2021 Hindsight Heroes

Everyone loves a bit of hindsight. “If only I picked Cumming over Markov… I should’ve got Hall last week it was so obvious…” We’ve all said something like that before, but what if you actually had these powers? So what if you could actually go back and change things? Well, here we go.

If you picked the following team at the start of the year and made appropriate trades, you would have won AFL Fantasy by 6574 points. 6 and a half thousand. Along the way, you would pick up the round prize 20/23 weeks for the highest scoring team (including a massive 2902 in R20 and 2847 in R23), the others being rank 2,3 and 241 and have a team value over $3mil more than the actual highest, at $22.6mil. And to top it off, your bank is empty after all trades.

Starting line up

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

1. Rookies are vital. Apart from early rounds, almost every week the team had everyone on the bench playing. This allowed for maximum cash generation, and cover for when things go wrong. Of course, with hindsight you can field rookies over premiums, but even without the benefits are huge with a full bench.

2. Chase value. The premise of this team is basically inflating the team salary to a point where you can do whatever trades you please. Chasing cheaper options who will make buckets of cash like I.Cumming, T.Walker, C.Jiath are all key factors to this team succeeding. Most of the time they were only 50-100k more than a fattened rookie and when trading, were only 50k off an uber premo themselves.

3. Sideways trading actually works. Only 13 genuine upgrades happened over the year, opposed to 19 sideways trades. You often get criticise for doing too much sideways trading, but the strategy works. Obviously hindsight makes it easier to say this, but it has merit.

4. Set and forget ruckman strategy is best. Sacrificing the salary cap for 2 reliable rucks worked well, as it allowed trades to be used for other more important issues.

!DOWNLOAD THE SPREADSHEET VIA THIS LINK TO VIEW A MORE EXPANDED BREAKDOWN!

RD	SCORE	ACTUAL TOP	ROUND RANK	CAPTAIN	TOTAL SCORE	LEAD	TEAM VALUE (REM SALARY)	TRADES
1	2300	2163	1	Sheed 138	2300	137	$12,727,000 ($273,000)
2	2219	2114	1	Miller 130	4519	352	$13,324,000 ($230,000)	D.Sheed > T.Miller
3	2414	2290	1	Grundy 152	6933	825	$14,279,000 ($212,000)	T.Brockman > H.Chapman
4	2218	2148	1	Miller 140	9151	1091	$15,076,000 ($212,000)	None needed.
5	2195	2159	1	Dunkley 151	11346	1156	$15,742,000 ($292,000)	B.Campbell > S.Flanders J.Bowes > R.Laird
6	2592	2416	1	Ziebell 170	13938	1555	$15,929,000 ($644,000)	T.Walker > D.Parish E.Gulden > R.Byrnes
7	2285	2218	1	Hall 143	16223	1762	$16,641,000 ($625,000)	J.Dunkley > J.Kelly H.Chapman > A.Hall
8	2297	2338	3	Hall 133	18520	1849	$16,673,000 ($909,000)	J.Rowe > M.Owies J.Koschitzke > R.Collier-Dawkins
9	2253	2249	1	Parish 131	20773	1945	$17,174,000 ($831,000)	L.Young > C.Poulter O.Fantasia > D.Zorko
10	2567	2418	1	Macrae 153	23340	2212	$18,017,000 ($412,000)	T.Powell > L.Whitfield J.Stephenson > M.Bontempelli
11	2550	2409	1	Miller 160	25890	2452	$18,614,000 ($233,000)	C.Warner > C.Weightman M.Bergman > J.Steele
12	2021	2032	2	Parish 160	27911	2720	$18,705,000 ($537,000	C.Jiath > J.Amartey R.Collier-Dawkins > T.Bianco O.Markov > J.Crisp
13	2139	2088	1	Kelly 152	30050	2942	$19,101,000 ($551,000)	N.Hind > B.Maynard D.Zorko > N.Haynes N.Cox > T.Mitchell
14	1891	2142	214	Taranto 145	31941	3102	$19,083,000 ($893,000)	B.Maynard > D.Rich R.Byrnes > L.Bramble M.Flynn > T.Goldstein C.Poulter > J.Sharp
15	2566	2467	1	Zorko 142	34507	3382	$19,591,000 ($688,000)	J.Jordon > M.Kennedy N.Haynes > D.Zorko
16	2642	2549	1	Steele 157	37149	3631	$20,098,000 ($583,000)	M.Owies > P.Dangerfield I.Cumming > J.De Goey
17	2557	2509	1	Miller 155	39706	4003	$20,865,000 ($233,000)	D.Robertson > J.Dawson S.Flanders > J.Short
18	2575	2511	1	Steele 149	42281	4422	$21,062,000 ($259,000)	C.Weightman > R.Marshall J.Amartey > T.Ruscoe
19	2644	2495	1	Laird 142	44925	4873	$21,128,000 ($425,000)	D.Parish > J.Lyons J.Ziebell > A.Cerra
20	2902	2651	1	Steele 162	47827	5377	$21,456,000 ($348,000)	T.Bianco > C.Wingard M.Bontempelli > C.Guthrie
21	2676	2580	1	Mitchell 157	50503	5763	$21,338,000 ($758,000)	C.Mills > B.Hardwick A.Cerra > C.Serong
22	2654	2525	1	Kelly 141	53157	6147	$21,937,000 ($359,000)	T.Ruscoe > O.Wines L.Whitfield > C.Salem
23	2847	2604	1	Dawson 158	56004	6574	$22,371,000 ($0)	J.Sharp > J.Lloyd L.Bramble > T.Thomas

 

So, there you have it. A team 6574 points ahead. As mentioned earlier, sideways trading carried this team through.

Trade breakdown:

Sideways: 19
Upgrades: 13
Downgrades: 12

Having only 13 genuine upgrades you would think would make it hard to have almost everyone $650k+ on the bench, but those sideways trades from rookies to value picks made the difference.

Only 4 players were not traded out of the team, Macrae, Keays and the 2 rucks, Gawn and Grundy. Miller came in round 2 so you could count him. And for some fun, Zorko was traded in, out and back in again due to form/suspension. Overall, 74 different players were used.

Final team

Ah, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

– Baked Beams ✌️

@baked_beams on twitter