Upgrading and Break Evens

Written by JimmyDee on April 19 2021

With many of us now thinking of upgrading (if we can get past the injury curse), I thought a little article supplied by Zachary might be of value as a discussion point, given the many upgrade questions on the site since the end of the round. Let us know your thoughts.

Lessons when upgrading: Written by Zac

 Hey everyone! Hope all is well, and we are ready to attack another Supercoach upgrading season this year.

Last year I feel that I learnt some valuable lessons with Supercoach. They aren’t complex and really seem quite obvious, yet I failed to realise it when
I was making my upgrades so thought it may come in handy. So, what are they?

Firstly, when upgrading we often pay close attention to the break-even of the player we are trading in as a gauge on when their cheapest price point will be. However, I’m suggesting we stop paying so much attention to premiums’ break evens. If you can afford the player, you want often its best to bring them in even if they have a 150+ break even. Why? Because it can cost you points. And for my strategy of playing for overall as important as money is, points are more important.

A prime example I have from last season is when I decided to wait for Stewart to drop to 400k as he had a 150 BE. The problem was he went and pumped out a 140 meaning I had to pay the same price I could have got him for the previous week and missed out on the points in the process!

This can also be applied to when we are deciding between two players. Often, we will decide to trade in the player with the lower break even. Why do we do this though? After you trade in a premium player as an upgrade you shouldn’t have the attention of trading them back out. Therefore, there future price shouldn’t matter, right?

The practical example I have of this is when I was deciding between Clayton Oliver and Hugh Greenwood. Greenwood (no premium scoring history) was coming off a 3-round average of 134 and had a very low breakeven. Oliver on the other had a high breakeven (despite still scoring well). We all know Clayton Oliver is the better Supercoach pick. Yet I chose Greenwood with the logic of getting Oliver cheaper later. Subsequently, Greenwood didn’t get a 100 in the next 5 games and Oliver averaged 152. We should be looking to upgrade to the best player available rather than focusing on the break-even of said player.

My second point is very similar to point #1 but when upgrading don’t ‘save’ money for future upgrades if you don’t plan to use this money by the week after. You are theoretically losing points by having money sitting in your bank. We should just get the best guy and worry about funds at a later round. Chances are a rookie will debut and you will be alright! No point saving money for a rainy day when the rain never comes!

The example here comes from when I chose Luke Shuey over Tom Mitchell to save 100k after the both came off their bye. I tried to save money for future rounds as I thought the 100k would help with future upgrades, but I was without a clear plan to use these funds. The choice of saving money cost me a lot of points as obviously Tom Mitchell outscored Shuey easily.

Through these 2 examples I lost so many points and I don’t want to know how many spots in the ranks! Moral of the story is just upgrade to the best player as a soon as you can afford them. After all points is what the rankings are decided by and we want to maximise points not money!

Hopefully you all found this a little bit useful and something to keep in mind come upgrading season. Good luck for the rest of 2021!

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11 thoughts on “Upgrading and Break Evens”

  1. Arghhhh!
    I wrongly pressed the thumb down 🙁
    Can’t undo it but I obviously really like the article!
    I do think that the “upgrade to the best now if you can” option is the best one, as the chance of getting more points straight away will weight big by seasons end.
    Obviously cash flow is crucial to get to all, or most, of the upgrades needed, but.
    I’ve burnt myself too in the past by targeting the best BE over the best premium and the balance of trades used and points loss hurted me when it came to go that extra mile to bump from top 3% to top 1%.
    As said above, rookies will always get playtime and there will be more having a debut down the season anyway.
    Thanks for sharing!
    More material to help with this week’s dilemma!
    Mass

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  2. Great to see more authors contributing to the site! Keep it up Zac as this means a lot to this site and community!

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  3. Awesome advice.

    So, using your theory, I should upgrade to Gawn first before I upgrade to Oliver. If I have the funds?

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  4. Not sure where this point comes into this article , maybe selling rookies for upgrades, but in recent years I have found the better rookies are generally in the first batch. Be patient as they have better JS. If you trade a rookie out too soon for a dud rookie, you lose money and points.

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    1. That’s something I fully agree with and have come to learn. Unless some rookie starts late due to injury or lack of fitness, the early ones tend to be the best.

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  5. Great advice, worked a treat for me on the weekend, Traded in Neale with a BE of 168, felt it was a massive punt and when he came good it was such a good feeling, I mean I felt like I would’ve been the only person on the planet to trade him in showing no form and already losing 140k, but 2 things came to mind, FD’s article on returning to their mean and once CT posted Chris Fagan’s presser that clinched it. There’s a couple still out there, I wouldn’t mind seeing how the likes of Cripps, Mitchell and probably Danger go in the next couple of weeks. Does the stand rule affect them that much or will they return to their mean?

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  6. Excellent article!

    We win by points not cash, and we talk about cash and prices so much it is easy to forget that.

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  7. Great article. Plenty of good advice in there.
    What’s everyone’s thoughts on Finlay Macrae and his job security?
    I think the coach likes him and with Adams being out for a while and their problems up forward, I think he might get at least half a dozen games.
    I’m thinking of trading him in early (if Fin is named) through Braeden Campbell and then upgrading Simpkin to Jack Macrae. Simpkin is not working out and I cant see him outscoring Macrae from here.
    Trading in 2 Macraes, you can’t go wrong…..Right ? haha

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