Good Trade, Bad Trade – Rd 6

Hi! My name is James and I’m a self confessed dream team addict and coach of ‘The Running Man’. Last week, I wrote the article ‘good trade, bad trade’ and enjoyed it so much I thought I would do it every week! Besides, Roy is too busy being in the top 200* to continue with ‘trade talk Tuesday’ so we need somewhere to solely discuss trades!

*Probably busier than me

Fyfe’s shoulder injury not that humerus, so who will shoulder the burden? (All puns fully intended)

As we found out on Tuesday, Freo gun/avatar look-a-like Nat Fyfe left training clutching his shoulder (we’ll assume he was hip and shouldered by John ‘actually it’s Jack’ Anthony as he doesn’t want to get dropped) and now we have found out he will miss 12 weeks and needs to be traded for those coaches who didn’t pull the trigger two weeks ago.

On the bright side, he didn’t do this 2 minutes into a game, costing us more money and valuable points, so Anthony has sort of done something right. Warnie covered which premiums to get in for Fyfe on Tuesday and covered some very solid premium options. Unfortunately if you have no cash in the bank and only want to use one trade, only Zaha and Luke Power would be on your radar. I think there are a couple of others closer to home who may benefit from Fyfe’s omission (other than Greg Broughton) to consider

**Clancee Pearce ($395,100, b/e 49)

The southern red neck could be this years’ Jack Redden. Last week Clancee only got his hands on the sherrin 20 times but amassed a massive 10 tackles for 94 points. Gotta love a player who tackles like a demon! With a 3 rd average of 106, DPP and only in 2.75% of teams he can make a good unique for your team.  After 4 seasons and 31 games, 2012 truly look likes his breakout season.

**Matthew Pavlich ($394,700 b/e 80)

Ah good ol Pav. Some think he may be over the DT hill, but from all reports in the preseason, he is fitter than ever and now may get more midfield time without Fyfe. In a massive 13.56% of teams (probably all freo supporters?) he could be a great buy if he gets back to his old ways of averaging 90’s, like he has for the past 7 years. (Also a big shout out to Arnold and his team ranked 98699 that gave me a laugh when researching Pavlich, ‘Pavlich my balls’)

**likely to also get injured by Jack Anthony at training

Allen Christensen ($363,300 b/e 21)

This bloke had a whole heap of hype in the preseason due to his 2^nd half of last season averaging 85 in the last 10 games. Read all about it in the deck of DT. Due to preseason injury, AC has gone under the radar but now looks truly over his injuries after pumping out 2 tons in his last 2 games (one was in 3 feet of water at the Gabba too) and has a 3 round average of 95. While he is still cheap as chips and the same bye round as Fyfe, he could one of the buys of the season.

Food for thought (but not donuts)

This DT season brings us new challenges never encountered before, especially, the bye rounds. If the carnage of DT continues and the donuts are flowing freely when all 18 teams are playing, it is going to be almost impossible to get through the bye rounds with only 2 donuts. For example, I got all excited on Monday that my first cow (Devon Smith) had almost fattened and was due for a cull to Pfeiffer, or an upgrade to AC but thought ‘hang on? Who is going to be my rd forward 11 keepers?’ which got me thinking. The only other ‘keeper’ I have in the forward line is Patrick Dangerfield and I’m not very keen on any other rd 11 fwd keepers (in order of highest average currently – Power, Tippett, Sherman, Harvey and Darling) none of these guys are likely to be traded into my team any time soon which leaves me left with Danger, Treloar and Devon Smith as the only rd 11 fwds currently in my team. Other rookies from rd 11 byes may pop up as a downgrade targets (Zorko, Weedon, Skinner) but relying on these sort of guys playing could be a high risk strategy to avoid donuts. So my food for thought this week is to think very carefully about cashing in all the GWS cows like Cameron, Hampton, Kennedy, Treloar and Smith before the byes, as it may leave you copping donuts in your forward line in rounds 12 and 13, thus why I’m not culling Smith this week.

Question time.

Good question Bez. Last year @impromptuSC won super coach and came 26^th in DT with an aggressive trading strategy, he only had 2 trades left by rd 14. The theory is that the sooner your team is set, the sooner you can start pumping out 2200’s on a regular basis. If this means sacrificing a cow a week or 2 early, then so be it. Just make sure that you think the premium is going to be in the top 10 of their respective line, otherwise, you may find you will have to trade him again later in the season.  Another consideration is make sure that the ol’ bye structure is still going to work if you plan to get a set line before the MBR’s. Personally I’m hoping my mid line will be Boyd, Thompson, Pendles, Selwood, Murphy and Ablett sooner rather than later. This will leave me with 2 mids from each round and hopefully manageable through the bye rounds.

If you have any questions about trades feel free to hit me up on twitter @jimbobholder

Well that’s it for this week. I am beginning to prepare for the worst on Thursdays (and also 5pm Fridays) with the carnage that is currently Dream Team. Any calculated trades that come with hours of research could be just thrown down the toilet in a matter of seconds!

Discuss all your trades here!