The Thursday Scramble: Round 6

How good was Gather Round!  Well I enjoyed it anyway. But that doesn’t mean that this week is any easier. We have more of these suspensions to deal with and we are starting to see our Rookies hit the price wall.  Time to Scramble!

What do we do with our Rookies?

We have reached the part of the season where we have to start making the decision as to what to do with our rookies as they are now reaching their peak cash generation. This is when we are seeing their break even reach their average score or even surpass it. Here are a few of my thoughts on what we can do with our rookies.

Reached their BE but still scoring. If you have a guy that is still scoring but they have reached their BE and they can still post a decent score around the 60+ then these aren’t your priority. They may drop a few thousand but if they are going to remain at a steady price and still delivery you a 65 on field then you can certainly live with losing a few dollars. If you have no other rookies on field (we know you are lying if you answered yes here) then go ahead, but realistically these can be amongst the last to move on.

Not scoring a heap but their BE is still lower than their recent scores. Once again we can hold these guys but ideally you will have them on your bench. If you have a guy like our old mate Cash Cowan who has been scoring in the 40’s you are only going to play  him on field in an emergency but he isn’t your priority.

BE has surpassed their scoring. These are our priority trades. In particular the guys that have had a really low score in the last week or two that has pushed their BE up. These scores are likely to stay in their price cycles for a few weeks and as a result it will drag their value down unless they can post a monster score. The players I am thinking about here are guys like Mackenzie who has a BE of 62 with an average of 58 but scored just the 20 in the last round where he was the starting sub. This means that 20 will be in his price cycle for a few weeks and it will keep that BE high and decrease his value. The other popular trade out this week will be Ginbey who had a lower than expected score last week of just 43 but he also has a BE of 64 and was a little battered last week which resulted in him being subbed. These are the guys that you need to target first. We know that Ginbey can score well and we may be going a touch early but reailistically he is in line for a rest potentially and his growth could be stunted as a result of this game.

Is it ok to break these guidelines? Of course it is! The key thing you need to look at is whether cashing in that slightly higher priced/better performing rookie will get you up to a better premium on the trade. This is even more appropriate if the player you are trading out is on the bench anyway. If you are only using them as emergency cover then it is certainly acceptable to use that guy to get a better premium onto your field.

I guess what I am trying to highlight here to you is that just because someone has had their BE catch up to them it doesn’t mean that they instantly have to go.  The key is to look at ‘how’ their BE has caught up to them and what are the factors for it and how are they scoring. But don’t get hung up on the traditional trading rules! There are always times that these rules should be broken.

Perfect timing for some DPP action!

We got our first lot of DPP’s across all the formats this week and what a week for that to happen. As we are starting to cull some rookies and get some upgrades done we can now use these DPP players like Sheezel and Ziebel to help us fix our sides up.  If you wanted to get rid of Ginbey as mentioned above then you could do that and using your DPP you can then move a Sheezel back if you think that the best forward you can afford is better than the best defender that you can afford. This gives you that flexibility to do that. What you need to weigh up is what level of scoring you think that you can get from your options going forward. If one gives you a 10 point per game bump better than the other one then your choice is probably made for you.

Questions

A few quick fire answers to your questions this week.  Keep an eye out on Twitter during the week where I will do my best to answer them for you.

Gulden Showers asks whether we should go Touk or Serong.  I generally don’t get involved in one over the other as it only sets me up to fail. But if pushed I think I would go Touk as he has historical form. But saying that I can see a world where both these guys end up in my team.

Josh(@Jocal98) asks Butters or Ziebel. I like both of these guys but really I go Ziebel here (I already have him) mainly as he has that Def eligibility and Butters can get himself injured easily.

James (@jamo1723) asks if we should trade Chesser out now or trade someone like Mackenzie or Chandler.  Here I would be trading Mackenzie first. He is going to lose money over the coming weeks whereas Chesser won’t given he hasn’t been playing. Add to that we know that Chesser has money to make still too when he eventually comes back.  I always trade out those that are going to lose money first if it is a toss of the coin.

Digga has Merrett, Green and Day!  I feel for ya mate.  They are going to keep them and accepta a dismal score this week in the hope that their rookies have a good score.  Look I seriously don’t mind this play.  Merrett and Green you would have picked as Keepers so a one week holiday you would hold for and Day is back next week and if you held him last week you aren’t going to trade him out this week. Your best bet is to do your trades as normal and look to get a rookie off the field and then upgrade to a premium. This means that next week when these guys come back your team is stronger and you haven’t affected your upgrade cadence (credit my mate Marcus from SupercoachCoach for that phrase).

Fixture Alert!

As we all know this is the ANZAC round and this means that we will not only have a game on Tuesday but we will have one on Monday too and this of course means that we won’t have all the teams by the time the first lockout of the weekend starts.  If my maths works correctly we won’t have final teams for Tuesday’s game until Sunday night which could be very problematic.

So if you are planning on doing any loopholing this weekend I would do it on the Fri/Sat/Sun games at the latest.

Things to Remember

• No game tonight! So you have a bit more time to set your teams and you will also have the Sunday teams in full before the first lockout of the week (but remember this isn’t all games)
• Don’t panic if you can’t trade out all rookies that you think you need to, there are always going to be ones that you can’t trade out right at their peak.
• Back your judgement on your trades. Teams are going to start to diverge from here, don’t take a one week sample to judge your trade. It will take weeks.

Have a great weekend everyone and for those taking Monday off it will be a very nice long long weekend!  Hope we get some great games of footy like we did last weekend with a few close games! Good luck and see you all next Thursday.