2019 Hindsight Heroes

Back in round 17, I presented a team that was almost 4000 points in front of the competition using the power of hindsight. Well, after the final 7 rounds of the season, that number is now up to 5500. You would’ve won the competition at the completion of round 21. Not only that, but it also won the highest round score a whopping 14 out of 23 times!

The team used a grand total of 58 players through the season, finished with an overall team value of $20.6mil and has $1 million still remaining the in bank. The teams average score per round is half a point short of 2500, including going over 2700 4 times and amassing a huge score of 2839 in the Grand Final!

Only 6 players made it through the year without being traded; Duursma, Danger, Boak, Grundy, Gawn, O’Brien. Plenty others were traded out and back in, so to not be traded is a pretty good achievement.

Before I get on with the team, here are some takeaways:

1. Hold your rookies as long as possible. This team still has 5 rookies it start with, allowing for maximum cash generation from them. All rookies were held until they reached peak price, then traded, but of course this is only possible with hindsight.
2. Sideways trading is the way to go. Almost as soon as a player went into a form slump, they were traded out of this team, most often to a player currently in a great patch of form.
3. Don’t worry about the byes so much. I didn’t even consider the bye structure for this team until a week before, it turned out to be pretty balanced in the end anyway. With 3 trades a week, it was easy to field 18+ each week.
4. Don’t be afraid to field rookies over premiums. It happened rarely, but quite often I’d find a rookie scoring a lot more than a premium, in which case it was proper to bench the premium. If you can predict a bad matchup for a premium and a good one for a rookie, don’t be afraid to bench said premium.

STARTING LINEUP:

Here’s a quick reminder of who was lucky enough to start in the side:

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Or, See rounds 1-16s team breakdown here

 

ROUND 17:

Score: 2761 (rank 1)
Highest actual weekly: 2659
Captain: Dunkley 189
Total score: 41326 (rank 1)
Points in front: 3957
Team value: $19.95mil ($855k rem salary)
Trades: Coniglio > Hunter, Ziebell > Greene.

ROUND 18:

Score: 2752 (rank 1)
Highest actual weekly: 2700
Captain: Grundy 181
Total score: 44078 (rank 1)
Points in front: 4134
Team value: $20.72mil ($457k rem salary)
Trades: Lycett > E.Curnow, Chol > Whitfield.

ROUND 19:

Score: 2488 (rank 2)
Highest actual weekly: 2518
Captain: Dusty Martin 133
Total score: 46566 (rank 1)
Points in front: 4312
Team value: $20.93mil ($390k rem salary)
Trades: Marshall > Worpel, Stack > Bontempelli.

ROUND 20:

Score: 2764 (rank 1)
Highest actual weekly: 2695
Captain: Macrae 151
Total score: 49330 (rank 1)
Points in front: 4567
Team value: $21.10mil ($272k rem salary)
Trades: J.Clark > Houli, Parker > M.Crouch.

ROUND 21:

Score: 2695 (rank 1)
Highest actual weekly: 2579
Captain: Lyons 158
Total score: 52025 (rank 1)
Points in front: 4977
Team value: $20.96mil ($427k rem salary)
Trades: Billings > Ablett, Walsh > Pendlebury.

ROUND 22:

Score: 2624 (rank 1)
Highest actual weekly: 2572
Captain: Dunkley 150
Total score: 54649 (rank 1)
Points in front: 5132
Team value: $20.94mil ($627k rem salary)
Trades: B.Crouch > Neale, Lloyd > B.Smith.

ROUND 23:

Score: 2839 (rank 1)
Highest actual weekly: 2762
Captain: Neale 162
Total score: 57488 (rank 1)
Points in front: 5551
Team value: $20.64mil ($1,056k rem salary)
Trades: Greene > Cameron, Worpel > Suckling.

FINAL TEAM:

Ah, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

– Baked Beams ✌️