NixTrader for K13 – Byes III

You probably know that K2 is claimed to be a tougher mountain to climb than Everest.  So it seems fitting that I rename this round K13.  This will be the toughest round of the year.  Over the next few days many coaches will be wishing they’d been Mark Neeld’d and sacked after round 12.

Or maybe not.  The table below shows that last week many coaches increased their holding of R13 bye players.  While Nicholls, Martin and Daniher were tempting, I expected an overall decrease in R13 bye players.

 

Byes II review

Many coaches did worse last week than in Byes I.  I did much better with a score over 2,000.  But as I’ve said previously everyone will be up and down over the byes, it will come down to what you average over the 3 rounds.  Even with my low projection for K13 I am still on track to average 1,700+ for the 3 bye rounds which was my target when I started my planning.

Scoring was high again – 1,591 average per team, a season high. Although the number of 100s was a bit down on last week’s record.

Magic Number (N rated content)

After R12 when magic number rose, there was a big fall in MN this round – see chart in NixTrader spreadsheet.  What happens this round is a bit hard to predict.  However we can say two things:

• Many players will be facing surprisingly high BEs this round,

• Players now need to be scoring approx 22 points per $100k invested in order to maintain their value.  This is 10% more than at the start of the year (R3) when players could get by with scoring 19.7 points per $100k invested and maintain their value.

If you haven’t realised each player’s average points per $100k invested is listed in column L of the NixTrader spreadsheet.  This is a better indicator of whether a player is under or overpriced than his current BE (which is only valid for one round).

What happens next?

Below is updated table showing who has best run over the next few weeks.

A golden rule of body surfing is to never chase the back of a wave, instead get yourself in prime position for the next wave.  This applies to DT as well.  I was talking up Freo players 3 to 4 weeks ago when they had a good run coming, now they don’t.  Freo players are currently overpriced and they face a tougher run.  But North Melbourne you scoff, how tough is that?  Well for those who don’t know North Melbourne have conceded the least DT points in the competition this year.

There is an expression in the US stock market that goes something like – when your cab driver is giving you stock tips, you know the market is overheated.  We can say the same about Dr.Dreamteam and his articles on AFL website – by the time he get’s onto something that boat has well and truly sailed.

But what about Freo’s good run in the finals you say?  Plenty of time to take advantage of that, best to concentrate on getting into top 4 position in each of our leagues first.  If you haven’t worked it out, there aren’t going to be many gimme league wins in the back half of the season.  Two trades a week has put an end to leagues being a procession – they will be much more of a challenge this year which is good for the AFLFantasy game overall.

Strategy for Round 12

My strategy is pretty simple.

• I know the 4 trades I want to do over the next 2 weeks.
• My current squad has 18 potential players for K13.
• Wait until team announcements tomorrow to work out best sequence for my 4 trades.
• This was always going to be my worst round. Don’t panic; I can afford a donut or a low score along with everyone else.  Stick to long term plans.

NixTrader Spreadsheet

No changes this week (a sign a coach is confident and travelling well?)

 

Here is link to download spreadsheet (Excel2007) – NixTrader2013 R13 pub

 

Reminders from previous weeks:

• The team of the current overall leader is in NixTrader spreadsheet when you download it.  You can look at this team to see if you can learn anything from it, before replacing it with your own team.

• If you used the spreadsheet from previous rounds, you can just select your blocks of players’ names from there and copy and paste them into this round’s spreadsheet.

• Yellow shaded cells.  You will notice some yellow shaded cells in the columns where you enter scores for R12 and R13.  These indicate that player has a bye in that round.  The obvious thing for you to do is put an ‘n’ to stop his price and averages changing.  However, if you want you can leave it to approximate his next round outcome.

• My Team in the Bye Rounds:  The table picks up the players from MyTeam in the first tab.  So if you want to make any player changes you have to do it on the first tab, and this will change all 3 bye teams.
  • There is a green section at the bottom where you can write in your own plans for each bye round, and add or subtract players etc.  You can then copy this whole section to next week’s spreadsheet and keep updating your plans.

• • There is a green column in each of the bye rounds to give you more control of your team total and onfield player count.

• Select “LTI/Low JS” if you think one of your players is likely to be out for that round.

• Select “Can DPP” if you can bring a benched player onto the field using DPP.  This will make their score count (only works if player is already listed as “emg”).

• I’m stalking the watchlist allows you to add players in groups according to their bye round.

• After lockout, you can also use NixTrader to start planning for next week.  Just enter your players’ actual scores in the column for the current round to update your watchlist or trades.

• Younglings:  if you don’t have Excel2007 software on your device you can still download the file, put it on a usb stick and ask around to find someone with Excel2007 software and ask to borrow their computer for an hour or so.

• Mac users have reported Brandon Ellis (Richmond) is placed as an Adelaide player in bye and draw tables.  This doesn’t occur in Windows Excel.  Mac users should be aware of this if you add Brandon Ellis to your spreadsheet.

Any comments, questions or suggestions please post below or tweet to @NixTrader.

Post below how your bye preparations are going and your average score forecast, this might be useful for other coaches. Also post if you think an otherwise good trade is being assessed badly by the formulas.

————————– notes below are mostly the same each week ——————————————-

Brief instructions:

• You only have to enter information into the green cells, the other cells are protected to prevent any errors.

• Confirm or change Magic Number estimate for the end of next two rounds.  I have put in values for MN, but if you think you know enough about MN to prefer other numbers you can change them.

• Enter your players using the drop down menu.  In the menu only the players who fit that position are named in full, other players are reduced to 3 letters.  If you used the spreadsheet from previous rounds you should be able to select and copy groups of players from there into this spreadsheet.

• For each player in your team data is pulled up automatically.

• A projection for that player headed “Points Proj.”.  This is used as default in the calculations.  If a player has played more than 3 games this is their current average; if less than 3 games the projection is calculated from their starting price.

• There are 2 green cells to enter the actual scores (or your estimates) for your players for the next 2 rounds.  Based on these scores the last other columns calculate the averages, BEs, price change and new prices after the rounds.

• If you leave any cell blank, the calculation assumes the player gets their 2013 base score for that round – i.e. the score in column headed “Points Proj.” is used as default in the calculations.

• The player has to play 3 games for their price to change, so if the players miss games their price change won’t happen until after they play 3 games.

• If one of your players misses a round, put an “n” in the green cell for that round.  The calculations for the next round will then update to take account of this.

• There is a section to show the next 5 teams that player will face.  At the right of these 5 teams there are 4 percentages.  These show the variation in points and 100 scores that are predicted to come from playing that string of teams, over the next 3 and 5 weeks.  Percentages are based on the number of points and 100s each team has conceded so far this season.  Positive percentage says this run of teams is expected to concede more points and hundreds than average; negative percentage says these teams are likely to concede less points and hundreds than average.

FAQ:

• Why are these calculations different to other published BEs and valuations?
  • Everyone’s calculations depend on their assumptions about Magic Number, projections of future scores and how they round averages and values.  This spreadsheet should replicate any other published calculations if you make the same projections, including changing the magic number.  However, this spreadsheet is unique in that it allows you to change the estimates to do your own analysis.

• Tech talk:
  • You need a device and software that supports microsoft excel 2007 spreadsheets to be able to open and use the spreadsheet.  It won’t open on mobiles or tablets unless you have software or apps that support excel files.
  • Even if you have other software that claims to support Excel files, the file still might not work properly, as every excel formula might not be supported.  This current file uses array formulas, I expect many non-excel spreadsheets won’t support array formulas, despite supporting other excel like functions.
  • The file will not operate fully in either Google docs or Skydrive Excel web app.
  • Mac users report that some of the team / bye data for Brandon Ellis is wrong.  This didn’t occur on Windows / PC and was only reported on a Mac.  Be aware of this if you are on a Mac and looking at Brandon Ellis in the spreadsheet.