The Buzz – Round 22 burning questions: Hurn/Mills replacements, 2022 prices
Round 21 threw us with some almighty scares with the likes of Patrick Dangerfield and Sam Walsh being sent for scans after their games however both have pulled up alright and look to play out the rest of the year.
But the same cannot be said for owners of Shannon Hurn who looks to be done for the year with a hamstring injury as well as Callum Mills who was withdrawn with Achilles soreness and now faces a battle to play out the year.
The AFL Tribunal also got their fair share of work as popular selections in Andrew Brayshaw and Toby Greene (pending an appeal) were given one-week suspensions.
So, who can you replace these guys with given that we have crucial preliminary finals matchups or need to make that one final push in the rankings?
We’ll also be discussing some interesting questions posted by you guys which discusses a more theoretical side of the game.
Facebook Questions
Today we’ll start off with the Facebook questions just purely because rather than having a set scenario they were more theoretical which was nice to have a think about for a change.
“I traded out Heeney because of his injury concerns, and low scoring to upgrade to Langford. Was that the right decision at the time?” – Zach Smith
The answer would completely depend on when you traded them in/out, let’s presume it was in Round 14 when it was the most logical trade at the time given Essendon were coming off the bye and Sydney were going into one. The short answer is, don’t look back at it too hard as in hindsight we all could have made “better” trades that would benefit us. However, I will like to analyse to see what other options were available at the time and whether it was “the right decision”
Now that trade would have set you back around $70k so you would have had to potentially burn 2 trades to complete this or have had spare cash in the bank from other trades. So, Langford was an excellent option at the time coming off 3 tons from Rounds 10 to 12, playing a fantasy friendly inside midfielder role where he was their equal third go-to midfielder at centre bounces with McGrath, so when McGrath went down with a knee injury pre bye, things were still looking good for Langford, but post bye he lost all those midfield minutes to Jake Stringer and his scoring suffered because of it. Obviously, he then suffered a hamstring injury in round 17 which saw him become a force trade.
While Heeney did have a few shockers coming into the bye, post bye he certainly regained the form that coaches wanted to see, that probably would be indicative of how Sydney performed in that period too though as they were a bit shaky with a narrow win over the Saints as well as losses to the Hawks and the Power. With the Swans playing a faster style of ball movement in the last 6 weeks and being considered the most inform team in the competition. Heeney has seemed to benefit from this, taking more marks and kicking more goals albeit with a bit of inconsistency.
In terms of alternative options that I would have considered (noting that they would have had to have played their bye week already), there aren’t many names that stand out, the only other one that you would potentially consider if you had a bit more cash would be Charlie Dixon who at the time was showing to be one of the more consistent key forwards scoring four tons in five games.
Tarryn Thomas was another one who could have been an alternative given he was showing signs of a similar role change and coming off four scores of 94+ but again Langford was the “safer” selection.
Again hindsight is a wonderful thing, looking back the right move would be to ride through the Heeney pain and save the 1 or 2 trades but then again this was a completely logical trade as you were bringing in a player who had a nice role change with proven results but again with hindsight we could see the return of another player completely changed that and we can’t predict injuries occurring either, like I mentioned before we shouldn’t be too critical on every single trade because there was always a diamond in the rough that we would have never seen.
“How does the starting price for the players work for like next season, is it the price they ended up with or average price? (in SuperCoach)” – Evan Altham
Players are priced based on their previous season average, there is a formula applied to work out an approximated player’s price, if you don’t want to do any calculations @bricemitchell does a fantastic job at doing the price projections each round and I’m sure he’ll be covering plenty in the offseason so give him a follow.
Now if you are interested in some of the maths involved, I’ll try and keep it simple. For players who play more than 10 games throughout the season the number 5430is multiplied to the player’s current average. So, we can then apply this and take Jack Macrae’s current average of 129 and can see as of Round 20 he will be priced at around 701k (5430×129=700,470) at the start of the 2022 season.
A lot of coaches will be interested to see who finishes the year in red hot form compared to their season average, the reason being is that they will be under-priced for next year’s season given their up and down start. For example, Rowan Marshall is currently averaging 99.0 for the season, this would mean that he would start at a price of 538k (as of Round 20) but as we well know he can put out averages much higher than this and has shown that in the past as well. Others to consider would be Lachie Whitfield ($517k) and Taylor Adams ($503k) but more will be discussed in the pre-season
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we will end up with some overpriced players, these are guys that start the year on fire but completely tail off at the end making them extremely overpriced to begin the 2022 season thus making them difficult to select. Max Gawn will be the obvious one as he is predicted to start at $652k, but given that two other ruckmen in Darcy and Grundy will begin near that price too we will have our work cut out justifying another year of Gawndy. Another one would be Josh Dunkley as he at this stage would start at a price of $604k* (assuming he played 10 games) which seems to be very overpriced given his recent output. However, Dunkley’s current price would have an exclamation mark to it, remember what i mentioned at the start. They need to have played 10 games and Dunkley at this stage has not filled that quota, so how do they go around pricing them?
We fortunately get some discounts so that players are not kept at extortionately high prices, however this is where it gets a bit tricky because SuperCoach kind of freestyles how they pick and choose how much they discount especially for premium players. I’ve done a quick table to show how much each player got to show the slight inconsistencies in the discounts given.
From this we can theorize that the amount a player gets discounted if they miss a full season is between 10 to 20%, it was theorised that the more ownership the player had the lower discount (Tom Mitchell having a lower discount vs Franklin or Curnow) they would receive however it doesn’t really explain the outliers of O’Meara and Liberatore given they were well owned back in those days as well. From this a potential 2022 selection in Matt Crouch to receive around a 15% discount making him priced slightly under $500k.
This next table highlights a list of players from recent years who played less than 10 games and were thus eligible for a discount. I tried to find players of each category (premium, mid-pricer and rookie) to compare the discount given in each.
Now there’s obviously some abnormalities here as well but the general rule here is that if a player plays less than 8 games, they will receive at least a 10% discount if they are “established”. Players who have played between 8-9 games still are eligible for a slight discount, but it seems to be very minimal. For rookie and mid-pricers, supercoach aren’t too generous here as they tend to give very minimal discounts until they play 3 games or less. Premiums tend to get the biggest discount and this amount gets bigger the less games they play. If you remember back to Libba in the example above, he got a 30% discount also for 13 minutes of gametime.
At 3 games or less this is where the big bargains are found as rookies are the ones who benefit the most. They received discounts of up to 30% and could be even more if they score less but they won’t be priced lower than a standard rookie ($123,900). Players who have had a season at least in the league won’t get as big of a discount but at least 10% will be given it seems.
Furthermore, if a player has played less than 10 games in consecutive seasons their discounts will apply on top but I’m not 100% sure how it is done relative to their priced average or discounted average or a hybrid between both so i won’t make a figure for it. Either way expect those who have single digit games in consecutive seasons to be even cheaper than you calculated.
At the end of the day, you won’t need to know all these discounts formulas to make your team because Supercoach will decide how much Sicily, Crouch, Milera etc will be priced at in 2022.The team picker releases for Gold members just after Christmas so it’s likely we’ll already know majority of the prices then. But it is handy to know the magic number of 5430 to pick out players who are potentially under or overpriced. This could be a new way of attacking supercoach and improving your rank in 2022.
Replacements for injuries/suspensions
Obviously it isn’t ideal that you may be dealing with one or more injury/suspension. I’ll discuss some options for players who are currently cheaper than the potential absent players as we shouldn’t be burning multiple trades.
Defenders
Jack Scrimshaw (AF $554k SC $420k DEF)
Since Round 7, Scrimshaw has been one of the more consistent defenders, mainly in supercoach, with injuries to Jiath, Impey and Day, Scrimshaw has become one of the focal points in the Hawthorn backline and that reflects his scoring as he’s gone on to score 10x 90+ scores in the last 14 games. Last week he showed that he’s got a decent ceiling to him scoring his second 120+ score in the last 6 games and after coming off an injury sustained in Round 17 he’s bounced back with 2 great scores of 97 and 127. While he isn’t the main kickout taker for the hawks he is frequently used as part of the link from defence to attack which results in a lot of marks being taken and tends to kick more than handball. With the ball living in the Hawks back 50 most weeks, Scrimshaw could be that point of difference you need if you’re an owner of Shannon Hurn. If you own Mills and are forced into a trade to win your league match up, then really you have an open field to play with as you can afford the next best defender.
Midfielders
Marcus Bontempelli (AF $782k SC $585k MID)
You would be extremely thankful of Brayshaw’s 190 he scored against the Tigers because that has allowed the potential for a direct swap to Marcus Bontempelli, in the last 6 weeks, the Bont’s scoring has been a bit of a roller coaster scoring a 110+ and then a 90 in alternating weeks. With crucial matches against the Hawks and Port in the coming weeks i would be back in the Bont to carry you over the line in your finals matches, he also offers you potential captaincy options as well as he’s scored 125, 11+ times this season which is incredible. If the Bont doesn’t fancy your pick then Cam Guthrie is in the same bracket,, coming off a 3 week hot streak, the Giants made sure that the Cats midfield really had to work for every possession and that meant Guthrie went sub 100 for only the 5th time this year (1 was injury affected however), with question marks over Dangerfield, expect Guthrie to be that number 1 midfield option at the Cattery especially with some key games coming up to secure top spot.
Forwards
Dan McStay (AF $499k SC $398k FWD)
This one was a tough one given that Toby Greene was already listed at a cheap price. So, considering those who are cheaper than him I would back Dan McStay and here’s why, Brisbane are going to want to make top 4, there’s no question about it and while they are 2 games outside of it currently, any slip up could mean the Lions sneak in, to maximise their chances. The Lions are going to want to kick bags of goals to boost their percentage up and Joe Daniher is going to get the best defender each week. Thus enter Dan McStay, while he isn’t exactly known for kicking a huge bag, he takes lots of clunks and will be a focal point for the Brisbane forward line especially since Hipwood is not there. In fact, since Hipwood got injured, McStay has had his best run and with the Pies and Eagles, two teams who aren’t exactly in great form nor are phenomenal defensively either. You could find yourself a nice POD.
But I really hope you have some cash in the bank to trade Toby Greene to if you need to, even if it’s like $20-30k, to a Matt Kennedy or Nick Hind because they are better than the McStay argument I tried to waffle up. Also keep an eye on Luke Jackson, available as a forward and toned up in his last 2 games with Adelaide who are without O’Brien and Geelong without a premier ruckman, he could get a bigger role in the ruck if Maxy needs a rest before the finals starts.
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