To Danger, or Not to Danger

[Trindacut]

I've seen this come up a few times among teams, and it's a question every coach asks themselves at the start of the year.

To Danger, or not to Danger.

2017 Analysis
Danger was without a doubt the most valuable player of 2017 for Supercoach coachs. He scored the most points (2864), a solid 239 points above second-comer Dustin Martin (2625). Incredibly, this is despite playing one less game due to suspension. He was the only player to average more than 120 per game (136.4), and had an insane 9 consecutive games over 140.

He started the year with 112,400 coaches putting him in the team on the back of his 2016 average of 131.8. This steadily rose throughout the year until the week of his suspension when 14,000 coaches trades him out. Evidently 6,000 of those coaches realized what a mistake they made and traded him back in.

In rounds 1, 2 and 3 Danger scored 138, 140 and 138, for an average of 138.66. This earned him a price drop of $900.

Interestingly, the following rounds 4,5 and 6 he scored 90, 120 and 65, earning a price drop of 23k, 25k and 52k.

In rounds 7 and 8 he scored modestly with 110 and 112. Due to the supercoach pricing algorithm being factored primarily by a 3 round average, this saw a further 55k drop off his price to be the lowest of the year at $560,300. This is $156,600 cheaper than his start price, and at an ideal time too, between Round 8 and 9.

2,700 coaches traded him in at this time, 10,000 got him for under $650,000 and overall 14,000 coaches got him for some kind of discount at all. This is important.

Past Best Players




A few things to draw your attention to here:

• Minimum pricing for top ranked players is typically at the end of the year.
• Maximum pricing often occurs either at the very start of the season, or towards the start of the year.
• The average price loss differential is $110,000.

Possible Positive of Not to Danger:

• You could save up $150,000 on the price of Danger by waiting 6-8 weeks to get him.
• Danger could get injured early in the year and his loss to other coaches becomes a POD.

Possible Cons of Not to Danger:

• Danger loses next to nothing in the opening 10 rounds, meaning he has scored exceptionally well (ave 140+) and he's not in your team
• You can't trade Danger in at the right time because of salary cap issues, rookie issues, player injury issues.

Conclusion:

Ultimately, the risks outweigh the possible benefits. I recall a year I started without Ablett, and he opened up with two 160+ games. I couldn't trade him in with anything less than two trades, which was a gun to rookie and gun to Ablett. Two sidetrades of uninjured players like that is a devastating waste.

The best way to measure your trade value is to expect that you'll use around 14-18 trades on downgrading. Each of these trades should be worth approximately $200,000 each to your side. You aren't always going to get that, but a further 10-12 trade should be used to upgrade. You should expect to make money on some of these trades too, which means not buying players at their most expensive.

That being said, you'll either need to have your rookies make you enough cash, which takes about 8 weeks for them to really mature, so you also need him to be cheap at the right time too.

All the while you have made an alternate selection. You can measure the success of this decision on the total points differential on who you picked against who you would have picked along with Danger. Even if he drops in price, he's still likely to be scoring 120+. It's hard to make that up on 2 or even 3 improved selections with that extra cash.

For me the risk associated with not having Danger are far too high. If he plays well, there's going to be 150,000 people getting his scores each week. If he doesn't play well, you'll be in the same boat with 150,000 other players.

Make that money on a smarter rookie option. Stick to rookie/guns, minimise mid-prices breakout contenders. Consistency is the key. Good luck.

Get Danger.

[quinny88]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

[crowls]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

still average 130 playing forward.   Been on wrong side of GAJ and Pendles in the past by not starting superprems from round 1.    Welcome DANGER my perma C/VC

[js19]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

still average 130 playing forward.   Been on wrong side of GAJ and Pendles in the past by not starting superprems from round 1.    Welcome DANGER my perma C/VC

This

You might get lucky not starting him, and having something occur, but more likely that you fall behind. Not the place to take a risk IMO

[enzedder]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

still average 130 playing forward.   Been on wrong side of GAJ and Pendles in the past by not starting superprems from round 1.    Welcome DANGER my perma C/VC

This

You might get lucky not starting him, and having something occur, but more likely that you fall behind. Not the place to take a risk IMO

Awesome write up Trindacut.
GET DANGER!!!

[shaker]

Good write up Trinda but I did not need any convincing to get Danger he was first picked , some interesting stats above being at there cheapest mostly towards the end of the season is one and really SC is won by scoring the most points so not starting the best scorer just does not make sense me , also trying to predict mid pricers that are going to breakout that always ends badly for me so I avoid but well done some good info  ;)

[SilverLion]

Basically stick the majority either way in this case, since such a large % of coaches will start him, regardless of whether or not it turns out to be good decision, there will be very few people who won't be in the same boat as you.

[Trindacut]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

Even if he did go forward he's still quite damaging, bit like Martin.

If anything I'm guessing Ablett will go forward, I think the coach is full of shower about not playing him forward.

[Trindacut]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

still average 130 playing forward.   Been on wrong side of GAJ and Pendles in the past by not starting superprems from round 1.    Welcome DANGER my perma C/VC

This

You might get lucky not starting him, and having something occur, but more likely that you fall behind. Not the place to take a risk IMO

That's pretty much my post in a nutshell haha

[quinny88]

It's actually not out of the realm of possibility that he plays 50% forward this year and drops to a 115-120 average. Geelong don't have a 2nd key forward and we know how damaging Danger can be there. In saying that I would not have the balls to start without him.

He's also a captain option every week that means you can double up on his 150s which really hurt if you don't have him

Even if he did go forward he's still quite damaging, bit like Martin.

If anything I'm guessing Ablett will go forward, I think the coach is full of shower about not playing him forward.

Well he plays plenty of footy forward at the moment anyway but just mean If they increased that to half of his game rather than the 30% it is at the moment. Either way, Geelong will win most weeks and he will kick goals so don't think it would hurt too much

[Holz]

I reckon he will drop to 120-125 so will lose 100k but ill still pick him 120+ is a must have.

Danger dmart locked in and titch too. Got to have the best of the best

[Torpedo10]

Danger is locked.

Can't say the same for DMart or Titch.

[Nige]

Good write up, great food for thought.

I'm still on the fence. I'm fully aware of the risk and understand the consequences of potentially going in without him but I still have like 2 months to decide.

At the end of the day, it's either madness or brilliance, and my entire SC career has tipped the way of the former (with glimpses of the latter ;D) and so at this stage, I think I'm on Team Not to Danger (with that said, he is actually in the last version I played with :P).

[Peter]

Another aspect to consider is what you do with the $100-$150k you theoretically have saved on Danger. You will try and make up the points lost by having another premium, say MCrouch, or another 1-2 mid-pricers (Bennell, Christensen, Ah Chee, JOM or the like) over rookies or just better rookies. If you knew you there was a gun rookie that you just had to have, fair enough, but you are gambling compared to the security of at least 110 up to 140 from Danger

[Ringo]

Something to consider is Danger has a B/e of 138 for first round a score he exceeded 14 times last year. just advising to add to discussion and to consider if you think he will drop in value. Fair enough we do not know the Gazz influence but his scores against opponents for first 5 rounds from last year are at the same venue:
Essendon 112
Hawthorn 90
Eagles 141
St Kilda 120 (At etihad no game at Skilled)
Port 163 (St Skilled did not play Adelaide Oval)
So based on these scores there is a distinct possibility he could drop a bit in price. 
So basically the decision is risk not starting and pick up extra points by using extra cash on a prem elsewhere v increasing scoring by starting on fire.
So for me the decision will be whether to start with Danger who will be in team at end of year and save a trade or risk not starting and picking up points elsewhere.
Reminds of the debate we had over Gazz in previous years,