How Supercoach pricing works 2020

Written by Father Dougal on March 15 2020

Hi Everybody,

 

Time to go over how pricing and price changes work. Both are pretty fundamental to strategy, and understanding pricing can help you make decisions before and during the season. 

Starting prices are based on a player’s last average. If a player played very few games, they will get a discount, if the SC gods so choose. This appears to be optional and flexible. Tom Mitchell, for example, did not get all the discount a player who missed a whole season might expect, because then he would be in every team, and what fun would that be? 

I’m reworking my terms a bit in an effort to avoid confusion with other people who talk about pricing. I may have been technically correct, the best kind of correct, but I’d rather be clear. So, there’s this idea of a magic number. From now on, I’m going to go with that meaning the current price per SC point of average. If you define it that way, the Current Magic number changes over the season. Prices are based on the magic number at the start of the season, and I am now going to call that the base magic number. Price change calculations use the base magic number. 

So, starting price = base magic number * average. Then, rounded to the nearest $100. For example Jack Macrae 2710 / 22 * 5430.1 = $368,889 which rounds off to $368,900.  

Where did you get that 5430.1? 

Technically from AllSaints, who worked it out before I did this season. But, I checked it myself because I’m that way. I also saw it published in the paper as 5430, but that is wrong, the .1 matters. 

OK, then HOW did you and AllSaints get it?

Take a whole lot of players who didn’t miss many games. For each one, divide their price by their average. Track what you get. When you have done a lot of them, average the results to get a possible magic number. Then you multiply that number by those player’s averages, round off and see if you get their real prices. 

Is that why the 0.1 at the end matters?

Yes. If you use 5430 then not every player gets the correct price. But if you use 5430.1 then all of them do. Or at least all the ones I checked. 

Who needed the 0.1? I wanna know! I like it when small things matter!

Well, Clayton Oliver. 

Average of 2406/22 * 5430 = $593,844 rounds to $593,800

Average of 2406/22 * 5430.1 = $593,855 round to $593,900 – which is his real price

When we talk about what a player is priced to average, we are taking his price and dividing by 5430.1.  So, Devon Smith, who is priced at $335,800, is priced to average 61.84. If you think he can score at 86.84, you are getting a 25 point discount. Or if you prefer, a $135,753 discount. A big part of picking players is getting them cheaply, and avoiding paying for more than you will get. 

And Cows

Right, and Cows and cow-like objects. Cows being anyone at a fixed low price like rookies and cow-like objects being low cost players because of poor scoring and/or low games played. Basically, cows and cow-like objects are players who can make a lot of money because their price is so far below what they will score. 

So, prices rise and fall over the course of the season. How’s that work?

You take the player’s current price. Divide it into fourths. Keep three fourths. Throw away the last fourth. Then, take the average of the player’s last three scores and multiply that by the base Magic number. (BASE Magic Number, very important to use the base one.) Divide by 4.  Add that to the three fourths you saved. Round that to the nearest $100. That’s the player’s new price. 

So Eddie Example is priced at $543,000, because he averaged 100 last season. He scores 90 the first round, and his price does not change because he has only one score. He goes for 110 in round 2, and his price still does not change because he only has two scores. Then on round three he scores 130 and now his price changes because he has three scores and the formula works. $543,000 *.75 = $407,250. Then 90+110+130= 110. Base magic number * 110 = $597,310. Divide that by 4 and you get $149,327.75. Add $407,250 to $149,327.75 and you get $556,577.75. That rounds to $556,600, which would be his price at the start of round four. 

Next round he scores 120. Keep $417,450.  So:, (110+130+120)/3 * 5430.1 * 0.25 = $162,903 + 417,450 = $580,353 rounds to $580,400. 

Could you just divide 5430.1 by 4 and use that to cut down a step? 

….yes….(Fuming at the extra steps in years of spreadsheets)….you can just go three round average * 1,357.525. Which is fine on a spreadsheet but a pain to remember compared to 5430.1.  

Anyways, that’s how price rises work IN THEORY! (Cue ominous rumbling  thunder) 

But not in practice? 

Right, not in practice. Those numbers do not account for deflation.

I’m going to hide in woodchips and eat seeds now! Deflation is scary!

Hopefully the rest of us are braver than hamsters!

See, if a player had put up those exact numbers last season his price would have been $545,958, rounded to $546,000. That’s $10,600 less. 

But, why? And don’t just say deflation. Why is there deflation?

The SC gods, for some ineffable reason, want the total price of every player in the game added up, to be the same each round. That means when there are more price rises than price falls, the total off all players prices would go up. So, when that happens, which is every round where there are prices changes, they take the old total and divide that by the new total. Then they multiply the price of every player by that number. The number for R3 of 2019 was about 0.98092. And when you multiply $556,577.75 by 0.98092 you get $545,958. 

Let’s look at Deflation Dan. He is priced at exactly 100.0 and we kept the .1 in even though it would be rounded out normally. He scores 100 every round. That means his price should never change, but, it does. 

Dan was priced to average 100, and he did average 100, but his price dropped by $48.7k anyways.  This is where the CURRENT magic number comes from. Instead of the start of season base of 5430.1 it is just 4943.04 after round 23. Price per point at the CURRENT round. 

I like currants!

(Pauses in confusion, then goes back and fixes his typos….)

(Pouts)

 

Let’s look at a real player now:

NoD Price is his price calculated by the formula with no deflation. 

Cash Diff is how much lower his price is than his NoD price. 

Actual Value is his NoD price minus his starting price. 

Current average is his average as of that round. 130.5 was his average from the previous season. 


Looking at his NoD price and his current average we can see how his price wanders around compared to his real value, because of (most) scores affecting his price for three rounds. His end of season average was just 0.5 lower than the average he was priced from, and yet his NoD price still wandered around a lot and often was higher or lower than his current average would give! As we can see, he lost $69k in price because of deflation. 

What’s the impact or meaning of deflation? Deflation Dan’s price dropped even though his value was the same. That means you would not really have gotten Dan cheaper as his price dropped over the season, you got him for less money, but the same actual value. 

The not-always-the-same scores of real payers can make this effect even worse. In Grundy’s case, if you bought him after his bye at the start of round 14, you paid $676,200. Looks like a $55,800 savings because his cash price was lower than at the start of the season. Value wise, you paid a *premium* since his NoD price was $23,800 over his starting price! His average at the time was 125.8, and yet in value he cost more! Fortunately he went at 135 for the rest of the season, and would still have been worth it. But if he had kept going at 125.8, then buying him R14 was in reality, much worse than buying him before R1, even though his cash price was less! 

So, the hamster is back hiding, and my imaginary interlocutor is holding his head and rocking back and forth while moaning, so I think that’s about enough for now. 

I’ll do my best to answer questions in the comments. I do have time zone and work issues, and so might be delayed in answering them all. 

 

Thanks for reading! 

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9 thoughts on “How Supercoach pricing works 2020”

  1. Love it FD. Excellently explained!

    This is the key reason why you should spend your ENTIRE budget on your starting 30. If you need to make corrective trades early, then THAT is the best time to build a little chest for early down/upgrades, as cash remains CONSTANT, while prices deflate at a greater rate than at any other point in the season, ie your cash gains interest (will afford you more) over time. Don’t go overboard, just recognise these facts.

    Thanks again FD.

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  2. Hi Father, love your work and enjoy following you on the Twittersphere. I am sitting here trying to work out how the magic number is calculated, your explanations are great but for some reason I am not getting it.

    I’ve tried taking the player’s end price from 2019 and dividing that by their 2019 average, but I don’t get a consistent or even average of 5430.1. I also tried their starting price from 2019 but it also doesn’t work.

    I want to be able to work out the magic number myself for the following season so I can estimate player’s starting prices, but I just want to know what player sample you and Allsaints are using to get 5430.1.

    Thanks!

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    1. Or am I missing something? Is the magic number literally a number plucked out of nowhere by the SC Gods for each year, and the calculations above are just our way of determining what that number is at the start of each season to use in price changes throughout the season?

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