Hugo Koblet said:
While this might be true, you're forgetting the fact that you could include two 0 point guys as well if you pick, for instance, Nibali instead of picking three 300 pointers.
See, this kind of debate is what makes me think that we're going to have diverse teams no matter what size they are etc. Sure some lessons were learned this year on how to pick 'em, but those lessons weren't really 'pick obvious picks', they were more, at least for me:
1) pick more neo-pros - I passed over Matthews, Degenkolb et al thinking that neo-pros were too risky. Look how wrong I was - but this year's crop is anything but obvious in terms of who you should pick and who's risky, so really it's just made me pay more attention to neo-pros, and given me - and I imagine several other people - about 30 more picks than I looked at last year, all of which are relative gambles. I can't imagine everyone picking the same ones.
2) expensive picks are risky - coulda told you that in December last year. Now that the dust has settled on my team, Cunego = great, Ricco = awful, Kreuziger, Boonen = disappointing. That doesn't mean that I'm gonna drop more expensive picks, just be more cautious. Can't imagine that will change things too much for next year.
3) do research on what guys have done historically - if this were last year, I woulda gone for a guy like Thibaut Pinot because I heard of/saw him do well this year, he was on the radar. Looking a little deeper because I know a bit more about how CQ works, I'd be more cautious about him because there are tons of other young guys that have less than 30% of his points that could easily explode as well, ones who I haven't heard as much about. He's almost a sure bet to do well, but how much better? Again, see point 1 on increasing possible picks and increasing diversity in teams.
4) get bargains. That's the obvious one, it was obvious to me last year, and you'll see that if you look at my team. The mid-expensive ones didn't pay out (Gusev, Ballan), but the cheaper ones (Vande Velde, Schumacher) did so nicely. This might lessen diversity. But I feel it's more than counterbalanced by 1 and 3.
We will see when teams are submitted, but I don't imagine teams being much more similar, but rather the opposite.
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