Position SC 2021: Midfielder Discussion

Which ‘keepers’ are you planning on starting with?

  • Neale

    Votes: 48 43.2%
  • Oliver

    Votes: 31 27.9%
  • Macrae

    Votes: 86 77.5%
  • Bontempelli

    Votes: 13 11.7%
  • Merrett

    Votes: 80 72.1%
  • Fyfe

    Votes: 21 18.9%
  • Cripps

    Votes: 54 48.6%
  • Rowell

    Votes: 21 18.9%
  • Taranto

    Votes: 34 30.6%
  • Other

    Votes: 45 40.5%

  • Total voters
    111
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Essendon
#61
Feel like I'm in a bit of a pickle regarding what to do with Neale and who to have in my team instead of him.

Essentially I feel he is overpriced and his game time last year at 92% tog would have translated to an extra 7 minutes of game time in 2019, worth an extra 8 points, on it's own. He has Sydney in Round 1 who tagged him and kept him to 55 in week 16 of last year. The issue is I still think he's the number 1 mid this year, but will average 124 in 2021 and could have a slower start by his standards (has started on fire two years running).

I just feel like it's hard to know who to replace him with and how to go about finding value by not picking him. I have JKelly, Cripps and Sam Walsh as very likely starters in my team, Oliver is likely, but choosing the 5th mid a replacement for Neale as an elite mid is hard. Macrae I fear might play more time on the wing, Titch is too injured atm, you can't start Fyfe and JKelly and Bont is a good pod but is just a risky pick in that midfield. Of those I prefer Bont and Fyfe. I don't like the Steele/Petracca picks as starters.

There's the feeling one needs to start one of Lloyd, Gawn or Neale because you are asking too much of yourself to get all 3 in. The counter argument is all 3 are overpriced and you are essentially weakening the rest of your team for players who will drop in price and give you assurance/insurance at the cost of negative value.
 
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Essendon
#62
Feel like I'm in a bit of a pickle regarding what to do with Neale and who to have in my team instead of him.

Essentially I feel he is overpriced and his game time last year at 92% tog would have translated to an extra 7 minutes of game time in 2019, worth an extra 8 points, on it's own. He has Sydney in Round 1 who tagged him and kept him to 55 in week 16 of last year. The issue is I still think he's the number 1 mid this year, but will average 124 in 2021 and could have a slower start by his standards (has started on fire two years running).

I just feel like it's hard to know who to replace him with and how to go about finding value by not picking him. I have JKelly, Cripps and Sam Walsh as very likely starters in my team, Oliver is likely, but choosing the 5th mid a replacement for Neale as an elite mid is hard. Macrae I fear might play more time on the wing, Titch is too injured atm, you can't start Fyfe and JKelly and Bont is a good pod but is just a risky pick in that midfield. Of those I prefer Bont and Fyfe. I don't like the Steele/Petracca picks as starters.

There's the feeling one needs to start one of Lloyd, Gawn or Neale because you are asking too much of yourself to get all 3 in. The counter argument is all 3 are overpriced and you are essentially weakening the rest of your team for players who will drop in price and give you assurance/insurance at the cost of negative value.
I feel like the best option might be to just start Neale, cop some regression and the potential of a bad game in round 1 and then feel nice and relaxed at M1 thereafter.
 
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St Kilda
#63
I feel like the best option might be to just start Neale, cop some regression and the potential of a bad game in round 1 and then feel nice and relaxed at M1 thereafter.
I know I'm a value fetishist but personally I think if you have Neale at 124 (I would agree and maybe even have him a bit lower) then you have to find a way to avoid him, assuming you're playing to win the whole thing.
 
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Sydney
#64
I feel like the best option might be to just start Neale, cop some regression and the potential of a bad game in round 1 and then feel nice and relaxed at M1 thereafter.
Round 1 price change is very minimal as it's only in for a single week of the rolling average. Round 2-4 are far more important considerations.
 
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Essendon
#65
Round 1 price change is very minimal as it's only in for a single week of the rolling average. Round 2-4 are far more important considerations.
Yeah I'm aware of that, but a very bad round 1 score does still make him less worthwhile as a starting pick. He would be unlikely to score as poorly, he did genuinely seem to get a lot better at dealing with taggers last year.
 

Diabolical

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Essendon
#66
For those not starting Neale, is McCluggage worth a punt?

Turning 23 and entering his 5th season. Proving to be very durable and his SC average scoring still steadily trending upwards 54.2 - 76.8 - 94.0 - 101.5 - ???
 
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Essendon
#67
For those not starting Neale, is McCluggage worth a punt?

Turning 23 and entering his 5th season. Proving to be very durable and his SC average scoring still steadily trending upwards 54.2 - 76.8 - 94.0 - 101.5 - ???
I have him in at the moment.. from memory his kicking for goal was atrocious last season (remember a few games where he had 4-5 behinds). If he can tidy up his kicking that could be worth a few points alone!
 

Diabolical

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Essendon
#68
I have him in at the moment.. from memory his kicking for goal was atrocious last season (remember a few games where he had 4-5 behinds). If he can tidy up his kicking that could be worth a few points alone!
That is what I’m thinking. He kicked 8.21 last year. If he can get anything towards his 23.14 from the season before, surely that will add some solid points.
 
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Essendon
#69
That is what I’m thinking. He kicked 8.21 last year. If he can get anything towards his 23.14 from the season before, surely that will add some solid points.
Yep 100%.. even if a goal is scored low.. 8 points (6 for the goal, 2 for the kick) - which I think is well under what a goal is actually worth - with 15 extra goals would add 6ish points to his average from that alone.
 

Dimmawit

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Richmond
#70
I feel like the best option might be to just start Neale, cop some regression and the potential of a bad game in round 1 and then feel nice and relaxed at M1 thereafter.
I think this is the issue anyone who sees "everyone" are being overpriced. In a loose kinda way its hard to start Neale over Gawn or Gawn over Neale - Lloyd is part of the convo too - cause the same logic applies. Certainly feeling the same struggle.
 
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#71
For those not starting Neale, is McCluggage worth a punt?

Turning 23 and entering his 5th season. Proving to be very durable and his SC average scoring still steadily trending upwards 54.2 - 76.8 - 94.0 - 101.5 - ???
Absolutely in play, with or without Neale in the side, though that bye starts getting tight then.

He was averaging 113 over the first 5 weeks before the shoulder injury and role was looking really nice. He faded a lot more after that, only averaged 97 the rest of the way. Tackling fell away and clearance numbers through the middle of the season were very hit and miss. Terrible goal kicking, which for mids tends to be a random stat, and natural improvement.

The biggest negatives for mine is the shoulder injury, which is a big one, and then probably the bye which is a very low ranking issue.

Pedigree is there, think he can do 110.
 
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#73
I think this is the issue anyone who sees "everyone" are being overpriced. In a loose kinda way its hard to start Neale over Gawn or Gawn over Neale - Lloyd is part of the convo too - cause the same logic applies. Certainly feeling the same struggle.
I think I'm going to adopt the "everyone is 5 points overpriced" as a baseline and that a drop of that is going to have little meaning (price wise).

From that baseline is where I'm then going to work on who is genuinely overpriced. Neale at 129 doesn't seem far off. Gawn at 134 is still a bit over, but not astronomical. Lloyd at 117 is still a bit over, possibly a fair bit, Petracca at 112 sounds nice.

It does mean that anyone I think can improve in value on their starting point gets a bit of a bump as well.
 
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#74
I think I'm going to adopt the "everyone is 5 points overpriced" as a baseline and that a drop of that is going to have little meaning (price wise).

From that baseline is where I'm then going to work on who is genuinely overpriced. Neale at 129 doesn't seem far off. Gawn at 134 is still a bit over, but not astronomical. Lloyd at 117 is still a bit over, possibly a fair bit, Petracca at 112 sounds nice.

It does mean that anyone I think can improve in value on their starting point gets a bit of a bump as well.
It's almost like the game designers inflate the starting prices just to cause us these headaches every year :p

Seriously though, if you spent your full 10M on a team and all their values go up, you basically win SuperCoach, so the rest of us mortals have to bank in some sort of price drop for the top players.
 
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Collingwood
#76
So I am totally confused.

If people aren't picking the higher priced players because their averages are "inflated" from last season then who do you pick and how do you get the likes of Gawn , Grundy , Lloyd , Macrae , Neale , Oliver etc into your team.

Very hard to downgrade-upgrade to afford too many $ 600k players.

The table posted about how it takes rookies to about Round 10 to make that "magical" $ 150k changes everything I have read over the years where you should be downgrading rookies about Round 6-9 makes that even more difficult , that's if you even have all your 7 bench rookies playing enough games in succession to make $$$.

Frowned upon to start too many mid pricers.

Feel like I need to go back to the very beginning and start all over again.
 
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#77
Just curious for all the stats wizards we have around...

Does anyone happen to have the players who had the top average over the last 5-7 games last year or know of where to find it? (All positions if possible)
 
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Hawthorn
#77
Just curious for all the stats wizards we have around...

Does anyone happen to have the players who had the top average over the last 5-7 games last year or know of where to find it? (All positions if possible)
I was going to save a copy of the final 2020 stats but never got around to it, as I thought all the data would still be available with Gold. It seems you can't sort previous years data for players last 5 game averages etc though, which I didn't realise. Sorry, can't help you unfortunately, but I have made a note to make sure I do save the final stats at the end of the season this time, so will be able to help out next year! :)
 
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#78
So I am totally confused.

If people aren't picking the higher priced players because their averages are "inflated" from last season then who do you pick and how do you get the likes of Gawn , Grundy , Lloyd , Macrae , Neale , Oliver etc into your team.

Very hard to downgrade-upgrade to afford too many $ 600k players.

The table posted about how it takes rookies to about Round 10 to make that "magical" $ 150k changes everything I have read over the years where you should be downgrading rookies about Round 6-9 makes that even more difficult , that's if you even have all your 7 bench rookies playing enough games in succession to make $$$.

Frowned upon to start too many mid pricers.

Feel like I need to go back to the very beginning and start all over again.
The obvious path is probably towards those who were injured or what not and thus are underpriced. Cripps, Rowell, Cunnington or to the types who've scored better in the past but had role changes that could reverse like Dunkley.

Chasing value is always a risk multiplier because that value only exists because of some underlying risk factor be it durability or role concerns.

Breakouts are generally a better pathway but with only one preseason game they're going to be harder than ever to pick and this, to me at least, is one of those weird years where there just doesn't seem to be many of the forwards or backs who look set to play actual midfield roles. Hately as a back or forward would be real interesting, as a mid he's pretty limited. Preuss as a R/F, same. Caldwell is so unproven and lot of guys to go past to get the level of midfield he probably needs. Not an awful lot of other names even stand out right now.
 
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#79
I was going to save a copy of the final 2020 stats but never got around to it, as I thought all the data would still be available with Gold. It seems you can't sort previous years data for players last 5 game averages etc though, which I didn't realise. Sorry, can't help you unfortunately, but I have made a note to make sure I do save the final stats at the end of the season this time, so will be able to help out next year! :)
Yeah, came here after trying the same!
 
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