes who I believe has a role that can make him D6 material. Is trading in Bowes at a discounted price two weeks early worth it over waiting for other premos such as Lloyd??

    Would love anyones thoughts as its been a tough decision

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    1. I’m also looking at trading out Clark this week in line with a similar belief. It will allow me to jump onto a booming midpricer far earlier, who may become a keeper or luxury trade.

      This should net me and additional 30 points per week much earlier and more cash growth. Rather than waiting until the byes for an upgrade to gain 40 ppg, being able to get 30 ppg now and certainty of that player being best 22 certainly SEEMS to make sense.

      I’ve currently done the trade so the cash is there, but I will reverse it tomorrow.

      The concern here is doubled, however. There is the risk of burning trades too quickly, and the risk of missing out on cash growth by locking in players who have already seen a chunk of their growth happen.

      But the other side of it is I nearly wore a donut last week, and effectively ate two “donut lites” instead.

      It will certainly help me in several leagues, as well.

      In “Pound the priest”, where my opponent “The Phat Side” is equal 1077th place with me, and in “TalksCheapSosYaMrs” Stewy’s Soldiers is only averaging 45 less a game and is certainly a major threat, being well inside the top 5000 places.

      I will be looking at the teams before I do any changes, of course. Which rookies get named and which best 22er’s are out for extended periods decide this, as always.

      There are plenty of good bubble options coming for some parts of the field in the next few weeks, but in others the cupboard is quite bare and jumping on booming midpricers (Walker, Jiath, Impey, Cumming, Ziebell, Fogarty, Hickey etc) might be a better option dependent on your structure, byes etc.

      I’m not advising anyone to follow a risky strategy. I’m just asking, like Father Dougal, whether it is worth considering whether or not the saving until the byes and then starting an upgrade season may be leaving the run too late.

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  5. Super thought provoking and very appreciated FD! I really like the way you pose a concept or an idea to consider as opposed to an exact recommendation like many of the other SC talking heads do. It helps one consider broader possibilities of trading and team building instead of a “do this, do that” approach, like “if you have Dow go down to X or up to Y”.

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