He’d need to average 100 from round 3 onwards to get to $500k before his bye now.
Still possible, but not looking probable at all after two scores in the 70s to start the season.

That was always a long ask anyway. If he's your worst player, you don't have a bad team. And trading a stepping stone midpricer now before price rises?...

Yeah he’s due to go up in price so I might not, but I don’t mind it as a correctional trade if there are better options around.

There's not going to be much from that price range really. If JOM goes out and has a 140 game would that mean you're bringing him in? Next week he could be out for the rest of the season. Congrats, your two trades down for a net gain of zero.

I am firmly against snap decisions that go against a whole pre-season of decision-making.

hahaha, yeah, it was less of a case of trading out Hibberd, and more a case of needing just a couple of bucks to get Cripps.

And after seeing Cripps last weekend, I reckon he's gunna be worth it!

I don’t think it’s as black and white as that. There are heaps of players we consider during preseason and then we get to see them in the proper stuff. If we have already been close to starting them and then they do well, it’s probably a fair indication it’ll continue. If someone bobbed up out of nowhere, I’d be less likely to consider trading for them. Most seasons there are players that look to be close to must-haves. If they are players I’d considered preseason that have turned it on for 2 proper games, I’d be confident enough to do a correction trade. Last year at round 2, I dropped Wingard (who I was fairly bullish on preseason) to get some cash to bring in Taylor Adams - it worked out really well for me because Adams was huge in the backline. Wingard still went alright but the trade was a winner.
Also, in the final days before round 1 lockout this season, Armitage was in and out of my team a few times so I was already iffy on him. I reckon the sooner you acknowledge the mistake the better so that you get more opportunity for greater benefit of the trade. Last year I started with JOM & Swallow and I was happy I didn’t persist with them too long.

I would certainly consider him. If he got injured, that would be bad luck, but we get enough trades to deal with it. It’s not 22 trades anymore.

Actually, I’m thinking at this stage that I’ll probably trade Armitage or Brayshaw to Bonner, and then Crouch to Cripps. But I’ll see how the rest of the weekend pans out first.

Good discussion mate. Interesting to discuss our points of view on this.

I don't think I've ever suggested it's black/white and if you're disagreeing with my statement that as a rule: you should not make snap decision over a pre-season of deliberations, research etc on your team selections, team structure then im not really sure why.

I definitely think we need to take things on case by case basis but most of the time, it's a really bad idea to sideways move players. In this instance Armitage isn't setting the world alight but his role is exactly what people who selected him would have hoped for: getting the pill regularly in the guts. Nothing to suggest he should be traded out because you want to chase points. If you're using a correction trade on him next week rather than on say fixing a rookie, you're losing out on using a trade where it's needed for your team.

30 trades means mistakes are more forgiving (thank goodness) but they're still not a unlimited supply to be blasé about. A team with 14 prems is still using 16 trades just to get a full team, add at least 2 for corrections and you're left with 12 to cover injuries over the rest of season. As we all know they can go quick.

Michael Hibberd had 3 scores last season worse than he did last week, yet that wasn't a factor if people still selected him this season. So little reason to drop him now surely.

If though, you have Zac Merret then you do have to be concerned and look to trade him, but only if you think this round that he deserves it because his role is limited due to club being cautious, or because he isn't fully fit. That's not correcting on impulse though.

Even Mason Cox, I wouldn't have touched him with a ten foot pole but if people were that confident on him to have him in their final teams, what does that say now about their strategy if they're trading him out even if just a one game suspension? Caveat of course is you should cut losses sooner rather than later (few Gus Brayshaw owners should've run for the hills by now) but again, whoever you chose whilst chasing last weeks point won't necessarily work out.

There's also something to be said about the dangers of getting into the mentality of thinking "well it worked for me once, so it will work again" (some sort of gamblers fallacy?). This game is all about probabilities and maximising assests. Just because a gamble paid off one, doesn't mean it will again. You had no future knowledge that Adams last year would play 22 games to Wingards 18. It could have easily been the other way. Chasing points is always risky, it's why it's advocated against so often.

End of the day, there's no real clear good/bad decisions in this game (be it initial team, trades, captain choices, rookies on field etc) because we are all predicting and forecasting. We don't have any control over what the players do (or how CD sees the game but that's another topic). You just have to try and make more decisions for the right reasons than wrong reasons because then overall, you should be in a better position, hopefully you'll have had more good results than bad ones.

Good comment PL, true that.
You’re speaking a lot of sense, I just want to reply to this:

I wasn’t really disagreeing with that statement, I was just saying that it’s not really a snap decision if the players involved have already been strongly considered preseason. It’s more like the first two rounds are an extension of preseason because prices haven’t changed but we’ve got more solid exposed AFL form to draw on to make more solid decisions. May as well take advantage of *knowing* someone is excellent value based on actual AFL form.

Of course we don’t know, but you know what I mean.

I’m still happy with my decision not to trade, because it was worth waiting to see what played out, but Bonner only needs to score 33+ for the trades to have worked out better points-wise for round 2.

After seeing how good Christensen went last night (I don’t own him), I’m gonna have some tough decisions this week about priorities of who to bring in.
What’s the bet Aaron Naughton goes really well too, who I also don’t own, giving me 4 players I’d like to bring in...
this is why I thought this last week: