Opinion 2024 AFL SuperCoach Planning Thread
- Thread starter MC's Mix
- Start date
Hehe - I have found your posts on this interesting. A couple of weeks ago I think we were in strenuous agreement on pretty much everything, but recently I think our views have diverged! I would be interested to see if we can identify the cause of the divergence 
I think some of the areas where I agree are:
- Not all midpricers will work out
- A lot of the best value is in the rookies, and that the bar for midpricers making really good cash is higher than for rookies (who are commonly priced at c. 25-35, ie very low)
- Avoiding sub risk is important and valuable (hopefully midpricers help with this - albeit I suppose the downside to cash gen is greater if they do get subbed ... Fyfe more of a risk than some others, perhaps?)
Areas where I think we may differ (?):
- I don't think it was assumed that all the midpricers would work out. Not all rookie or premo picks will either. I do acknowledge that the hit rate for midpricers is historically poor, but that's in part because of the trade cost associated with these picks, and that cost has now gone down. If a Fyfe fails or gets injured, we can switch to a Billings with reduced impact in terms of trades (because we have more of them) as well as upgrade cadence (because we have multiple boosts).
- I don't think it's harder to cull a midpricer to bring in a top premium, necessarily. If anything I think it's a lot easier to get to a premium from a midpricer at, say, 400k than from a rookie who may be 280k? The rookie may have generated more cash on their starting price, but the midpricer has higher value, so the gap to the premo is lower. You do have to be willing to cut the midpricer rather than holding on thinking/hoping they will make whatever your targeted cash generation is (call it 150k for each cash cow), but I don't think the latter approach is terribly rational, and cutting "midpricers" in BBL is totally fine and people do it all the time (so the term doesn't even really get used in that format). [I think comparing AFL SC vs BBL SC strategies can be quite instructive, given AFL SC is taking some steps in this direction.]
- I see significant value in getting a sighter in round 0, and this has broader implications. I think this reduces the chances of getting all of our picks wrong - whether premos, midpricers or rookies. The value of this sighter is greatest for those picks that were most uncertain, which to me is typically midpricers. Either way, our starting picks should be better than normal, meaning that we actually need fewer correctional trades (assuming the same team structure) than in a normal year - and in addition to that, we have a heap of extra ones, so we are in a much better position overall. To me this suggests that risk can be dialled up (eg with more injury risk or midpriced structures). We can make six trades in two rounds if we wish, which should be ample to address any failed picks. If we are getting >6 picks wrong, to the point that they all "need" to be corrected quickly, we aren't going to have a good year anyway
- I think you mentioned English recently as an example of groupthink (as an alternative/addition to slow adaptation to changing rules) on particular selections as a reason why sites like SCS may have had a down year. I definitely agree that this can happen. With that said, to me he is actually a good example of how we should be adapting, and that perhaps hasn't happened as quickly as is warranted. I started (and advocated for) English last year, despite the injury risk, because I thought that the extra trades allowed me to do so - his upside was large, and the downside was reduced versus prior years. He ended up playing all 23 games, but even if he got injured after round 6, he had posted 6x 130+ scores by then (all C or VC-worthy, too), and I would have had a good advantage. He's the type of pick I would have shied away from in years gone by, but that I think should be under close consideration going forward.
I would be interested if I have misinterpreted your view, and/or in your take on my thoughts.
I think some of the areas where I agree are:
- Not all midpricers will work out
- A lot of the best value is in the rookies, and that the bar for midpricers making really good cash is higher than for rookies (who are commonly priced at c. 25-35, ie very low)
- Avoiding sub risk is important and valuable (hopefully midpricers help with this - albeit I suppose the downside to cash gen is greater if they do get subbed ... Fyfe more of a risk than some others, perhaps?)
Areas where I think we may differ (?):
- I don't think it was assumed that all the midpricers would work out. Not all rookie or premo picks will either. I do acknowledge that the hit rate for midpricers is historically poor, but that's in part because of the trade cost associated with these picks, and that cost has now gone down. If a Fyfe fails or gets injured, we can switch to a Billings with reduced impact in terms of trades (because we have more of them) as well as upgrade cadence (because we have multiple boosts).
- I don't think it's harder to cull a midpricer to bring in a top premium, necessarily. If anything I think it's a lot easier to get to a premium from a midpricer at, say, 400k than from a rookie who may be 280k? The rookie may have generated more cash on their starting price, but the midpricer has higher value, so the gap to the premo is lower. You do have to be willing to cut the midpricer rather than holding on thinking/hoping they will make whatever your targeted cash generation is (call it 150k for each cash cow), but I don't think the latter approach is terribly rational, and cutting "midpricers" in BBL is totally fine and people do it all the time (so the term doesn't even really get used in that format). [I think comparing AFL SC vs BBL SC strategies can be quite instructive, given AFL SC is taking some steps in this direction.]
- I see significant value in getting a sighter in round 0, and this has broader implications. I think this reduces the chances of getting all of our picks wrong - whether premos, midpricers or rookies. The value of this sighter is greatest for those picks that were most uncertain, which to me is typically midpricers. Either way, our starting picks should be better than normal, meaning that we actually need fewer correctional trades (assuming the same team structure) than in a normal year - and in addition to that, we have a heap of extra ones, so we are in a much better position overall. To me this suggests that risk can be dialled up (eg with more injury risk or midpriced structures). We can make six trades in two rounds if we wish, which should be ample to address any failed picks. If we are getting >6 picks wrong, to the point that they all "need" to be corrected quickly, we aren't going to have a good year anyway
- I think you mentioned English recently as an example of groupthink (as an alternative/addition to slow adaptation to changing rules) on particular selections as a reason why sites like SCS may have had a down year. I definitely agree that this can happen. With that said, to me he is actually a good example of how we should be adapting, and that perhaps hasn't happened as quickly as is warranted. I started (and advocated for) English last year, despite the injury risk, because I thought that the extra trades allowed me to do so - his upside was large, and the downside was reduced versus prior years. He ended up playing all 23 games, but even if he got injured after round 6, he had posted 6x 130+ scores by then (all C or VC-worthy, too), and I would have had a good advantage. He's the type of pick I would have shied away from in years gone by, but that I think should be under close consideration going forward.
I would be interested if I have misinterpreted your view, and/or in your take on my thoughts.
First up absolutely we are on the same page about those first points. I’ll try and address the “disagreement” ones.. apologies if it rambles along but juggling a sick little one so the brain is fried!
1. Definitely not assuming all mid pricers work, nor that all rookies/premiums do. The reason “correction trades” exists as a term is because no one gets it right with their starting team. But I do subscribe to the theory that you want to get as close as you can while minimising the risks. And that’s where my hesitation around heavy MP teams comes from - statistically they are less likely to succeed as the margin for error is a lot smaller to be successful. They either need to score well enough they comfortably out score a rookie in a point per $ measure, make significant cash as quickly as a rookie, or both. Now that isn’t to say no MP can do that - it’s just a lot harder and any small thing can knock them down to a bad pick.
For arguments sake, let’s apply a similar line of thinking to a premium and a rookie.
If the premium is shaping as a bad pick, then can be sideways traded to a different premium, down to a MP to free up cash, or (unlikely) all the way down to a rookie. Plenty of viable exit strategies and easily fixed with 1 trade.
If a rookie is a bad pick, they can be sideways traded to a rookie or held hoping for a spike score. If they are dropped, they can be a loophole. But even if that doesn’t work, it’s a small amount of cash tied up that can be fixed later.
If a MP fails, they are either needing to be sideways traded to a different midpricer, or down to a rookie.
The problem starting a lot of MP players is that 1. You have reduce the pool of viable MP options to the point you may not have that exit available, or 2. You go to a rookie and are now playing a player likely played by a GnR team but at the cost of a trade (2 if you count the trade to reinvest the capital from the downgrade).
So having too many means you have a higher risk of a bad selection and less viable options to correct it.
2. I don’t think it’s harder to use MP players at the start of the upgrade cadence but I definitely do towards the end. To trade a $400k player to a premium you need another player to have made at least $150k. It’s a lot harder for a MP player to do that, so you’re likely culling a good rookie to get there. Which means the more upgrades you do, the less good rookies you have left to give you that cash. With a GnR team, you have more players generating more money, but also have more chance to a rookie generating significant money. I think this point is a hard one to settle though because SO much depends on variables that can’t be known. But loosely, a team with 12 premiums will likely have more players generating good cash, but the MP team with 10 premiums needs to cull their best rookie and worst MP twice just to get to level pegging at 12 premiums. Meaning they are somewhat behind as they’ve sacrificed strong assets to do so. The argument is that the MP team will have built a points buffer more valuable that the alternative, but again the more MP players the higher the risk that doesn’t happen.
3. This is an excellent point and one I hadn’t fully considered. Absolutely the quality of starting team should be better as we get a free look at players in genuine conditions and not preseason junk. But, that only holds true for the R0 players and most are limiting exposure to those. So while we get the cream from those teams, we are in the dark with the rest and just as much at risk. Ironically, you get the best starting team due to players we are intentionally fading because of the extra bye! The point about trades though is one I find interesting - we can absolutely use 6 trades to fix things in the first few rounds, and while we have more trades and they are less valuable, we still only have 5 boosts and I’d argue they are worth gold in terms of rapid upgrading.
4. Wish I’d listened to you!! That was a huge miss on my season not starting English. But I think it’s an interesting one in that the idea of avoiding injury prone players kind of lumps in with the risk mitigation piece. An injury prone pick is fine if you have a balanced team, but too many MP and I just probe players could lead to a leaky boat. Absolutely I think we shouldn’t be putting a line through these picks, but instead weighing up all the risk vs reward for the combination of picks, not at an individual player level. Would you still pick the 2023 injury risk English if you had the MP heavy team of 2024?
Love the discussion though! I think one mentioned before but u hugely respect your posts and opinions so love this stuff!
not saying its going to happen and am well aware they are completely different players etc etc but Laird scored a 151 in the only recorded practise match last year and started off slow could Bontempelli do the same for everyone jumping on tonight?
admittedly I am jumping on to only because of Butters getting "hurt" and him being the only viable option that I could go to
admittedly I am jumping on to only because of Butters getting "hurt" and him being the only viable option that I could go to
- Joined
- 25 Dec 2022
- Messages
- 3,378
- Likes
- 16,582
- AFL Club
- West Coast
- Joined
- 18 Feb 2019
- Messages
- 1,370
- Likes
- 5,768
- AFL Club
- Carlton
I have locked in Crouch & Amon I think.
The question for me now is can I/should I run Martin also
I should elaborate, Amon came straight back in and pushed D'Ambrosia to a wing, great signs.
Martin is an AA calibre winger already and there are a lot more greedy mouths to feed in that Bombers backline is my thinking, If Martin plays the entire season at HB I think he is a great pick but if not hmmm?
The question for me now is can I/should I run Martin also
I should elaborate, Amon came straight back in and pushed D'Ambrosia to a wing, great signs.
Martin is an AA calibre winger already and there are a lot more greedy mouths to feed in that Bombers backline is my thinking, If Martin plays the entire season at HB I think he is a great pick but if not hmmm?
Last edited:
