Hi Rowsus
Interested on your thoughts re the following.
It would appear at the moment that there is a shortage of 102-123k rookies in a number of positions or at least serious question marks against many of them. I suspect for many coaches this will drive them to bring in higher priced 137 to 211k rookies eg Kerridge, Kennedy, Mills etc. Apart from coaches now probably tweaking their teams to get that many higher priced rookies in, how do you think this will affect upgrades later on? Will the strategy change? What complications could this bring?
Take say Menadue @ 155k as a forward. He ave 70 and after 8 rds is around 297k. Along side him is a 117k rookie who ave say 65 which will bring him up to around 270 after rd 8. If the 117k rookie is traded out for another 117k replacement you could upgrade Menadue to a $450 fallen premium or something better if you have some spare cash. But that would not cut it in the midfield. So are we now looking at sitting on rookies longer (and later byes helps) or two step upgrades in the midfield? After all isn’t the midfield where we should be trying to upgrade first?
I guess most coaches will be in the same boat but being prepared could be an important factor in knowing what decisions to make. Any thoughts?
^^ very astute question Manikato. I will be very interested to hear the response to this.
Hi Man1, RB.
Your sense is spot on. It is generally easier to get $200k growth out of a cheaper, $117k Rookie, than it is from a $200k Rookie. Yes there are Cripps types that do it, but remember, they need to average nearly 20/game higher to get the same growth. The effect is actually two-fold. Having more expensive Rookies slows the dollar generation a little, AND means you probably need to make one more upgrade than normal. Usually a pure G'n'R team will have 13 or if you are lucky, 14 Keeper/Prem types, without the value picks. If you are picking more expensive Rookies, this reduces to 12 or 13 Keeper/Prems. Double Whammy! You need more Cash, to make one more upgrade, and you are making your cash a little slower. The balancing act of upgrading as quick as you can, but making as much as you can on your Cows becomes even harder this year. I think it might be prudent to squeeze an extra week, and an extra $10-$20k out of your Cows, where possible. Compounding this, is the number of $270 - $370k players people are squeezing into their teams, in the hope of either alleviating the number of upgrades required, or at best making them a one rookie downgrade used to upgrade 2 Midprice picks (across two weeks outside of the byes, of course). I have a general rule of thumb, that value picks in your team need about a 60% success strike rate, or you have lost on them. Given it looks like most teams might struggle to reach the value growth we have seen in previous season, you might need a 70-75% strike rate on value picks this season! I can tell you, that is nearly impossible to achieve!
I think this years Winner will, apart from dodging the bad Premium picks, nail his Rookies by Round 3, and will in all likelihood nail around 3 value picks, that he got to use as season Keepers.