Amateurs Fantasy Sports

The aim of this article is to take you a little deeper into team construction. Specifically, how the teams that end up being successful come end of year structured their team and why.

As you may guess, having a fast start is critical. Last year I had a strong season finishing 751st overall, and was 455th overall after the first 5 rounds. By comparison, the team that won last year was 5th overall after 5 rounds. To show you how small the margin for error is, my team was worth $10.5k less than his (about 0.4 points per players BE), and I was only 170 points less, which works out exactly 2 points per scoring player less per week. By round 10, I had closed the gap in to 23rd overall but burned 18 trades getting there with a team value of $13.09M, while the winner was sitting STILL in the top 10, having used less trades and being worth more money.

Naturally, I want to take you into the mind of a top 5 finisher to see how they constructed their team, so I have looked at their starting squad and where we can find some sense of what a winning team might look like. Every year the players selected will be different, but a good team has a certain footprint.

In 2023, there were 9 players that were owned by all of the top 5 teams in round 1. They were:
– Payne Haas
– J’Maine Hopgood
– Eliesa Katoa
– Tanah Boyd
– Lachie Miller
– Paul Alamoti
– Brandon Smith
– Will Warbrick
– Bryce Cartwright

In my opinion, there are some interesting conclusions to draw from this.

1. First off, Brandon Smith was an unmitigated disaster, yet all the top teams had him. This is one of our game theory (HERE) principles in all its glory. Because he was owned by everyone, it didn’t matter if he sucked. This is why we say PODs are overrated.
2. We have two cash cow outside backs which were started in most cases for Warbrick, and all cases for Alamoti.
3. High upside cash cow Cartwright. Those with their “player goggles” on who didn’t take the obvious upside missed the rewards.
4. A number of high upside, high ownership mid rangers, who were all “layups” in the preseason with Hopgood, Katoa, Boyd and Miller.
5. Payne Haas, an elite gun who was coming off a down year at a discount and bounced back in a big way thanks to an improved team performance.

Additionally, there were 7 more players that at least 3 of the teams had in common, who fit a similar mould…
– Captain Cleary (4)
– Braydon Trindall (4)
– Adam Doueihi (3)
– Pat Carrigan (3), noting the 2 that didnt get Carrigan went for Tapine
– Harley Smith-Shields (3)
– Iszac Thompson (3)
– Tyrell Sloan (3)
– Tommy Talau (3)
– Isaiya Katoa (3)

Of course there was also a healthy assortment of Ford, Doorey, Loiero, Murdoch-Masila, Khan-Pereiera, Preston and such, and for interest the non Cleary owner went for Captain Murray or Haas in the first weeks, then grabbed discount Cleary in round 6 just in time for his 100 point game. This shows that the alternate captain strategy is viable early in the season, but given the 80% frequency of Captain Cleary in the top 5, it seems like even when the strategy works perfectly you are still better off not tempting fate.

As you can see, there is a healthy dose of cheap outside backs and halves, with the cash spent in the forwards plus Doueihi (injury), with Fifita, Grant, Robson, Tapine and Murray all featuring in teams. Interestingly, a number of the teams also took a gun fullback, with 1 each of Tedesco, Drinkwater and Ponga, 2 of which flopped.

So, if we were to do a composite of what this team looked like in its best version as far as key building blocks, it would have been:

HOK: Tanah Boyd
MID: Payne Haas
MID: Pat Carrigan/Joseph Tapine
MID: J’Maine Hopgood
EDG: Bryce Cartwright
EDG: Eliesa Katoa
HLF: Nathan Cleary (C)
HLF: Adam Doueihi
CTR: Paul Alamoti
CTR: Iszac Thompson
WFB: Lachie Miller
WFB: Will Warbrick
WFB: Tyrell Sloan
B1: Brandon Smith
B2: Braydon Trindall
B3: (GUN PLAYER)
B4: (GUN PLAYER)
E1: (ANOTHER CHEAPIE)
E2: Isaiya Katoa
E3: Harley Smith-Shields
E4: Tommy Talau

Getting the obvious out of the way, we started with a massive number of cheapies, but you will notice that none of the teams loaded up on all of them. The sweet spot seemed to be about 9-10 guys in the $350kish or less bracket. It needs to be said that this was a particularly good year for cash cows, so you may need to adjust your expectations to the players that become available. This year, there are a few in the $350k-$400k tier that you may need to loop into your cheapie calculations to make the configuration work.

The other thing that needs to be said is that there was at least one or two bad picks in every top 5 side, between Tedesco, Burton, Talakai, Sutton, Turuva and 3x Doueihis. All of these options looked good on paper but didn’t work out, and the coaches were still able to recover. The key take away here is that it is ok to be wrong on 1 player, just make sure that for the most part you swim with the tide and grab players with high ownership and high value potential, as we note in our game theory article (HERE) which details the reasons further.

Another observation we made is that these 5 teams spent, on average, 16 trades in the first 10 weeks (14, 14, 15, 17 and 20!). Interestingly, the teams in 1st and 2nd spent the most trades of the lot, and talking to Nigel who came in 2nd he mentioned that he traded early and often to fix mistakes and ensure he had the best cash makers and bye coverage. The moral of the story is simple, if you make a mistake, fix it straight away.

In doing this article, we also discovered that the average amount of cash these teams saved in the bank on their starting side was about $113k, with the top 3 sides all carrying about $75k-$85k, which allowed them flexibility to fix any early mistakes, moving on failed selections like the guys mentioned earlier to cash makers like Zac Hosking, Shaun Johnson and Jacob Preston.

Bundling this all together, and relating back to our game theory article, we are looking for:

5-6 keepers including a gun captain and a high upside gun VC

5-6 mid rangers, prioritising high ownership “layups” and upside

10 “cheapies” up to around $400k, prioritising high ownership and upside

Save around $100k for flexibility, and don’t be shy to spend a few trades early fixing mistakes and then transition into your bye planning.

Lastly, you will notice we intentionally have omitted player names for this year from this article. This is mostly so you can do some of the work yourself, and because it is too early to hone in on some specific players at this time. Keep an eye on the website for player articles, and the short list as we get to the business end of the preseason.

AMATEUR MARK