Do you start with Ablett

[timster]

Well we had this discussion last season & I'm sure it will be discussed again next year.
Expected starting salary of $751,700 - is he worth it?
Does anyone know his highest & lowest salary levels last season?
I assume most people if they don't start him will try to draft him at some stage - so is the extra say $100,000 worth one trade?
I have him in at the moment & plan to have him as my perm captain - but this could probably change 10 times before round 1!!
Thoughts?

 

[abs_of_STEELE]

You're better off to get him from the start IMO. Yeah, you will be able to get him cheaper, but you could also fall way behind at the start if he keeps his massives scores up. So I'd rather just get him at the start.

He was at his highest price in Round 5, reaching $764,300 and was at his lowest in Round 21, falling to $601,500. But getting him at the stage wouldn't have been much help.

He also stayed above $700k right up until Round 17 which is great considering he started at $712k. But obviously he costs more this year and I don't think he will improve, but should average 130+ IMO so he will still fall a bit during the year, especially if he picks up an injury.

 

[borrat]

is the pope catholic?

 

[pumpter]

Yes, he should be the first player picked, and yes he is worth it. You might get him cheaper down the track, but why waste 2 trades to do it.

 

[smashh]

i didnt last year, thought he was too expensive and not worth it, i then spent the whole year figuring how to get him... am defs starting with him this year.

 

[Buddy Guy]

I have Ablett locked in to my next 5 supercoach sides he is that good, worth every penny.

 

[Yero]

^^Completely agree. Gotta have him if you're serious cause every other teams seems to have him.

 

[Headless]

I haven't had him at all for the last 2 seasons and it's cost me big time.

I'll be getting him (and will be annoyed if he pulls a hammy in week 1!).

EDIT: Although having said that, by round 1 I will probably think the exact opposite.

 

[BlueGibbs2011]

In terms of a strategy, we know 90% of the top 2000 players will all have Ablett. As a point of difference, it might be worth the risk to leave him out.

If you are a top 2000 player and have Ablett you are in the mix with 2000 other good players who are all chances to win. Means hardly any gains for the serious player as Ablett represents the status quo!!

If you did take the risk to omit him, and he does fall over somehow, score or injury-wise, you'd be in a group of 100 decent SC players who don't have him. This would then put you front and centre for a huge result if the rest of your is class, and you can manage your trades well!

 

[Stubz]

In terms of a strategy, we know 90% of the top 2000 players will all have Ablett. As a point of difference, it might be worth the risk to leave him out.

If you are a top 2000 player and have Ablett you are in the mix with 2000 other good players who are all chances to win. Means hardly any gains for the serious player as Ablett represents the status quo!!

If you did take the risk to omit him, and he does fall over somehow, score or injury-wise, you'd be in a group of 100 decent SC players who don't have him. This would then put you front and centre for a huge result if the rest of your is class, and you can manage your trades well!

I can actually mount quite a few points for not picking GAJ, compared to the majority who just give one-liner responses with extremely limited discussion:

• You will have a lot more money to play with, allowing you to find this years big improvers which last year was NDS, Gibbs, Selwood, Goddard and co. these guys were much more important than GAJ if you were to finish highly IMO.
• You will have better captaincy scores if GAJ picks up an injury, especially if he gets injured early in a match and gets mothballed (which Geelong have a history of doing) scoring like 0-40
• An easy upgrade target, as one sub-par score will send his price booming down so fast
• Geelong probably won't be as dominant as last year with teams like Hawthorn, WB, STK, Adelaide, Collingwood and Brisbane breathing down their neck
• You'll get to laugh at everyone who is deciding whether to fork out a trade if he gets injured (which he has done for the past two years) or holding onto him but having like 7.5% of there salary cap sitting on the bench doing nothing.
• If your looking at walking away with the lot (which most people are) anyway you can differentiate yourself from the pack should always be considered if your serious about walking away with 50K rather than centless, remember all the people who traded out Cox this year when things started going pear-shaped?

 

[TigerGlory]

I can actually mount quite a few points for not picking GAJ, compared to the majority who just give one-liner responses with extremely limited discussion:

• You will have a lot more money to play with, allowing you to find this years big improvers which last year was NDS, Gibbs, Selwood, Goddard and co. these guys were much more important than GAJ if you were to finish highly IMO.
• You will have better captaincy scores if GAJ picks up an injury, especially if he gets injured early in a match and gets mothballed (which Geelong have a history of doing) scoring like 0-40
• An easy upgrade target, as one sub-par score will send his price booming down so fast
• Geelong probably won't be as dominant as last year with teams like Hawthorn, WB, STK, Adelaide, Collingwood and Brisbane breathing down their neck
• You'll get to laugh at everyone who is deciding whether to fork out a trade if he gets injured (which he has done for the past two years) or holding onto him but having like 7.5% of there salary cap sitting on the bench doing nothing.
• If your looking at walking away with the lot (which most people are) anyway you can differentiate yourself from the pack should always be considered if your serious about walking away with 50K rather than centless, remember all the people who traded out Cox this year when things started going pear-shaped?

Depends entirely on your strategy if you are going for the money.

A sensible idea would be to follow the pack at the start, and the pack is going to pick Ablett. Whilst your starting team is very important, your trades during the year are more important. Thats what seperates you from the pack in the end. I liken it to running a long distance race where you initially stay with the pack before blowing them near the end. Starting with Ablett means you are pretty much guaranteed top line scores from a bloke you can select as your captain. If he does go down, then like its been said, basically everybody else has to trade him too, thats when a better strategy will come into play. However if Ablett continues his form you will get to claim anybody you like anyway.

Whilst your point about the teams catching Geelong may be true, the fact is Geelong's midfield will still be easily the best next year.

 

[Stubz]

Depends entirely on your strategy if you are going for the money.

A sensible idea would be to follow the pack at the start, and the pack is going to pick Ablett. Whilst your starting team is very important, your trades during the year are more important. Thats what seperates you from the pack in the end. I liken it to running a long distance race where you initially stay with the pack before blowing them near the end. Starting with Ablett means you are pretty much guaranteed top line scores from a bloke you can select as your captain. If he does go down, then like its been said, basically everybody else has to trade him too, thats when a better strategy will come into play. However if Ablett continues his form you will get to claim anybody you like anyway.

Whilst your point about the teams catching Geelong may be true, the fact is Geelong's midfield will still be easily the best next year.

If he goes down it doesn't change the fact that the people who didn't select him are still one step ahead of you as they don't have to make that trade in the first place. Who said everyone will be trading him anyway so that doesn't automatically mean everyone else has to trade him anyway? Obviously some people will decide to trade Ablett, others won't, so essentially the pack is automatically split into two anyway, there in which lies the luck, as it is extremely hard to tell what is the better decision.

I also think that Geelong won't be rushing him back back nearly as fast as they have in the past, he has his brownlow now and they showed in the later stages of last year they are more than happy to rest people for extended periods of time if they have to, see Ottens/SJ/Kelly.

In regards to Geelong's midfield being easily the best I massively beg to differ, I wouldn't rate it much better (if at all) than St.Kildas, Hawthorns, Collingwoods and maybe even Western Bulldogs.

Each to their own, but I definitely know what I'm doing.

 

[Walesy]

Realistically last year, you would have had roughly a 30ppg lead over the non-ablett holders leading up to round 14 last year. (Assuming a 120 captains average - which imo is pretty kind!).

Plus an extra 30ppg+ for the fact that Ablett DOMINATED EVERYBODY! The freak was nearly averaging 150 at round 14.

However, missed two games in the middle there.

So by round 14 last year, even missing 2 games, he was still the highest scorer in the league by a good 60 points.

Heck, by the end of the year, after missing 3 games, he wound up slipping to second place. 50 points behind a 22 game playing Dane Swan.

(And assuming a 50 point scoring coverage, would have equated to an extra 100 points in the year over anyone else in the comp) - Plus maybe an extra 300 for whoever the fill in captain was.

We get something that looks like this.

Dane - Points for the year: 2711 (+Cap: 2711) = 5422
Ablett - Points for the year: 2662 (+Replacement 150) (+Cap: 2662 (+replacement 300)) = 5774

So for an extra 100k, you could be looking at securing roughly 352(or 16ppg over 22 games) points extra over the year for selecting Ablett over a Dane or a Montagna.

Or $6250 per point. And considering a salary basis of roughly 5365, you would be getting a little stiffed.

Of course, that assumes Ablett misses 3 games. Only missing 2 games swings the benefit back into Ablett's favor.

Also, it assumes that you're not buying next years Swan at a bargain basement $555k a full 200k below Abletts price.

That said, with Ablett, you know what you are getting. He does and will dominate. And if he clears 22 games, will be worth every cent!

 

[Hondo]

I think it's dangerous to build in injury expectations to justify a starting team non-selection with someone like an Ablett

Who knows when injury will strike anyone we pick? Yes, some players are more injury prone than others but still ....

Personally, I agree with the poster who said it's better to start with the pack and pick the obvious guns and then differentiate yourself with your trades later on.

who cares if your starting team is 90% the same as the rest? There's a good reason for that. If you fall behind the 8 ball early because of too many starting team punts then all you do is burn too many trades trying to catch up and by round 15 you're cactus.

IMO, pick Ablett from the start. Spend the money and use the unlimited trades to fit him in rather than trying to catch a price drop during the season. He's almost a 20 ppg better player than the 2nd best.

 

[Walesy]

Of course it's dangerous. And that same thought process would have led you to bring in Cox last year- even though he had only played on full season in the past 3.

It's all part of the risk/reward process that we need to go through!

Where you look at the way Ablett has scored over the past two years, his average "peaks" at round 13.

So I don't know if you would be looking to get him in- unless he had an uncharacteristic early shocker!.

That said, I figured I would plug his Team Against averages from the last two years into next years schedule.

have a looksee.

Round	Team Against	Average (YTD)	Salary
1	ES		149		751700
2	HW		149.5		751700
3	FR		131.6666667	725198.1061
4	PA		139.75		712285.7295
5	CA		135.6		689234.5891
6	RI		137.8333333	695482.9935
7	SY		145.4285714	711887.124
8	BL		145.875		737066.6745
9	CO		145		750757.329
10	ME		140.8		722317.8857
11	WC		141.6363636	701856.7039
12	ES		142.25		691633.3354
13	SK		139.7692308	687183.2086
14	NM		139.1428571	675600.5397
15	HW		139.8666667	667526.5329
16	AD		139.5		672093.3613
17	BL		140.0588235	683324.2882
18	SY		142.8888889	709514.8179
19	CO		142.6315789	730510.8889
20	WB		142.25		739814.8199
21	CA		141.1428571	715151.7994
22	WC		141.5454545	702278.2163

So while it is doubtful you would get him in your team much cheaper, his odds of going up in price without an early token 200+ game are very low. So his value-add to the team would be solely in his captaincy option- provided he plays 20+ games to the standard of the last two years.

 

[TigerGlory]

Thats handy Walesy, according to those stats, the cheapest you could get Ablett next year would be before the start of Round 16. Definatley not worth waiting that long.

 

[Walesy]

Funny thing is, if Ablett were to score a 110 in his round 7 games against Sydney instead of his average (191), then he cost you 660,000 come round 10, bottoming out at 654,000 in round 15

If he gets a 110 in round 4 instead of his average (164) against port, he'll hit 641,000 in round 6 - just prior to his 191 average against Sydney propels him back into the 700...

With *both* of them set to 110's - the lowest he'll get is 636,000 in round 7.

This is because Ablett's "worst" 4 teams are Freo, Melbourne, St Kilda then Carlton.

And the only time he'll go up against 2 of them in a 3-game cycle is rounds 3-5.

It's just a shame that it's punctuated by the perpetual Ablett Punching-bag, Port. Who's second highest on Ablett's list of teaming teams apart.

Of those bottom 4 teams (Sub 120 Ave), Ablett will play them 5 times this year. (Playing the bottom 3, 3 times).

Of the top 7 teams (+149 ave - so there's 5 teams between 149 and 151!), he'll play them 12 times.

 

[Hondo]

Funny thing is, if Ablett were to score a 110 in his round 7 games against Sydney instead of his average (191), then he cost you 660,000 come round 10, bottoming out at 654,000 in round 15

Would you agree that even if he does drop to $650K that it's still a difficult to bring him in in only 2 trades? It's still a very expensive upgrade forcing potentially a sacrifice someplace else in your original non-Ablett strategy.

I read so many times last year about how difficult some people found it to bring him in during the season. I reckon a lot just gave up and hoped for injury.

 

[Sidebottom2Beams]

I won't have him in my team as of round one.I am willing to take the risk this year in not having him in my team even though he has started in my squad the last 3 years.

Is a big number for him to chase down again i just think he may start a little slower i am unsure why lol.

Also walsey will the tooserious cash league be up and running again this year...I want to join up again even though i ended up costing us first place

 

[Walesy]

Would you agree that even if he does drop to $650K that it's still a difficult to bring him in in only 2 trades? It's still a very expensive upgrade forcing potentially a sacrifice someplace else in your original non-Ablett strategy.

I read so many times last year about how difficult some people found it to bring him in during the season. I reckon a lot just gave up and hoped for injury.

I guess that's the thing, if you're not going to start with him- you're probably not going to bring him in- just as you wouldn't trade Dane Swan in once he had hit 660k. The reason you wouldn't bring him in is if you valued that cash being spent elsewhere (ie- he's gunna miss 2+ games throughout the year). And that logic shouldn't go out the window because Ablett has been averaging 150 over the first 5 round. Heck, you should almost expect that. It's Ablett!

I won't have him in my team as of round one.I am willing to take the risk this year in not having him in my team even though he has started in my squad the last 3 years.

Is a big number for him to chase down again i just think he may start a little slower i am unsure why lol.

Also walsey will the tooserious cash league be up and running again this year...I want to join up again even though i ended up costing us first place

Cash leagues hey- I reckon there's about a 90% chance we will. Provided we get enough interest of course!

I'll start a thread on it as we get closer to the start of the season.

 

[Clunk]

Wildrover started with Ablett, traded him out and then traded him back in despite his enormous starting $ tag and having to burn trades. End result = $50k.

Good enough for me to justify that ridiculous starting salary he will be on.

 

[Stubz]

Its irrelevant if Wildrover started with him or not, 2009 SC is going to be very different to 2010 SC as there is a whole new player pool, new positions, teams will be less dominant etc.

Also in regards to Wildrover trading him back in, its all dependent on the player he brought in, who is to say that you will make the correct trade and not pick up a dud. Not only this but in 2009 Ablett was a lot cheaper (around 50K), Ablett hadn't won a Brownlow, Geelong weren't on the decline, nor did he have the injury concerns he has this year.

I reckon there is a big chance of Ablett going down early in a match and getting a sub-30 score after suffering a soft-tissue injury, thus getting mothballed due to Geelong not wanting to take any risks with him. If Ablett didn't have these clouds over his head I would definitely pick him, but unfortunately he does, so I could never justify paying his ridiculous price tag when he is almost certain to miss a fair few matches.

There is no longer an incentive for Geelong to rush Ablett back, he has got his Brownlow, Geelong proved this year after winning the premiership that they are more then happy to rest players in preparation for finals. The last thing I want is someone who takes up around 10% of my cap sitting on the bench doing absolutely nothing and costing me an unnecessary trade.

 

[Toadvine]

If not ablett then who?

I'll be starting with him. I'm pretty confident I can put a decent side together even with his price tag.

 

[RustNeverSleeps]

Being a Cats supporter it's a no-brainer for me... in from the get-go.

Go Gary, Go.
Go Gary, Go.
Go Gary, Go.

 

[treefingers]

In 08 I didn't have him the whole season and finished 35th overall. I wonder what might have happened if I had him from the start.