I wasn’t sure where to post this and was contemplating starting a new thread but on reading
@Rowsus opening post, I reckon this dove tails quite neatly into the topic. Of course, if you feel this should go elsewhere, then feel free to shunt it.
Most SCers would have asked themselves the question “What does it take to win this bloody game?”.
There are many answers:
- Join up to a site like SCS
- Watch a whole lot of footy
- Research, research, research
- Avoid group think etc etc
The list could go on and on but I’ve always liked to look at things in terms of numbers. On that front there is quite a simple answer:
Excluding the clusterf*** that was 2020, a supercoach season is made up of 20 rounds of 23 scores (22 + C) and 3 rounds of 19 (18 +C).
Since 2012 (when the multi-bye rounds were introduced), the winner of Supercoach has scored as follows:
View attachment 26485
Obviously, the scores vary from year to year, with the high of C-Money’s monster 54,465 in 2014 (when he won RDT as well) to the low of 52,481 the following year but on the whole over the eight years, there’s not a lot of deviation.
So, based on eight years of data, on average you need a total score of 53,249.3 which, when divided by 517 equates to just under 103 per player. No wonder we all like a good ton!
Taking this a step further, I thought about how we approach a SC season, talking about “keepers”, “premos”, “mid-price madness” and “fattening our cows” and I thought to myself, how can you analyse those 22 spots on your field in terms of that 103 average.
This is where I see the link to Rowsus analysis. If you look at your team as being divided into a certain number of keepers and the remaining places on your field as just that - “remainders”, you can than apply some pretty simple math to work out what you need from those remainders to win the damn thing!
For example, you might be starting 13 keepers in a configuration something like:
View attachment 26486
By definition, you’re generally planning to hold your keepers for the year and either replace them with like keepers if they’re out for the long term or with a bench score for shorter periods (hence why PIT60 is such an important tool but I’ll come to that later).
On the other side of the coin, you have 9 remaining spots made up of rookies and mid-pricers. It’s unlikely that many or any of the players starting in those spots will be there at the end of the year so it’s just a place you need to score points in. The return for each of these spots is just the sum total of the scores from the players that start there and those you upgrade to along the way.
On that basis, you can attribute an
expectation score to your keepers (using the more conservative PIT60 approach) and then find the
need score for the remainders.
Referring to the above structure, you'll see I stuck in some rough expectation scores for the keepers (probably a little bullish) and scores for the starting rookies and mid-pricers. Incidentally, using those numbers you get a predicted Rd 1 score of 2,220. Not bad but well below 2,368.9 you need for non-bye rounds to hit the average required to get to the magical 53,249.3. Of course, we all know your side gets better over the season (well, it should) so you’re going to under-perform at the start and over perform at the end. (Having said that, I’ve had some putrid teams over the years that have presented a serious challenge to that theory!)
The next step is to work out the break-down of the 517 scores between your keepers and the remainders.
If you assume a 13 keeper / 9 remainder structure, the break-down is as follows:
- Keeper scores: 286 (being 13 x 20 rds + 2/3 x 13 x 3 rds)*
- Remainder scores: 208 (517 - 286 - 23)**
- Captain scores: 23
*The 2/3rds represents the share of starting keepers you have available for each the bye rounds. Obviously, it’s not necessarily going to be a perfect 3-way split for every team but the math still works.
**The remainder total is worked out by deduction. It can be worked out separately as 20 x 9 + 3 x (18 – 2/3 x 13). The result is the same.
From there, you take the average of the keeper expectation scores (110) and multiply that by the total number of keeper scores: 286 x 110 = 31,460.
Add to that 23 captain scores of say 130 = 2,990 (probably a little bullish but hey, in the last two years, who hasn’t used that or something higher as their cut off score for a VC?!) and you get a total of 34,450.
Subtract that from the magical 53,249.3 and you’re left with 18,799.3, which is basically what you
need from your remainders to win.
18,799.3 / 208 = 90.4 average score per spot.
Taking it a step further, if you assume you upgrade all those spots by middle of the season and achieve 100 per spot for the remainder of the season, you only need an average of 80.8 from each of those spots in the first half.
SIMPLES!
If you were to translate the above to a starting Rd 1 score, it would be:
13 x 110 + 9 x 80.8 + 1 x 130 = 2287.2
which is pretty close to the benchmark I’ve always set myself for my plan teams in the pre-season.
Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts and the results change depending on the number of keepers and score expectations you set, but that’s why realistic expectations are so important because it helps you realise what you’ve got to achieve elsewhere. It also helps demonstrate that it’s not always about chasing / having a certain player but rather just finding someone who is going to give you an expected return (very mercenary, I know!)
Anyway, hopefully that has added to the collective intellect on here (which is bloody huge BTW). Apologies if it was all a bit long winded or has been covered before. Just some thoughts I’ve been looking to get down on paper for a while.
