skidmark said:
Okay, unofficial count is 128 teams. My time to work on this is up for now, but until next time, here's my team:
VALVERDE BELMONTE Alejandro
LOPEZ MORENO Miguel Angel
CHAVES RUBIO Jhoan Esteban
OOMEN Sam
LATOUR Pierre
GAUDU David
VAN POPPEL Danny
MAS NICOLAU Enric
CAVENDISH Mark
ROELANDTS Jürgen
COQUARD Bryan
KÄMNA Lennard
VENDRAME Andrea
DOULL Owain
BRAMBILLA Gianluca
GARCIA CORTINA Ivan
HALVORSEN Kristoffer
SIVAKOV Pavel
FERNANDEZ ANDUJAR Ruben
RIABUSHENKO Aliaksandr
NAVARDAUSKAS Ramunas
MAMYKIN Matvey
NIZZOLO Giacomo
HAUSSLER Heinrich
KANGERT Tanel
GUARDINI Andrea
MCNULTY Brandon
CAPIOT Amaury
ALBANESE Vincenzo
CRADDOCK Lawson
KÖNIG Leopold
ENGER Sondre Holst
INTXAUSTI ELORRIAGA Beñat
I'll be back to discuss at length in the future, I'm sure, but feel free to pick it apart.
I have to say, besides your irrational trust in Grosu, it's the first time I'm scratching my head at some of your selections but first, I'll talk about your picks I really like. Obviously I like the riders we have in common (Lopez, Latour, Gaudu, Mas, Cavendish, Coquard, Fernandez, Navardauskas, Nizzolo, Guardini, Capiot, Craddock, König, Intxausti and Enger) but the reasoning behind most is pretty obvious so I'm not gonna spend a paragraph on them.
Kämna, Roelandts and Oomen were all on my first draft but when you come in at 9000pts you have to cut some riders. Oomen in particular I think is going to break through this year and I'm a bit annoyed to see him picked by so many top players. It just reinforces my belief that his omission is going to blow up right in my face. I never considered Chaves and I wish I had, with good health he's easily a 1000+ pts type of rider and for that price it's a very good pick.
I'm not a Mamykin fan but I think he's better than what he showed last year and he is in a better situation scoring wise this year. Good rare pick.
I like the Valverde choice. Nobody can deny his unique ability to rack up CQ points and for his price point, I'd want at least 2400 to feel really good about selecting him which feels very doable for a rider of his caliber. Still that's a tough ask for anybody turning 38 in the middle of the season. He has to drop off at some point right ? Even without accounting for age-based regression let's look at what his history tells us. He missed a big chunk of the season last year but that's not necessarily where does he does the most damage scoring wise and his start to the season went pretty much as well as you could hope. He scored 1329 pts pre TDF in 2016, 1654 in 2015 and 1458 in 2014 (obviously 1828 in 2017). That's 1567 pts on average. His last 3 TDF + Vuelta were 579 (2016), 883 (2015), 1094 (2014). There's definitely some slippage here. How much was due to racing the Giro in 2016, how does having Landa on top of Quintana affect his GC potential, how many points can he recoup from Contador's (and Froome's ?) absence ? Let's give him his average 852 pts (that seems a bit high to me). That leaves San Sebastian + Lombardia + the Worlds. 600 points in 2014, 399 in 2015, 212 in 2016. Again, his numbers are trending down later in the year (and he has good excuses like no Worlds in 2016 but that's a lot of evidence that's starting to rack up to suggest he has more trouble finishing seasons as he ages). Let's say he would have placed 5th in the Worlds in 2016 had he participated (not unreasonable given his track record at the event), his 2014-2016 average for the three races would be 456 pts. So looking at his performances 2014-2017, if he doesn't slip due to age and doesn't miss time he projects around 2875 pts which would make him a great pick. Honestly with Landa and Quintana on his team, I have a hard time seeing him as a big GC threat in the GTs so I had him more around 400-450 pts for Vuelta and TDF combined which put him right at the limit for consideration. In the end, I'm a bigger believer in the upside of Alaphilippe, Gaviria and Bardet than Valverde for the purpose of this game (plus I like them better) but he was the only other 1000+ pts riders I considered.
Haussler, Kangert, Van Poppel and Brambilla should bounce back and I expect them to be good picks but they are riders that I find difficult to get excited about.
Vendrame and Garcia Cortina didn't jump off the page to me. I would love to hear why you found them so appealing when there are plenty of other worthy options in their price range.
I had Doull last year but he seemed overwhelmed at the WT level and he looks more than a year away to me. Albanese was one of my worst picks last year. He's young and can improve but he was just so, so far away last year, I dont know where he's going to score points in the pros. I feel like there were more worthy gambles in that price range.
Can't say I'm too impressed with your crops of neo-pros though it's always a more difficult (and subjective) exercise than picking established riders. I don't know much about McNulty and Riabushenko but they don't scream special to me. I think Halvorsen is fast but I don't think he's strong enough to hang until the end of WT stages yet. I have zero trust in Sivakov translating his u23 results to the pros (right away).