I should record a couple of things that have changed with the Fanplanner recently. First, I have tweaked the magic number due to some discussions with respected fantasy coaches. Second, I’ve added a new line below completed teams listing your “structure”, which requires a bit of explanation.
On the magic number, the BigFooty poster 54dogs, who has more top 10 Dream Team finishes than the vast majority of you lot (including me!), pointed out to me that the Dream Team salary cap will only go up 3.5% per cent this year, not the 7% that I had previously got stuck in my head. I had the number right in the Fanplanner, but for some reason I mistakenly thought that it was a bigger inflation number than it was. Of course, this means that my previous prediction for inflation of the magic number of 10% was most likely way off. I have since adjusted the magic number used to calculate Dream Team prices in the Fanplanner down to 4603, which is a 6% increase on last year’s 4343 – as opposed to the 4777 I had been projecting.
I have also tweaked a few prices:
• Ben Cousins is now discounted only 40% on 2007 averages, not 42%, which is in line with the policy on Stuart Dew last year.
• Ben McEvoy is now at the regular draftee price of $88,600/$94,200.
• Hayden Skipworth is now at the minimum non-draftee price of $96,600/$101,900.
For those of you wondering whether I’m also wrong on Super Coach, I can assure you that the salary cap and magic number don’t change at all from year to year in that competition. They have been $10,000,000 and 5365 from the start.
On the structure feature, that’s something that came up on some private boards I’m subscribed to, and I’ve developed it into a minor innovation. Hopefully, it should give you some thoughts on how your team is balanced. The format of a typical listing is like so:
5/2/1/1 – 3/2/2/1 – 2/0/1/1 – 3/1/3/2 = 13/5/7/5
Each of the first four segments corresponds to a position – backs, centres, ruck and forwards – while the last are team totals. For each of the segments, the listing is formatted as premiums/mid-prices/cheapies/rookies. The definition of a rookie is a player who is at the basement draftee price or below, indicating that they have not played a game yet. For the purposes of this feature I am including the draft picks 6-10 as rookies – Phil Davis, Tyrone Vickery, Chris Yarran, Daniel Rich and Jack Ziebell – and classifying the top 5 as cheapies, due to their inflated prices. The cutoffs for premiums and mids as follows, based on my own judgments:
Dream Team
Back: premiums 350k+, mids 180k-350k
Centre: premiums 400k+, mids 200k-400k
Ruck: premiums 340k+, mids 200k-340k
Forward: premiums 380k+, mids 180k-380k
Super Coach
Back: premiums 450k+, mids 250k-450k
Centre: premiums 480k+, mids 200k-480k
Ruck: premiums 400k+, mids 200k-400k
Forward: premiums 455k+, mids 220k-455k
For those wondering what this is all in aid of, let us look at a couple of teams from last year. The 2008 Peckin Away squad of 2007 Dream Team winner Steve Morfesse is an example of the guns-and-rookies strategy, whose structure I have pegged as:
3/2/1/3 – 3/1/1/3 – 1/1/2/0 – 4/1/0/4 = 11/5/4/10
Contrast that with 2007 Super Coach winner Casha’s 2008 SC squad, which takes the opposite approach of relying heavily on mid-price improvers:
3/4/0/2 – 2/4/1/1 – 1/1/2/0 – 3/1/2/3 = 9/10/5/6
It is important to realise which way you are leaning on this axis, something which the structure system will tell you at a glance. Neither way is a guaranteed path to success, as both can succeed if the right players are fitted into the right slots. Let me know which way your team is heading in the comments.
Chad
January 20, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Salary cap left: $-4,500.
Dam you monty 😉
Chad
January 20, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Really like the structure line, just wondering if you could make it a bit clearer to read for me? (poor eyesight). Matbe make the “-” that separates the positions in bold.
m0nty
January 20, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I bolded the slashes (/), how’s that?
Scuzzlebut
January 20, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Nice work, Monty.
Ha ha – the best player in the comp is a mid-price.
Athomas
January 20, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Structure: 4/1/2/2 – 3/2/1/2 – 1/1/0/2 – 2/4/1/2 = 10/8/4/8
Not what I expected. 🙂
ETOH
January 20, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Wot? Ablett and Franklin aren’t midprice Scuzzlebut…..dont try telling me that the bald Traitor is the best player
Scuzzlebut
January 20, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I take it you don’t barrack for Carlton then. Yep – the bald traitor.
dylan
January 20, 2009 at 6:58 pm
mine is back 6/0/2/1
mid 0/5/1/2
ruck 1/1/0/2
forward 2/2/0/5
total 9/8/3/10
Brendan
January 20, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Chad … glasses.
I’ve got more than 1 team:
Structure: 3/3/1/2 – 3/1/1/3 – 1/1/0/2 – 3/3/1/2 = 10/8/3/9 (Lol I hadn’t looked at this team in ages and coz of the price changes theres $280g left in the salary cap, that makes it a bit easier)
Structure: 6/1/0/2 – 3/1/1/3 – 1/1/0/2 – 2/3/0/4 = 12/6/1/11 (This one’s over budget and loaded with rookies)
Brendan
January 20, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Hey m0nty wat’s the highest possible guru team score prediction thingo for rnd1? and the team?
Heater
January 20, 2009 at 8:43 pm
My SC structure is as follows:
Structure: 4/1/2/2 – 4/1/0/3 – 1/1/1/1 – 4/1/2/2 = 13/4/5/8
Am I correct in saying I have too many rookies?????
dylan
January 20, 2009 at 8:44 pm
oh yeah i forgot to mention the team i put down also had 305k in the bank
m0nty
January 20, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Brendan, of course I’m not going to post someone’s team. One person did make a joke team with all rookies on the bench that managed a Guru score of 2064. There’s another one at 2023 that looks reasonable, so I’d say that one.
GoodesStuf
January 20, 2009 at 9:36 pm
My SC structure turned out to be very neat.
12/6/6/6(100k bank)- just hope thats a good structure lol.
Chad
January 20, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Got glasses thanks Brennan. The bold is great thanks Monty.
NatTheRat1
January 20, 2009 at 10:03 pm
9/10/7/4 Hmmm… That’s not useless at all, Monty – cheers!
Brendan
January 20, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Cheers. Wat i meant was had u looked at the guru data and decided for yourself the best possible score. If that makes sense.
abs of steele
January 20, 2009 at 10:57 pm
SC-14/3/5/8
DT-12/6/4/8
DanA
January 20, 2009 at 10:57 pm
Why does it have to be guns and rookie or mid price improvers? Surely you can use a combination of both.
In fact it may be worth a looking at which stratergy works best in each postion. Guns and rookie might be great in the midfield but significantly less effective in the backline.
Lakey91
January 20, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Just had a go at making a team with highest score. Got 2058…so close! Oh well good effort, but a pretty rubbish team…
m0nty
January 20, 2009 at 11:32 pm
No I hadn’t done that, Brendan. Anything above 2000 probably means you’ve got an unbalanced team. 😉
Good point, DanA.
Lakey91
January 20, 2009 at 11:47 pm
my 2058 is 7/13/1/9
Only Two players starting under 200k too…
Kenzie
January 21, 2009 at 6:26 am
mine is
Backs 4/3/1/1
Mids 2/2/2/2
Rucks 2/0/0/2
Fwds 3/3/0/3
Total 11/8/3/8
good work Monty always tweaking the site and making it better 😉
Jimmy
January 21, 2009 at 10:01 am
Monty what do you think about malceski’s risk vs return?
ryz
January 21, 2009 at 11:24 am
yeah i tried i highest possible guru score, but the team i ended up picking i thought were crap anyway. much much better value and players out there, plus whos to say guru is almost spot on, let alone ball park
Brendan
January 21, 2009 at 11:37 am
I managed to get a team with 2071 predicted btw. Its shit tho.
ryz
January 21, 2009 at 11:41 am
my first team
Structure: 2/3/3/1 – 1/5/0/2 – 1/1/0/2 – 3/2/2/2 = 7/11/5/7 guru score of 1572 🙁 but now have 550K in bank 🙂
second team
Structure: 1/5/2/1 – 1/3/1/3 – 1/1/0/2 – 3/2/2/2 = 6/11/5/8 guru score of 1589 🙁 but now have 643k in bank 🙂
ryz
January 21, 2009 at 11:43 am
also, anyones thoughts on the melbourne rucks, pj and jesus jamar?
GoodesStuff
January 21, 2009 at 11:56 am
Nick Suban = Albert Proud of 2009
deano
January 21, 2009 at 1:40 pm
u mita made a mistake with peckins team monty… 12/5/4/10 = 31 players… or maybe peckins just a cheat 😛
Virgil
January 21, 2009 at 1:57 pm
There’s only 11 premiums in it deano.
m0nty
January 21, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Correctimundo, deano.
m0nty
January 21, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Okay, after sleeping on it, I have added a little feature down the bottom of the Fanplanner list page for you to opt out of being used for trend data in FanFooty blog posts. I promise I’ll respect people’s wishes on this.
Nick
January 21, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Has your thinking on your locks of Cox, C. Cornes and Hodge evolved since the new year?
m0nty
January 21, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I’ll do a blog post on that subject soon, Nick.
joff
January 21, 2009 at 7:05 pm
i was mucking around decided to get as many premiums as possible
7/0/0/2 – 2/0/4/2 – 2/0/0/2 – 7/0/0/2 = 18/0/4/8
makes it look good, even though its a shocking team.
projected total 1621 with 18 premiums 🙁
theuncle
January 22, 2009 at 6:55 am
“For those of you wondering whether I’m also wrong on Super Coach, I can assure you that the salary cap and magic number don’t change at all from year to year in that competition. They have been $10,000,000 and 5365 from the start.”
Are you sure about this Monty?
Going into the 2008 season, Gary Ablett opens up at $612,600 with an average from the previous year of 114.18. After doing the maths, the magic number appears to be 5,365.
Using Ablett again but going into the start of the 2007 season, Ablett opens up at $470,800 with an average fro the previous year of 91.38. After doing the maths, the magic number appears to be 5,152.
I do not have starting prices from other years, but in this case it looks like the magic number increased by around 4% from one year to the next.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Hippo
January 22, 2009 at 9:26 am
After getting my team to how i like it i’m quite happy with the structure and the projected total it has given me!
DT is:
3/2/2/2 – 2/3/2/1 – 1/1/0/2 – 3/3/1/2 = 9/9/5/7
projected total 1645
SC is:
4/2/2/1 – 4/1/2/1 – 1/1/0/2 – 3/2/2/2 = 12/6/6/6
Projected total 2007
great idea this Monty!!! really makes you look at your team from a different angle…so to speak!!!
Virgil
January 22, 2009 at 1:51 pm
m0nty, I notice the prices have changed again. Have you received official confirmation?
SpikeSetsFire
January 22, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Yeah. I was just about to ask the same thing. Now I have another extra $100,000 in the kitty. o_O
Lakey91
January 22, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Great work monty! Fantastic speed at keeping up with the news. Cheerss mate.
the dud
January 22, 2009 at 3:34 pm
who is a good example of a cheapie?
Virgil
January 22, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Mark Coughlan, Angus Graham, Ben Ross, Scott Gumbleton, Ricky Petterd, etc. should all be classified as ‘cheapies’ under this system dud. That is if I have read the post correctly.
the dud
January 22, 2009 at 4:04 pm
ahh ok . thanks
Gun Bomber
January 22, 2009 at 6:57 pm
For DT mine is: 10/9/6/5
With -$109,3000…….
Damn it!
joff
January 22, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Yeh whats with the new prices, Hayden Skipworth – 196 after 2 years out of the game
cousins 360 after a year out
and Gumbleton rookie price?
yet some how i got an extra 100g?
Ash
January 22, 2009 at 11:39 pm
6/0/1/2 – 1/3/2/2 – 2/0/1/1 – 5/0/0/4 = 14/3/4/9 with a score of 2056 and $63,000 in the bank
XztatiK
January 23, 2009 at 12:13 am
“Nick Suban = Albert Proud of 2009”
Do you mean that in a good or bad way? I like Suban.
abs of steele
January 23, 2009 at 12:40 pm
My structure is now 11/8/2/9 in DT and 12/6/39 in SC.