Contents this issue: Call for submissionsWords of Wisdom: A note from the Commissioner
Pontification: How much fatigue is too much?
Guest Pontification: Longball
Forum: How many players make up the "perfect" roster?
Mistake of the Week
Random thoughts for new managers
Since I sent out the cryptic (yet inviting) message saying to ask me how to "run a team into the ground," I have had a few nice messages from people interested in how to deal with the overwhelming amount of data a SPARF manager must deal with. Ultimately, you'd like someone who has learned which data are important to give you some hints as to how you can make your life easier (and your team better, I suppose). Failing that, you get the random ramblings of a semi-successful manager.
So basically, for me to sit here and tell you that this tome will be remotely useful without contributions from other managers is misleading, in that it is, in fact, a boldfaced lie. I will take anything you have to say on any SPARF-related topic from ANY SPARF MANAGER. This includes questions from newcomers, laments from veterans, and tips from folks like CSUA, the Mandarins, and the Borg on how to injure your entire roster in one season.
Commisioner's Notes:
The quickest easiest way to improve performance in SPARF is learning how to make a good lineup. Below is a very oversimplified table of how important each skill is relative to the various positions. Each skill is rated from "Very" important to "little" importance.
Positions Mark Kick Scram Defense ----------------------------------------------- Mobiles Very Very Very Very (these guys need everything) Backs Some Little Little Very (the six defenders) Forwards Some (*) Very Little (the six attackers) Wingmen/Centre Some Some Some Some (overall players, not asimportant as the mobiles)
(*) The kick is most important for the area where you expect to be taking the most shots.
The above is about the best you can do with absolutely no idea of what the opposing team looks like. If you happen to know a little about the opposing teams skill, you can try (in general) to put your best defenders opposite his best attackers, and your best offenders away from his best defenders. There are lots of exceptions, though. Most importantly, once a player gets beat by about 13 points of skill, larger amounts don't make much of a difference, so if you KNOW you can't challenge the Fullback, you might just put some sacrifice player in Full Forward and try to score from the pockets. If you CAN challenge a player, those positions closest to the goal are almost always the most important to do so at (so don't give up on an area unless you have to).
Also, remember that the three mobile are MUCH more important than the fixed position players, but that they are hard positions, so you have to watch the fatigue a bit more carefully.
Look at what your own team looks like in a scouting report, so you can figure out the details of how they work, and then you can better plan to sqeak out that extra win against an evenly match team.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term, to "pontificate" is sort of like being an arrogant know-it-all, delivered much in the manner of a sermon. Here, suffice it to say that Section C will be devoted to topics I have reasonably firm opinions on with absolutely no solid evidence to back me up. If I had the evidence, then Section C would be Illumination, right?
This week, Tales of Woe pontificates on the importance of watching your fatigue and coming up with the "Perfect Balance". It should be noted, of course, that I have no bloody idea what the "Perfect Balance" is, but by golly, that never stopped a real Pontificator. Since the maximum you can change a player's fatigue is four points, it stands to reason that anything under four points is, in a sense, "normal wear and tear", and that anything over four is kinda pushing your luck, especially for an older player. In practice, this is not unreasonable, although you have to remember that like any game based in any way on random numbers, weird things can happen. You can have that Age 2 Fatigue 1 player injured while your "sacrifice" Age 1 Fatigue 50 player remains blithely injury-free. However, I wouldn't go testing the random number generator.
One thing that gets lost in the shuffle is that the higher your fatigue is when you are injured, the more severe the injury. This is not NEARLY as subject to the generator, and may be considered hard-and-fast. If your guy is cranked up, he may spend up to EIGHT WEEKS in the hospital (or, unless he was really super, in the unemployment line: cut that bastard); likewise, your low-fatigue player may get unlucky, but he's unlikely to get more than a sprain (1 week, 2 tops). I mention this because a week in the hospital costs your player 5 levels off EACH AREA, meaning that more than a couple weeks in the hospital will essentially render anything but the best player useless. Remember the difference between hospitalized and trainable but unable to play!
Mel has posted the injury odds before, and I have cheerfully ignored the intricacies of the formulae in favor of "winging it" a bit with the Fatigue 4 convention. If your whole team played at Fatigue 4 and was of average Age 2, you can expect 1.5 injuries (maybe only 1). But remember, the guys you CAN'T AFFORD to get whacked are your mobiles (RKR, RKM, and ROV), so if you let these guys on the field with Fatigue > 4, you are really taking your chances. I did pound into the playoffs with them all at 8 and got fortunate, but I'll bet I couldn't do it again.
A final word: if you have a marginal unbalanced player (say something like 5 5 5 30), you might consider cranking his defense and fatigue, watch him excel 'til he dies, and cut him. I got very good at that.
Longball - by California Slugger manager Van A. Boughner
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Most of the time, a manager's most advisable strategy is to place the best defenders in the back, the best attackers in the front, and some well rounded players in the middle of the field. To a large extent this has worked well for me, as long as I'm using my best three players in the mobile positions, ruckman, rover, and ruck-rover. As long as your team and your opponent's team are equally matched (all the players on either team are paired off against an opponent player who's opposing skills are within 10 points), you can win by having three superior mobile players on your side, even if your team is, on the whole, slightly at a disadvantage.
When your opponent's players are superior to your own by more than 10 skill points, however, those positions where it occurs (say, at your forward line) are a complete loss for you. This is true whether it be 10, 20, or 30 point differences between, say, one of your attackers three attacking skills, mark, kick, and scramble, and the matching defenders main defending skills, mark, scramble, and defense.
Last season, in my first game against the Cambridge Tigers, I came up with the 'longball' idea in order to play effectively against an opponent whose skills across the board were about 10 points higher or more. I still lost the game, but I believe I scored more due to my use of this strategy, and who knows what the outcome would have been like if I'd had less fatigue on my players and not suffered a couple critical injuries.
The idea of 'longball' is this: move your best attacking players back one line to the half forward positions, putting your second line of attack (your less competent offensive players) up against your opponent's best defenders. This works well when your best attackers are outclassed by your opponent's best defenders, but not by your opponent's second class defenders (in the halfback line). This gives your best attackers room to operate, since most teams' halfback line isn't as good as the fullback line. Your attackers still get to make those shots, and I found that they were the ones doing the scoring in that Cambridge Tiger game. Naturally, my full forward line wasn't accomplishing much at all against his super-stud defenders, except keeping them busy.
I've tried this strategy three different times, so far, against superior teams, but haven't yet won with it due to either the overpowering superiority of the opposing team, or damaging injuries to key offensive players. I do believe, however, that it is sound, and may be using it on *you* in the near future :-)
[Editor's note: What Van considers a superior team must be pretty scary...]
The overwhelming majority of responses I got from new managers (100% or 3, depending on how you look at it) wanted to know: "What is the right number of people on my roster?" I'll throw this open to debate, but keep a few factors in mind:
I've heard everything from < 25 to near 40. I have ideas, but I'd rather throw the floor open before printing them.
This week's mistake comes courtesy of the Wallamaloo Philosophy Department. Even if no one else contributes a Mistake, this section will be full all season.
Forty players seemed like an awful lot, but I didn't want to cut anyone because my soccer teams in other leagues suffer from lack of depth. So I kept some people around (a selection of people of different ages) and "tanked" them, giving them 0 fatigue in largish groups. As their skills deteriorated, I realized that gee, maybe some of these guys could be useful, and the others should just go to hell. It was a nice hedge against berserk injury software in the early season, but in general an extraordinarily stupid strategy.
Your roster is not bad for a brand new one: plenty deep, nicely aged, and reasonably powerful. HOWEVER, you ARE going to lose to the top returning teams. Yes, you are. Even you. This is because people with GOOD training strategies (the Division Champs are good examples) have developed squads that lost minimal resources to injuries and really cranked some of their stars up to astronomical proportions (okay, maybe not "astronomical", but significantly better than 30, all right?). On the other hand, you could actually be better than some returning teams (especially those who suffered many injuries last season or write SPARF magazines).
So don't get disillusioned when the California Sluggers beat you 200-7. It wouldn't be the worst he's beaten somebody. The game is supposed to be FUN after all, and although winning is nice, not many of us obsess about the Cup. Keep experimenting with your players, find a balance, and hammer away. Oh, and trade with WPD. He'll trade anything. ;-)