The Thursday Scramble: Round 8

Was Warnie Right? Are there no Rookies this year? And what a blow this week was for those of us that went set and forget with Big Max, now everyone can afford him in a couple of weeks. These are just the things that happen in a Fantasy season! Nothing about it is ever fair! The only thing that is constant is that this is a bloody hard game to get right!  Anyway, let’s Scramble!!

Where do you stand on Big Max Gawn??

This year I started with Gawn and Grundy. After last year wasting a heap of trades trying to get myself a decent ruck line I couldn’t put myself through it again. And for the first 6 weeks of the season this really paid off particularly when Coach Mumford started pushing Flynn out of the side. But, everyone that didn’t have him yet breathed a huge sigh of relief this week when Max had a poor score. Not only did that mean that they could catch up a bit of ground on those that had him (and even more for those that captained him) but it means that we all now know that in a week or two he is going to be cheap enough to bring in for a lot of people.

But the question is…. do you completely change your upgrade plans to be able to bring him in? This is one of those rare situations where I think you do. You would have been planning to bring in other premiums but you now need to make the assessment, is Gawn going to be better than the other guy that I was going to get? Will he average more than the other guy for the rest of the season. I would bet that most of the people that don’t have Gawn would have had some ruck trades in their future plans, whether that be to get Max in or to try and get from who they have now to the next level up whether that be to Gawn, O’Brien or Grundy. If this is you then I would be changing my plans and using this opportunity while Max is cheap to get him in now because the number of top tier ruckmen in the game is a lot lower than the top tier players in each of the other positions and you need to take these opportunities when they present themselves.

#AskDunny

I haven’t gone to you guys and girls yet this season so I thought it was about time to see what issues you are having and whether I can offer any insight as to what you might be able to do.

Is it more important to focus at the moment on getting red dots off the bench to make money for bye round upgrades or chase underpriced premiums and attempt to increase team value that way?

— brenton jask (@faker1411) May 5, 2021

This is one of those situations where it really depends on who the underpriced premium is. As I said above, if it is someone like Max then yes you should be looking to do that. The reason being is that he is someone that you would have had in your long term upgrade plans and hence getting him when he will be at potentially his cheapest point of the season is the way to go. But, just grabbing a player that wasn’t really in your plans just because they are cheap at the moment may not be the way to go. Here I am going to use the example of Stephen May from the Demons. There is a lot of talk in Supercoach about bringing him this week as he is super cheap and has a BE of 3. But the way I see it is that if he wasn’t on your radar do you use that trade and a bit of your cash?  Probably not if you ask me. So…. in a long way I am suggesting that you pick up the under priced premiums that were in your upgrade plans long term but other than that I am trying to get the most value out of my rookies by trading them whilst they still have some value.

A lot of highly-owned or targeted forwards have the R12 bye (premos Ziebell, Kelly / mid-prices Phillips, Hall, Stephenson, Fantasia / rookies Powell, Bergman, Kosi, Farrar, Lazzaro). Are we close enough to byes that we should bypass a Josh Kelly to improve our bye structure?

— Jono Steven (@JonoSteven1) May 5, 2021

I have spoken a little bit about the byes so far but this is a great question that we haven’t addressed yet. This is one of the few years in recent times where I haven’t spent ages looking at the byes by this time of the season. But as you say we are now getting very close to them and it is time to address them.  You have one of two ways to go here and it revolves around the old Two out of Three ain’t bad rule. If you really want Josh Kelly in your side and it hurts you in the R12 bye round, what that means is that you will have one more premium in the other bye rounds that should help propel your side to a league win or up the overall rankings. The other question you have to ask yourself is, are all of those guys going to be in your side when you get to R12?  Of those you list I would say Ziebell, Phillips, Hall Stephenson are locks to still be there (you probably have bigger issues) but the rookies may not be and for that reason you can probably afford to bring Kelly in knowing one or more of those guys will be gone.

By round 14, would you rather a team full of top premos and 4 rookies, or a team of premos and 3-4 mid pricers and a couple of rooks

— Matt Sandells (@SandellsMatt) May 5, 2021

If I have any rookies still in my side at that point I am hoping they are the good ones like Jordon and Powell who have been scoring well for us. But to answer your question I would prefer to have a team of top premos and 4 rookies. This is even more important in the limited trade versions of the game RDT and SC. Because if you are going to have mid pricers in your side you are probably going to have to pull the trigger on a couple more trades to upgrade some of them before the season is out and you simply can’t afford to be making those trades. So for me, I don’t want to buy into someone that I am going to have to burn another trade on because they are going to cost me 40 points or more each week by having them over a top premium.

In limited trade forms should we be trading out rookies who are not playing and not maxed out like Highmore or Brockman or should we trade out rookies that are playing but are maxed out such as Rowe

— Alza (@AllenKunde) May 5, 2021

I am trading out my maxed our rookies like Rowe here. The main reason is that those maxed out rookies are going to lose me value each week by not hitting their BE but Highmore isn’t going to cost me a cent by not playing. The exception here of course is if you are facing a donut and can fix that by trading out one of those rookies to another that is playing, has a very low (preferably negative) BE and good job security. I really don’t want to be sideswapping a rookie that hasn’t risen in value but if you are very desperate then you may have to do it but it is a trade of last resort.

What’s most important at this time of the year – getting the right guys in, or the right guys out?
For example, this week I can either get rid of Rowe (right choice, but can only afford Hall) OR get Kelly (right choice, but need to cull a better rookie than Rowe)

— Cathryn McDonald (@CathrynMc1870) May 5, 2021

Great to hear from you Cathryn, now like me I am sure you would much rather get Rowe the Crow out of your side as I am sure you are keen not to see those tri-colours in your line up just like friend of DTTalk Cam of “Never pick a Docker” fame doesn’t like purple in his!

But to answer your question, the right play is to get rid of the rookie that is going to lose you more money by not performing this week. For me in this situation I think I am getting rid of Rowe (something I am actually trying to do in my side) because he isn’t scoring well and is losing money for us of late. If that means you have to compromise on who you go to then you may need to do that. Now I can hear you all saying that this contradicts what I said earlier about not wanting mid pricers in your side. But here what I am saying is that you are getting rid of a liability from a cash generation perspective and cashing him in for as much as you can get and what it means is that you are bringing in a different premium that you are planning to hold until round 23, not someone that you are going to have to use another trade on. For example if I had to use Rowe to get to Hall or Powell to get to Kelly I would do the Rowe to Hall because Powell is scoring well and making me money (well at least not losing any that is for sure) and it should mean that when he is ripe to be upgraded you will be able to get to a better premium than what you will be able to do with Rowe by trading him out now.

Hope that wasn’t too confusing and made sense!

 

Thanks for the questions folks, some great strategy based questions this week. I prefer those questions rather than the “which player out of these two or three would you pick” because those answers really depend greatly on what you have in your team already and your other trade plans.

Things to Remember

• Don’t forget to trade before the game starts! I have heard a few high profile Supercoach players forgot to trade out Dunkley before the game started last week!
• Start your bye planning, each trade you make from now should have one eye on the byes.
• Keep a watch on injury lists and BE’s when looking at your rookie trades, how safe is the bloke you are bringing in.

Wasn’t it amazing last week to see the projected scores tumble last week, particularly after Max’s score on Sunday. Don’t read too much into them, if they were always correct this would be a pretty easy (and boring) game to play.  Have a great weekend of footy and see you all again next Thursday!!