News The Anatomy Of A SC Average.

[Rowsus]

Summary

There's potentially a lot to take away from this thread. Some of it is old school SuperCoach 101, that so many of us just aren't really adhering to, myself included. Some of it hopefully is an eye-opener to how you are looking at some things completely wrong, unless you are very sharp and disciplined,
This summary has the potential to be as long as the rest of the thread has already been, but I will do my best to keep it as short as possible.

The first problem this thread highlights is, that too many of us take the most recent history as the most relevant history. I'm talking about the the first 4, 6 or 10 weeks of the season, of a player that should be assumed to have an established scoring pattern. Look at last year, just the examples off the top of my head:
Roberton starts 6/109.8 and 12/104.3 and people start treating him like a sure thing. Some people payed as much $557,000 around Round 8 to get him. Madness! He finished 16/86.2 or 10/79.0. How were they to know? His scoring history said he was around a 90/game player!
Dahlhaus. I can understand those that thought he might be a 100/game last season starting him. I don't understand anyone that didn't start him, trading him in. If you didn't start him it is likely you rated him 95/game or lower. Dahl starts the season 5/114.8, and suddenly those that rated him sub 95 think he's going to be a 105, or even 110 player in 2017. Why change your opinion by so much, on the back of 5 games information. Even if you did go to 105, that still leaves him at score 17/102.1 for the rest of the season to meet your new expectation, and he was now priced at 116/game! You've over adjusted your expectation, and even if your over adjusted expectation was right, you have overpaid for what you were expecting to get anyway! Dahl finished the season 17/83.6. Madness again!

Lessons:
1) Don't jump your expectations up, or down, in leaps and bounds. Your expectation was a season, not a 6 week period. The charts show there is a distribution of scores. If a player fills one end of his chart a little more than the other, don't expect him to keep filling that section, expect him to soon start filling the other end! By jumping them too much at one time, you are basically saying you showed no thought or skill in your initial assessment, and something needs to change drastically. If you keep track of your pre-season expectations, you will see that not many of them are wildly off, when dealing with players with an established scoring pattern. Yes, spikes occur, as do off seasons, but predicting a spike season, even 6 or 8 weeks into the season, is harder than predicting a break out, for a player that hasn't established his scoring pattern yet.

2) Even if you are silly enough to jump up your expectation up in leaps and bounds, do the math! We saw with Dahl sitting on 5/114.8, that anyone that adjusted their opinion up to a 105 season was actually saying "From this point on", he'll score at 102, not the 105 you were rating him at. That's the return you need to look at, when deciding if the trade is valued correctly.

3) Most people that trade in these type of players are not only over paying for the result they end up with, they are even overpaying for the result their exaggerated adjusted expectation would says they would get. To do really well in SuperCoach, you really need to limit the number of trade ins you overpay for. Bang for buck isn't just for starting teams. Efficient use of funds during the season, can be the difference between top 10,000 and top 500 finishes. The more players like Dahl or Roberton the longer and harder it is to complete your team. The more players like M Crouch you grab at opportune times, not only the quicker you complete your team, but the more points you score too. Good trading is win/win, bad trading is lose/lose.

 

[Rowsus]

The second problem it highlights is the use of "watching" a player. When you are talking about a player with an established scoring pattern (I will use this phrase a lot, because it is very important!), 99% of SuperCoach coaches are doing it backwards. It's time to completely flip your thinking on this type of thing.
"I'm not sure I'll start Dahl, I think I'll just put him on my watch list".
What is it you are watching for? For Dahl to start how he did, and now you want to trade him in? We've just seen how crazy that is.
Just about every established player you have on your watch list is immediately in one of two groups, if you are using that type of watch list thinking.
Glad I didn't start him,
OR
Good luck to those started him, but it's not looking like a good idea to grab him now.
What you need to do in most cases, is have the courage of your convictions, and back your opinion. By that, I mean like the Matt Crouch example above, While Crouch wasn't, and still isn't a player with an established scoring pattern, let's for argument sake say it's a different player, that is established, that has those same figures. He starts a bit worse than your expectation. What has happened now? As we saw with Crouch, his price has fallen, but his expected return from here, based on your expectations, even your sensibly adjusted expectations, has him now scoring at a level that should now interest you, especially at the value his price represents. Time to back your judgement.

Lessons:
1) Don't have established, near fully priced players on your watch list, unless you are watching for them to have a down scoring period, so you can grab them cheap(er) and ride their recovery wave. If you are watching them, and waiting for them to post some good scores, then guess what? When they do post those good scores the boat has sailed. Too late, she cried. Don't let FOMO rule your thinking. The bottom line is, usually you are not missing out anything, except the opportunity to overpay, for a player that will underperform once you get him.
You need to analyse it properly though. Is there an underlying reason for those poorer than expected scores, and if there is, will those reasons continue from here on in? If it is something that is likely to affect the players scoring long term, just be glad you didn't start him, and move on. If there's no identifiable problem, or the problem is fixed or short term, start seeing what you can do, to get this player in your team!

2) This is really old school SuperCoach 101. What we are basically saying is:
"Don't chase the points a player has already scored this season". They're gone. You need to look at "from here on in".
"Buy the fallen premium". Falls happen during the season, not just from season to season. When a reliable player falls in price, and there is no discernable problem, POUNCE! How many of us are guilty of breaking these simple rules, multiple times in a season, especially the first one!

 

[Rowsus]

Ok, it sounds simple in theory, but it is really hard to execute.
No doubt this is true, but using good habits, and making mistakes, is better than using bad habits, and making mistakes.
It can be really tough to decide, is he just coming out of a slump, and he's about to take off and score really well, from a good price? There might be underlying problems you haven't been able to pick up on. Think Stefan Martin 2016, when post season it was revealed that he dragged an injury through a large part of the season.
Watching games helps. You can sometimes pick up things, injuries, niggles that aren't making it into the media. You can also better pick up role changes. I know it's not practical sometimes, to watch as much football as we'd like, or that is necessary.
The good Coaches, that are consistently finishing top 1,000, and there are a few on this site, are getting a lot (but not all) these calls right. They seem to pick up on who is just in a down period, but can bounce back, and who is just dragging the chain, and will never really improve much this season. Part luck, part skill, part gut feel, but some guys get it right a lot more than the rest of us. If you're not one of them, here's three words you need to get you on the road to being one:
Practice, Persistence and Observation.

 

[Rowsus]

What about players like Oliver last season?
That's a whole different category, and tables like these won't help you there. He was a 2nd year player, so a loooong way off having an established scoring pattern.
He started the season nominally priced at 77/game. What you needed was the "observation" part of the above post.
Anyone that watched those first 2 or 3 games, the role he was playing, and the way he went about it, would have been looking at his price, and saying "There doesn't appear to be much downside in grabbing this guy!". Even if the wheels fell off, he looked at worse a low 90's player, so his worst case scenario, outside of a LTI was making you $70-$90k, and you upgraded him later in the season. If that's the worst case scenario, you grab him, in case he did what he ended up doing.
Bottom line, not an established player, so the general thinking of this thread won't help you one way or the other with Oliver type situations.

Discounted players fall into a tricky category. How much are they discounted, and why? Tables like this can still help you trade them in, and they can go onto a watch list, where you trade them in, even after a good start. You still need to do your due diligence, and not assume what you see early on, will continue throughout the season. You need to be prepared to act quickly with these type of players, and grab them before their first price rise, or after one or two price rises at most. As I said, the key is how much are they discounted, and why? Reasonable expectations, "from here on in" still apply too!

 

[Rowsus]

It translates to life too. If you keep thinking the same way every year, keep thinking the way you think most other people are thinking, and keep getting the same disappointing results (I really hoped to finish top 2,000 this year, but fell out of the top 10,000 at the end, again!). Then you need to change your thinking!
Stop thinking how everyone else does. You might be wrong, and they don't think that way, but even worse, you're forgetting that "everyone else" apart from those "lucky" 2,000 Coaches had disappointing seasons too. So most of the people thinking like you, are experiencing the same results as you.
Stop doing the same thing, and expecting different results!
Start turning your thinking on it's head.
Players are on watch lists, not to see if they do well, but to see if they start a bit worse than expectations.
Players that blaze brightly on a hot streak, and reach averages and prices beyond your highest expectations should be treated as commodities, and traded out! They've done their job, now let them do one last thing for you, and fill your pockets with valuable trade dollars.
Stop believing all the stuff you read in the weekly trade threads about "Dahl is a must have this season", and even as I read from one member "You're just not playing the game correctly if you don't have him" (!!!!!! *** !!!!!!). This was in about Round 6. He even said I was letting my League down by not having him!
This is a simple rule, but you really have to train yourself to think this way. It applies to starting teams too:

If too many people are saying they are getting this player or that, and he's not a Dangerfield type, you need to stop and ask "Why?".

The more people doing it, the more advantage there probably is in not doing it. Most of them are (over) reacting to a small sample of scores, and running hard on FOMO. More people get these things wrong, than get them right. Popular thinking leads to popular results. What's a popular result? Well, there are a hell a lot more coaches ranked 10,000th to 50,000th, than there are ranked top 2,000. That's 20 times as many people, so that's pretty popular!
FOMO is your enemy, not your friend. Most times you are missing out on, what in the long run, turns out to be a disappointing result. Dodge a couple of these disappointing results, and it doesn't matter if one gets under your guard, and it turns out you should have grabbed him. It's important to remember your successes, as well as your failures. If you only remember the failures, you will likely jump on more and more of these FOMO types (I'm looking at you, 2017 Yeo!), and have even more failures.

Lesson
If you keep doing the same thing, and keep getting the same results, unless you are happy with those results, change your thinking!

 

[Rowsus]

Remember, 6 or 8 games can be a small sample in a 22 game season. Yes you can make adjustments on that much information, but not big ones. The correction, one way or another, will come in the vast majority of cases.
Small adjustments as you go are good, and I've shown you how to do that. Large adjustments are dangerous, and more often than not, will lead to poor decisions.
Remember to do the maths. Don't just look at what has happened, but what it implies will happen from here, based on your reasoned, sensible, realistic and slightly adjusted expectation!

Good luck with your new way of thinking these things through.

 

[Rowsus]

Reserved

 

[Blaze]

Never wiser words on SC were spoken....can we sticky this so we all read it regularly throughout the year when we need it most! LOL

 

[bomberboy]

This might just be the most important bit of Supercoach writing ever... Genius. It's threads like these that make this website better than any other.

 

[elzorko16]

And here endeth the lesson, sensational write up Rowsus!!!

 

[Diabolical]

Thankyou - I’m speechless - just brilliant Rowsus!

Could the distant sound I just heard inside my head be that of a penny dropping? Time will tell!

 

[Bomber18]

Great work Rowsus, you're going above and beyond this pre-season!

A lot to take in, but one point really stood out to me. Buy the fallen premium.

I probably didn't do this enough last season and instead acted on FOMO. Chased Bont at his max and also jumped on Yeo late. Jumped on Goldy too after he showed form. Had quite a few other failed trade ins as well.

I had much better luck in 2016 when I was almost forced to buy the "fallen premium" as I had stuffed up my cash generation (ie: had success with Gray, Priddis, Westhoff in 2016). It does make sense that the fallen premium can turn it around statistically. My best trade in last year was Buddy as I got him when he'd fallen to a 90 average. I expected him to finish on higher than a 90 average end of year (maybe 95) so thought it was a low risk move. Turned out he averaged 100 in my side and finished on 98! In hindsight, grabbing a "fallen" Dusty at 500k was the winning move last season instead of Bont!

I hope this thread gets revisited with "adjustments" on the "flavour of the month" types that no doubt will pop up over the first 5 rounds. The tricky thing is differentiating those players from the true breakouts like Oliver, J.Kelly last year.

 

[Creeker]

You have nailed it once again Row.
I can't believe the team at the Herald Sun haven't approached you yet.
Wise words, we just have to follow the rules now. Sometimes easier said than done.
Many thanks mate.

 

[Ricky Bobby]

Words to live by ...

Great write up Row. My head is swimming at the moment, but the underlying logic and "truth" of your comments and conclusions have really hit home. I have read similar posts from you in the past, so this concept isn't new, however I like the way you have set this out and it is an important and timely reminder to get our thinking clear and correct for the start of a new season.

 

[Drew]

Wow Rowan an amazing read as always, so much work, many thanks!

A couple of questions in relation, do you have average ranges you consider minimums for starting keepers?

For example I liked your comments on Dahlhaus and he's currently in my starting squad. He averaged 90.7 last season which was the lowest average in his last four seasons and personally I think this is probably around the bottom end to expect from him, he seems to throw up some bottom end spud scores but he also seems to have a big-ish top end to even things out. I'm picking him to bounce back a bit for a season average in the 93-96 range but I also feel that if he goes at 90.7 again he could be considered a successful keeper holding out F5/F6 for year, or am I aiming to low? My feeling is for the forward line I should be aiming for F1: 105+, F2-F4: 95-105, F5/F6: 89+.

Thanks for your time again - Drew.

 

[Lost In The Sky]

Fantastic write-up mate, The time and effort you put into these posts is truly amazing and very much appreciated.

Looking back at my worst ever result last season, Too many of my trades where FOMO type trades. I seriously don't know what I was smoking last year when doing my trades, lol

 

[BigRuss]

Hoo boy what a read, will need a revisit for it all to sink in I reckon. Above and beyond as usual mate, terrific work.

Buy low, sell high. If only it was that easy.

 

[Rowsus]

Wow Rowan an amazing read as always, so much work, many thanks!

A couple of questions in relation, do you have average ranges you consider minimums for starting keepers?

For example I liked your comments on Dahlhaus and he's currently in my starting squad. He averaged 90.7 last season which was the lowest average in his last four seasons and personally I think this is probably around the bottom end to expect from him, he seems to throw up some bottom end spud scores but he also seems to have a big-ish top end to even things out. I'm picking him to bounce back a bit for a season average in the 93-96 range but I also feel that if he goes at 90.7 again he could be considered a successful keeper holding out F5/F6 for year, or am I aiming to low? My feeling is for the forward line I should be aiming for F1: 105+, F2-F4: 95-105, F5/F6: 89+.

Thanks for your time again - Drew.

Thanks, Drew.
There are shifts each year in what is "acceptable" and what isn't.
Last season there were 11 Forwards that played at least 18 games, and averaged better than 90.
Wingard went 18/93, but that PIT60's out to an 87 average. While you'd possibly wear that for your F6, depending on your circumstances, in general it's just below what we should be shooting for.
It's hard to know what this years levels might turn out to be. Your F1 looks ok, but 105 for a F4 might be too much. If you are going to settle for 89 for your F5/6 you probably want at least 21 games from them, otherwise, to build in a buffer, you want to boost that to 93-94 maybe, giving them a 2 or 3 game buffer.
As I said, each year is different, but your close to what I'm thinking at this stage of things.

 

[bomberboy]

Hey Row,
How applicable is this season to season? Are we chasing too many breakout players when we could grab fallen premos of years gone by?

 

[Rowsus]

Hey Row,
How applicable is this season to season? Are we chasing too many breakout players when we could grab fallen premos of years gone by?

Hey bb,
there's no doubt each season is a little different. The general principles in this thread will stand the test of time, and hold you in good stead through many seasons, I would think. Last season was the season of the Midpricer, and underperforming Prem, no doubt. Was it just a changing of the guard? We can't be sure.
The general principles in this thread are more referring to thinking once the season has started, but there's no doubt, some of it is applicable to pre-season Round 1 team selecting too.
Just remember, there are many more potential break out candidates, than there are genuine Prems, fallen or otherwise, that's why the break outs are so tricky to isolate!