Risky team with Breakout players?

SilentBob · February 15, 2013, 02:18:35 AM

Looking at some different options for DT this year & it looks like there's fewer than normal decent rookie backs & forwards, but lots to go around in the midfield, so it got me thinking ...
I've managed to put together a side that I think is decent, which has solid backs & forwards, with upgrade potential in the mids.
I'll add comments to the 'unorthodox' selections at the end of the post.

Backs: B Goddard, B Gibbs, P Hanley, H Hartlett, G Broughton, B Houli, N Vlastuin, S Docherty
Mids: D Swan, N Fyfe, H Bennell, B Cunnington, J Toumpas, K Macrae, O Wines, J O'Meara, B Crouch, J Viney
Rucks: T Goldstein, M Leuenberger, M Daw, B Grundy
Forwards: L Franklin, T Rockliff, L Breust, A Monfries, A Siposs, J Kennedy, K Jaksch, B Macaffer
$1,100 left in the bank

Unorthodox picks:
Hartlett - willing to take a risk with him with extra trades & like the fact that he is DPP
Houli - Definitely in Tigers best 22 & solid, if not outstanding scorer.
Fyfe - Think he's due for a big year. Perhaps not the greatest M2, but happy to have him in the mids for the year.
Bennell - Potential breakout year if reports & Indigenous All-Stars game is anything to go by
B Cunnington - Very impressive in North interclub game & may be a breakout year for him.
Breust - Another who has been on the improve & hoping 2013 might be his year to breakout.
Monfries - Home in Adelaide, so hoping for a big year similar to Ebert's last year.
Siposs - Impressive in StKilda interclub game & may be a breakout year for him.
Kennedy - Ridiculously underpriced & worth a risk.

Thoughts on the team?

Money · February 15, 2013, 02:25:26 AM

Mids are were you generate the most points and you have no rooks in your backs or forwards, needs some work

Suggestions
Broughton and Houli to Rookies and Vlastuin to Pittard
Monfries to Rookie
Upgrade Mids with remaining $$$!!!!!!!!

thefuzz · February 15, 2013, 02:53:12 AM

...to me it seems like there are plenty of rookie back options? Obviously we will know more about their chances after the NAB cup
e.g. Pittard, Stevenson, Docherty, Vlastuin, Goodes, Van Unen, Terlich, Coloquan(?)
But yeah, it is stupid to have this many risky players, they won't all break out so pick your favourite 3 (max) then go from there.
I'd consider Houli to Pittard for starters.
Cunnington did look very, very good in that intra-club match and Bennell is a super star but no way I would pick both of them.
Turn Buddy into Stevie J for starters.
Agree Breust, Monfries and Siposs have break out potential but I can't see any of them actually doing it. Siposs seems most likely of the 3 for me.

SilentBob · February 15, 2013, 03:43:27 AM

Although I realise its not the standard thing to do & can see some of the points raised, there are still a few that I don't quite get the logic of ...

Pittard could come into the equation in the backs, yes (possibly even for Jaksch). Other rookies of possible interest are Van Unen & Terlich.
Goodes is still on the rookie list, so not playing unless elevated.
Van Unen is at Essendon & I'm reluctant to take Essendon players (other than Goddard, who I think is too good to ignore) with the off-season (and early-season) drama.
Like I said, I'm not convinced that there's many good rookie backs, particularly with Staker injured & unlikely to start the season (though he could be a downgrade option).

As it stands, I havean almost 'complete' backline.

Hopefully not much to be done in the rucks, although a mid-season upgrade from Leuenberger to Cox would be nice.

Forwards - why no love for Buddy? He's more consistent than Stevie J for starters.
Another reason for trying the 'breakout' option is that it should be much easier to upgrade from mid-pricers who gain value almost directly to premiums, rather than having to do the usual upgrade/downgrade to get a premium into the team. The idea being that I only need about $100-150k from Monfries & Siposs to upgrade them to the likes of Thomas, Pavlich, etc, rather than needing $350k+ to get from a rookie to a premium.
Again, I can't see a heap of forward rookies that stand out this year (of course I'm happy to be proven wrong during the NAB Cup, but time will tell).

As for the mids, some of what I lose in midfield scoring is made up in other parts of the ground, but the main idea behind such a strategy is to be able to get to a team of 22 premiums quickly & with the mid rookies likely to be the highest scoring (and therefore the ones who generate the most cash), hopefully this can be done fairly quickly.

Also with the 2 trades per week, I'm willing to try something risky with the likes of Bennell, Cunnington, etc, again with a view to turning them into Ablett's & Pendlebury's relatively early in the season, or possibly even keeping them, but shifting them from M3 & M4 to M5 & M6 as other players are upgraded.

thefuzz · February 15, 2013, 04:14:01 AM

O personally I wouldn't get Van Unen either- there are too many essendon players who can play his position- but there are others who think he is a good prospect.
I'm also reluctant to choose Essendon players but Goddard and Heppell are the only 2 I am seriously considering. There are better options then Watson, Stanton, Bellchambers, Ryder etc in my opinion.
It's late at night and I can't be bothered doing calculating the standard deviations but are you sure Buddy is more consistent then Stevie. I should point out if you take out the outlying scores of Buddy and Stevie J ( Buddy's 200+ score and Stevie J's 1) then Stevie averaged more and played more games then Buddy. Although yes it is a bit unfair to remove Buddy's 200+ score from his average but you can hardly expect him to bust that out every year.
I have nothing against going for break out players, I just think you have gone for too many and are better off going for a better mix of proven guns and mid pricers.
I agree with you about the lack of FWD rookies and excess of MID rookies who should score very highly (my team actually has no FWD rookies on the field and 4 MID rookies on the field because of this (my thread is called 'Team and Strategy' if you wanted to check it out))
Another strategy to get premiums in quickly is to pick players with an easy early draw (players like Jack, ROK, McVeigh, St. Nick, Hanley etc should all smash out the first 3-4 rounds). Picking St. Nick for example at 440k, he should avg 100+ over the first 4 or 5 rounds I would think which means he will increase say 50k after 2 price rises. This should be enough to straight swap him to Buddy come round 5 or so who should decrease a little bit in price initially. This is what I am considering.

SilentBob · February 18, 2013, 11:56:27 AM

Of those that played in week one of the NAB cup, I haven't exactly changed my mind about the team yet, but have some other options to consider.

From the initial team:
Backs: B Goddard, B Gibbs, P Hanley, H Hartlett, G Broughton, B Houli, N Vlastuin, S Docherty
Mids: D Swan, N Fyfe, H Bennell, B Cunnington, J Toumpas, K Macrae, O Wines, J O'Meara, B Crouch, J Viney
Rucks: T Goldstein, M Leuenberger, M Daw, B Grundy
Forwards: L Franklin, T Rockliff, L Breust, A Monfries, A Siposs, J Kennedy, K Jaksch, B Macaffer
$1,100 left in the bank

Keepers: Goddard, Hartlett, Wines, Crouch, Macaffer
Ones to keep an eye on: Monfries (keeper if fit), Sipposs, Macrae

Its also thrown up a few other possibilities for me:
Mitchell, Pittard, Hibberd, Wright, Steven, Goodes, Lower, Varcoe, C Pearce, Duffield being the obvious ones for me.

Haven't really thought about re-arranging things at this stage, but will see how these players go in the rest of the NAB Cup, but they are definitely on my 'watch list'.

SilentBob · March 04, 2013, 10:38:10 PM

Have made some changes after the first few rounds of NAB Cup

Have gone for a more standard approach, with fewer mid-pricers, though still have a few in there ...

I'm liking this version more & have $75,400 left, though am still a little worried about having to play a rookie defender & forward on the ground ... thoughts?

Def: Goddard, Gibbs, Hartlett, Hibberd, Suban, Vlastuin (Goodes, Stevenson)
Mids: Ablett (C), Pendlebury, Fyfe, Bennell, Lower, Toumpas, Wines, K Mitchell (O'Meara, Crouch)
Ruck: Cox, Leuenberger (Rowe, Currie)
Fwd: Franklin, Rockliff, Wright, Bartel, Varcoe, O'Hailpin (Macaffer, Daniher)

Andrew · March 04, 2013, 11:56:01 PM

LOL you lost the love quick on Sipposs and Kennedy, didn't you? I wouldn't be worried about Sipposs only scoring 45. Played well and they were up against Sydney. If you see his scoring from last year (although hopefully he'll be playing a different role this year), he didn't score well against the good clubs but went 80+ against most of the bottom 8 teams he played.

Kennedy on the other hand, fair enough. He'll definitely go 70+ over the season which does make him "ridiculously priced" as you initially said, but against Freo and Hawthorn first up, no thanks. Surely both teams won't let him get enough of the ball to score 70+ which means there are better options out there.

Jukes · March 04, 2013, 11:58:41 PM

If you're going for a risky team, take out Goddard, Gibbs, Swan, Rockliff and Franklin :P

My smokey side,
B: Shaw, Dempsey, Hibberd, Atley, Ellis, Tambling (Stevenson, Goodes)
M: McLean, Ebert, Greene, Gaff, Cunnington, Swallow, Monfries, C. Beams (Crouch, O'Meara)
R: Bellchambers, Jenkins (Rowe, Witts)
F: Cloke, Watts, LeCras, Smith, Siposs, Krakouer (Patton, Macaffer)

SilentBob · March 05, 2013, 05:13:02 AM

Quote from: Andrew on March 04, 2013, 11:56:01 PM
LOL you lost the love quick on Sipposs and Kennedy, didn't you? I wouldn't be worried about Sipposs only scoring 45. Played well and they were up against Sydney. If you see his scoring from last year (although hopefully he'll be playing a different role this year), he didn't score well against the good clubs but went 80+ against most of the bottom 8 teams he played.

Kennedy on the other hand, fair enough. He'll definitely go 70+ over the season which does make him "ridiculously priced" as you initially said, but against Freo and Hawthorn first up, no thanks. Surely both teams won't let him get enough of the ball to score 70+ which means there are better options out there.

It wasn't so much that I lost the love for Siposs (and in fact would love to be able to squeeze him into my team), I just didn't think he was a high enough priority to fit into my team. If I could fit him in as my F5 (with Varcoe as F6) I would happily swap him for O'Hailpin.

My big issue was finding defenders I was happy with - was happy with Goddard, Gibbs, Hartlett & Goodes, but if possible I'd prefer to avoid playing a rookie as my D6.

Looks like a great majority of this year's quality rookies are in the mids, so I looked to fit in as many mid rookies as I could (and had to leave out Viney as a result - worried he might end up with the tagger role like Magner did in 2012), but of course it does rely on these players all being selected in round 1.

SilentBob · March 05, 2013, 05:19:58 AM

Quote from: Jukes on March 04, 2013, 11:58:41 PM
If you're going for a risky team, take out Goddard, Gibbs, Swan, Rockliff and Franklin :P

My smokey side,
B: Shaw, Dempsey, Hibberd, Atley, Ellis, Tambling (Stevenson, Goodes)
M: McLean, Ebert, Greene, Gaff, Cunnington, Swallow, Monfries, C. Beams (Crouch, O'Meara)
R: Bellchambers, Jenkins (Rowe, Witts)
F: Cloke, Watts, LeCras, Smith, Siposs, Krakouer (Patton, Macaffer)

I definitely like a few of your choices (Hibberd, McLean, Greene, Monfries & Bellchambers for example), but think you might have taken the mid price/risky strategy too far. Also, who would be your captain in such a team?
Also, are you looking to upgrade these players, or hoping they will turn into premiums? I can imagine a few players in the latter category, but what happens if some of these players don't realise this potential & don't increase enough to upgrade to a premium?

Jukes · March 05, 2013, 10:58:11 AM

Whoever has the best match-up and potential score. Usually Ebert or McLean.

hugebbq · March 05, 2013, 03:22:09 PM

I'm looking at something different too but am still working on it.

I like your ideas and have similar thoughts regarding my team. Last 2 years we had plenty of rookies to choose from compared to this year. last year i stacked my fwd line and back line and had plenty of rooks like zorko, horse, greene etc in the mids. I came top 500 (including 1 round with no access to my team) by using this principle. My mid rooks as stated outperformed fwd and back rooks in score and $ increase allowing my team score to roll over just nicely and upgrade sooner. Other teams spreading the rooks over all line do not score as well and therefor increase in price as much or fast. compare zorko, horse, greene etc against morris, ellis etc from last year.

I agree with silent bob. yes the ultra prem will/should score big. But so can breakouts like s.selwood, bennell, masten etc. History tells me that a mid rook has a higher scoring potential and faster rate of $ increase to that of a back or fwd rook. (eg horse/ greene vs morris ellis.

back.

I believe too many ppl are choosing the same strategy and team dynamics are the same.

hugebbq · March 05, 2013, 03:26:44 PM

Mind you, if you still want to utilize some back rooks and count out the fwd rooks you could try something like this.

DEF: B. Goddard, B. Gibbs, M. Suckling, H. Hartlett, B. Goodes, L. Stevenson (S. Colquhoun, D. Terlich)
MID: M. Boyd, S. Selwood, T. Greene, H. Bennell, C. Masten, O. Wines, K. Mitchell, B. Crouch (J. O'Meara, J. Viney)
RUC: T. Goldstein, M. Leuenberger (M. Daw, S. Rowe)
FWD: D. Zorko, T. Rockliff, M. Robinson, N. Riewoldt, D. Martin, G. Broughton (S. Kerridge, B. Kennedy)
CASH LEFT: $14,400

SilentBob · March 06, 2013, 02:55:26 AM

Quote from: Jukes on March 05, 2013, 10:58:11 AM
Whoever has the best match-up and potential score. Usually Ebert or McLean.

Only problem with this idea is that the ceiling of Ebert & McLean is not particularly high (probably 120-130 at best), whereas a Swan or Ablett can put in a 150+ effort ... and when its doubled, the difference is even more pronounced!
I think this year will need risks to finish in the top few places, but there are aspects of the 'tried & tested' strategy that can't be ignored.