NixTrader for R8 – The Bye Edition

This week I am all over the Bye Rounds.  Only 8 trades left until our first Bye team limbos under the cheer squad banner.  We need to make sure of our plans over next few weeks.

Bye rules this year:

• Only best 18 scores on field count, so in theory we all get 4 free donuts
• But it is “best” 18 so there is some advantage in having more than 18 on field
• There is a Captain – so you need suitable candidates in each round (issue for round 13?)
• Your best 18 players have to be on field.  So if you have too many players on any line these will only count as E if you have a late out.

League and Eliminator games continue as usual during the bye rounds (same as last year).

This year we have a max of 2 trades for each of the bye rounds, whereas last year we could use 3.  After last year’s experiences, we should expect one of our trades to be taken by an injury, suspension or holiday to one of the players we expect to be available each round.  So we could only have one trade available each bye round for further improving our team structure within the bye period.  That is why these last 8 trades are important.

Also the Bye Rounds are the best opportunity to gain a bit of ground on many of your rivals.  Hopefully they aren’t as well prepared as you.  They may not have a good captain for round 3 with both Swan and Ablett having byes at the same time.  Think of the Byes as a mountain stage in Le Tour – your best chance to put a gap between you and your rivals.

Our teams are going to get a little better before the Byes.  I am going to try to average about 1,700 each round during the bye period.  What about you?

We’re going on a Bye Hunt … We’re not scared  (well not as scared [or scarred?] as last year anyway)

The spreadsheet will show your team, and the projected scores per player in each of the bye rounds.  You should be able to work out which bye groups you need to change to improve your team and scores.  But we don’t want to just pick any players with the ‘right’ byes.  We still want our teams to perform well leading up to the bye rounds.  The following table shows which teams have better runs (in each bye group).

The percentages are the percentage increase (or decrease) compared to playing the average (or mean) team every round.

NixTrader spreadsheet

Changes this week:

• When you download the spreadsheet it contains my team.  Actually that’s a lie, I wish it was my team.  It really contains the team of the current overall leader.  So before you paste your team into the spreadsheet have a look at the leading team and its structure.  You might get some ideas.

• Players & Trades tab: this tab includes My Team,  I’m Stalking and Trade Options all of which have the same layout.
  • The order of I’m Stalking and Trade Options is swapped this week compared to last week.
  • The Trade Options ranking part has a box below it that looks at Pairs of Trades.  You can combine your 7 potential trades into 3 pairs to decide which is the best pair  (suggested by @Mezzoculo on twitter).  You can also check if you have enough money for each of the pairs.

• Structure & Byes tab: this tab includes the Team Structure, The Bye Rounds, My Team in the Bye Rounds and a chart showing Magic Number over time.
  • My Team in the Bye Rounds – this picks up the players from MyTeam in the first tab.  So if you want to make any player changes you have to do it on the first tab, and this will change all 3 bye teams.   The only change you can make on the second tab is to select your Captains.

 

Here is link to download spreadsheet (Excel2007) – NixTrader2013 R8 pub

• If you used the spreadsheet from previous rounds, you can just select your blocks of players’ names from there and copy and paste them into this round’s spreadsheet.

• Younger folk: if you don’t have Excel2007 software on your device you can still download the file, put it on a usb stick and ask around to find someone with Excel2007 software and ask to borrow their computer for an hour or so.

Any comments, questions or suggestions please post below or tweet to @NixTrader.

Post below how your bye preparations are going and your average score forecast, this might be useful for other coaches.

[I will be offline for large part of day Wednesday, but I will get back to you eventually].

————————– notes below are mostly the same each week ——————————————-

Brief instructions:

• You only have to enter information into the green cells, the other cells are protected to prevent any errors.

• Confirm or change Magic Number estimate for the end of next two rounds.  I have put in values for MN, but if you think you know enough about MN to prefer other numbers you can change them.

• Enter your players using the drop down menu.  In the menu only the players who fit that position are named in full, other players are reduced to 3 letters.  If you used the spreadsheet from previous rounds you should be able to select and copy groups of players from there into this spreadsheet.

• For each player in your team data is pulled up automatically.

• A projection for that player headed “Points Proj.”.  This is used as default in the calculations.  If a player has played more than 3 games this is their current average; if less than 3 games the projection is calculated from their starting price.

• There are 2 green cells to enter the actual scores (or your estimates) for your players for the next 2 rounds.  Based on these scores the last other columns calculate the averages, BEs, price change and new prices after the rounds.

• If you leave any cell blank, the calculation assumes the player gets their 2013 base score for that round – i.e. the score in column headed “Points Proj.” is used as default in the calculations.

• The player has to play 3 games for their price to change, so if the players miss games their price change won’t happen until after they play 3 games.

• If one of your players misses a round, put an “n” in the green cell for that round.  The calculations for the next round will then update to take account of this.

• There is a section to show the next 5 teams that player will face.  At the right of these 5 teams there are 4 percentages.  These show the variation in points and 100 scores that are predicted to come from playing that string of teams, over the next 3 and 5 weeks.  Percentages are based on the number of points and 100s each team has conceded so far this season.  Positive percentage says this run of teams is expected to concede more points and hundreds than average; negative percentage says these teams are likely to concede less points and hundreds than average.

 

FAQ:

• Why are these calculations different to other published BEs and valuations?
  • Everyone’s calculations depend on their assumptions about Magic Number, projections of future scores and how they round averages and values.  This spreadsheet should replicate any other published calculations if you make the same projections, including changing the magic number.  However, this spreadsheet is unique in that it allows you to change the estimates to do your own analysis.

• Tech talk:
  • You need a device and software that supports microsoft excel 2007 spreadsheets to be able to open and use the spreadsheet.  It won’t open on mobiles or tablets unless you have software or apps that support excel files.
  • Even if you have other software that claims to support Excel files, the file still might not work properly, as every excel formula might not be supported.  This current file uses array formulas, I expect many non-excel spreadsheets won’t support array formulas, despite supporting other excel like functions.