So I had a try at a seemingly outlandish concept of picking only players who I think will go up in value, and not considering the early byes (value increase is the same either way). LDU and Butters were the only concession in order to have a couple solid captain options, and to actually spend the cash somewhere. Wound up with this monstrosity, with still 65k left over. Thoughts?
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This is quite an interesting exercise.
I am less wary about the early byes than most, and think a value focus is more viable this year with more trades, so this is potentially quite relevant and workable.
I have a slightly different view on value upside (which is natural) and probably wouldn’t be as confident on Sheezel. The two C options aren’t ones I’m quite so positive on either, I wonder what this would look like if you subbed Butters and LDU out for a rookie plus your tip to be the top scorer in the first six weeks or so, looped them with a combo of Gawn et al, and then spread the cash to more mid priced names (eg Billings sort of pricing and perhaps above).
This side only has c. 8 first order upgrades to do, which should be pretty easy. Then you could go around again upgrading the fringe premiums/those who’ve had a good run bit may be regressing due to role or fitness, to strengthen the true “completed” team. It could work with all the extra trades and boosts.
Two challenges I am finding in tilting towards this type of approach are (1) rookies are structurally underpriced, potentially by a large margin if they play - meaning the best cash cows will often be rookies, and this year’s crop looks pretty good, and (2) I can’t see as much value in the $200-400k range as I seem to recall from prior years.
SC may be giving us the tools to make a more midpriced madness side workable for once … but finding the players to actually implement it could prove difficult this year!
Nice work on this. I’d be interested the other value names you considered.