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Picking the brains of AFL Fantasy BEAST MiniMonk! 39th AFL Fantasy, 2nd RealDT, 245th SuperCoach... in the SAME YEAR | #PODPOD
171 Plays2 years ago
In a special edition PODPOD, Holmesy is joined by MiniMonk, who boasts a ridiculous fantasy resumé, finishing 39th in AFL Fantasy, 2nd in RealDT, and 245th in SuperCoach - ALL in 2022! Holmesy digs deep into all the strategies that make a quality fantasy coach and how we can apply these learnings this year. This is an in-depth chat you can't miss ahead of the 2023 AFL Fantasy season!
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Transcript
Introduction to Fantasy Experts
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to a special edition of the Pod Pod. We've got an awesome sit down chat with you with our very own, Holmzy, the second overall finisher back in 2021. And he's going to be talking with another absolute fantasy guru and just picking his brain.
Minimunk's Impressive Ranks
00:00:19
Speaker
It's Minimunk who last year, unbelievably finished
00:00:23
Speaker
39th in AFL fantasy, second in Real DT, that's a Stado's favourite format, if you haven't heard of that one, and 245th in Supercoach. And what? I believe it's only his first year playing the format. So this guy's an absolute gun all around at fantasy.
AFL Fantasy 2023 Strategies
00:00:39
Speaker
Kyle's going to pick his brain a bit about the different formats, but then hone in on AFL fantasy and get his strategies for each different position that we've got in 2023.
00:00:50
Speaker
It's as in-depth as you get. It's two gurus just going back and forth and boys are a fantastic listener, so you're going to be enjoying this one.
Keeper League Pod Sponsorship
00:00:58
Speaker
I want to remind you as always that our episodes are brought to you by the Keeper League Pod. Hit them up at keeperlegepod.com. Get all your fantasy resources from them for your classic draft and keeper league teams. Get the rookie resources, your CBAs, all the things you need to dominate this fantasy season.
00:01:16
Speaker
And if you want to become a member and grab all the premium resources, make sure you use the code PODPOD on sign up to get yourself 20% off. Support them because they support us. And let's enjoy this episode together. I'm going to sit back, relax and crack open a cold one. I reckon for this one, it's Minimo.
00:01:53
Speaker
All right, I'm joined by a very special guest
Who is Minimunk?
00:01:56
Speaker
today. You might have heard him this year all over the coach's panel. A coach that has done something that not many of us have really been able to do before, and that's having three very successful finishes across multiple formats. We know that it's quite difficult and draining to play all three, but we've got Mini Monk on today. And yeah, how are you going, Mini Monk?
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going quite well. It's nice to be able to join you guys on the Pod Pod and to get myself out there a little bit and to talk about the success that I had last year.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, mate, look, to be honest, I've been looking forward to doing this little interview for a while. I've sort of been thinking about, you know, the successful coaches that I can really deep dive with and have an in-depth fantasy conversation with. And to be honest, mate, I marveled last year at what you were able to do. I mean, I wasn't having the most successful season myself, but I was definitely keeping track of how you were going through the Discord.
Minimunk's Fantasy Journey
00:02:52
Speaker
And yeah, so why don't you just sort of introduce yourself to everyone a little bit and
00:02:57
Speaker
sort of talk about your fantasy success in the past and then we'll sort of get into it. Yeah, sure. So I've been playing AFL fantasy specifically for the last four years. So first season I did it, I think I finished 1300 and then had a bit of a better year in the second year 700th and then had to claw my way back a couple of years back to finish about 1500. I think I was about 10,000 at the buy and then finished 39th this year in AFL fantasy.
00:03:23
Speaker
I played dream team for a couple of years. I think the first year I played, I finished about 25th and then last year I finished second. And then, you know, last year was my first real foray into supercoach and I finished 245th. So having finishes inside of, you know, the top 250 across all three formats and being able to win a hat and nearly win dream team was, I mean, it was quite the year, but obviously it's quite stressful when you've got three different formats that you're juggling and you're trying to perform well in all three of them.
00:03:53
Speaker
Yeah, look, it's even those top thousand finishes like these days fantasy, especially AFL fantasy, it's that competitive. There's so much content out there. It's no secret that it's getting tougher and tougher. So anyone that is able to finish inside the top 1000 consistently, clearly you know what you're doing.
00:04:12
Speaker
But yeah, to be able to finish that highly across all three formats is quite impressive. So let's just sort of deep dive. We're going to get into more AFL fantasy specific content later because that's what we are, we're an AFL fantasy podcast. But let's just deep dive a little bit into last season and let's have a little bit of a discussion about the differences between the three formats.
Dream Team vs. AFL Fantasy
00:04:33
Speaker
And maybe we'll start with sort of DT and AF as they are a little bit sort of closely linked. What were the sort of learnings in terms of playing those two formats specifically?
00:04:44
Speaker
I think in terms of DT compared to AF, the upgrade cycle is much faster. You've got to really be jumping onto the right premiums quickly. I'm not sure if last year was a massive anomaly, but there's a lot of, you know, I mean, in AF as well, there were a lot of cheap players who ended up being season keepers like Cicely, Huert, Brody,
00:05:04
Speaker
and starting those players made a huge difference but it also allowed you to get to a point where you had more than the 22 premiums. By the end of the season in Dream Team I was running 24 premiums and you know that's unheard of in AFR fantasy and very rare in Supercoach as well.
00:05:20
Speaker
So I think having that upgrade cadence and achieving a full premium team basically at the round 12 buy is one of the bigger differences. And the rolling price cycle is different as well. Super Coach and Dream Team roll off of a three game cycle for their prices, whereas AFL Fantasy rolls off of a five game price cycle. And that makes the price movements much more dramatic. You can really,
00:05:46
Speaker
pick your premiums when they come down, whereas in AFL fantasy you really have to see players have a couple of bad games in a row or a bad game and follow it up with a not so good game to know that their price is going to come down to a point where you can start to jump onto them.
00:06:02
Speaker
Yeah, so you talked about having 24 premiums in DT and obviously falling just short.
Managing a Strong Fantasy Team
00:06:10
Speaker
Do you think that was the way to go or do you think you needed to maybe try and get your 22 on field a little bit more stronger or is that the way you sort of thought it should be?
00:06:22
Speaker
Um, I don't think that the 22 that I had on field was weak by any sense of the word. I ended up with short increase in my end side in my defense, which I wasn't particularly happy with, but you know, the sacrifices that you're going to end up making in limited trade formats. I was able to loop on premiums at times as well. I had English, which was able to provide a rock forward DPP and be able to loop his scores on in the back half of the year.
00:06:48
Speaker
But I think I got, as a lot of coaches did, unlucky with the fact that Stewart got injured and missed four weeks and I had to bail off of him quite late in the season in Dream Team and I made the wrong choice there. I went to Aaron Hall, a player who had injury history and what do you know, he gets injured on a 12 point game and that's one of the reasons I can point to him and say that might have cost me the win in Dream Team, but it could easily have been a multitude of mistakes that I made earlier on in the year. So I think it's
00:07:14
Speaker
I think the premiums that I ran with at the end back after the year were scoring me enough and I don't think that that was the reason why I fell short.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah, look, mate, I also traded in Aaron Hall for that 12, albeit in AF, not in DT, where you can take a little bit more of a risk in AF, but yeah, that's just the way the game goes. Unfortunately, you know what you're getting into when you trade into an Aaron Hall. So let's talk a little bit about Super Coach, because I'm looking at having a little bit of a dabble in Super Coach this year and sort of challenging myself a little bit. What are the main sort of differences that you see between
00:07:47
Speaker
Supercoach and AF other than the obvious difference in prices and the way they kind of price players to begin with in terms of we know AF if you play under 10 games they price you off the best score of your two seasons. So what are some differences with Supercoach?
00:08:05
Speaker
I think that there's a lot more of a tendency to not go for mid prices in Super Coach and I'm not sure that that's a failing of players in Super Coach or just them having to adapt to the new system where they have more trades available to them. I think that that's starting to be corrected. A lot of the discussion that I've seen on Twitter and on some Discord groups is that people are trying to adjust more and try and find more mid prices.
00:08:29
Speaker
Not necessarily sure that that's the answer this year, per se, but that's one that's been historic. I think you have to try and hold your premiums a lot more in Supercoach. You want to be willing to ride players from round one all the way to the end of the season, whereas in AFL fantasy come the end of the buys. You're flipping premiums anyways because everyone has an upgraded team and you're at full premium. So you're looking to find the premiums that can actually differentiate you from the pack that may be a fall in 50K in price and you can use it to
00:08:57
Speaker
downgrade a midfielder by 50k but get to the top six defender that you want Rosenz to because you have to be content and say no this player is close enough to the top six I'll have to hold them. I think that's something that I needed to learn a bit more through this season and you know I'll be improving on for 2023 because I flipped a couple of premiums that I probably shouldn't have. Just maybe for biostructure or because I just didn't think that they could score as well as I needed them to but I probably just needed to hold the gun and just wait a little bit longer.
Selby's Influence on Strategies
00:09:27
Speaker
Yeah it's crazy right so we all play AFL fantasy the way that we do because Selby was the sort of the trendsetter and that's how he played it back in the day and was so successful and we've kind of played his model and adapted it to this sort of new age fantasy and then Selby goes over to Super Coach.
00:09:44
Speaker
And he picks all these mid prices and then all of a sudden he does really, really well. So I think you are right. We've had this sort of discussion before off air that maybe last year was a bit of an anomaly because we had so many of these mid prices in terms of your Sicily, Hewitt, Brody that we were able to ride for so long that we're putting up numbers in the top six for large chunks or close enough.
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see this year if any of them present themselves or whether it kind of goes back to the method where the mid prices generally fail and then you're stuck a little bit because they're not putting up the numbers needed to generate enough cash or score the points. So yeah, it's really fascinating. I'm very interested to see how it goes. I think 36 trades in Supercoach this year, am I correct? Yeah, 36 trades with five trade boosts. So just the additional trade from the extra round coming into the season.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I think AF this year is going to be closer to 50, I think. I think it's 50 on the side. So yeah, 14 extra trades in that format just shows that you can afford to be a little bit more, well, far more aggressive, you're right. Once you hit the buys, you've essentially got a full team and that's when you're just chopping and changing, but also means you can be a little bit more aggressive with your starting selections and kind of get rid of them if they don't work out.
Starting Squad Strategy
00:11:01
Speaker
Let's turn over to AFL fantasy now, because that's what we're kind of here to talk about.
00:11:06
Speaker
Let's go through a little bit of your starting squad strategy from last year and what made you so successful. So let's go through a few of your picks that you started and sort of your philosophy behind it and what you were looking to achieve with your starting squad. I think my starting squad for AFL fantasy was
00:11:23
Speaker
you know, not the strongest. I think I made a lot of mistakes in my starting squad, actually. So down back, I went for a couple of premiums, a couple of mid prices, and just the one rookie on field, because I was really trying to avoid, you know, having to field either Patti McCardon or de Koning or Gibkiss. And I ended up running Justin McInerney at D4 and Miller at D5. And that was not a great starting move.
00:11:50
Speaker
Both were, I think Miller was dropped and Justin McInerney got injured, so I had to pivot out of that pretty early anyways. Through the midfield I played it relatively safe. I started the four main premiums that most people were starting, which was three out of the four, McRae, Neil and Crips. I think most people were on those three. Neil and Crips presented enough value, and I thought that as Crips especially, it was just at a price, and after his Amy game, it was too hard to pass him up.
00:12:16
Speaker
I started rallies in mid-pricer and I wouldn't call that necessarily a failed pick, but I wouldn't call it a successful pick either. I think he just held value and was definitely playing the odds a little bit. There was a high ownership associated with him. And if he popped and did anything like he had done in his first year, then he would just get away from you really quickly. And I was pretty content running the three rookies that everyone was running in the midfield. You know, Horn Francis, Daikos Ward, I think everyone was pretty satisfied that they were going to be the three main rookies for cash generation for scoring on field.
00:12:46
Speaker
I went for sudden forget in my rockline and again, I don't like the move. I don't think it was the right move either, but I don't necessarily think it was the reason why a lot of people lost their seasons. Gwon and Grundy performed okay. Gwon especially was able to hold it through until he's by, until he got injured.
00:13:07
Speaker
And then in the forward line, I went three deep in premiums. I went Dunkle but as Heaney took in the mid price in Brody, I'd seen enough that he had the role in the midfield and with five out for the early part of the season, at least he was going to make money. And then I was running Rochelle and Durden as my rookies on field in round one. So I think Rochelle was the other really highly owned rookie and Durden I think had more job security compared to a lot more of the other rookies. And he showed that he played up until
00:13:35
Speaker
majority of the season for the Blues and his scoring wasn't quite good but you know you need rookies to generate cash and to points that you get out of them is a bonus any point so I think I played my stardia squad fairly
00:13:49
Speaker
I don't know, Vanilla. The only real pod that I went for was Josh Kelly. And I never really considered Andrew Broescher at the same price point. I think a lot of people were burnt by Kelly because they were comparing him to Broescher and quite a few people were tossing it between the two. And you look back at Kelly's season, I think he performed fine, especially pre-buy. I don't think he was the reason why, again, people lost their seasons. It's just really hard
Handling Injuries and Mid-Prices
00:14:14
Speaker
when you're considering another player and all of a sudden in round two, they pop a 180.
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, look, it was a fantastic starting pick and I was one that started Kelly as well. I started Kelly and Bray Shaw and you are right, Kelly, although he wasn't that sort of bloke that really pushed the top eight, at least to begin with. He didn't go 110, but he wasn't horrible either. I think by the time mid-season came around, he'd actually pushed up quite high and that's when people started to bring him in and that's when they got burnt, I think.
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, definitely not a horrible selection. The thing that kind of does stick out is, yeah, the McInerney and the Melira. I was someone that got burnt by Melira as well. And even though I preached all preseason that I couldn't pick him off, you know, limited preseason and not playing footy, I think.
00:15:01
Speaker
not having the rookies there kind of spooked me a little bit i think i've always been someone that if i can get three defensive rookies on field that's what i try and go for because that's just the way i've played it in the past and typically your defenders don't go too high they're all always kind of flat averages and you can kind of play it that way but yeah with the lack of rookies that was just something we had to look at unfortunately and
00:15:23
Speaker
I suppose a little bit of luck with, you had McInerney and Malira go down round one. If you had a few other players go out as well, you might've been a little bit stuck, but that's the kind of risk you play with the mid prices. So, no Andy Brayshore. Did you bring him in at all? I don't think I earned him until after the buys. It wasn't the right move for where my team was. I didn't have any
00:15:49
Speaker
failing premiums in my midfield that I could pivot into. And I had other problems to fix in my backline that were a bigger priority. So I didn't have the time to be able to go for him until it really became, you know, luxury trade season where you can pivot to premium to premium. And were you someone that jumped on a Braden Proust early? Yeah, so I jumped on Braden Proust. I think one game after he had scored,
00:16:18
Speaker
I can't remember exactly how it happened, but I think it was round five or round six. I actually traded Grundy to him and that was the week that Grundy had his 50 odd. And I was like, this is great. I've gotten ahead of the pack. I think a lot of people got him and put him on the bench and we're kind of figuring out, you know, which of the big two or which Rockman did they want to bail off of. And I think a lot of people had English were like, great, this is nice. I can just move English to my forward line.
00:16:43
Speaker
And then the week after Grundy gets injured and everyone's having to bail off anyway and so I was making the decision between Grundy and Gorn was a tricky one and I think I chose luckily against for going for Grundy out as opposed to Gorn out and I think that was a bit of looking at the stats and doing some research for myself as well.
00:17:02
Speaker
But that made a huge difference to be able to move up the ranks, especially early on in the season. I think Proos was a ticket despite the fact that he had a lot of injury and suspension concerns and got dropped. Any player that can pump out 95 is a 300K price tag. It's a player that you kind of have to own in fantasy.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, that's a common theme that you and so Matty Mottram who I interviewed a while back now so he also traded Grundy to Proust before everyone else did and that was a way for him to sort of leapfrog everyone early days so it definitely was a play and in a different alternate universe Grundy doesn't get injured and he probably does what Grundy does but it just
00:17:43
Speaker
The fantasy is a funny game and the timing of both yours and his trades just showed that you were able to get an advantage on the comp there. So that was good. Did you manage to get on like a Darcy Cameron or any of these other sort of mid prices that sort of emerged as the season went on?
Choosing Mid-Pricers Successfully
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, I did get onto Darcy Cameron quite early as well. I think I got him to him around round seven, which was earlier than most. I think he'd only gone to 100. I was chatting to a mate of mine here and he was, you know,
00:18:13
Speaker
saying oh what about Darcy Cameron is a pick and I said no no no there's no way you can pick Darcy Cameron he's not he's not a player you can tick and then I looked at the stats myself and I looked at the fact that he was going to be rocking 70% of the time and I thought yeah maybe you can jump onto him and I thought you know what if you're going to pull it in any format you pull it in AFL fantasy where the the price changes are a little bit slower and I think I went a week later in Super Coach and Dream Team than in fantasy but yeah I think moving on to him really early made a difference
00:18:40
Speaker
I also got onto Sherry early. I made realise the mistake that I'd made in my squad. I think I got onto him at round three and the other mid-pricer that I ran quite high was Kadeen Coleman, which I think was a bit of a differential from a lot of the top teams. I saw him around about the round eight marker and you know, he'd come back into the team after being injured to the preseason. He'd had a decent game. He had the round 14 buy and I thought he's a player that's got
00:19:06
Speaker
250, 300K to make. He's got Defender for DPP, so there's flexibility associated with that. And I didn't see a lot of other teams moving for him, even though I think that he was a player that really could have accelerated, you know, cash generation in your team, which is what you're needing at that point in the season.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, he definitely had a hot patch in the mid-season when he was just putting up 90s for fun and that, yeah, if you got him at a cheap enough price, you essentially had a close enough to a top six defender just sitting there on your field. So yeah, I really like it. I wasn't ballsy enough to do it myself. I didn't see that amount of upside, but it turned out to be quite a good pick by you. If you had to sort of sum up some learnings from your season of AF last year, what are they?
00:19:54
Speaker
I think my season was defined by my trades around round five and round six. So getting off Grundy down to Prouss in the process, it also allowed me to get Mills in that week. And that's the week where he went 160 and I was looking at him in the preseason. I thought that he was a top five midfielder and
00:20:12
Speaker
when he came back he had low time on ground he popped a bad score and so I was just waiting for the right time to jump on you know for his price and for his run and then Oliver as well I got the week after and a lot of that was targeting the fixture that those guys were coming into they played Hawthorn in back-to-back weeks I think and then Oliver had a run where he faced Adelaide which was one of his favorite teams to score against whereas Mills I think had a game against the Eagles pretty quickly after that and when you can get players that
00:20:42
Speaker
pop you know 120 130 scores and increase their price a lot of people start to notice them and want to trade them in and by that point you're already one trade ahead of them and i think that that's a really
00:20:57
Speaker
misunderstood concept for coaches to be one trade ahead. It's not about being one premium ahead. It's about being on the guy that everyone else wants to get onto a week before they do. And that's where you can generate differential away from the pack. You get an additional 50 points. You get an additional 30 or 40K here and there. And that really helps to boost your team to the point where you have a full premium team slightly earlier than
Staying Ahead in Trades
00:21:24
Speaker
everyone. And you've also backed the points.
00:21:26
Speaker
So yeah, targeting players who have had a low score and come down in cash and being a bit more willing to jump onto the mid prices who have a clear role or a clear role change. I think Darcy Cameron is the obvious example of that. And then starting picks like Brody was just, you know, pure midfield after coming from the Gold Coast. And he just was at a price where if he's playing pure midfield, you can really take it on. And if he fails, you can bail down to a player that's
00:21:53
Speaker
you know rookie that's on the bubble or something like that or not on the bubble but you know has a low break even that you can use to ride and gain cash that way.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a massive believer of those round five to eight trades as being the most important trades for your season. I still remember so vividly in 2021 when I did so well, round six or round seven, getting on Josh Kelly, who was unders and no one was really, he just got the forward status, but everyone was a little bit tentative still. And then Aaron Hall the week after, and they both just ended up being
00:22:29
Speaker
you know, the top players in their lines that I got under priced before everyone else. And then you're right, you're away. It just snowballs. You can get the next one and the next one and the next one while everyone's playing catch up. So that's, yeah, that's, that's perfect. And to Darcy Cameron, you're exactly right there as well. It's, it's having the balls to get on it when no one else is really willing to. I still, I went down. So I actually downgraded Richelli to Cameron. So I made cash off.
00:22:53
Speaker
maxed out rookie that was clearly on the way down and got in a ruckman or forward who would pretty much put up top six numbers until that sort of weird patch towards the end. So it's definitely looking to find ways that you can get ahead of the comp and those are some smart ways to do it. What else? I think targeting the players that you're going to be wanting after the buy is really important and
00:23:19
Speaker
It's not just about targeting players that are at a top eight point or top six point already. It's about players that are going to have a good run to finish the year. And there was a lot made about the run that.
00:23:32
Speaker
Let's say Laird went on to end the season but there was people that were eyeing him off before it was at his buy because you were looking at the fiction, you were seeing he has two games against North Melbourne and a game against the Eagles in the run home and there's just fantasy points there and he's the type of player that's done it before. Or there was a player like Merritt who had a bad score and his price was coming down at the perfect time to grab him just after his buy.
00:23:55
Speaker
knowing the players that you're wanting to jump on at the buy I think dictates a little bit of your structure coming into it and your structure coming out of it you know you need to leave a space or two open in your midfield to be able to grab those premiums so maybe you want to pick a defender premium instead or a forward premium
Post-Buy Round Player Targets
00:24:12
Speaker
And that's kind of a hard one because you wanting to grab the top eight players at the point that you can, but just waiting that week and waiting for the, I guess the price is right type move and the runner's right type move makes a huge difference.
00:24:30
Speaker
Yeah, and that's that's something I'm definitely trying to get better at. So, like, Laird's the perfect example. I was someone that I never had Rory Laird last year. And it was always, you know, I want to get in, but I can't quite get him at the moment. I can't quite get him at the moment. And then all of a sudden, he's just away from me. And there's just nothing like nothing I could do to get there without really
00:24:51
Speaker
in like screwing up my structure or something like that. And it was exactly the same in 2021. There was the three players, there was Jack Steele, there was Took Miller, and there was Jared Lyons. That was the three players that were just going on absolute tears. And I still think there's something to this in terms of those big tacklers in the second half of the season.
00:25:09
Speaker
I'd love for someone to do the statistics on it because they tend to go on these massive runs. But even like a docketty last year, I didn't get docked until really late because it's, you know, he was going well and I'm like, oh, he's priced at 105 now. I'm not sure I can get there. Is he going to sustain it? But just getting on them in this hot patch of form and backing in that it's going to continue because he went 115 for the rest of the year. And, you know, that's value from 105. So it's just sort of.
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah, having the fantasy IQ and the knowledge to sort of back yourself in and having a crack at these players when no one else is really willing to is definitely a play.
Key Defender Importance
00:25:42
Speaker
Yeah, and I think I have Doherty written down in my notes as well. The other two, the other one that I had written down was Dawson. And I think another one you could really start to look at is Sinclair.
00:25:53
Speaker
Those three defenders really defined a lot of the very top team's seasons. There were very few in the top 25 throughout the majority of the season that owned all three of them because they got out of reach for a lot of people. And I can understand why. Docherty was, you know, coming back from his treatment. Dawson had been injured in the preseason and Sinclair, everyone thought, you know, he has the same role as he had last year. He's probably going to score about the same.
00:26:21
Speaker
And you've got to be able to recognize when those types of players have had a slight change or have the value inside of them that can push them to become a top six at a price point where it's cheap enough to jump on early enough. Because once they got away,
00:26:40
Speaker
it was really hard to get onto them in the first place, but then even to convince yourself that the right person to jump onto when there's midfielders that are at the 800K marker, there's forwards that are coming down to 650, 700 that you think can perform at the same level. So yeah, I just, I think that that's a,
00:26:59
Speaker
really hard one for fantasy coaches to do. And I'm myself guilty of it because you just don't want to jump onto these players that you think are maxed out because there's no value. You're not going to get anything out of them and you might just be matching with the pack. But in reality, you've just sometimes got to bite the bullet and just be like, I've really got to get this player in.
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny you mentioned those three players because that's exactly how I saw it last year and there just wasn't really much I could do about it. So I've traditionally been a look for value in defence because we know that the defenders generally put up that sort of 95 to 97 range and if you can get someone that's priced sort of 85 to 90ish to go that level then generally that's been a pretty good stopgap but
00:27:43
Speaker
Yeah, Dawson, Sinclair and Docherty were so far above all of the defenders last year and those sort of value defenders that we were trying to get into our side. Think of like a, I know I got sucked into a Dan Houston, those types. Lloyd was, you know, he was cheap around his buy and people were looking to jump on there. And yeah, it was just a smart play to spend up because those defenders were just putting 10, 15 points on everyone else consistently each week.
00:28:06
Speaker
coaches that had those players were just just getting further and further ahead so yeah that's that's a very good call. Talk to me about just the back end of your season and the sort of strategy you were were you kind of chasing hard in terms of did you shoot into the top 100 or were you sort of up pretty high from around the bias and you were just trying to maintain or how did your season go there?
00:28:27
Speaker
I think coming into the buys, I was ranked about 250th. I was in the highest position I'd ever been in at that point, and I was pretty happy. And I had done a lot of research for my buy structure, and I was pretty content with who I was going to be getting out of the buys. I got onto, I got onto Lead, I got onto Dorse, and I think out of the buys. And I had Bailey Smith and Bond and Pelly. Well, Smith had to be traded out, but I had Bond and Pelly. I had a lot of the top six forwards already, and I had Cameron sitting there as well.
00:28:58
Speaker
And I think by the time the buys ended, I was in about 130 or so, about half my rank coming through the buys. And then I just slowly crept up from there, I think because of the work that had happened earlier in the season where I had a bit more cash in the bank, I had a bit more cash to be able to spend and go to the top line premiums.
00:29:15
Speaker
A lot of the back end of the season, I was researching, I mean, off using, you know, Selby's great tool on his website, what the stats were for top 100 and top 1000 ownerships for mids and for forwards and for defenders. And who is the people that, who are the players that people are jumping onto? Who are the players that people are jumping off of? And using that to try and figure out where can I get a little bit of separation? I think I got to a point where I had
00:29:42
Speaker
all of the mids that were essentially what I would have considered the top eight mids but most other teams didn't and I was able to just you know pick and choose the other players that I wanted to grab in the defense or in the forward line and rotate on and off of rather than always be chasing other people and being like I've got a match I've got a match just being one or two different is enough to really have a bit of progression upwards if you've got the squad value already
00:30:12
Speaker
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I suppose that just speaks to the fact that you set your squad up so early in terms of from that sort of round five onwards that you were able to do that because that snowball effect was still in place from earlier. So yeah, that's a very, very good point to make.
00:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good deep dive into your season last year. I love going back, obviously reflect on the seasons that I've done in the past and I love chatting to guys like you that have done it more recently and to pick your brain. So let's kind of take what you've learned from last year and let's have a little bit of a chat about what you're planning to do.
00:30:46
Speaker
this season. So I don't want you to give too much away because obviously now you're podcasting. We want you to do well. So you don't have to give your team away or anything like that. But let's just go through line by line and let's have a look at how you're sort of seeing the strategies for each one. So let's start with the defence. How are you seeing the defence this year?
00:31:02
Speaker
I think that there's two main camps that people are falling to in the defense at the moment. There's those that are wanting to run docketty at d1 and there's those that are wanting to run a value option at d1 and that's really dictating the structures that people are going for.
Premium vs. Value Defenders
00:31:16
Speaker
I think a lot of the people that are going for docketty are trying to find
00:31:19
Speaker
Right, I've got the D1 locked away. I want to try and find three value options and then try and find a couple of rookies I can play. Whereas those that are looking for a bit more of a value option are trying to run a couple of them and then run a couple of value mid-prices, say like a Yo or a Salem or even a Hall, and then go towards their rookies. I'm tending to lean more in towards the second cap, but I have played with Docketty at D1 in some teams.
00:31:44
Speaker
I think it's going to be really tricky to know which mid prices are the ones to start. I think there's a lot of press that's coming out about the players that are in that bracket, but a lot of that is coming from the teams wanting to say, this player is back from injury. He's doing really well. This player that we've picked up in a trade, he's doing really well. He's going to slot straight into our best 22 and it's, you know,
00:32:07
Speaker
Clubs want to put out positive media at this time of year and it's very easy for fantasy coaches and supporters of those clubs to buy into it. You've just got to take it with a grain of salt and see it with your eyes and trust reports from people that you think know what they're talking about and then watch it yourself during the Amy games.
00:32:25
Speaker
played with Jo quite often and he's rotated a bit between D3 and D4 for me. I think D4 is one of the hardest positions that I've had with my team during the preseason tinkering. It's always really tricky to be wanting to pay up for someone that's more proven in that 700 to 800 price bracket that deep.
00:32:46
Speaker
just because we are a little uncertain about the rookies down there. But it's really tricky because then you're stretching yourself thin through your midfield and through your forward line, which is places where people don't typically want to stretch themselves thin. And then the rookies, I mean, by the sounds of it, Jinby is the one that's closest to playing around at one at this stage. I think Chess is basically not going to play at this stage based on all the reports and the media that's coming out from the Eagles.
00:33:16
Speaker
But I'm not really sold as to where the other defender rookies are going to come from. I mean, one that I had my eye on being a free of support of myself was Wagner. And then he gets injured in the preseason. And I just don't think that he's going to be best 22 anymore because he's missed, he's going to miss a month of preseason training. So that's, I think defense is going to be one of the hardest lines in terms of actually finding a structure that works for your team and then slotting the players in at the price points.
00:33:45
Speaker
Yes, I suppose the difference, the main difference between sort of this season and last season, so is the price range of our mid prices. So it's never easy to pick a Yo and a Salem who are priced in the, I think Yo's 71, Salem 73 or vice versa. They're both very close. Whereas last year, Hewitt and Sicily were both priced in the mid 60s. So having that extra cash to play with, but also a bar that's not quite as high for them to get to.
00:34:12
Speaker
was a lot easier, whereas you're pretty much banking on Yo and Salem both to go. I say 90 plus, 90 plus gets it done quite comfortably for those two, but you're right for a Yo, it's quite a big ask when he hasn't played consistent football over the last couple of years. We know what his scoring potential is, but we're a little bit unsure of what role he's going to play. And then Salem, like Salem, in my opinion, he's as safe as houses for an 88 to 90 average. But yeah, it's just,
00:34:38
Speaker
we just don't know is, you know, if he gets to 88, that's right on the cusp. It's probably not enough. And then if he goes 90 to 92, then it's probably a good pick. So it's, it's quite a, there's not a lot of give there. I mean, the other one that there's sort of around is a Jack Bose whose price is 68, but who knows what role he's going to play in that Geelong system. If he's even going to be best 22, it's a, it's a massive price to pay for someone that could be in and out of the side. So it's quite risky.
00:35:02
Speaker
The docketty one definitely intrigues me. I was, you know, one of the early adopters saying that you could pick a docketty priced at that price point. I was big on it before Christmas and especially with the talk of midfield time now, it's definitely up there. I do want to pick your brains a little bit because I know you've been one that's big on both Daikos and Hayden Young and you've even been on the record saying that you could potentially pick both, which I'm a little bit sort of nervy about.
The Daicos and Young Question
00:35:25
Speaker
So sort of sell me on that structure and that plan.
00:35:28
Speaker
I think if you're going for that structure, you're really not wanting to go any mid prices in your defensive line. You're basically saying, I don't think that Salem and YO have enough upside. And I think that you're wanting to run them at D3 and D4 and skimp a little bit more in your midfield to justify that. And I think with that structure, you're looking for two value options. I don't think you can start docketty as well as then another 800K defender and then
00:35:56
Speaker
Dacos and Young because it just stretches your backline funds way too hard. I think you're going to be convinced that there's enough upside in players like Dawson that he's going to get a more consistent role and can consistently perform at 110. Or that Stewart's got inbuilt value due to his injuries through the year. Or that Gus Brayshore is going to become, you know, at 80%, 70% CBA midfielder for Melbourne and can continue at the stretch that he did in the back end of the season.
00:36:23
Speaker
And if you can convince yourself of two players in that 800K category, then you've got to think, right, can I convince myself on both Daikos and Young? I think a lot more people are convinced by Daikos. It shows in his ownership compared to Young. I mean, I think Daikos is 40 odd percent and Young is around about five to 10. I'm not sure. It fluctuates a bit through the preseason when articles come out about different teams.
00:36:47
Speaker
And the safety that's involved with picking a player that's 40% owned leans a lot of people to wanting to pick Daikos. I'm a bit worried about his floor, but I still think that he has enough in him to be able to push at least 95.
00:37:02
Speaker
Same with Young, I think with Young there's a path to increased scoring that makes sense, that he gets more kickouts, that he gets more of a share of the chip mark play that happens around at the Dockers and that he just has natural development. I mean, people forget that Young's only coming into his fourth year and that he's only had one full year of football where he didn't have an injury interruption through it. I mean,
00:37:25
Speaker
was talk at the draft that he was the best left best best kick in the draft. Freo were ecstatic to be able to grab him at I think it was pick seven and he's a he's a pick that they're just they're just going to want him off the hardback flank for the next five years at least. So I think it is a lot of factors that have to mesh together to be able to justify that sort of a structure and it's
00:37:50
Speaker
where I'm a little bit hesitant as well because I think that there's a couple in that 800k bracket that do have the upside to at least maintain top six and be close enough to Dokkity who you know is probably going to be D1 at least through the first five weeks of the season when Walsh is probably not going to be there but are you convinced on four players essentially?
00:38:12
Speaker
Can you be convinced that two 800k players and Daikos and Young are going to be able to perform at a level that you need them to through probably the first 10 weeks of the season? I think that becomes a bit trickier.
00:38:26
Speaker
Yeah, and you're right. In terms of the rookies as well, like you are, it sounds like we'll get Gimme maybe, but where are these other ones going to come from? You know, everyone was pretty sold on a Wilmot until Brisbane went out and recruited four players that are going to be pretty comfortable in their best 22. So where does that line up?
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's all very interesting, but we might have to go a little bit deeper in defense this year and that might, yeah, it might be that you have to pick a, just for an example, an Aaron Hall and a Daikos or two of those players that are around that price point, just to have a crack at trying to get some upside. So yeah, mate, that defense discussion is awesome. Let's move on to the midfield. I've got a bit of a theory there at the moment, but let's get your thoughts on the midfield and how you set.
00:39:08
Speaker
I think the midfield is where a lot of people are searching for those under priced premiums.
Selecting Breakout Players
00:39:12
Speaker
There's been a lot of chatter in the process about players like LDU, Green. Even Sarong has had a little bit of chatter. There's Warner that's had chat.
00:39:23
Speaker
I think that because there's five or six in that price bracket that people are interested in, having at most two of those and maybe at least one of them in your team is going to be quite common and probably necessary because you can pivot off of them relatively easily if you think, right, this player is going 110. I've seen it already. Whereas the player that I started has had not a great role. He's only popped an 80. I can just pivot to the other one.
00:39:51
Speaker
A lot of the other midfield discussion has been revolving around Tom Mitchell, who frankly has an absurd ownership level for this time in the pre-season, for a player that we don't know exactly what his role is going to be. We're pretty confident he's going to be playing midfield. I'd be shocked if Collingwood didn't put him in there for at least 70% of the time, but there's no certainty that's going to lead to scoring. I'm not as sold as a lot of other people.
00:40:17
Speaker
around the 105 is where my expectations are. And because of the ownership that he's going to have, it's going to force my hand. And then you're looking at your top end premiums. And, you know, the big one is Jack McRae because Dunkley's left. There's more opportunities there. Is he the slam dunk play potentially? And then there's a lot of other people that are getting their names thrown out like, um,
00:40:42
Speaker
Can you pay up for LAD? Probably not. Do you want to go for an Oliver? Do you want to go for a Bonton Pally or Bailey Smith as a differential? It's really, I think that the M1, M2 is where we're going to see the most diversity in the midfield for starting picks because I think that's where people can start to build arguments for different premiums.
00:41:07
Speaker
And I think at the end of the day, most of these players are going to be within five to 10 points of each other in terms of average. And that's not going to be that problematic in the long run. It's not going to win or lose you a hat or the car, but you've got to pick the ones that suit your structure and skimming a little bit of fat off of the top of some of your top end premiums might be the way that you, you know, as I said, as I was talking about before, justify being able to run someone like Hayden Young at d4.
Tom Mitchell as a Key Midfielder
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting your thoughts on Tom Mitchell because the way I see it at the moment, he's the lucky Neil of last year. He's our guy that's done it before. We know he's scoring pedigree. Yeah, he's moving to a new team. We don't know how that's going to line up, but I'd be more than happy to lock in a Tom Mitchell price at 96 to go 105. And if he goes anything more than that, that's an absolute bonus because 105 is going to be within three points of the top eight more than likely.
00:42:02
Speaker
and that's going to be close enough. But the way I sort of see it this year is, you're right, there's been a lot of chat around these LDU types, green, warner, you're right, sarong. And they're not the obvious ones that we've had in the past. Like they're not a Patrick Cripps who's done it before and we can kind of, you know, at least fall back on the fact that he's done it before.
00:42:22
Speaker
Sorry, I know Selby picked up a five and a Mark Murphy in his successful years that you just had the confidence that if they got back to their best form that we know what they can do. And you're basically looking at a mid price at a breakout. And if you look at the stats, it doesn't happen all that often. Yeah, there's always the out of the box picks that do, but nine out of your 10 speculative picks, they don't come off because most of it's pretty consistent.
00:42:47
Speaker
The way I sort of see it is I'm looking to to shop around more of that 100 range and trying to find those guys that are going to go closer to the 110. So I think your Bonton Pelly's, your Petrarchas, your Josh Kelly's, you know, even one that sort of floated in, not in my team, but I'm sort of thinking of is like a Ben Keyes who, you know, he was he was very injured towards the back end of last year. And when he's got that role, he scores as good as anyone. So trying to find those players that have done it before and finding the narrative for them rather than trying to pick a breakout.
00:43:17
Speaker
I like to jump on them when I've seen it, rather than starting with them. It's AFL fantasy, you're more than welcome to start a few more of these speculative picks knowing that you can jump off them. But if it's like last year where you had McInerney and Melira and you're trading those players out and you have to trade other players out, and these guys, like a Matt Crouch last year that just kept being that slow burn, not putting up the numbers that you needed, but not making any cash either, it can kind of hamstring you a little bit.
00:43:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know whether I'd be trying to start two of them, but you're right. If you have to go heavy in defence and we all know what the stacked forward line's like this year, then yeah, maybe you're forced to try and pick one of these breakouts and you just kind of run the gauntlet. So yeah, very interesting thoughts in the midfield.
00:44:00
Speaker
It allows you to have the flexibility to jump onto one of them should they start to pop. I think that the big one, especially in Super Coach, this was one that was very obvious, was Tom Green. He went really, really big in the first six rounds and was a player that a lot of people used as a ticket early on.
00:44:24
Speaker
If you didn't have a player that was at a similar price point, it was really hard to justify being able to move across to him. And in my mind, I look at that group of, I think there's about six of them in, you know, 800 odd to 750K, somewhere in that range. And I'm thinking the odds are that one of them will pop. But it won't be more than, you know, a couple of them, it won't be all six of them.
00:44:50
Speaker
But if you don't have the flexibility in your starting structure to be able to pivot across to one of them, you're hamstringing yourself in your starting squad a little bit. And that's why I've tried to find space for, I think I've got one of them in my current plan because it just allows me to have a little bit more flexibility for round one.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Perfect mate. Loving, loving this discussion. Let's move on to the rucks. One of the, once again, one of the more interesting lines this year. So how are you seeing
Top Ruckmen Selection
00:45:20
Speaker
the rucks? You know, you just spoke about the fact you did set and forget last year and maybe there is a new sort of set and forget. It won't be Grundy and Gorn, but how are you seeing it? There's a lot of chatter about the big three, I guess is the easiest way to describe it, which is English, Marshall and, and dicey camera and,
00:45:39
Speaker
Marshall has been in and out of people's teams because of the news that's come out about Hayes' injuries and about the other rockman that I have whose name just slips me at the moment and whether or not that's going to affect his role. And so you've got to convince yourself one way or the other on Marshall.
00:45:57
Speaker
English is expensive for a rockman. He's at the price level that you are paying for Grundy and Gorn and he has gone by and you've seen it for
00:46:10
Speaker
60% of a season where he hasn't been injured. And I think that's really hard to justify paying that price point early on. But I can understand the appeal for it. It's similar to the docketty one where you're thinking, right, this player is probably the number one in their line.
00:46:29
Speaker
I might just tuck him away and not have to worry about it. And now a lot of the time that's been the thinking for the Rockline because a lot of the time you don't have options to bail down onto. You don't have the ability to say this pick has failed. I want to grab a different Rock minion because there's no one else that's going to perform at a level that you need them to. And then Darcy Cameron, he did it for
00:46:50
Speaker
60% of a season as well, but it's his first time taking the number one rock mantle and he hadn't had the precess and expecting to be doing that, expected to be sharing time between rock and forward, chopping out every now and then for Grundy and all of a sudden he's thrown the roll at round six and he has to basically do it full time. And I don't, I'm not surprised that he fell away towards the end of the season. I'm not surprised that he had a couple of poorer scores against tough Rockman because he probably was exhausted to play
00:47:19
Speaker
15 rounds of AFL-40 as a rockman is very, very taxing on the system. And other preseason under the belt might help. McStay coming in might help. But most teams that I've seen have been running two out of those three. And then the other one that's getting talked about a little bit is Scott Lissette. And I think that's people trying to take a haircut and be able to fund moves in other places.
00:47:43
Speaker
I was very anti-it very early on and I'm coming around to it a little bit more after doing a bit of digging but I'm not sure I see myself pivoting on to him at this stage. I think I'm going to be starting two of those bigger three but I don't think that anyone that's going for Lysette at an R2 position is
00:48:03
Speaker
missing anything. I think that it's a justifiable pick and you're essentially saying this guy's coming in under under price because he was injured for the majority of the season and I think he can be able to I think he can buy me time at least to be able to see who the top two racmen are.
00:48:21
Speaker
Yeah, so the big one I kind of want to just go in a little bit more depth with is Darcy Cameron. It's purely for a selfish reason of mine because I've been toing and froing. I did the Deck of DT article when I was writing it and I going through the stats. I was convinced on it. It just seemed like a no brainer to me. But the more I sort of think about it, I get a little bit worried and I kind of chop and change. So what would Darcy Cameron have to go to be a successful pick? And, you know, what are the reasons that you can see of why you wouldn't pick a Darcy Cameron?
00:48:53
Speaker
I think what he has to go is very dependent on what you see Marshall and English going because those are the two that you're basically picking him against. And if you see English maybe only going at 100 to 105 and Marshall being hampered in the rock by Tom Campbell or by
00:49:11
Speaker
you know other factors that might happen and only going at around about 100 that I think Darcy Cameron only really needs to go at 90 because of his price tag relative to those two. I think you're saving over 100k which is not not something to scoff at than your starting score.
00:49:27
Speaker
Personally I think he goes at a roundabout that 95 marker which doesn't have him as a top two ruckman in most seasons and probably won't in this season but it has him close enough to the mark to be a top two ruckman or a top six forward
00:49:43
Speaker
where you're not losing 15 points a game you might only be losing five points a game and you're getting the flexibility to you know buy timers to figure out who are the top two rockmen and who are the top six forwards and where he's best suited and having the flexibility to be able to rotate in between the two which can be useful for your buyer coverage.
00:50:02
Speaker
I suppose the reasons not to pick him would be if you think that Cox is going to be significantly sharing the rock. If you think they're going to be splitting the duties 50-50 and that Darcy Cameron hasn't done enough through the preseason to convince you that he's going to be able to shoulder the rock load for the entire season, that's when you start to get concerned. Or if you think that last year was a flash in the pan, that maybe other rocks weren't preparing for him quite as hard because they didn't see him as much of a challenge and he was able to get a lot of ball because of that.
00:50:29
Speaker
that's where you start to convince yourself that Darcy Cameron isn't a great pick.
Cameron's Role and Risks
00:50:33
Speaker
I think that the Cox argument will figure that out during the pre-season and coming into round one. You know or you won't, they'll be told from McRae he's one of the better coaches when it comes to signalling what he's doing with his squad.
00:50:48
Speaker
And then the other argument about whether he was just a flash in the pan or whether he can do it through the 2023 season as well as I guess your gut feel, you've just got to take a risk and say, right, I think that he can actually perform at the level that you need for a top tier rockman to be able to perform. Or you, you back what you saw last year and you say, well, he popped a 30 odd score in the round 20. And I can't be having that happen in round one because it's going to completely sink my squad.
00:51:15
Speaker
Yeah, you summed it up completely. The mason cocks, that's the biggest factor for me. And I don't think it's as simple as everyone's saying is that damn McStay is coming in. Cox will be in the VFL. I think with the way the AFL is going and moving more towards this two-rock system, I think it could be a little bit of horses for courses where Cox comes in and out. And if there's games where Cox takes a little bit more rock than Cameron, or it's essentially 50-50, then that
00:51:39
Speaker
that could have disaster written all over it so that's that's the one thing I'm kind of weighing up because you do want Cameron to be there for most of the season and yeah it could get pretty ugly if he puts up a few of those 40 scores like you mentioned. Alright let's move on to the forward so once again a pretty big talking point is how many of these big dog forwards can we fit in so how are you seeing the forward line at the moment?
Critical Forward Selection
00:52:02
Speaker
About the same as most people are seeing them. I don't think I've seen many preseason squads that don't have Dunkley at F1. I think that's for very obvious reasons. If I'm being completely honest, he's the one premium who hasn't moved from my squad all preseason. And I will be surprised if he ever does, just because of one, the ownership to the price and three, the proven scoring potential.
00:52:27
Speaker
And then the question becomes, which of the next batch do you want to jump onto? And you're talking about the likes of Tim Taranto, Steven Canelio, Connor Rosie, Zack Butters, Dylan Moore, maybe even Errol Gould, and you could start to throw into that batch. But I think that's, I've listed them kind of in the way that most people are considering them.
00:52:49
Speaker
and there's a lot of links between your rockline and your forward line because of Darcy Cameron and people are looking to start Darcy Cameron as an R2 and then maybe running a bit weaker in the forward line or they're looking to start Darcy Cameron in their forward line as a F3, F4 type position and run a cheaper rock in their rockline, say someone like a Lloyd Meade.
00:53:12
Speaker
I think that you're probably wanting to run two of those options that are in that 750 to 850K price bracket.
00:53:21
Speaker
and picking those two is going to be very difficult. So Tim Taranto moving to a new club, smashing time trials, but he's coming into the Richmond system. Do you think that he can perform at a 105 level in that system? Canelio, he's got a new coach. He had increased CBA's when he was scoring. Is he going to maintain those CBA's or are they going to start to favor youth through their CBA's? And then Butters and Rosie, I think you're best talking about them as a combination.
00:53:50
Speaker
You know, are they going to get increased CVAs? Are they going to get an increased role through the midfield? Do they have the consistency that you need from a top 6-4 to be able to perform for the entire season? Or do you want to back someone like Morin who's a bit younger, you think he's going to get the role in the midfield? And there's basically no other competition for him because Holton's got to their midfield, they got rid of Amir and they got rid of Mitchell.
00:54:16
Speaker
I think picking which two of those is going to be tricky because they're all going to have relatively high ownership. They're all going to be popular pigs. There's going to be arguments that people have for and against them.
00:54:32
Speaker
Again, this is going to be one of the things I'm looking for in the pre-season games is what are the roles of these players? Or has the Richmond system changed to the point where players like Toronto and Hoppe coming into their club can actually score at a level where they were at their previous club?
00:54:49
Speaker
Because those are the questions you need to think about and those are the ones that you need to be going into those pre-season games with. You don't want to just go in blind and say, I just want to see everything. You've got to be having specific players that you're wanting to watch or specific things that you're wanting to watch about particular teams.
00:55:05
Speaker
about how, have they changed the style that they're moving the ball? Have they changed their midfield mix rotation? Have they changed, um, you know, the personnel that are doing different jobs? So yeah, I think that that's something that's going to really dictate the last couple of weeks coming into round one.
00:55:26
Speaker
Yeah, the one sort of question I do want to just get into a little
Forwards in Midfield Roles
00:55:30
Speaker
bit. So because there are so many of these value forward options, have you considered starting one in your midfield to try and fit another one in without butchering the rest of your structure? I have thought about it. I just don't like it.
00:55:45
Speaker
And I don't know why, because we're happy enough having mid forward DPP rookies in our midfield at say round six or round seven, if they're the ones that are scoring. And yet we don't want to start a DPP player in our forward line come round one, which feels a bit backwards, but it's hard to justify. I can understand the logic that some people are having behind it.
00:56:12
Speaker
But the counter argument, I guess, is that those mid forward rookies that you're running in your mid field come round seven is the ones that have typically gained DPP. You weren't expecting them to have to have it. And chances are you started them in your mid field because you thought that they were proven scorers. And so you might be hamstring yourself in terms of the rookies that you can get on field in your mid field at round one. So you might be hamstring yourself in terms of point scoring and cash generation early on to do that.
00:56:42
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose the reason that I'm kind of looking at it, you mentioned that, you know, there's these mid price, midfield options like a Tom Green that we're looking at for your hope goes 100 plus. If you're not that comfortable that you think he's going to go that much or you're kind of taking a gamble, if you believe that a Connor Rosie is going to go 98 to 100, why not put Connor Rosie in his place so that he's more of a top six forward that you can then put forward later on, knowing that he's more of a keeper.
00:57:12
Speaker
rather than taking that risk. I think that's where I'm at at the moment because if one of these players, like one of these breakout midfielders doesn't hit the mark, but a Connor Rosie does, then you're easily able to swing him forward and then get in the midfielder you want. Like I don't really see the difference there. Like we always say that midfielders score the most. But if you're putting one of these forwards in at that same place, then you're basically they're going to score close to the same anyway as one of these breakout players. Does that make sense?
00:57:40
Speaker
It does, it does. And I get the point that you're trying to make. I think the idea that I had back to that is that you're not just dictated by the premiums that you're wanting to select and the underpriced premiums that you think can match it at the top of the line. A lot of your structure come round one is going to be dictated by what rookies are available.
00:57:59
Speaker
And if you're running say a Rosie at M4 and you've got another value option at M5, you might only be able to run three midfield rookies. You might need to run four and you can't DPP your way out of that if you're wanting to run two forward rookies. So I think that there's, it really depends a lot on the rookies that you get. I think that there's arguments for and against running them in the midfield. Like I said, it's more of a gut feel thing for me. I don't think that there's anything
00:58:28
Speaker
that's obviously wrong with the decision of running a mid 4 DPP and mid food come round 1, and I don't encourage anyone who wants to do it. I'm not sure I'll be doing it, but I don't think it's a bad option.
00:58:42
Speaker
Yeah, perfect. So that's kind of a good segue. We just got a few of these discord questions to go through. Thanks so much for your time. You've been very generous. We've answered a fair few of them already with our discussion today. So if your question doesn't get asked, don't stress out too much. But the first one actually talks about four mid rookies. So do you think that is a crazy strategy or do you think that someone like a sheet and a warple is just too structurally important that you can't have a four rookie midfield?
00:59:08
Speaker
I don't think that Sheed and Walpole specifically are too structurally important. Walpole himself is obviously getting a lot of preseason attention from media from the Hawks, but I am concerned about a player that can play a full game and only score 10, to be fair. And Sheed as well, he's getting a lot of media attention from the Eagles because he's returning back off of a pretty unfortunate 2022 and they're wanting to put out the feel-good stories to make them happy, which any team would do.
00:59:39
Speaker
Running four midfield rookies is going to be dictated by, I think, the M9 and M10 rookies that you have. If we have four midfield rookies that you think can score and you can feel it every week, that's great. But if one of them gets dropped or one of them is named as a sub and you don't have an M9 that can score at the same level, that's when you're probably a little bit concerned.
01:00:04
Speaker
I tend to try and run the three midfield rookie structure because it feels safest. I mean, last year we had Daikos, Juan Francis, Ward, and then we had playing rookies with DPP in the midfield who could swing forward or forwards who could swing into the midfield, like C-Mac, and we had Selego who played round one and then was dropped, but then you've also got,
01:00:32
Speaker
Durden who was playing, you had half who played a few games as well. There was a little bit, but even then we started to get into trouble. I mean, Selego was dropped, Hoff was dropped, Owens was dropped. You could easily run into trouble running for midfield rookies. I think that it's better to run three.
01:00:52
Speaker
But it depends on what we get. If you get 10 midfield rookies named round one and you think eight of them have decent job security, then by all means it's a viable strategy.
01:01:04
Speaker
Yep, so just on that then, so would you think running like a shade at M4 and then, you know, this question's got a Dursmer and a Warplet M5 and M6, do you think that's probably a little bit light and giving up too many points to the teams that are running like four genuine mid-premiums?
01:01:23
Speaker
I'm not sure that it's giving up points because you're making back points in other ways. You're skimming the fat off of your premiums, but you're getting the additional cash to put onto mid prices who should outperform their price point. It's just about finding the right ones to be able to do that. And I know that Sheed and Warpool are two players that have had a lot of talk. Dersim is one that's been getting a little bit of talk from some people who have been watching Port Adelaide specifically.
01:01:54
Speaker
Don't think that running three deep in the midfield like that is something I would be comfortable in. There's not options to be able to get out of that easily, but unless you have to use both of your trades in the process of moving them and that leaves you at risk. If say, um, one of your premiums gets injured or one of your rookies is dropped, it leaves you in a very precarious situation.
01:02:22
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Sum that up. Well, let's quickly talk about Rosie and Butters because you packaged them up before this, this coach has mentioned that. So we always talk about Rosie and Butters last five and you know, they were 105, 107, I think in the last five, but they did win their last three games by an average of 60 points. And that's clearly not going to happen each week to start the season. So do you think we're kind of looking into a little bit too much in their last five games and should we maybe be a little bit wary or cautious?
01:02:51
Speaker
I think it's more important to look at a team's scoring trends through a year rather than just a subsample of the year. And it's the same when talking about players as well. I think Port Adelaide were, if not the top, one of the top AFL fantasy scoring teams in 2022. And do we buy into that as being the same for 2023? I don't see a huge amount changing. So do you think that there's going to be those points in office for players like Butters and Rosie?
01:03:20
Speaker
I did a bit of a comparison between the two for my own interest and I put out a tweet about that as well comparing the two. And in my notes that I actually didn't put in the tweet was that Rosie tended to perform better against easier opposition in games where Port Adelaide won convincingly, whereas Butters was more consistent through the year and didn't drop bad scores against tougher opponents or really good scores against easier opponents.
01:03:50
Speaker
There is a narrative that you need to consider when it comes to picking players that might just beat up on easy teams and picking players that have consistency. And if you think Port Adelaide is going to be a team that's fighting for the top four this year, then maybe that's a reason why you want to start both Butters and Rosie, because you think that there's a lot of points on offer for the both of them.
01:04:13
Speaker
So yeah, I think that trend in terms of scoring for a team and then trends in terms of actual fantasy scoring are both important factors that need to be considered when talking about, you know, players that have value because they're under priced because of what they did at the end of the season. Yep. Yep. Absolutely spot on. So this is the last question that I'll give to you and it's,
01:04:38
Speaker
You haven't really had much time to prepare this, so we'll see how we go. But Jade and P, so he wants to know what you think a trade is worth in fantasy. So it could be in terms of salary or points or, you know, what's the difference between, say, a sideways trading and a good
Understanding Trade Value
01:04:51
Speaker
trade? What's your philosophy there?
01:04:55
Speaker
I hate to do this comparison, but in Supercoast they always talk about a trade being worth $150,000. And that's because they have a very set budget. I think that that value is coming down a little bit more as they get more trades into their system. But it's really hard to judge a trades value in AFL fantasy because there's trades throughout the entire season. You don't get stuck with players. You can jump onto rookies with lower break-evens easily.
01:05:23
Speaker
and you've got two trades every week, use them or lose them. I think that the value of trades comes in as to what they can lead you to in the future and what you need to
01:05:38
Speaker
I guess, have the players that you're getting score. If you're going to be getting two players that are gonna score 80 and 60 and you're trading two players that are doing 70s, that feels very sideways because you're getting the same point gain out of it. Whereas if you can trade two players that are doing 70s to someone who's doing 100 and get a rookie on the field who was doing 50s, you've got a 10 point gain that way. So I think that's where you need to start looking at the value of trades.
01:06:06
Speaker
And I think that that also lands into the difference between sideways and a good trade is having the ability to justify actual point gain associated with it. If you've got a premium who's underperforming their price point and has done for a couple of weeks and you say, I can consider this, I see this person continuing to do that, say someone like a shorter or a crisp at the end of last year,
01:06:32
Speaker
then sideways in them up to a premium who's performing at 15 points per game better isn't sideways because it's a good trade. You're getting that immediate gain out of the player, but you've also got to know what time of the year you have to do sideways. And I think it happens a lot more in AF towards the end of the year. Just do the nature of the game. You get the ability to be able to do that.
01:06:56
Speaker
You can do it in the first maybe four weeks of the year if you have a premium that you've started that's really not got the role and you have to jump off of them. But during that upgrade season from round five to round 12, you have to be so content with your squad and have
01:07:12
Speaker
so much discipline to not move premiums if they have a bad score because you just fall behind the upgrade cycle of every other team and you're just throwing away points, cash generation and rank all at the same time.
01:07:29
Speaker
Mate, just off the cuff, that was absolutely awesome. I'm sure all of the listeners are going to get so much value out of that. And yeah, you're right. It's AFL fantasy, two trades, use it or lose it. It's obviously a little bit more different to super coaching and real dream team, but you're right. You need to consider both trades that you're pulling, you know, what points you're going to get on either side of it. And then that sort of dictates it rather than just saying, I'm going from premium to premium or rookie to rookie. So you couldn't have summed that up better.
01:07:55
Speaker
Thank you so much for giving up your time tonight. We really appreciate it. Just let all of the listeners know where they can find you because you've been putting out some pretty good stuff this preseason in terms of your Twitter and your coaches panel debut and stuff. So where can we find you? Yeah, so I'm on Twitter at MiniMonk10. I've also been making quite a few appearances on the coaches panels podcast and I tend to retweet them whenever I come on. And then I'm also in the fantasy community. That's the Discord one that you've got linked in your own Twitter, I think as well.
01:08:26
Speaker
If you ever want to shoot me a message on Discord or on Twitter, just shoot a message my way and I'll probably answer it for you.
01:08:34
Speaker
Awesome mate, well yeah, good luck as the pre-seizing goes on and I look forward to competing with you this year and you're going to come second and I'll take the car so just be happy with second. You sure it's not DOS's? Mate, if you, I don't know if you've listened to the Pod Pod yet but some of the names that he was putting up in our Midfielder Pod today are, you don't have to worry about DOS getting anywhere close to the top 10k so.
01:08:58
Speaker
okay it's good to hear again thanks for having me on and yeah it'll be good to have chats with you through the year and to campaign with you through the this season and future seasons to come perfect mate all right take care see ya
01:09:17
Speaker
God, that was telling right at the end there. Did you hear Minnie Monk? When the Hilux was mentioned, he was right. Dossie is coming for that car. Kyle's just, he's just not sure about it yet. You know, he just doesn't know what's coming for him. It's good to see Minnie Monk's on board.
01:09:33
Speaker
Hope you enjoyed the episode. Remember to use Pod Pod on sign up for your Keeper League memberships. Go get in your listener league requests. We've got to the end of February to get your listener league applications in over on Apple Podcasts. Leave a review. Let us know why you want one of our hosts to draft you for our amazing listener league. We're going to put the draft. We're going to do it at the end of February. So make sure you've got your application.
01:10:01
Speaker
in on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much to Mini Monk for that episode. Some awesome insights and always thank you to Kyle as well for his hosting job. I don't know. How do you guys reckon he did? Does Dossie get to keep his job? We'll find out next week. See you then.