SuperCoach cash cows can make or break your season, find out which ones are the best
PICKING the right cash cows can make or break your SuperCoach season. And these five must-have cheapies didn’t play last night so can still slot into your team. Here’s how to pick the best option.
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WE’VE started to hear music to our SuperCoach ears these last few days with news from clubs confirming certain youngsters making their AFL debuts in round 1.
As we frantically try to finalise our starting teams for the season, read below for an exploration of how to select your rookie-priced players.
Every SuperCoach team needs a good amount of rookie-priced players, it frees up cash allowing you to pick a greater amount of premium priced players at the beginning, and more importantly, they can be used to generate cash to strengthen your team.
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Rookie-priced players generally rise in value quickly and by the largest margin and the aim is to trade them in when they have peaked in price.
If used to their maximum potential you can have a fully upgraded team before the end of the multi-bye rounds.
The two most important considerations when picking rookies are that they are selected in Round 1, and that they have decent job security, in that they are likely to continue playing senior footy in the AFL.
This is because players’ prices only change after they have played their third game and every subsequent game after that, so we need them playing games in order for them to increase their value.
The initial salary of first-year players is determined by where they were taken in their draft and based on their price we can attribute hypothetical price-based averages to the first-year players, which helps us predict how a player’s price may evolve during the season.
For example, pick No.1 in the 2017 National Draft Cameron Rayner (Mid-Fwd) has a starting salary of $202,800, which is the equivalent of a player who averaged about 37 points last season, whereas Geelong’s Tim Kelly (Mid), who was selected at pick 24 in the national draft, has a starting salary of $117,300 — the approximate equivalent to an average of 21 points.
COMPARE THE PAIR ... RAYNER v KELLY
We can use the two players mentioned above to examine how easily they can rise in price.
Price rises are determined by the player’s previous three scores so we can make rough predictions by considering a player scores the same each week.
Keep in mind that this analysis is just a guide because a couple of huge games or a couple of stinkers could each have drastic effects on a player’s price at the time.
Rayner and Kelly have their byes in Rounds 13 and 14 respectively, and let’s say they score 75 (just below the SuperCoach average score) every week before then.
By Round 13, Rayner would increase to about $371,111, and Kelly would increase to about $361,074. That’s not a lot of difference in their end value but the extra $85,500 you spent on Rayner at the beginning could have been used to start with someone like Nat Fyfe ($597,900, Mid) instead of someone like Lachie Whitfield ($536,600, Mid).
In this scenario, Rayner would earn you around $168k and Kelly would earn you $243k.
For Rayner to earn $243k before the bye, he would need to score around 91 points each week, about 15 points more than Kelly has to.
If you feel your cash cow has peaked — they are priced at their average and won’t gain much more value from here — you can now “downgrade”, allowing you to trade in a premium player who has had a couple of poor games and momentarily dropped in price.
Looking at the data from 2017, 19 players peaked greater than $200,000 higher than they started.
Sydney’s Nic Newman was the best of all, peaking at $451,100 in Round 15, after starting the year priced at $123,900 — an increase of $327,200.
Of the top ten money earners in 2017, only two of them began with a price greater than $125,000, Jarrod Witts at $217,600 and Sam Powell-Pepper at $135,300.
It was a different story for the next ten players. Only one of those ten started at less than $125,000, demonstrating the difficulty for the higher-priced rookies to rise as good as the best, but also that they can rise enough to be worthwhile.
Where it gets really interesting is when considering how many games it took players to reach $200,000 higher than they started.
Of all 19 players who achieved this milestone, the players who started with prices less than $125,000 took an average of 7.8 games to rise $200,000, Mitch Hannan taking the longest with 12 games, and Andy Otten taking the shortest, needing just five games.
Players who started on more than $125,000 had to wait an average of 12.6 games to rise $200,000 – the same number it took Hannan who was the longest for the cheapies.
I have done this analysis before and the results are eerily similar to seasons past, almost exactly the same.
All the evidence suggests selecting cheaper players as your cash cows is preferable but whether they are priced at $100,000 or $200,000, they’re not going to earn you any money if they’re not getting games.
FIVE CASH COWS TO LOCK INTO YOUR TEAM
SAM MURRAY ($123,900, Def)
Has been confirmed to play Round 1 after a strong pre-season where he looked to be a big part of Collingwood’s game plans.
BAILEY BANFIELD ($123,400, Mid)
Confirmed to play Round 1. Won Claremont’s B&F in the WAFL last season and has backed it up with a strong JLT Series.
TOM DOEDEE ($123,900, Def)
Key position player, but has locked away a position in Adelaide’s backline after the departure of Jake Lever.
NICK HOLMAN ($102,400, Mid)
Mature age rookie who should get lots of opportunities at Gold Coast. Has played well in the JLT and is cheap as chips.
BAYLEY FRITSCH ($117,300, Fwd)
Mature age and knows where the goals are, kicking 42 goals last year in the VFL and then four goals during the JLT Series. May not be a high SuperCoach scorer but looks like he’ll get his chance with Melbourne.
Anthony Hack is a contributor to the SuperCoach blog TooSerious. For more expert tips visit tooserious.net or contact Anthony on Twitter at @ant_hak
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