Was wondering what people think about initial team structure when taking byes into account. If you were to have 3-4 premiums in each FWD/MID/DEF line and 1-2 in the RUC. Should you make an effort to try grab the best premiums from each bye round? Currently when i pick out premiums i struggle to find decent FWD, MID and DEF premiums from the first bye round. Bye 1 Teams: Ade, Bris, GWS, NM, WC, Bulldogs. People who were in the top 20 players last year from those teams (the guys in the lower tens rankings are generally scoring 10-20 ppg less than the lead premiums) DEF: Adcock (16th), Johncock (17th), Merrit (19th injured), Hurn (didn't make top 20 defenders last year) MID (Plenty here but not necessarily top 10 material): Boyd (7), Rockliff (9), Swallow (11), Thompson (13), Griffen (15) FWD: Harvey (7), Petrie (14), Murphy (18), Giansiracusa (20) So i guess the question is who do people think from the first round bye teams as premiums will have a good year in FWD and DEF?
There will be plenty of rookies from the first bye group in your team so it isn't that necessary to get many premiums from the first bye group.
I think the worry comes when you begin upgrading your rookies at say r6-7 when the starting rookies begin to mature into the forwards and backs especially that have byes in r12 and r13. Thats where the issues arise because you have to choose between keeping your rooks for the bye rounds and forgoing the premium points or taking your premium points and copping donuts during the bye rounds. Big issue for mine.
The bye looks bad to me and I don't know how to deal with it yet. As noted, most forward and back premiums have their bye after most rookies which means you can't trade around the bye like last year. Do we get rid of the rookie before round 11 and hold the premium through the bye? Do we hold the rookie through the bye then upgrade afterwards? Or do we try and trade in round 12/13 the few premiums who have already had their bye like those stated above?
Just take the hits is my plan. Round 13 I expect to have 2 doughnuts in both forwards and backs. If I have a lot of trades left by then, I may try to trade around Round 13 to reduce it to 2 doughnuts.
<blockquote>Quote from jkvel1 on March 8, 2012, 16:54 I think the worry comes when you begin upgrading your rookies at say r6-7 when the starting rookies begin to mature into the forwards and backs especially that have byes in r12 and r13. Thats where the issues arise because you have to choose between keeping your rooks for the bye rounds and forgoing the premium points or taking your premium points and copping donuts during the bye rounds. Big issue for mine. </blockquote> That's why there's something to be said for loading up on R13 premium defenders, because let's face it outside of Heath Shaw there aren't any who don't bye up in R13. That means your first upgrades will actually be into the semi-prems of R11-12 and can be done during the bye period. So long as your team has the right structure at R11 you can trade around the bye period and cop 3 donuts. For DEF/FWD: Rd 11 Donut - 3/3/3 - 4/2/3 - 4/3/2 or 5/2/2 Rd 12 Donut - 2/4/3 - 3/3/3 - 3/4/2 or 4/3/2 Rd 13 Donut - 2/3/4 - 3/2/4 - 3/3/3 or 4/2/3 For MID: Rd 11 Donut - 3xx - x2x - xx2 Rd 12 Donut - 2xx - x3x - xx2 Rd 13 Donut - 2xx - x2x - xx3 So as long as all your trades are either upgrades or downgrade, and providing you are playing with a full deck of players (e.g. no injuries), you should slide through with three donuts, three trades (one per line) during each of the bye weekends, and (one would hope with some intelligent shrewd trading) a hyper charged upgrading session. Remember the fact that more trades can be made in a round during these bye weekends makes them crucial for tempo.
Currently my setup of bye players is 9/8/13, and I'll be hoping to make a few upgrades in the rounds prior to the byes to only take 3-4 donuts throughout. See how it goes though I guess
Ok after much experimenting over the weekend I have settled (for now) on a 8-11-11 bye setup. This allows me to only cop 2 donuts, one in the forward line in rnd 12 and one in the backline in rnd 13. Furthermore, my premium bye split is 1-7-6. This is done on purpose to allow me to upgrade to rnd 11 premiums in rounds 12 and 13. The only issue is, how do i hold that setup all the way to the bye and still be competitive? Well it seems as though the line least affected by the bye is the rucks. So I can see a ruck upgrade happening before the bye (i'm going 1-3 atm) and that would not compromise the setup. Also I can trade within the bye groups. This may limit my trading options but I feel that each bye group will have enough premiums and rookies on offer to suffice. My thinking may change by round 1 kick-off.
I'd be surprised if the best option trades work around the bye. Some might work out but the majority will have you eating a short term donut for long term win.
There is a decent chance that at least 2 and perhaps more of your starting players will cop a serious injury before the bye weeks and need to be traded out.
I agree, I may get screwed over. But you can only control what you can control. We will all need to adapt during the season but I think it's important to at least start with a plan. Even if things don't work out, my 2 donuts might turn into 3 or 4 which is most likely about the same as everybody else anyway.
TBH I don't think there's anything wrong with 8-11-11 or something similar and aiming to trade back into R11.
There is no way that a bye structure setup now will be the same by round 11 unless you are very picky with the players you upgrade/downgrade before the bye period. I would say that it would be nigh on impossible to keep the exact bye structure when taking into account the first few downgrade/upgrade cycles of the season prior to the byes.
Mine is currently 12 7 11, but it will change plenty by R11. My premiums sit nicely inside that for now and none need to be traded. Upgrades are obviously the key to manage the peak scores, how the team looks now with rookie volumes isn't a focus for me
<blockquote>Quote from AngryAnt on March 13, 2012, 11:26 There is no way that a bye structure setup now will be the same by round 11 unless you are very picky with the players you upgrade/downgrade before the bye period. I would say that it would be nigh on impossible to keep the exact bye structure when taking into account the first few downgrade/upgrade cycles of the season prior to the byes.</blockquote> Probably true. But it's better than starting with 4 premium backs with the same bye etc and trying to right that wrong.
of course minimise the potential for massive bye issues but don't totally compromise your starting team considering your team wont be the same by the time round 11 comes along, I guess picking your premiums judiciously is more important than rookies when it comes to bye issues.
Thanks for the feedback guys. On seeing someone else start a similar thread i went back through the archives and found a few other threads like this. http://tooserious.net/forum/afl-group2/afl-forum2/bye-rounds-bite-the-donut-thread1342 http://tooserious.net/forum/afl-group2/afl-forum2/round-11-12-and-13-byes-thread1257 I think i agree with the there is no way to perfectly plan for the byes. Even the hard trading strategy at the bye rounds has flaws. Are you going to be able to trade in to rookies that will play out the year? More important this year with less bench spaces compared to last year? Are the R11 and R12 prems the ones you really want to trade into? I like the idea of having a spread of prems across the lines and being ready for the most part for the trading period by aiming to have something like an 8/11/11 at round 11.
Why are people worrying about all the players, what you need to worry about is when your premiums (and maybe midprices) will be missing because your rookies are going to change a lot before rounds 11, 12 and 13.
I've just set up my team for the first time so that I don't have more than 3 premiums missing from any line on any given week. For example, without giving away too much... R11 DEF: 1 premium, 1 mid pricer MID: 0 premiums, 0 mid pricers RUCK: 0 premiums, 0 mid pricers FWD: 1 premium, 0 mid pricers R12 DEF: 1 premium, 1 upper mid pricer MID: 1 premum, 0 mid pricer RUCK: 1 premium, 0 mid pricers FWD: 1 premium, 1 upper mid pricer R13 DEF: 2 premiums, 0 mid pricers MID: 1 premium, 0 mid pricers RUCK: 1 premium, 0 mid pricers FWD: 2 premiums, 0 mid pricers Fairly balanced team I think, at this stage anyway. Of course to accommodate byes you have to make small compromises (ie remove Scotland for Adcock to avoid three donuts in defence in round 13). I expect to make a minimum of 4 trades over the bye weekends to cover the large amount of premiums who will not be playing in R13, so for that reason, I am not considering bye weekends for my rookies.