Hi Decided not to post this in the Round 14 trades thread, as it isn't a question specific for this round. Looking for some advice from the seasoned veterans. As a first year coach, when should you stop trying to 'build' the team, and simply hold until 1-2 weeks out from finals to try and put the final pieces in the puzzle. I have upgrades still to make in Back and Forward lines. My current team at strength looks as follows: Deledio, Gibbs, Shaw, Goddard, Broughton, Heppell, Otten (Strauss, Puopolo, Stanley) Murphy, Boyd, Pendles, Swan, A Swallow, Priddis (Hibberd, Jacobs, I Smith) Cox, Sandilands (Smith, Keeffe) Pavlich, Franklin, ROK, Sylvia, N Roo, Yarran, Krakouer (Mzungu, T Lynch, Richardson) I have 8 trades, and $205k in the bank. My rough back-of-the-envelope plan for the team is to at least: - upgrade Krakouer - upgrade Stanley or Puopolo I'd also be very tempted to trade out Swallow, Murphy, Gibbs and perhaps Heppell (if I still have him) during the SC finals. Purely going for a league win. I'm looking good for a top 4 spot. Currently placed equal first (1st - 3rd are on 32 points, 4th - 7th on 24 points) but am mindful if I take the foot off now and lose a couple games falling down to 4th could happen quickly. I could easily bring in a Suckling, Newman, Harvey, Fyfe or Goodes etc this week. As it stands though, I feel as though I should just sit for the next few weeks, maybe take advantage of any cows coming through and wait to see what bargains are available in the run to the finals at round 19 or so. So, gurus, what are your thoughts? Thanks in advance!
I'm not recognised as a guru on this site but I think after you trade Stanley/Poops & Krak your team would be quite strong, I curently ave 7 trades left (done this weeks) I think once you've upgraded 2 out of those 3 or possibly all 3 you could hold for a few weeks, then see how your team is going, my plan in finals time is not to trade the players with the byes, btu I'm looking to get J.Brown into forwards bench, Didak into mids bench and Symes into backs bench for extra depth, that will be done before prelim week. Leaving me with 3 trades left, I could do 1 that week if I feel that Judd needs to be traded. Thát's unlikely, and in those final rounds good do a couple of sideways trades liek Foley & Montags out for Pendles & Gaz, although they arent really sideways but sorta are.....if you feel you should sit now, then maybe sit, if your second guessing yourself I think it may be best to hold for a week and see how everything pans out, then decide the next week....although some "guru's" help should g]hlp you whether to determine to sit on your trades or go 2 this week then sit....pretty solid team once your next 2/3 upgrades have been finalised i think
@Golingo Strong position, sit tight. If you are currently at the top, the others will be burning trades to try and catch you. Since you are in your first year, the discipline in trading you show now will mean you are even more successful next year. List the teams 2 - 4 (and any others suddenly putting out big scores) and each week make a note of the trades they make. This will enable you to trade strategically when the time comes (probably 2 weeks out from finals is a good time to review your team and draft out a trading strategy for the remaining rounds). Resist the temptation and you will win. @Sainter Trading before final teams are announced???
Thanks for the replies folks. I think my main problem is I'm addicted to upgrading the team! It's tough to just sit back and essentially become a spectator to my team for a few rounds. My plan has always involved 5-6 trades for the Finals. I guess I need to put that in perspective.. I have 2-3 trades to get me by the next 7 rounds. Not knowing where your next Mundy or Grimes is going to hit means in spite of wanting to upgrade those last lines, holding off to do that may help mitigate a LTI curveball. The flipside is, I might get to round 19 and all the premiums are at their price peaks and I'm force to spend up big to get the players I need. None the less, that's been the name of the game since round 1 hasn't it. Milk the cows; catch the premiums before the price peak. Nice tip re tracking my main opponents teams. That will give me something to do rather than looking for that killer trade this week
@TerryInBangkok Never trade before teams are out mate. The teams came out and Mitch Golby was named on field so i got him as a downgrade and I got Scott Thompson, who is obviously playing unless a late withdrawal and nobody can do abything about that on a sunday afternoon.....
Well the good news is I got through the day without trading! Didn't even open my trade spreadsheet to assess Anybody else struggling with this balancing act, or have any further words of advice to impart on a SC newbie?
Put the C on Pendles or Murph. At some stage you will have to consider sacrificing one of the mids for Ablett. Perhaps when you are on the eve of finals you can do Murph into Ablett (due to Carlton bye during finals). Good luck this weekend and well done to hold back.
Set your side up well, ensure you have good bye coverage (not relevant for future years) and save a few trades for finals. That's what I'm doing. Reckon about 3 will be enough for the final 8 games haha But that's given a pretty decent backup in all positions
I gave up smoking, drinking and women but geez its harder to give up trading. The urge to tweak the team and get another premium is at times so hard! You do all the work during the week studying, surmising, analysing your team, opponents etc; it becomes this demon in your head, that itch you have to scratch and this is only my second year of playing! I have two teams going and next year(shhh don't tell the wife!) I'm cranking it up a bit more just for this reason so that my main team can be trade free when required! Some people recommend praying whatever keeps you sane!
Golingo, your team is nearly complete, but needs one more keeper DEF and one or two more keeper FWDs. I can't see Heppell or Yarran or Krakouer being in the top 10 for either DEF or FWD respectively. Yarran is closest to keeper status, but I don't think he makes the cut. With $200k in hand, you should definitely be making one upgrade this week in either FWD or DEF lines.
@Jason Resisted the opportunity to respond last week in order to give this a bit more thought. While I agree Hep, Krak and possibly Yarran should go, I don't think Golingo needs to make any unforced trades right now. He is doing enough in leagues to be assured of finals action and will be boosted in this by having ample trades. I just think he is in a position with trades and loot where he can afford to maximize his choices, taking advantage of BEs, byes and injuries in other lines. For example, Hep can be upgraded to cover a Selwood or Adcock type injury, rather than, 'whose a tasty def at the moment'. By not having traded over last weekend, he is now in a much stronger position to turn Sandi into Goldstein. Whatever, Golingo has done very few of "the dumb things" so far.
I very happily scrapped in this week by 8 points, and now share top spot with only one other in the league. I'm playing 2nd bottom this week, and with 2 of the next 5 rounds being multibyes there isn't much short of great value picks to convince me to trade again this week. Krak for Goodes or Fyfe is one I will have to look at. Sandilands was a real bummer for me, but 4 of my 6 main league opponents are all in the same situation with him. My opponent this week only has Ryder and Sandilands as playing rucks, so I might roll the dice and wear the donut from Cox's bye this week.. see what my opponents do, and how his injury reports progress.
Interesting points here about trading / not trading. I posted a query about trades and finals earlier and thought I might put it in here as well as I'd be interested in what people think (actually, I think I ended up just raving on about the Bye and Andrew Demitriou, so everyone probably skipped it)... There seems to be a lot more injuries now than ever before, particularly to the more elite running-style midfielders and other players who play a large percentage on the ground. Sandi, Rioli, Watson, Mundy, Bartel in recent weeks. What's the consensus on keeping more trades than usual, say even 5 or 6, for league finals to see what further injuries there are in the final weeks? Really worries me with the Bye in play as well.
I think an awareness of how many North, Geelong, Carlton and Essendon players you have is also vital in deciding how many trades you need to hold for finals. I don't think it is unreasonable to be keeping 3-4 for injury coverage alone. Then hopefully there aren't many premiums you might trade for their AFL bye during our finals on top of that. I think I'll look to trade A Swallow or Murphy to GAJ on the week of their bye. Cover Yarran if I still have him, and trade Gibbs.
@Golingo I'm seriously looking at slipping Hodge into a Mid7. I have Selwood and Judd. I'm confident of finishing top 4, and hoping to win game 1 to skip the Selwood bye, but if I don't, Hodge would be brilliant filler and saves me trading out both Selwood and Judd in consecutive weeks.
Midge, that is an interesting idea. It opens up the idea of using a single (upgrade) trade in the MID to cover the two premiums, rather than spending 2 trades during the finals to sidewards trade them. If my team was closer to completion, it would be a good option. However, I can potentially achieve a similar outcome with an additional D/M or F/M player in these lines, which will also server to bolster my overall team in rounds where I am not adversely effected with the byes. No, I think for the time being upgrading elsewhere and getting more depth in the F and D lines will serve me better in the long run. (Having Hodge as a M7 would also give me hours and hours of heartache in trying to pick 6 premium Mids to field some weeks when all 7 are available. At least only having 6 of them makes that decision easy!)
I was meant to stop last week for a few weeks and keep my 10 trades but still went and downgraded duigan to a rookie and upgraded darling to sylvia. Was kicking myself all weekend thinking there was no point at all in me doing that sitting on top of the ladder with 2 wins clear. Ok no trades this week for me........
<blockquote>Quote from Midge001 on June 28, 2011, 09:34 @Golingo I'm seriously looking at slipping Hodge into a Mid7. I have Selwood and Judd. I'm confident of finishing top 4, and hoping to win game 1 to skip the Selwood bye, but if I don't, Hodge would be brilliant filler and saves me trading out both Selwood and Judd in consecutive weeks.</blockquote> Could be a good go! Depends how many trades you have to play with I guess
Just on trades and finals. Remember you are limited to only 2 per round. In the lead up, there seems to be two main strategies. The first is to gradually trade out/upgrade those current players who have the bye during finals. This is coupled with not bringing players in now who still have a bye to complete before finals (e.g. Hodge). The second strategy, for those that can afford it, appears to be bringing in one gun (or tasty mid-pricer) on each line (other than RUC) to head up the bench and cover for byes. Conceivably, this strategy could also work in covering byes during finals, allowing some teams to keep their Murphys, Gibbs and Scotlands.