Trying to top 1000 back to back to back

[Arky]

Heck, I'd like to challenge for top 100 this year.  So I'm prepared to take some risks.

My problem is I see very, very little value in the back and forward rookies, A lot of people are compensating for this with midprice players, but a lot of the teams I see will simply never have the trades to upgrade all those midpricers.  Ideally you should have no more than 7 guys on the field you want to upgrade, and even then you really want to get someone to be a breakout keeper (Rhys Palmer, Greg Broughton, Liam Anthony etc).

Without further ado, the latest shuffle of Team Kelly Clarkson:

B:  Goddard, Enright, Hodge, H Shaw, Duffield, Grimes, Hunt (Waters, Maguire)
M: Bartel, Cooney, Scully, Martin, Barlow, Banner (Shuey, JKT)
R: Sandilands, Clark (Warnock, J Roughead)
F: Riewoldt, ROK, Pav, Gia, Boomer Harvey, M Campbell, Rockliff (D Stewart, Podsiadly)

$31,600 in the bank

Need to upgrade: 1 back, 2 forwards, 4 mids (7).  The potential is definitely there for someone like Waters to be a keeper 7th back or for someone like Barlow to be a keeper 6th mid, although the breakout keeper is often someone who doesn't play round 1 anyway.

Depending on round 1 selections and how I feel at the time, you could do:  Out:  Stewart and a back keeper   In:  Silvagni and a forward keeper.  I prefer the version posted mostly because I don't trust ANY of the likely forward keepers who aren't in the team already.  Most of them have durability problems and/or are headcases, and Goodes and JB are both in new forward structures (plus they both usually have early season slow points which make them good upgrade targets).

[Meister21]

I like it! If this comes off you will be on fire!

I dont think Pav will score as well this year and hunt will probably not score as well as people think he will. You might be able to trade to Malceski who has been promising and going with Medhurst or another midfielder who should score better than the pav?

Just a few thoughts.

[Arky]

I'm pretty comfortable with Pav.  Don't care about his NAB cup scores.  He's priced at his average from last year and I'm comfortable with that as a keeper forward this year.  If his return to the forward line means a return to his scores from earlier years, bonus.

Medhurst is a consideration.  He was great for me 2 years ago and I like the news I'm hearing about him being fully fit and in form this year. The key would be finding the money to upgrade an existing forward without losing a keeper.  I would probably need to do something like:

OUT:  Goddard, Hunt, Stewart
IN:  Sam Fisher, Silvagni, Medhurst

The other upside there I guess is that if Goddard drops in price, he becomes the obvious upgrade target for the 7th back later in the year.  And the score downside dropping from Goddard to Sam Fisher (or Gilbee or whoever it is I can afford), which is likely to be about 20 a game, is offset by having Medhurst on the field instead of Rockliff.  Waters will probably score the same as Hunt, so no loss there.  The only trouble comes if Medhurst stinks it up, so that's what I've got weigh up :)

I like that idea.  Thanks!

[Flame]

One to many starting rookie mids in your line-up for my liking...some people are putting in 5 though!!! I'm not a fan of Medhurst..but it could pay off

[Arky]

Eh, I'm not sold on Medhurst after more consideration.

Slightly changed team plus new options below:

B:  Goddard, Enright, Hodge, H Shaw, Bock, Grimes, Hunt  (Waters, Maguire)
M: Bartel, Cooney, Scully, Martin, Barlow, Banner (Shuey, JKT)
R: Sandilands, Clark (Warnock, Skipper)
F: Riewoldt, ROK, Pav, Gia, Boomer Harvey, M Campbell, Rockliff (Roberts, Podsiadly)

About 48k in the bank.

The main move I'm thinking about is something like
Out:  Hunt, Scully, Roberts
In:  Silvagni, Lewis Jetta, Mayne

which would leave me with

B:  Goddard, Enright, Hodge, H Shaw, Bock, Grimes, Waters  (Maguire, Silvagni)
M: Bartel, Cooney, Jetta, Martin, Barlow, Banner (Shuey, JKT)
R: Sandilands, Clark (Warnock, Skipper)
F: Riewoldt, ROK, Pav, Gia, Boomer Harvey, M Campbell, Mayne (Rockliff, Podsiadly)

and about 20k still left in the tank.

[MattJN]

4 rookie mids is brave.

After all the upgrading and trades, plus the points you miss out
on not having the extra premium mid and mid-pricer, reckon its worth
the raping in the ranks your going to take?

[Arky]

I am banking on being able to make big mid upgrades and quickly.  Ideally I'd be able to make big upgrades starting after either round 6 or round 7, and doing probably 4 or 5 double trades in a row.

I don't think my starting team on the ground is going to score much less than someone with a mid-price strategy, though.  I have more premiums starting in other parts of the ground than most other strategies, that's the trade off.  I don't believe in most of the mid-pricers other people are buying in the backs and forwards, they won't improve enough.

Basically, I'd rather have Grimes, Banner and ROK than have Malceski, Stanton and Dangerfield for approximately the same money.   That's the thinking.  Goddard, Boomer and Barlow, or Kennelly, Ziebell and Boyd?  Make your call.  I've made mine.

[mcwarne]

Yeah I really dont like it. 4 starting rookies that require multiple trades to upgrade is fraught with danger. You will certainly get your injuries to key players (think last season) and sometimes they are 4-6 week jobs and you will use trades for them. Basically you will be out of trades too soon with this tactic. You need more keepers and go with 2 starting rookies in the mids as the maximum. Plus those rookies are not going to get the scores to get you the overall points you need to win games or progress in total rankings.

[antonc]

Great work arky.
I have the same team structure although a number of different players.
I decided to do this about 2 weeks ago for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

I realised you need 15 prems and it doesn't really matter were the cows are.
The only small problem is that you have to be sure that at least 2 or 3 of the on field rookies will play most of the season (can't see a real problem there with martin, scully and trengove probably playing 22, bar injury).
Also have to make sure that your midfield bench is named for round1 (change if possible if this is not the case)

Good luck :) :)

[Arky]

Yeah I really dont like it. 4 starting rookies that require multiple trades to upgrade is fraught with danger. You will certainly get your injuries to key players (think last season) and sometimes they are 4-6 week jobs and you will use trades for them. Basically you will be out of trades too soon with this tactic.

No- actually that's exactly the best feature of it.  It has more injury trades in reserve, because it has more guaranteed keepers in it.  I only have 7 players I will need to upgrade (Hunt, Campbell, Rockliff and the 4 mid rookies).  All the rest are premiums.  Not maybes like Gray or Hall or Hille.  Premiums.  Assume it takes 2 trades on average to upgrade someone, and that leaves with with 6 injury trades.  More if I have good luck with how much the rookies increase in price, or if someone like Barlow turns out to be the new Liam Anthony.

I see that you think it will take more than 2 trades on average to upgrade the rookies; I don't agree.  I will want to turn two rookies into a 400k minimum player (even considering I will be trying to get bargains, and there are always bargains in the mid where someone had one bad game two weeks ago which dragged his price down) and a 77 or 89k rookie.  Say I need 500k between the two rookies to be safe, 250k each.  That's priced at an average of about 56.  All DT strategies have a risk somewhere, but I don't see this as a huge risk- historically, the round 1 midfield rookies will score like that.  And all it really takes is someone like Martin or Barlow averaging 75 and you're laughing.

All these teams with Ziebell and Dangerfield and Hall and Malceski and such will have trouble finding enough trades to upgrade everyone even without injury concerns.  That's their biggest weakness.

You need more keepers

How many more than 15 can you fit in there?  Do you think guys like Malceski and Hille and Ziebell are keepers?  I don't.  I'm even iffy about Luke Ball as a midfield keeper, he's never looked like averaging 100 before.

[Arky]

Early mid rookies last year, only guys starting in round 1 (which ignores guys like Beams and Collins who were super and started fairly early, or of course guys like Anthony and Broughton who arrived mid-season)

Brendan Whitecross (average 70.9, loved having him in 2009)
Otten (68.6)
Rich (77.2)
Ziebell (65)
Mitch Robinson (average 58, which is enough anyway, but started better and would have made better money at a round 10 trade, he scored badly in his last 3 games late in the year)
Stephen Hill (average 58, but was a terrific sell in round 10 after the price boost from his round 8 100 had gone through, and there was this bloke called Broughton about to go up in price!)
Neville Jetta (53.3)
Jamie Bennell (49.8; I mention this because no-one was ever seriously taking Bennell or Jetta, and even they scored enough that combined with someone like Otten or Whitecross you would be absolute laughing for a good upgrade)


I'm probably forgetting a couple more.  There was no point in this strategy last year since there were more rookies who could be selected forward or back (including Ziebell and Hill in the mids list above).  But my point is that if rookie mids PLAY, the will average enough.  And there's more this year who will play than last year.

[dadsninja]

I think this is a fantastic theory mate, but can I ask a few questions:

Have you done the sums as to who you expect to upgrade to?

For instance, lets say at Round 8 that Trengove has gone to $250,000 and Jetta has gone to $200,000. That is roughly an increase of $220,000. Assuming you downgrade one of the two players to $94,000 rookies (assuming you can find one who is going to play at that price), you would have a total of roughly $340k-350k.

This is not enough to buy any premium player. Rather, you can get a player who has started at about $360-380k and has proved a dud, or you can get one of the "mid-price players" say, Hall, Ziebell who has over-performed and increased to that price, the very players you didnt want to get in the first place.

Certainly, this is not enough money to purchase an Ablett or Swan, which I notice your team is lacking.

As I said, I really like the idea, but I think this is an important point to consider... I'd be interested to know if you've planned this far ahead?

[mcwarne]

Well Arky you asked for different opinions but it seems that the only thing you want to hear is "I think this is a fantastic theory mate". You dont want alternative thoughts, just validation that what you are doing is brilliant. Good luck with it.