Valks Rookie Mid Strategy - 2010 Recap

[valkorum]

My experience from this year is that it is a viable strategy as I made a prelim and 2 GF's using this strategy this year.  I think a bit more thought is required about how to correctly execute this strategy.

My starting lineup was a bit more extreme than others in that I only went 1 gun in the mid and then the rest (including bench) were all rookies.  I saw a lot of others with 3 prems and 5 rookies (including bench)

Round 1 midfield lineup:  Bartel(C), Barlow, Bastinac, Martin, Jetta, Shuey, Trengove, Banner

Banner became GAJ ( Rrd 6 )
Jetta became Swan ( Rd 8 )
Trengove became NDS ( Rd 10)
Bastinac became Chappy ( Rd 12 )
Barlow became Simpson ( only because of injury - rd 15 )

Shuey was on bench all year and Martin was downgraded to make money, but another trade later he bacame a solid MPP bench cover (P Stewart).   Funnily enough P Stewart was the difference in my GF win.

My starting lineup for the year was

Backs:  Goddard, Duffield, Enright, Gilbee, Waters, H Shaw, Hodge  (Maguire, Nason)
Mids: Bartel, Barlow, Bastinac, Trengove, Jetta, Martin (Shuey, Banner)
Rucks: Clark, Sandi (Warnock, J Trengove)
Fwds: N Reiwoldt, Gia, ROK, Stevie J, Higgins, Dangerfield, Lockyer (Hitchcock, Gumbleton)

Trade History
Rd 3: Clark to Seaby (Bad Trade)
Rd 4: Roo to Brown (Bad Trade)
Rd 5: Hitchcock to JPod (Good Trade)
Rd 6: Dangerfield to P Davis (Good MPP Trade)
        Banner to Ablett (Good Trade)
Rd 7: Lockyer to Fyfe (Good Trade)
        Seaby to Cox (Good Trade - started as bad trade but late in season came good)
Rd 8: Nason to Webberley (Average Trade - allowed me to get Swan but Nason was better)
        Jetta to Swan (Good Trade)
Rd 9: Martin to Armstrong (Bad Trade)
        Shaw to Carrazzo (Average Trade - At least Carrots played every game)
Rd 10: Warnock to Skipper (Average Trade - was a trade to make money)
          Trengove to NDS (Average Trade)
Rd 12: Maguire to Henderson (Good Trade - MPP with P Davis came in VERY handy)
          Bastinac to Chappy (Good Trade)
Rd 15: Barlow to Simpson (Average Trade - should have gone the other option - Boyd)
Rd 16: Armstrong to P Stewart (Good Trade - he won my GF)
Rd 18: JPod to Roo (Great Trade)
Rd 20: Skipper to McCauley (Average Trade - was a trade to make money)
          Gumbleton to Didak (Average Trade - scored 90's for 2 finals and then out for GF)

Totals
Good Trades: 10
Average Trades: 7
Bad Trades: 3

Overall I think I did ok and ended up with an overall ranking of 5,070.  I was as high as 1,781 (Rd 2) and as low as 14,202 (Rd 3 - thanks to a score of 1,672 - my lowest ever!!)

High Round: 2,400 (Rd 12)
Low Round: 1,672 (Rd 3)
Scores Under 2,000: 6 (including a 1,936 to win my GF)
Scores Over 2,200: 4
Avg Score Per Round: 2,077.77

There are definitely some things I would do differently if I used this strategy again.  Ok, Feel free to pick apart my trading :P and post any comments

[Justin Bieber]

Everybody does bad trades ;).

The midfield strategy seemed to work well. But I might do another 3 rookie midfield strategy again next year. 5 starting is a risk as they are untried at AFL level. Next year will be all about GC. They will get their pick of the best of next years draft.

Saying that, I'll likely have 1 rookie down back and 1 rookie up forward starting. Going to have to stretch the budget to see if you can fit in some big names.

[valkorum]

As I said I didnt mind the strategy.  Hardest part was choosing which 2 rookies to bench each week - cos like you said they are untried at AFL.  I think you need to have a very strong midfield draft class to go to the extreme I did.  I dont think I could have gone with this strategy in 2009.

[chatters24]

Great post Valk's! It proved to be great reading! It is interesting to now look back at the strategy and see how it actually played out. The one thing that this strategy does offer you compared to teams that only have 1 or 2 starting rookies in the mids is the great increase in value of these players. They typically get more games and higher scores than rookies in the backs and forwards and are more consistent, so they go up in value (usually) a lot quicker, hence why you were able to grab GAJ, Swan, NDS and Chappy all prior to round 12.

The thing that I definetly agree with you is about not being able to do this strategy ever year, particularly in 09 where really the only stand outs in the mids from memory were Rich and Otten. The amount of quality young mids that came in at the start of this year was huge. And it also helped that teams such as Melb, Rich, Ess and West Coast to a certain degree were prepared to play them.

Would you conseider doing this again is the same sort of talent was available in the mids next year? Or would you go with one or 2 less rookies?

[valkorum]

I would consider doing this strategy again but it largely depends on that many rookies getting plenty of games.

[thatguy]

my starting mid was ablett j selwood pendles martin jetta and barlow.

turned jetta into m murphy (could have picked swan as cheaper, kicked myself with that despite murphy being consistent)
martin into joey and barlow to judd when he went down.

i started waters and hunt down back, and from memory had tippett and hall up forward with hitchy and gumby on the pine.

served me well, finished overall 203 and won 2 of my GF's. i was hesitant to start any more than 3 rookies, but if you picked the right ones four or more could have worked well.

[Master Q]

In my opinion, I don't think this will work in 2011, as there won't be the same amount of quality young midfielders. If you go around this by picking lots of GC players, when there bye comes, you'll be copping a lot of Zeroes.

[benjy251090]

but there will be a few cheaper rookies as they are lower in the draft and you could find that gem from a club such as a bastinac or a cheap martin, trengove or scully.

[Master Q]

But who says there will be one like them? Swallow and Toy are likely to be one of them though.

[valkorum]

but there will be a few cheaper rookies as they are lower in the draft and you could find that gem from a club such as a bastinac or a cheap martin, trengove or scully.

Like I did this year I think if you do go the 5 (playing) rookie mid strategy you cant pick more than 1 rookie per team.  Leaves you too vulnerable (IMO).  I had to choose between Scully and Trengove from Melbourne.  I went with Trengove because he was slightly cheaper.