Position 2022: Midfield Discussion
- Thread starter KLo30
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Certainly no reason to get hung up on starting structures/teams at this stage of the year.
I know we all love playing around with different starting sides.
Currently have Gibcus at D6 & Rachele at F6 (not sure if he has Covid or a close contact of Cook) mainly just for pricing.
Gibcus price is interesting , think last year many missed on Butts & Cox because of their higher starting price and from memory they had more reliable JS than the cheaper guys.
Obviously if the cheap D & F rookies present over the next 39 days a lot of changes will happen.
Imagine if Gould goes bang in a preseason match.
Will be very happy if I can start my preferred F line of Dunkley , Duncan , Heeney , Coniglio , Curnow , Rookie / Rookie , Rookie
Anticipation of rookies getting DPP could lead to some different thinking , start a couple of fast starting D & F and try and upgrade them to.premium mids in Round 7.
I know we all love playing around with different starting sides.
Currently have Gibcus at D6 & Rachele at F6 (not sure if he has Covid or a close contact of Cook) mainly just for pricing.
Gibcus price is interesting , think last year many missed on Butts & Cox because of their higher starting price and from memory they had more reliable JS than the cheaper guys.
Obviously if the cheap D & F rookies present over the next 39 days a lot of changes will happen.
Imagine if Gould goes bang in a preseason match.
Will be very happy if I can start my preferred F line of Dunkley , Duncan , Heeney , Coniglio , Curnow , Rookie / Rookie , Rookie
Anticipation of rookies getting DPP could lead to some different thinking , start a couple of fast starting D & F and try and upgrade them to.premium mids in Round 7.
Couple of things -
Remember Shiel was out injured so Parish got more mid time
Started to get tagged & struggled
Caldwell now fit & set for more midfield time
Hobbs pressing hard for round 1 may further hurt how much midfield time Parish gets.
Few too many question marks for mine with so many other excellent midfield premium options that I am far more confident in.
Remember Shiel was out injured so Parish got more mid time
Started to get tagged & struggled
Caldwell now fit & set for more midfield time
Hobbs pressing hard for round 1 may further hurt how much midfield time Parish gets.
Few too many question marks for mine with so many other excellent midfield premium options that I am far more confident in.
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Agree we all like to play with our team and need to be fluid with structure. re fwd line, I have Butters over Duncan as the only difference.
I think it is sensible and safe to have more expensive D6/F6 players. Last year I had 4 premiums defenders locked in prior to teams dropping, yet was then scrambling for rookies due to not as many cheap ones, leading to downgrading of premiums. Lesson learnt is to be conservative with both where your premiums are and having more expensive rookies to start with.
then know if you downgrade a rookie which players you would upgrade.
we also learnt last year having the good 200-300k players (incl Tex post round 2) were beneficial to your side over slow cooked cheap rookies.
I think it is sensible and safe to have more expensive D6/F6 players. Last year I had 4 premiums defenders locked in prior to teams dropping, yet was then scrambling for rookies due to not as many cheap ones, leading to downgrading of premiums. Lesson learnt is to be conservative with both where your premiums are and having more expensive rookies to start with.
then know if you downgrade a rookie which players you would upgrade.
we also learnt last year having the good 200-300k players (incl Tex post round 2) were beneficial to your side over slow cooked cheap rookies.
From playing around with structures, a 3 premo + Rowell midfield is making the most sense to me, rookies around the rest of the ground at this stage are not giving me much confidence for job security and scoring ability. Even hollands the sure thing I’m seeing reports has been unimpressive so far this preseason, and a lot of the mid rookies job security and ability is looking better and better as more reports come.
All could change if more rookies show themselves in forward and defence though
All could change if more rookies show themselves in forward and defence though
Spot on.
Will never understand why people make mock teams with the cheap rookies on the bench , then a mad scramble to change their team come Round 1 when the rookies are missing.
Always easier to use the expensive ones and adjust down.
Hopefully my Forward line is viable to start , my R1 & R2 are locked , Macrae , Steele & Neale will be in my mids.
Round 1 rookies will determine my defence , ideally hope I can go 3 + Kiddy & Milera.
Will never understand why people make mock teams with the cheap rookies on the bench , then a mad scramble to change their team come Round 1 when the rookies are missing.
Always easier to use the expensive ones and adjust down.
Hopefully my Forward line is viable to start , my R1 & R2 are locked , Macrae , Steele & Neale will be in my mids.
Round 1 rookies will determine my defence , ideally hope I can go 3 + Kiddy & Milera.
This is a somewhat flawed approach to the upgrade plan. If you don't start the Macrae types you should be generating an extra premium elswhere, that's basically the trade off. It's also important to remember that they're not "one up, one down" plays, they're "1.5 up, 1.5 down" and need to be planned around accordingly. I do think the trade boosts are going to make this equation a lot easier this year.
That said, the more important takeaway for your focused area of improvement is how you ended up in the situation of fielding dud rookies that forced your hand into underwhelming trades. That sounds like you created structural problems in your side which is more often than not a starting team problem.
This can happen in multiple ways but I'd look at last year's team and see if any of these applied:
1. Picked dud rookies - This is the obvious one and probably the hardest given there is such a randomness to it all but if you had any standouts perhaps assess why they failed. Brockman for example was a common bad pick last year, small forward with sketchy JS is the explanation but it's easy to go overboard on flash players who have a good preseason game and kind of miss the forest for the trees that they're still a small forward with sketchy JS, just an example. Bruhn was another example of this that comes to mind and there's been a ton of them over the years.
2. Structural errors - This can combine with the above very easily, last year for example there were people still trying to field 1-2 premium defenders despite there never being more than 4 or 5 rookies putting their hands up at any point through the preseason. It's really easy to get fixated on a structure and then pick dud rookies to try and fill it out or even on a couple of breakouts that you really wanted and sacrifice everything else to fit them in.
3. Bad rookie trading - A lot of the time we will trade out a "better" rookie now because they're worth slightly more than a bad rookie. This can be hard to pick also but often you've got rookie A who has strong JS and is scoring okay but has a bad game and we jump to dump him, normally replacing with a weaker rookie but, more importantly, also keeping another bad rookie and then relying on them to play instead which suddenly means you're fielding a dud and that's when the panic can set in! Sometimes there is huge value in knowing which rookies you're happy to make 20-50k less on for their scoring over the next 6 weeks and quite often if they're strong enough you want to field them they actually end up making more cash by holding. Basically it's trying to trade out your weakest rookies first and field your strongest rookies longer. The ideal world is when you trade a strong rookie, it's for a similarly strong rookie to replace them.
4. Poor DPP setup - This can often allow you to avoid dud rookies starting in specific spots, probably not as relevant this year with the rookies set to all change but the ability to be flexible as to what rookies you're starting instead of locked into a set couple can definitely change this aspect of the game.
5. Rolling Donut - Did you start one? If so where did you start them? People love to get these and will often pick them on an already weak line because "there's a lack of rookie options" which actually just compound the problem in that area of weakness, this links up with point 2 heavily, the logical move if there are no back rookies, for example, is to get an extra premium there and an extra rookie where there is strength in numbers, doubling down in an area of weakness with a worthless pick is a very quick path to dud rookies playing too often. Throw in that you're costing yourself 100-150k and you've actually found a really quick reason for why Macrae feels impossible to get to. As you can probably tell I'm not a fan of these in general! I've been playing for a very long time, I consider myself pretty good at picking rookies and I can't recall ever not having a donut by round 4 anyway as some "sure" rookie duds it up, gets injured or whatever. If you're going to pick one though, pick it an area that you don't feel weak, generally that will be R3 (trading and no options exist often) or M10 who can actually swap with a D/M or F/M to provide extra cover/options for you.
If you've managed to avoid all those errors and still fielding dud rookies, you're probably not alone
That said, the more important takeaway for your focused area of improvement is how you ended up in the situation of fielding dud rookies that forced your hand into underwhelming trades. That sounds like you created structural problems in your side which is more often than not a starting team problem.
This can happen in multiple ways but I'd look at last year's team and see if any of these applied:
1. Picked dud rookies - This is the obvious one and probably the hardest given there is such a randomness to it all but if you had any standouts perhaps assess why they failed. Brockman for example was a common bad pick last year, small forward with sketchy JS is the explanation but it's easy to go overboard on flash players who have a good preseason game and kind of miss the forest for the trees that they're still a small forward with sketchy JS, just an example. Bruhn was another example of this that comes to mind and there's been a ton of them over the years.
2. Structural errors - This can combine with the above very easily, last year for example there were people still trying to field 1-2 premium defenders despite there never being more than 4 or 5 rookies putting their hands up at any point through the preseason. It's really easy to get fixated on a structure and then pick dud rookies to try and fill it out or even on a couple of breakouts that you really wanted and sacrifice everything else to fit them in.
3. Bad rookie trading - A lot of the time we will trade out a "better" rookie now because they're worth slightly more than a bad rookie. This can be hard to pick also but often you've got rookie A who has strong JS and is scoring okay but has a bad game and we jump to dump him, normally replacing with a weaker rookie but, more importantly, also keeping another bad rookie and then relying on them to play instead which suddenly means you're fielding a dud and that's when the panic can set in! Sometimes there is huge value in knowing which rookies you're happy to make 20-50k less on for their scoring over the next 6 weeks and quite often if they're strong enough you want to field them they actually end up making more cash by holding. Basically it's trying to trade out your weakest rookies first and field your strongest rookies longer. The ideal world is when you trade a strong rookie, it's for a similarly strong rookie to replace them.
4. Poor DPP setup - This can often allow you to avoid dud rookies starting in specific spots, probably not as relevant this year with the rookies set to all change but the ability to be flexible as to what rookies you're starting instead of locked into a set couple can definitely change this aspect of the game.
5. Rolling Donut - Did you start one? If so where did you start them? People love to get these and will often pick them on an already weak line because "there's a lack of rookie options" which actually just compound the problem in that area of weakness, this links up with point 2 heavily, the logical move if there are no back rookies, for example, is to get an extra premium there and an extra rookie where there is strength in numbers, doubling down in an area of weakness with a worthless pick is a very quick path to dud rookies playing too often. Throw in that you're costing yourself 100-150k and you've actually found a really quick reason for why Macrae feels impossible to get to. As you can probably tell I'm not a fan of these in general! I've been playing for a very long time, I consider myself pretty good at picking rookies and I can't recall ever not having a donut by round 4 anyway as some "sure" rookie duds it up, gets injured or whatever. If you're going to pick one though, pick it an area that you don't feel weak, generally that will be R3 (trading and no options exist often) or M10 who can actually swap with a D/M or F/M to provide extra cover/options for you.
If you've managed to avoid all those errors and still fielding dud rookies, you're probably not alone
Rule number 1 in my draft teams, overspend on rookies, if the 125k and below guys flood the market I can happily find another premium to slot into my side but having to cull a premium to fund the premium rookies always hurts!
Right now I've got 9 guys priced in the 125-265k range in my team holding places as rookies, admittedly a couple of those fall into the very low end mid-price field but the reality is that they're picked instead of rookies and if they become rookies I start to grab a few extra premiums or sure up some weaker ones!
Right now I've got 9 guys priced in the 125-265k range in my team holding places as rookies, admittedly a couple of those fall into the very low end mid-price field but the reality is that they're picked instead of rookies and if they become rookies I start to grab a few extra premiums or sure up some weaker ones!
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This is a somewhat flawed approach to the upgrade plan. If you don't start the Macrae types you should be generating an extra premium elswhere, that's basically the trade off. It's also important to remember that they're not "one up, one down" plays, they're "1.5 up, 1.5 down" and need to be planned around accordingly. I do think the trade boosts are going to make this equation a lot easier this year.
That said, the more important takeaway for your focused area of improvement is how you ended up in the situation of fielding dud rookies that forced your hand into underwhelming trades. That sounds like you created structural problems in your side which is more often than not a starting team problem.
This can happen in multiple ways but I'd look at last year's team and see if any of these applied:
1. Picked dud rookies - This is the obvious one and probably the hardest given there is such a randomness to it all but if you had any standouts perhaps assess why they failed. Brockman for example was a common bad pick last year, small forward with sketchy JS is the explanation but it's easy to go overboard on flash players who have a good preseason game and kind of miss the forest for the trees that they're still a small forward with sketchy JS, just an example. Bruhn was another example of this that comes to mind and there's been a ton of them over the years.
2. Structural errors - This can combine with the above very easily, last year for example there were people still trying to field 1-2 premium defenders despite there never being more than 4 or 5 rookies putting their hands up at any point through the preseason. It's really easy to get fixated on a structure and then pick dud rookies to try and fill it out or even on a couple of breakouts that you really wanted and sacrifice everything else to fit them in.
3. Bad rookie trading - A lot of the time we will trade out a "better" rookie now because they're worth slightly more than a bad rookie. This can be hard to pick also but often you've got rookie A who has strong JS and is scoring okay but has a bad game and we jump to dump him, normally replacing with a weaker rookie but, more importantly, also keeping another bad rookie and then relying on them to play instead which suddenly means you're fielding a dud and that's when the panic can set in! Sometimes there is huge value in knowing which rookies you're happy to make 20-50k less on for their scoring over the next 6 weeks and quite often if they're strong enough you want to field them they actually end up making more cash by holding. Basically it's trying to trade out your weakest rookies first and field your strongest rookies longer. The ideal world is when you trade a strong rookie, it's for a similarly strong rookie to replace them.
4. Poor DPP setup - This can often allow you to avoid dud rookies starting in specific spots, probably not as relevant this year with the rookies set to all change but the ability to be flexible as to what rookies you're starting instead of locked into a set couple can definitely change this aspect of the game.
5. Rolling Donut - Did you start one? If so where did you start them? People love to get these and will often pick them on an already weak line because "there's a lack of rookie options" which actually just compound the problem in that area of weakness, this links up with point 2 heavily, the logical move if there are no back rookies, for example, is to get an extra premium there and an extra rookie where there is strength in numbers, doubling down in an area of weakness with a worthless pick is a very quick path to dud rookies playing too often. Throw in that you're costing yourself 100-150k and you've actually found a really quick reason for why Macrae feels impossible to get to. As you can probably tell I'm not a fan of these in general! I've been playing for a very long time, I consider myself pretty good at picking rookies and I can't recall ever not having a donut by round 4 anyway as some "sure" rookie duds it up, gets injured or whatever. If you're going to pick one though, pick it an area that you don't feel weak, generally that will be R3 (trading and no options exist often) or M10 who can actually swap with a D/M or F/M to provide extra cover/options for you.
If you've managed to avoid all those errors and still fielding dud rookies, you're probably not alone
That said, the more important takeaway for your focused area of improvement is how you ended up in the situation of fielding dud rookies that forced your hand into underwhelming trades. That sounds like you created structural problems in your side which is more often than not a starting team problem.
This can happen in multiple ways but I'd look at last year's team and see if any of these applied:
1. Picked dud rookies - This is the obvious one and probably the hardest given there is such a randomness to it all but if you had any standouts perhaps assess why they failed. Brockman for example was a common bad pick last year, small forward with sketchy JS is the explanation but it's easy to go overboard on flash players who have a good preseason game and kind of miss the forest for the trees that they're still a small forward with sketchy JS, just an example. Bruhn was another example of this that comes to mind and there's been a ton of them over the years.
2. Structural errors - This can combine with the above very easily, last year for example there were people still trying to field 1-2 premium defenders despite there never being more than 4 or 5 rookies putting their hands up at any point through the preseason. It's really easy to get fixated on a structure and then pick dud rookies to try and fill it out or even on a couple of breakouts that you really wanted and sacrifice everything else to fit them in.
3. Bad rookie trading - A lot of the time we will trade out a "better" rookie now because they're worth slightly more than a bad rookie. This can be hard to pick also but often you've got rookie A who has strong JS and is scoring okay but has a bad game and we jump to dump him, normally replacing with a weaker rookie but, more importantly, also keeping another bad rookie and then relying on them to play instead which suddenly means you're fielding a dud and that's when the panic can set in! Sometimes there is huge value in knowing which rookies you're happy to make 20-50k less on for their scoring over the next 6 weeks and quite often if they're strong enough you want to field them they actually end up making more cash by holding. Basically it's trying to trade out your weakest rookies first and field your strongest rookies longer. The ideal world is when you trade a strong rookie, it's for a similarly strong rookie to replace them.
4. Poor DPP setup - This can often allow you to avoid dud rookies starting in specific spots, probably not as relevant this year with the rookies set to all change but the ability to be flexible as to what rookies you're starting instead of locked into a set couple can definitely change this aspect of the game.
5. Rolling Donut - Did you start one? If so where did you start them? People love to get these and will often pick them on an already weak line because "there's a lack of rookie options" which actually just compound the problem in that area of weakness, this links up with point 2 heavily, the logical move if there are no back rookies, for example, is to get an extra premium there and an extra rookie where there is strength in numbers, doubling down in an area of weakness with a worthless pick is a very quick path to dud rookies playing too often. Throw in that you're costing yourself 100-150k and you've actually found a really quick reason for why Macrae feels impossible to get to. As you can probably tell I'm not a fan of these in general! I've been playing for a very long time, I consider myself pretty good at picking rookies and I can't recall ever not having a donut by round 4 anyway as some "sure" rookie duds it up, gets injured or whatever. If you're going to pick one though, pick it an area that you don't feel weak, generally that will be R3 (trading and no options exist often) or M10 who can actually swap with a D/M or F/M to provide extra cover/options for you.
If you've managed to avoid all those errors and still fielding dud rookies, you're probably not alone
Othertimes rather than go one less premium others make it up with midpricers or sub standard premiums which may save a rookie trade yet you are either bleeding points or trading that player out (anyone thinking of a Port defender?).
re @Broar about trading in expensive mids, this comment comes up a lot preseason. We generated between $3-4m of cash through the year, so being able to buy expensive players is not hard if you achieve your cash generation, however, if you are not following wogitalia's comments then you are burning extra trades which cost you money generation.
Last year I used a trade to go Neale to Tex which gave me extra points, one less premium and $350k cash in the bank to upgrade an underperformer. Now, no one knew Tex would be so good, however, it showed my team was stronger even with one less premium. I brought in Touk and Bont for $670k each, that wasn't an issue.
So pick best
Yep, if you're not really certain on those "under" premium picks then you're better having one less of them and getting it right.
If you take say 4 of them, you can probably afford to get one wrong (assuming it's not a disaster where they drop 20+ in average, Mr Cripps...) and then have one of them end up as the D6/M8/F6 type player in the team but if you end up with several of them you're going to be leaking points to teams that have better players at those spots AND the elite of the elite midfields from the start.
That's why I personally only take those 350-450k types if I can genuinely see them being elite level at their position. So if I think the premium scoring at forward is likely to be 100, I'm really only considering those guys if I see a realistic path to them averaging 105+ this year, if I think they cap out at 100 then they'd want something exceptional going on to really pick them.
Once you go below that 280k range though you open up the scope for guys who average much less.
Ultimately every pick needs to be assessed, are they a keeper or a cash cow, if they're in no man's land where you can't seem them doing either you've got problems brewing! Remembering to alter your keeper line for their starting price. A 250k guy averaging 93 is a keeper at a 100 line just on the value alone but a 500k averaging 93 on a 100 line is going to be hurting you!
If you take say 4 of them, you can probably afford to get one wrong (assuming it's not a disaster where they drop 20+ in average, Mr Cripps...) and then have one of them end up as the D6/M8/F6 type player in the team but if you end up with several of them you're going to be leaking points to teams that have better players at those spots AND the elite of the elite midfields from the start.
That's why I personally only take those 350-450k types if I can genuinely see them being elite level at their position. So if I think the premium scoring at forward is likely to be 100, I'm really only considering those guys if I see a realistic path to them averaging 105+ this year, if I think they cap out at 100 then they'd want something exceptional going on to really pick them.
Once you go below that 280k range though you open up the scope for guys who average much less.
Ultimately every pick needs to be assessed, are they a keeper or a cash cow, if they're in no man's land where you can't seem them doing either you've got problems brewing! Remembering to alter your keeper line for their starting price. A 250k guy averaging 93 is a keeper at a 100 line just on the value alone but a 500k averaging 93 on a 100 line is going to be hurting you!
A starting loop this year does feel largely pointless, that player will either be called on to cover positive cases or youll get a positive case that could just be the loop in the first place, add in the inevitable dud rookies that start the year because players are in isolation and we get sucked into picking them and you should have one before you know it anyway.
Like Errol Gulden last year - smashed out a 139 in round 1 & was sitting on the mid bench for most