Brodie Grundy. Let me preface this by saying, Rucks need to be treated differently to all your other selections. The fact that we only have 2 on-field means there is very little room for error. Generally, if you don't have 2 of the top 3 for the season in your team, you can leak up to 20/Round, or even more. The problem is exacerbated by the fact, that if you make a mistake with your say, M4, he easily slips to M7/8, and the problem is not so big. Make a mistake with your R2, and there is nowhere left for him to go!
Like most, I expected Grundy to make a small improvement on last seasons 97, just through natural progression for a young Ruck. The problem was, how much improvement, and how much would Cox hinder his scoring? I started the preseason expecting 101 from Grundy. Given the structure and personel changes we've seen at Collingwood so far this season, Cox spending less time in the Ruck than expected, and the possession gathering Grundy is showing, I have "manually" bumped this up to 105. This isn't something I do lightly, but as I said in the opening, Rucks are different to other positions, so we need to do what we can to get them right. So based on a "starting" expectation of 105, here is Grundy's table so far:
After Round 4 Grundy will be priced around $608,900. We can see he has overfilled his 2nd highest scoring bracket, as well as filling his highest scoring bracket. My adjustment, and remember, yours might be different to mine, is to shift the score from the highest bracket, and one of the scores from the 2nd highest, and put them in 105-115 and 116-126 brackets. This will require an adjustment to his expected average. This can be tricky to keep track of how you calculate it.
We started with an expected average of 105. That's a total of 2,310 points.
We're taking a score from the top 2 brackets, and the average expected scores for those brackets is 141 and 159.
We're moving them to brackets with an expected averages of 110 and 121.
Our adjustment starts at (actual location - new location) 141 + 159 - 110 - 121 = 69.
The 3 scores in those top 2 brackets should total 2 x 141 + 1 x 159 = 441, and they total 434, so as they are 7 short of where we expect them to be, we need to take 7 off our adjustment.
Total adjustment = 69 - 7 = 62. New expected season total 2,372 or an average of 107.8.
Grundy's table now looks like this:
We can see he is currently overpriced by 17/game on our adjusted expectation. For a player in any other position, you'd want to stay away. Even now, I wouldn't break structure to get him in. Those with Kreuzer (now priced at around $543,300) should seriously consider making the jump, while the difference is a "low" $67,000. Kreuzer's B/E is going to be around 173 this week, and Grundy's around 63. That means the price difference after next week, assuming both play, will be around:
$115,000 + (Grundy's score - Kreuzer's score) x 440.
You can see that is quickly getting out of reach!
Those of you without Kreuzer should keep in mind, that in the majority of seasons (but not all), we can identify who will be the top 2 or 3 Rucks by Rounds 6 to 8. The other positions can be a little more complicated than that.