MS Team Tracker 2024 - To be abandoned after round 3

One of the biggest lessons learned last season was just how much an early bye can stall a potential cash cow. Two weeks is a long time in fantasy and if you manage to cop an early floor score you could be well behind before a cow actually makes any money.

Lesson number 2 was that the starting team can infact kill you. I had a bunch of picks that independently made sense with certain degrees of confidence, but together meant that my team was a long way from cookie cutter. When a few of these guys (most of them) failed to perform how I expected it meant plenty of catch up. Add a few early HIAs and my ranking blew out to 50k with a long climb back. This will be avoided by mostly sticking with "popular" players and a few variations thrown in

Current team

Mahoney
Haas(VC), Tatola, Tupouinua
Piakura, Wong
Cleary(c), Fogarty
Arthars, Burbo
Papy, Weekes, Russell

Elliott, Lussick, Luki, Hutcho
Flangan, Berry, SHughes, Cotric

HOK: Not a lot of value here so it was either gun up with Cook/Grant or find some value. Koroisau(608k) would probably have been my pick if playing round 1 but he isn't so it falls to Mahoney(580k). Missed tackle numbers significantly jumped in his first season at the Bulldogs, mainly due to leading the line in defense and not having adequate support. I think he is priced at his floor with potential to get back up around 50.

I don't particularly trust Brad Arthur, but if we get an 80 minute Eels hooker they will be decent value so Lussick(459k) is the current place holder. Could also pivot to Hands(406k) if he ends up being the sole hooker in the 17. If all else fails Levi(286k) comes into contention.

Fading Cheese in this position as I believe 2021 was an anomoly and he was hover around starting price

MID

This is one of the harder positions for me to decide

Structurally I decided I wanted 1 top tier gun, 1 middie with upside and 1 middie with gun potential

Gun the toss up was Haas(880k) vs Murray(787k). Some very well reasoned arguments each way. In the end I'm leaning towards Haas since he tends to get bigger scores through his incredible base, while Murray needs attacking stats(which he gets a lot of because he is really good).

Middie with gun potential came down to a 2 horse way between Elliott(576k) and Cotter(587k). Both players I am betting on a return to form of 2022. Cotter much more popular which may end up being the deciding factor. Once he got over the injuries, Elliott was getting the minutes I wanted in 2023, however tackle busts, offloads and attacking stats weren't getting up to 2022 levels. Cotter minutes were down a little, had a mid season injury and seemed to be carrying a bit of fatigue. This is a decision that will be made on TLT2

Middie with upside Tatola (485k) easily leads the race in that price bracket. Flegler(513k) is on the radar after Gilbert injury but I believe is a wait and see prospect. Taumalolo(468k) the other option being considered as I believe he just needs to start to make money, even without a return to his best

Sam Hughes(250k) is such an auto pick that I forgot he was in my team when I first wrote this. Should be good for 25-30 minutes and slow burn for 150-200k. Good player to sit in position 20

As we know MS loves a plodder so will likely be Haas, Elliott, Tatola making up the numbers here

NOTE: for Vegas flexibility Tupouinua will play here round 1 but will be covered in edges

EDG

This is where all the value seems to be and this is where I've stacked my 17

Plenty of options that can't make the squad but I've gone with Tupouinua(421k), Wong(444k), Luki(498k), Piakura(399k)

Piakura is the only must have for mine and should be in every serious team. Will walk his way to 200k profit with noone behind him threating job security. Second pick after my captain

Luki has sky high potential, a road block to minutes released from the team and a career average as a starter in the mid 40s including a few with injury where he still had a decent stint.

There has been a lot of debate about the Roosters duo but I think both are fantastic value while starting. By taking both I'm backing my opinion that Robinson has given the spot on form and they will get a few weeks to prove themselves (see E.Butcher 2023). If there is a game day reshuffle that sees Angus taking either of the starting spots he will be in my squad over whoever moves to bench.

Salmon (289k) will be in my team somewhere on TLT if he is named to start, but I still think that may not happen

Not as popular in this position anymore but fading Lane who still has pretty high ownership

HLF

For squad balance reasons I think you can only run with 1 of Cleary(1 mil) or Hynes(1 mil), but one of them is essential. I'm opting for Cleary as I feel his "ceiling" scores are easier to hit than Hynes who requires a lot of attacking stats(which again he gets because he is really good)

Hutcho (400k) I have tempered expectations playing for the Dogs but SHOULD be able to average 35 atleast

Flanagan (349k) I expect to score slightly worse than Hutcho but have much better job security because he drives the coach to training

These two should be reasonably good money makers

2nd starting half spot is troubling me but currently have Fogarty(637k). I'm a little lower on him than most because A) I expect the Raiders to be pretty bad and B) I already have 2-3 others. Have considered spending a little bit more for SWalker or Hughes but think I'll ultimately back the goal kicking boost to make Fogarty good enough value

CTR

If I could pick no one here I would. I've seen enough "guns" score in the teens to not pay anywhere near full price. Once the squad value is a bit higher and it represents a lower portion of the salary cap I'll target a bye friendly keeper. Until then I'm happy with guys that play every week and hold value.

Arthars(344k), Berry(396k) and Reimis Smith(395k) are the front runners for my squad. The only tough decision is to roll the dice on Burbo(250k) having the job for a few weeks. At this stage he is in and will be in a starting spot.

If Strange(250k) gets the 6 jersey at the Raiders he will be in the 21 but probably not starting until we see his role.

Cotric(261k) a nice DPP CTR/WFB if he gets the spot in round 1

I'll be happy if I can get 50 between my centres each week instead targetting value from the other 15 scoring spots

WFB

I generally don't like to pay for guns to start the year in this position. Due to their high standard deviation in scoring I tend to wait for a low score to determine which guns I will trade in

Papy(495k) the obvious choice here for potentially value keeper. I would typically like another decent value player in this range but with Campbell(459k) injured there isn't a lot of options.

Weekes(252k) would be a lock if he starts at 6 for the Raiders, while Bradley(250k) would be the same if starting edge for the Storm. If these don't eventuate I'll be looking at options like Russell(381k) or Bostock(307k) to get a fast start for decent teams

Very uninspiring position and I expect to lose ground to the field in raw points, but make it up with value elsewhere

I'd be wary of fading cheese. He played busted for a large majority of last year, and still averaged 46 in his games over 40 minutes. That right there (which I'm predicting to be his worst case) is still 7 points of value, and I can see him being even better this year.

Also Roosters will be better this year, and another year in the system will see him gelling with the team better.

How many points is "being in a good team" worth. Especially for someone like Cheese who has never been in a bad one

As a comparison , you can use Harry Grant , whose best ever Fantasy season was at the Tigers

Mate, Mahoney just missed 8 and 9 tackles again in the trial games.

I want him too, but if you're banking on that changing then it's a substantial risk.

For the price, why not Egan? Better team, fewer negatives.

L-Jimmy wrote:Mate, Mahoney just missed 8 and 9 tackles again in the trial games.

I want him too, but if you're banking on that changing then it's a substantial risk.

For the price, why not Egan? Better team, fewer negatives.

What's Egan's pathway to more points? Maybe you remove those 2 interchange games mid year + sub 30 minute injury and he jumps 3 point in value.

That doesn't seem enough for me to pick him

Mahoney has shown the ability to not miss a million tackles. While it was a different team, even returning to his worst Eels year is nearly 10 points of value (remove the -2 and replace with a +1 for hanging on to that tackle). Maybe he only cuts that down to 4 missed tackles a game, still worse than his worst Eels year. That's still more value than Egan

Reed Mahoney missed tackle avg over the years

2020: 2.1
2021: 1.9
2022: 3.3
2023: 5.7

multiple.scoregasms wrote:

What's Egan's pathway to more points? Maybe you remove those 2 interchange games mid year + sub 30 minute injury and he jumps 3 point in value.

That doesn't seem enough for me to pick him

Mahoney has shown the ability to not miss a million tackles. While it was a different team, even returning to his worst Eels year is nearly 10 points of value (remove the -2 and replace with a +1 for hanging on to that tackle). Maybe he only cuts that down to 4 missed tackles a game, still worse than his worst Eels year. That's still more value than Egan

Reed Mahoney missed tackle avg over the years

2020: 2.1
2021: 1.9
2022: 3.3
2023: 5.7

His path to more points is not getting injured every week.

Mate I would not take Mahoney. Also don’t take Arthars yuk.

Apart from that it’s a good side.

Rabbits21 wrote:Mate I would not take Mahoney. Also don’t take Arthars yuk.

Apart from that it’s a good side.

Too close to Rabbits team I'm gonna clear and start again

multiple.scoregasms wrote:

Too close to Rabbits team I'm gonna clear and start again

Not keen on Cotter?

Rabbits21 wrote:
Not keen on Cotter?

Literally written in the second post

Big changes as TLT2 throws up plenty of cows where I had opted for higher priced options.

Initial variations left just over 600k in the bank so some of the more questionable cows have been upgraded

I don't normally tend to keep too much cash laying around but feel like with questionable job security at the back + my preferred "gun" WFBs already playing in Vegas (Turbo, Teddy) the cash could be helpful very quickly

This is what I've got for now with 213k in the bank

Mahoney
Haas, Tatola, Tupouinua
Piakura, Wong
Cleary, Moses
Arthars, Burbo
Papy, Russell, Cotric

Cotter, Smithies, Luki, Salmon
Hutcho, Chan, Strange, Hughes

Running without hooker cover until we see how rotations shake out and who is possibly value (ala JMK last year). Only chance this changes is Chan to Levi if I get spooked on running too many edges without hooker coverage

Strange covers CTR/WFB via Arthars

Have the cash to turn Mahoney into Grant but feel like I'll need it to fix the disaster waiting to happen at the back

Mulvy wrote:

Do you mean Chan to Levi?

Yep that's what I meant. Edited

Mulvy wrote:Not a fan of running Cotric or Russell in your 17 (let alone both) whilst spending money on Hutch in npr. Reckon I'd bring in Kiraz or Rapana (or Niu or Kris), for Luki, move Cotric to npr and Hutch up to interchange. Or spend some of the money there now.

I think it's fine to run without hooker cover. That's why I took Cook instead of Grant, Grant makes that tricky. I actually have Levi I suppose, but he doesn't really count, is in my NPRs and would run without cover if he didn't exist.

Like you, I've upgraded Fog to Moses. I still think Fog is a decent pick, but gee it looks better with Moses in there, especially with a tough run of fixtures for Raiders and good run for the Eels if that even matters.

Cheers will consider what can be done at WFB with the cash now rather than waiting for a problem