DT Stratergies

[Hodges]

Something I focused on was Durability and Buy Low/Sell High.

Getting in players like ROK, Corey, Pavlich at there peak lows worked well.

Thing is, those guys are typically durable players that you would select at the start of the year. Its been an odd year...

 

[SkankDanker]

For a great explanation of the advantages of the Mid Price strategy over the Gun/Rookie strategy referred to by Hirdy, or over playing rookies at the start of the season in general, see the interview with skankdanker in the pre-Round 6 episode of the Dream Team Ruined My Life podcast.

Thanks ojeriojo (won't try to pronounce it!) I'm glad you listened, and hopefully you got something out of it.

As someone mentioned if you want to learn more hang around here in pre-season there is some really good discussion on the various strategies and you can really expand your mind to other ways of doing things.

I think the big strategic "mistake" if you like is to try to get all the big guns in too quick and pass over bargains on the way. Most of the strategy really revolves around the starting line-up, and that determines how you approach the rest of the season, but you have to use your money wisely and you need patience to resist the temptation to jump on high priced players just because they are racking up big scores.

 

[C-Dog]

Something I focused on was Durability and Buy Low/Sell High.

Getting in players like ROK, Corey, Pavlich at there peak lows worked well.

Too many injuries though, wasted trades on Harvey, Hille, Dalziell. Will do the same strategy next year and hope for some luck. Maybe avoid all 29+ players no matter what.

I think a lot of people on this forum are far too skeptical when trading. Value is key when trading IMO, however sometimes you do have to go the best available. A lot of the time though people will spend 120k more on a premium and justify it by saying "Oh well I doubt the winner will have player X (350k mid) in there team, I need to bring in the best." It's all about the balance between value and points when trading.

EDIT: Essentially what SkankDanker said.

Rookies have been pretty good this season, I'm just pissed off I picked Wade Thompson.

 

[Jonny27]

One thing I think is very important is the Rookies you downgrade too. You need to pick players that will stay in the team and not just because they had 1 good week.

 

[ojeriojo]

I'm glad you listened, and hopefully you got something out of it.

As someone who went into this season with a Gun/Rookie strategy (14 guns and 8 sub-$250k upgrade targets on the field), your interview articulated a lot of the issues that I experienced with my team from the start.

Pick the right rookies. As iamthestig spoke about earlier, if you pick the right rookies you're cruisng from day one.

Allows for so much flexibility with regards to your downgrades and upgrades, and this ultimately saves you trades if you trade intelligently.

IMO, the Gun/Rookie strategy potentially reduces flexibility compared with the Mid Price strategy, in several ways. I’m not sure if anyone cares, but here goes:

(i) The ultimate goal of upgrading a playing rookie to a premium in theory can be difficult in practice, and you typically need to trade aggressively to improve your team. The price differential means that it often takes two trades to upgrade a rookie, meaning that you may have to wait six or seven rounds (or longer) until two rookies reach a suitable price. The situation is made more difficult because the best-priced rookies to downgrade may be on the field, costing you points when you downgrade or forcing the downgrade of sub-optimally priced rookies on the bench.

(ii) As skandanker points out in his interview, it can be difficult to pick the right rookies at the start of the season, or even mid-priced players for that matter. However, you have more flexibility with limited cash when trading out a mid-priced player who hasn’t worked out, than when trading out a $86k rookie. This is because the player you are trading out is higher in value (e.g. Raines to Gilbert would have cost only $33.8k before round 3), combined with the fact you get a better idea of the best rookies than the pre-season (Butler to Otten was a $90k profit).

(iii) While your rookies are increasing in price, your guns are often losing value. You could argue that this doesn’t matter if you aren’t looking to trade your guns. But as skankdanker points out again, it can mean that you extract less points out of the original value of your team than someone who has picked mid-priced players that increase in value (because they score above their original $/point). Notwithstanding this, you still need some premiums in the Mid Price strategy as captaincy choices.

(iv) Further to (iii), every gun in your team is an upgrade target that is lost during the season, when that player’s value troughs. For example, I found it very difficult to find an upgrade target for my forwards in round 6 because I already had (some of) the best targets (namely, O’Keefe, Deledio, Gia and Pavlich).

My concern with the Mid Price strategy is the extent to which it results in a greater reliance on risky players (i.e. players are often under-priced due to injury), and how to distinguish those risks. Examples of risky players who haven’t turned out include Butler and Raines, whereas a player like Winderlich (who I thought was a clear risk) has done well.

 

[Lakey91]

(i) The ultimate goal of upgrading a playing rookie to a premium in theory can be difficult in practice, and you typically need to trade aggressively to improve your team. The price differential means that it often takes two trades to upgrade a rookie, meaning that you may have to wait six or seven rounds (or longer) until two rookies reach a suitable price. The situation is made more difficult because the best-priced rookies to downgrade may be on the field, costing you points when you downgrade or forcing the downgrade of sub-optimally priced rookies on the bench.

Firstly, very nice post mate - i liked it alot.

Id just like to give my thoughts on the points you made in the above quote:

I personally have found it very hard to bring in the big guns to my team - players like ablett, bartel, swan, etc. These players are often well above 400k and i just couldnt warrant paying that much for minimal gain. This was made tougher by the fact i started with 4 midfield keepers (corey, montagna, gibbs and hasleby) and the only two players to upgrade were my rookies (rich and otten).

Lets look at an example: say otten plateaud at 270k, with an average of around 75 at round 10, and i was thus looking to upgrade him.

If i chose to upgrade to a 100ave premium, valued at 360k, this would mean i would gain 25ppg, which is 300 points over the last 12 rounds. Good trade in my books.

However, if i choose to aim high, and upgrade to 115 ave premium (bartel/swan/montagn/etc) valued at 450k, I would gain 40ppg, which is 480 points over the last 12 rounds.

Difference is, 180 points, for an extra 90k. Is this worth it?

On face value, this doesnt seem worth it - particularly when upgrading this rookie would become a triple trade (rather than double) upgrade.

So how can we bridge this gap between our players to be upgrade and our upgrade targets? Well, obviously, our players which we look to upgrade must be worth more - in other words, they perhaps should be mid pricers.

But, having more midpricers reduces the potential for your premiums in your initial squad - it may mean starting with corey and cross as your premium mids, rather than ablett and swan.

So, i guess what im trying to get at is theres a bit of a trade off – you can either have better premiums in your starting squad, but have to use more trades with your upgrades. Or, you can have worse premiums in your starting squad, but use less trades in your upgrades.

I guess there are two basic options for your midfield structure:

1) Premium, Premium, Premium, Mid Pricer/Keeper, Rookie, Rookie

You start off with some very nice players, but the gaps between your cash cows and your upgrade targets is quite large, and may take 2+ trades to achieve.

Or

2) Premium, Keeper, Keeper, Mid Pricer/Keeper, Mid Pricer, Midpricer/Rookie
You start off with lower end keepers and just the one premium, however the gaps between your upgrades is lower.


But, now that i think about it, does this even matter? With option one, you already have 3 premiums, thus with your upgrades it is ok to chase the value around the 360k mark that seems to always exist. Alternatively, with option two, you don’t really have any all out premiums thus you most likely need to aim high rather than spending limited amount of cash and upgrading your mid pricers to the cheaper ~360k options.

I personally went with a mixture of options 1 and 2 in 2009, however it does reflect option 2 more, and thus, i have been caught in between:

Corey, Gibbs, Montagna, Hasleby, Otten, Rich (Beams, Anthony)
Premium, Keeper, Keeper, Mid pricer/Keeper, Rookie, Rookie (this was the intended structure, though obviously not how it turned out)

I had pencilled in an average of around 95 for gibbs/montagna and has hopeful of an 85-90 ave for hasleby. Whilst i was tempted to use many other mid pricers in the 5th position of my initial midfield (tuck, etc), i decided the cash could be better used elsewhere.

With my upgrades however, i have found that the gap between otten/rich and bartel/swan/ablett to be way to high for my liking. I have upgraded to where i see value, trying to save trades if i think there is better value elsewhere.

My final mids are currently:

Corey, Gibbs, Montagna, Thompson, Stanton, Hasleby (Anthony, Muston)

See, i have been caught in between options 1 and 2 outlined above. I started off with some lower end premiums/keepers, and the gaps between my cash cows and the gun upgrade targets has remained too high. As such, i have upgraded my midfield through the use of just 3 trades (zaha>muston, rich>Stanton, otten>Thompson). However, i have been left in a somewhat risky situation with ablett, bartel or swan.

Whilst i am happy, i remain adamant that bringing in the gun premiums is too expensive (both in terms of trades and $$$) if you are starting rookies in the midfield (a practise very common amongst DTers due to the better quality scoring and job security they generally provide). As such, it is of my opinion, that if you are starting say 2 rookies in the mids, that you need to start with a couple of the guns (corey, swan, bartel, ablett...) – this is something i will be considering next year.

Well, its early days, and this will be explored alot in 2010 and the preseason.

Ive rambled a bit, but i hope the points ive been trying to explore and make are clear.

 

[Dr Awkward]

I started this year with what you guys would describe as a heavy 'mid-pricers' strategy as i believe this is the best strategy if you are going for a league win and dont care about national ranking.

This meant I had heaps of players like Haselby, Higgins, Skipworth, Houlihan, Lucas, Adcock, Cogs...etc. I didnt have any super-premiums, the most expensive player I picked was Selwood, barely anyone over 400k.

I didnt have any rookies starting on the field as my philosophy was that it was too risky when you get into the season and start getting injuries and then all of the sudden you have 5 starting rookies when you only planned for 2.

So far Iv been able to get plenty of premiums in both the forward and back lines but have found it very hard to get Bartel/Ablett/Swan, I still dont have any of those guys and may never get them. There seems to be more value in the mids in the 350-410k price range.

But Im perfectly positioned to win my league as this strategy has allowed me to peak at the right time and avoid having zeros during the year. To win the league, its all about peaking for the finals (just like real AFL) and you need to have at least 4 trades going into the finals, which I will hopefully, I have 7 left now.

I will be doing this strategy again next year altough maybe with 1 rookie starting to allow me to have better captain options, Iv really only had Cox and Corey to turn to for captaincy.

 

[Ausyid]

I started this year with what you guys would describe as a heavy 'mid-pricers' strategy as i believe this is the best strategy if you are going for a league win and dont care about national ranking.

This meant I had heaps of players like Haselby, Higgins, Skipworth, Houlihan, Lucas, Adcock, Cogs...etc. I didnt have any super-premiums, the most expensive player I picked was Selwood, barely anyone over 400k.

I didnt have any rookies starting on the field as my philosophy was that it was too risky when you get into the season and start getting injuries and then all of the sudden you have 5 starting rookies when you only planned for 2.

So far Iv been able to get plenty of premiums in both the forward and back lines but have found it very hard to get Bartel/Ablett/Swan, I still dont have any of those guys and may never get them. There seems to be more value in the mids in the 350-410k price range.

But Im perfectly positioned to win my league as this strategy has allowed me to peak at the right time and avoid having zeros during the year. To win the league, its all about peaking for the finals (just like real AFL) and you need to have at least 4 trades going into the finals, which I will hopefully, I have 7 left now.

I will be doing this strategy again next year altough maybe with 1 rookie starting to allow me to have better captain options, Iv really only had Cox and Corey to turn to for captaincy.

May I ask what you are ranked this season?

The strategy you employ intrigues me. I have a way of playing DT which I always succumb to as I am comfortable with it and can operate at my best (primarily a rookie-gun strategy) but was very much considering the midpricer strategy at the start of this season as an option.

I would have probably picked an Ablett from the start as a captaincy option. The extra 100k for Ablett over Selwood is well worth it if you're multiplying the extra 20 points a week by 2.

 

[Dr Awkward]

Im only ranked about 3000th, as I said my strategy doesnt really work for national ranking, my aim is to win enough games in the season to make top 4 in my league and then own the finals series.