2018 NRL.com Fantasy Thread part 43

Think i misinterpreted what @Rapture was saying partly... but in saying that - if u purposely had a WFB as a cow from the outset then of course u have forced ur hand...

Raiders released a statement that Shannon Boyd has signed with the Titans.

my tv broke wrote:Raiders released a statement that Shannon Boyd has signed with the Titans.

Effective immediately?

Fortitude wrote:

Effective immediately?

Sorry, no - for next year. Not terribly relevant for fantasy purposes.

my tv broke wrote:

Sorry, no - for next year. Not terribly relevant for fantasy purposes.

Seems the sort of player that needed to leave a club to get better. Skill is there, not sure titans are the right club for him though.

Milchcow wrote:

Worst case, imagine Nathan Brown was a CTR and you had him and no cover, - 1-2 week injury (most people held him), then another week, then a month. How long would you hold him for if every week you had him meant playing short.

Worst case would be carrying Hayne

Panthers James Maloney set to retain goal kicking duties in #NRLPanthersTigers
https://twitter.com/WackosWhispers/status/996586903175483392?s=19

How about JMK to Watson and RFM to Aitken?

Tanseyman wrote:Hi new poster here.I have 261k with 18 trades. I really want fifita. Murray to fifi ?My team

Welcome mate.

Fortitude wrote:

Seems the sort of player that needed to leave a club to get better. Skill is there, not sure titans are the right club for him though.

Ive never really rated him. He had his best game of the season two weeks ago against the club he just signed with. One of those guys that isnt consistent enough week in week out imo

Fortitude wrote:

I buy an equally as frustrating ctr to own and just run with them instead. Cost me a trade yes. Whilst I haven't intended on having cover, the reality is you have 8 players not in your 1-13 that aren't tied to a position. Chances are you can work something out depending on length of injury. I know this kind of goes against my point of having cover. MY point is more focused on having cover that isn't producing a quality return on investment.

Well, nobody deliberately selects anyone that isn't producing.

The main suggestion seems to be - for you initial team, pick the 8 reserves that will score the most points/make the most money, and don't care about position at all. And/or when making trades during the season, don't care about having backup for every position.


With initial teams, you'll probably end up with 1 or more WFB/CTR anyway as they often make good early season cash cows. Rookie backs will play 80 minutes and score to potential from the start. Rookie forwards are often eased into first grade with limited minutes off the bench, so its easy for backs to make money (eg Isaako, Kennar, Thompson this year)


But lets say that you think you are best served with only 2 halves total in your squad. Risk is for a 1-2 week injury you cop a zero unless you trade (note that you necessarily have to trade out the injured player, you can ditch one of your bench to bring in a 3rd half)
Its hard to say if that is a good strategy or not - I guess you have to work out the likelihood of player X getting injured, and weigh off the extra points you get by setting up a team without cover against the potential loss of points/trade if they do get injured.
As far as I'm aware there is nobody that goes into that level of analysis.


Generally if you want to win, you will have to take at least a few risks during the season and hope for the best. if you play it safe all the time you can rank highly, but will struggle to make the big step to actually being first. Up to you how risky you want to play it.

Milchcow wrote:

Well, nobody deliberately selects anyone that isn't producing.

The main suggestion seems to be - for you initial team, pick the 8 reserves that will score the most points/make the most money, and don't care about position at all. And/or when making trades during the season, don't care about having backup for every position.


With initial teams, you'll probably end up with 1 or more WFB/CTR anyway as they often make good early season cash cows. Rookie backs will play 80 minutes and score to potential from the start. Rookie forwards are often eased into first grade with limited minutes off the bench, so its easy for backs to make money (eg Isaako, Kennar, Thompson this year)


But lets say that you think you are best served with only 2 halves total in your squad. Risk is for a 1-2 week injury you cop a zero unless you trade (note that you necessarily have to trade out the injured player, you can ditch one of your bench to bring in a 3rd half)  
Its hard to say if that is a good strategy or not - I guess you have to work out the likelihood of player X getting injured, and weigh off the extra points you get by setting up a team without cover against the potential loss of points/trade if they do get injured.
As far as I'm aware there is nobody that goes into that level of analysis.


Generally if you want to win, you will have to take at least a few risks during the season and hope for the best. if you play it safe all the time you can rank  highly, but will struggle to make the big step to actually being first. Up to you how risky you want to play it.

I agree with everything in this. But to clarify the bolded point. Obviously that statement is correct, but my point was more that I wouldn't intentionally buy someone (now or in the future) like Hiku for example, or that price range, who has DPP and offers cover if they are sitting out side my purely for the purpose of cover. IMO that's a huge waste.

WT2K wrote:Panthers James Maloney set to retain goal kicking duties in #NRLPanthersTigers
https://twitter.com/WackosWhispers/status/996586903175483392?s=19

Good for my points scorer bet at the start of the year

Liverpool_Bulldog wrote:

Ive settled on Lamb and Watson for now, BEs are already super low and have the Titans next, gotta have a chance. There scores should be useful and give me a bit of depth.

Saying goodbye to JMK and Sorenson, thanks for the fun times.

What has Lamb averaged in the past?

Around $30kg for cutlets

Jumping Marlin wrote:A bit of a random question: I was thinking about the magic number this morning. From what I've read on here, the magic number was around 15,000 to start the year and has now fallen to around 14,000.  I assume this means that, at the start of the year, someone with a 50 average would cost  $750k (50 times 15,000).  And that if that person had of met his average all year, he would now be valued at only $700,000 (50 times 14,000).

This implies we should expect the price of our guns (on average) to slowly reduce over the year as the magic number falls.

It struck me that when looking at which guns to bring in, looking at price changes since the start of the year can be misleading.  For example, TOLO has dropped $67k from the start of the year.  BUT, IF the magic number has moved from 15,000 to 14,000 then he was priced at 60.9 average at the start and a 60.5 average now.  So, he's kind of priced where he was at the start of the year!  To return to his starting price, he actually has to outperform his 2017 average.

It also implies from pure cash value perspective - that  investing in cash is better than investing in guns!  While this makes no sense for an overall player - for a H2H player it could make sense to stash cash away and load with guns at the back end of the year when they are, on average, lower priced. This strategy also takes away injury risk for the guns that would come in.

For overall I would not suggest this, because even if you end up with a better team, you are giving up a massive points head start by not getting some guns in from the start.

For head to head it is more viable, but you have to consider how much you can actually make. Magic number falling from 15,000 to 14,1000 may mean a $50,000 difference for a 50 point player, but that change won't appear overnight. Its going to to take 5-6 weeks to drop $40k, and that is assuming scoring exactly 50 every week. Weekly variance in scores will have more impact on price than change in the MN

I think if you want this strategy (picking cheap players early to make cash with few guns) the benefit is in being able to pick and choose what guns you want after a couple of weeks, and get those that are performing better than exp[ectations, regardless of what the magic number is, and reduce your chances of having to deal with some big money player who isn't priducing this year and have to worry about their plummeting price.


Also, although in general there is a trend for early season scores to be low and increase over time (and thus MN goes from high to low) it is not always as pronounced as it has been this year. How much are you willing to sacrifice in your starting team in order to get $20k discount on a gun?

Fifita and JTrbojevic have bottomed out at about $20k below starting price. Would you really have benefitted starting without them to try and bring them in mid-season?

Guys like Smith and Cricthon who are dropping in price are doing so unrelated to how many dollars a point is worth.

Honey Badger wrote:

What has Lamb averaged in the past?

Averaged 36 last year while kicking goals (Rd8-13 i think), cant remember who his partner in the halves was, think it was SMAT maybe. Team is better this year. That run included no TAs/LBs/LBAs so definitely room for improvement

Liverpool_Bulldog wrote:

Averaged 36 last year while kicking goals (Rd8-13 i think), cant remember who his partner in the halves was, think it was SMAT maybe. Team is better this year. That run included no TAs/LBs/LBAs so definitely room for improvement

One of the things holding me back on lamb is id be selling cogger for lamb and it would be just my luck that lamb gets dropped for cogger the following week!

Honey Badger wrote:

One of the things holding me back on lamb is id be selling cogger for lamb and it would be just my luck that lamb gets dropped for cogger the following week!

Haha thats understanable. Surely they are better off just sticking with what they have until Pearce returns and then Lamb gets dropped

WT2K wrote:Panthers James Maloney set to retain goal kicking duties in #NRLPanthersTigers
https://twitter.com/WackosWhispers/status/996586903175483392?s=19

This in a little enticing in deciding whether to scrap him or not.