The 2020 CQ Ranking Manager Thread

[skidmark]

Okay, here goes:

the full spreadsheet!!!

Includes: 113 teams, popularity sheet, rider popularity table, team popularity table.

Note that on the popularity sheets I just entered names with numbers as names, so 'ruvu' instead of 'ruvu75' or 'Eric' instead of 'Eric10' - in copying popularity this is the time consuming part because dragging the name goes up in number, so just to get this done expediently I didn't manually do that copying (I've got a broken wrist atm too which hampers my computering).

Does not yet include: I haven't updated the 'update' sheets or gotten rid of team pages from previous entrants, so there are some blank pages but the pages linked to on the rankings tab should be all the participants. I'll clean that all up before the season gets too far along.

If I missed any teams (ie you submitted them and don't see them here) or if you thought you got changes in under the wire that aren't reflected, let me know and I can go back through my PM's to check the timestamp. I caught myself on one occasion making changes to a team but the link on the rankings page went to another team's page (all of which I've since corrected), so I almost copied over another team incorrectly. So I acknowledge these mistakes may still be out there.

Okay, have fun with it!

 

[Eyeballs Out]

A thing to keep in mind in the Bardet vs. Pinot conundrum is the quite important fact that Bardet has been riding like a sack of potatoes the last year while Pinot has been riding like a dream since the autumn of 2018.

That's exactly why I picked Bardet this year

 

[Jpettersen]

I believe i have participated in every edition of the CQ manager game since it started, but i don't think i have ever gotten to share my thoughts on my team with you guys. Well, that's got to change!

EVENEPOEL Remco
PINOT Thibaut
YATES Simon
KWIATKOWSKI Michal
DE PLUS Laurens
HAGEN Carl Fredrik
GARCIA CORTINA Ivan
SOLER GIMENEZ Marc
DUMOULIN Tom
BALLERINI Davide
STEIMLE Jannik
DAINESE Alberto
FELLINE Fabio
OOMEN Sam
KÄMNA Lennard
FOSS Tobias Svendsen
HAAS Nathan
GROVES Kaden
DRUCKER Jempy
GARRISON Ian
BAGIOLI Andrea
FROOME Chris
GENIEZ Alexandre
POWER Robert
GARCIA SOSA Jhojan Orlando
CEPEDA ORTIZ Jefferson Alexander
ARDILA ORDOÑEZ Andres Camilo
HÄNNINEN Jaakko
VICHOT Arthur
ENGER Sondre Holst
KANTER Max
DE BIE Sean
SIMMONS Quinn

Many of the riders i have picked are obvious picks, but a few of the more semi-pricey ones (Hagen, De Plus and Cortina) actually seem to be quite unique. I believe Hagen is only getting better and better, and that he will continue delivering strong results, like the one in la vuelta, in the next season as well.
The fact that Lotto Soudal is quite weak when it comes to GC riders means that he will get a lot of opportunities. I also have a strong feeling about De Plus. I know that Jumbo Visma have a lot of GC captains, but i do believe that he can deliver some big performances on his own. I might be totally wrong. Cortina is another rider that i think will continue his development, and do even better in 2020.
In general, for this edition i wanted to pick more riders that were on their way up on in the rankings, rather than picking riders that have performed under their standard in the previous year. We will see if that was the right strategy.

Riders that were close to making it into my team: Latour, Moscon, C Bol, Degenkolb
Riders that i regret not having on my team: Modolo, Vakoc, D Van Poppel, (Latour)

Bardet seems to be a popular pick. I never considered him to be part of my team, and i am not sure why. I guess i preferred Evenepoel, Pinot and Yates as my expenseive picks. Might be a mistake.

 

[Squire]

I see a lot of people have picked Evenepoel, but nobody has given any mention of where his points are gonna come from. Is he gonna top 5 the Giro? Or clean sweep the Olympics? All I hear is that he's the biggest talent ever. Does someone want to elaborate a bit?

And any guesses for most popular riders before skidmark shows up? I'm thinking Dumoulin most popular, with Oomen, Latour, Kanter, Froome, Geniez high up there.

Edit: Oh, there he is!

Wow, my team shares 23 riders with yours [MADRAZO's, ed.]! The most expensive pick on your team that is not on mine is Van Poppel (and he was a late deletion from my team).

When I first saw your team posted, I was worried that everyone would go with the same basic approach for expensive riders, but fortunately (for the interest of the game), other teams have adopted a variety of strategies.

I had the same worries when I saw MADRAZO's team, who I share 22 riders with. Ours are probably really similar too.

Honestly, I haven't seen any news concerning his knee since November! It's the left knee which has been the problem. He didn't have any fractures and has been undergoing therapy since august. He sounded positive though all in a podcast on W-Radio.

It's the meniscus that's bothering Ardila apparently, which makes me particularly worried. That's the cartilage between the bones, which works as a cushion, and it's usually messed up in people who have had a long life of heavy strain on the knees, like a physically demanding job.

DONOVAN Mark Looking for a cheap sprinter. I have too much love for the Brits I guess.

Sorry to break it to you, but he's a climber, not a sprinter.

 

[skidmark]

I will do my best to catch up with the thread in the coming days and see all the breakdowns of teams etc, but for now I'm signing off for a few hours. But I'll at least leave things by posting my team, I look forward to the chance for a full breakdown later:

PINOT Thibaut
YATES Simon
KWIATKOWSKI Michal
MOSCON Gianni
KELDERMAN Wilco
LATOUR Pierre
SOLER GIMENEZ Marc
DUMOULIN Tom
VAN POPPEL Danny
CHAVES RUBIO Jhoan Esteban
BOUHANNI Nacer
ANDERSEN Søren Kragh
BALLERINI Davide
CORT NIELSEN Magnus
CANOLA Marco
DAINESE Alberto
ARU Fabio
OOMEN Sam
MOSCHETTI Matteo
CHERNETSKIY Sergey
HAAS Nathan
MEINTJES Louis
BAGIOLI Andrea
FROOME Chris
EEKHOFF Nils
MODOLO Sacha
STRAKHOV Dmitry
MINALI Riccardo
VICHOT Arthur
CAVENDISH Mark
KANTER Max
DE BIE Sean
SIMMONS Quinn

It's a pretty on-brand team for me, I really don't know any other way of picking a team than going over a huge list of riders, picking the most obvious ones, going deeper on the remaining candidates, picking a few more, and so on, and so on. That's a formula for safe or obvious picks, but I've made that bed and laid in it since 2011 I guess.

This year is going to be really interesting, I think! For me, it was really really hard to leave out some high priced riders. At various times, I could make a case for building a team around riders like Sagan, Evenepoel, Bardet, Demare, Gaviria, or (maybe a bit less considered but still did) Lopez, Nibali, Matthews, Thomas, or even MvdP, not to mention a wealth of 4-600 pointers I was considering. In the end, I just ended up with what I hoped were the most stable picks but lots of the picks I didn't take could have great years and be game-changers. But I found there were a lot more high-priced riders I was excited by than low-priced ones.

 

[Squire]

Solid team as usual, skidmark. We share 23 riders. I haven't gone as crazy on the Russians as you have though.

I'm amazed to find that Chaves is only picked by 14 teams. I thought I was pretty bold for leaving him out.

 

[tobydawq]

Only two guys went with Mathieu? That's few.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Kinda surprised that nobody picked Hailemichael, I kinda wanted to pick him, but them I decided that it was one year too early.
I see that I'm one of only 2 that picked Ravanelli. He finished 3rd in the Giro dell'Appenino and was probably the best Italian climber at CT-level. In 2018 he finished s.t. as Pogi an Einer Rubio on the MTF of the Giro del Friuli and I trust Savio. Nice to see that 3 of us have Celano, he could be a really good pick.
HAILU Biniam Girmay is a great prospect who could score a decent amount of points with the kind of races that he'll get at Delko. Robert Stannard wasn't that popular, that surprised me a bit, but have him on my team.
I had Bouhanni on my list, but he didn't make the cut. Only 3 people picking Bevin kinda surprises me, if he avoids crashing in Down Under he's a really solid pick who could give you +200 points of profit without having to improve a lot.
I had Kämna last year, but at Bora there are many guys who are ahead of him in shorter stage races (Buchmann, Majka, Konrad & Großschartner) and he's probably riding the Tour to support Buchmann, I wasn't confident enough to pick him.

 

[Object]

Only ChrisDk and me picked Porte. Crossing my fingers that his Olympic ambitions makes him train and race hard.

Go Richie!

 

[escartin]

looking at the popularity table, I don't seem to have totally missed anyone really popular in my considerations. I have 9 out of the top 10, missing just Yates who I decided against. you have to go down to Vichot, Kamna (and Bouhanni for some reason) to find a rider I totally missed.

Scott Thwaites is my least popular pick which I was not really expecting.

I think I am the only person with both Sagan and van Aert.

 

[SafeBet]

I see a lot of people have picked Evenepoel, but nobody has given any mention of where his points are gonna come from. Is he gonna top 5 the Giro? Or clean sweep the Olympics? All I hear is that he's the biggest talent ever. Does someone want to elaborate a bit?

Is the "any race he will take part in" too naive of an answer?

 

[Fivezzz]

Rookie try for me in this game, feedback on my team is always welcome. As far as expensive riders go, I tried to pick the biggest talents (Evenepoel, Sivakov, Sosa, Hirschi) that could reasonably double their points, and the biggest GC stars (Bardet and Yates) who will be part of the weaker-than-usual Giro route. I added some high profiles team leaders who had a weaker year due to injury (Kelderman, Latour, Dumoulin, Oomen, Froome, De Bie, Kanter, Rickaert) and finally added the (in my mind) biggest talents who could double their points (McNulty, Bjerg, Dainese, Champoussin, Kämna, Hayter, Foss, Eekhoff, Ardila), as well as some talents from Deceuninck (Bagioli, Garrison) and some cheap riders I can see getting some points (Pacioni, Cepeda, Alba, J. De Plus, Penalver, Rodriguez and Simmons).

EVENEPOEL Remco 952
SIVAKOV Pavel 791
BARDET Romain 734
YATES Simon 668
SOSA CUERVO Ivan Ramiro 578
HIRSCHI Marc 540
KELDERMAN Wilco 402
LATOUR Pierre 352
DUMOULIN Tom 341
MCNULTY Brandon 267
BJERG Mikkel 243
DAINESE Alberto 201
OOMEN Sam 179
CHAMPOUSSIN Clément 170
KÄMNA Lennard 155
HAYTER Ethan 148
FOSS Tobias Svendsen 127
VIVIANI Attilio 90
GARRISON Ian 89
BAGIOLI Andrea 83
PACIONI Luca 78
FROOME Chris 77
EEKHOFF Nils 74
ARDILA ORDOÑEZ Andres Camilo 44
CEPEDA ORTIZ Jefferson Alexander 36
RICKAERT Jonas 23
ALBA BOLIVAR Juan Diego 20
DE PLUS Jasper 15
PEÑALVER ANIORTE Manuel 10
KANTER Max 8
DE BIE Sean 5
RODRIGUEZ CANO Carlos 0
SIMMONS Quinn 0

Any thoughts?

 

[tobydawq]

Soo, I have the top 14 most popular picks, and 19 out of the 22 most popular with Moscon, Bardet and Bouhanni as the omissions.

That seems a bit excessive and not too good.

Fortunately, Higuita has only been picked by 4 players, and I expect him and me to become best friends during the season!

 

[GP Blanco]

My second and third expensive picks, Jakobsen and Mas are rare picks. This could be helpful if they score big.

 

[Salvarani]

Quick look, over some riders that was fairly rare picks that I have on my team:

MAS NICOLAU Enric - 7 picks
I like this. Kinda hoped for it too. So this is good. A rider to cheer on big time.

PEDERSEN Mads - 7 picks
I mean if he shows up in great form this spring this has a lot potential to be a great pick. His 2nd place in Ronde 2018 comes to mind and it is not like his WC was a complete fluke. He was the strongest guy that day. Bar Sagan.

VALGREN ANDERSEN Michael - 10 picks
Ended the season great. If he shows up this classic campaign, he should turn out to be a good pick.

KUSS Sepp - 8 picks
Only worry is he wont have any chances or opportunities this year, but the guy is good.

TOUZE Damien - 2 picks
So close, but at least we can be two geniuses (crazy ones)

VAN DER HOORN Taco - 10 picks
Hope he can repeat the form he had in the fall of 2018. The talent is there.

STANNARD Robert - 7 picks
2nd year pro. He could maybe get a bit of a mini-breakthrough this year. Hopefully they give him a good schedule to do so.

NARVAEZ PRADO Jhonatan Manuel - 10 picks
2nd year at INEOS. Maybe he can get into it a bit more,. Stuff he showed at DQS.

SAMITIER SAMITIER Sergio - 3 picks
I was not too crazy about this pick, but I have to be one of his biggest supporters now.

GARCIA SOSA Jhojan Orlando - 7 picks
He was 7th up Alto de Palmas in Tour of Colombia last year. Behind some pretty high profile riders. Very good in the 3 day race of Vuelta Asturias and went on to be 8th on GC in Tour de l'Avenir. This year at Caja Rural. I am looking forward to see what he can do.

 

[tobydawq]

Soo, I have the top 14 most popular picks, and 19 out of the 22 most popular with Moscon, Bardet and Bouhanni as the omissions.

That seems a bit excessive and not too good.

Fortunately, Higuita has only been picked by 4 players, and I expect him and me to become best friends during the season!

But ruvu75 knocks me out in that department. As far as I can see, he has the full top 20 and 22 out of the most popular 23 with Valgren as his primary rare weapon

 

[tobydawq]

Sorry for spamming, but I'm a little shocked that Michael Woods has not been picked by a single person. Alright, he is not cheap but in a year with an Olympic and World course that both suit him like a glove, it seems incredible that he will not feature in this game.

 

[Squire]

Sorry for spamming, but I'm a little shocked that Michael Woods has not been picked by a single person. Alright, he is not cheap but in a year with an Olympic and World course that both suit him like a glove, it seems incredible that he will not feature in this game.

Had there not been so many viable picks in the 400-1000 range, he would probably get a few picks. I guess his great month of October ruined it for anyone who was considering him.

I'm more surprised that Landa is not picked. And this is the first year ever that nobody has picked him. A bit of a shame, now that he might finally be #free

And ruvu is always solid in this game, it seems. I share 21 riders with them. The team most similar to mine is skidmark with 23, then MADRAZO with 22. Then follows ruvu as mentioned, as well as Total Package with 21 riders in common. I share 20 riders with fauniera and shalgo. It's some good company to be in, I think.

A tip: You can find these numbers by adding your team in the 2020 results tab and giving everyone a score of 1 CQ point. That will show how many riders you share with each of the other teams in the Rankings tab.

 

[EvansIsTheBest]

A few thoughts on some guys on my team:

GAVIRIA RENDON Fernando: I’m surprised he’s not more popular, he’s a special rider when he stays on his bike. It’s hard to find guys in his price range that can double their score without needing a complete outlier of a season.

LATOUR Pierre: one of my favorite riders. Now that he’s healthy and no longer a domestique for Bardet, I think he’ll surprise a lot of people with how good he really is.

SOLER GIMENEZ Marc: Love the way he races especially the work he did in the last TDF.

MCNULTY Brandon: didn’t have him last year and that would have been a big mistake if he had stayed healthy. One of my easiest picks.

STEIMLE Jannik: Get well soon.

ALMEIDA Joao Pedro Gonçalves: impressed by his ride in Utah plus he’s riding for Deceuninck.

HAAS Nathan: don’t care much for his riding style or his new team but he’s better than what he showed last year.


A few random ramblings on expensive riders I didn't pick :

BENNETT Sam (picked 5 times): I don’t see where the upside is. He’s a 29 year old sprinter coming off a career year. Yeah he’s probably in the best possible team to maximize his points total but the ceiling is just too low for my taste. He’s shown very little ability in one day races and that seriously caps what a sprinter can do in this game. If you want to see how far world class sprinting skills can carry you if you don’t score in one day races, I always use the most dominant sprinter of the last couple of decades as a reference point. Peak Cavendish scored 1733 points in 2009 (and that was with his ridiculous win at San Remo) and 1843 in 2013. As good as Bennett is, he’s not that good. So what’s his best case scenario: 1500 points? Pass.

YATES Simon (picked 84 times): 2018 looks like such an outlier in his career. If you discount that season, there’s not a ton of evidence he’s going to pile up 1200+ points. I still expect him to turn a profit and getting all those cheap points in Australia is going to help but I guess I just don’t rate him as highly as others do.

SAGAN Peter (picked 14 times): Yeah he’s super expensive but that’s also his lowest score since he was a neo pro. He might be one of the most important rider in the game. He has been a 2200+ rider every year from 2015 through 2018. If you believe he’ll get there again then he has to be on you team somehow. If that actually happens, he could really swing the game towards those who were brave enough to pick him. For my part, I worry he seemed like he lost a little top end speed last year and the new generation of riders emerging in the classics is scary good. Also don’t like his race program too much in relation to this game. On the other hand, he’s Peter Sagan and he can drop a 600 point week like it’s nothing so who knows what will happen.

KWIATKOWSKI Michal (picked 65 times): Never really considered him even though I expect him to fetch a decent profit (like 250-350 more points this year). Too much incertainty as to how/where Ineos is going to use him and a feeling his best years are behind him stop me from believing he’ll get back to 1500 points.

VAN AERT Wout (picked 11 times): I expect great things from him this year. I had him in my team alongside Pinot, Bardet, Gaviria and Evenepoel at one point but took him out because keeping him meant sacrificing Steimle. Not even a day in the competition and that decision already looks great.

MOSCON Gianni (picked 57 times): I refuse to have him on my team.

 

[tobydawq]

A tip: You can find these numbers by adding your team in the 2020 results tab and giving everyone a score of 1 CQ point. That will show how many riders you share with each of the other teams in the Rankings tab.

Pretty sneaky but doesn't that require entering the rider IDs as well?

 

[christopherrowe]

This is hilarious. I didn't understand how to play this game at all and just kind of went around picking riders willy-nilly based on my fandom of or affection for them or their teams or their nationalities (and how well they've done in recent Tours de l'Avenir). ¡Viva México! I didn't even think to look at established, highly successful riders because I wrongfully assumed their points would be off the charts! Oh well, maybe my international band of plucky kids will throw up some surprises. Otherwise, I'm sure I'll learn a lot tracking the results of everyone's teams!

 

[Squire]

Pretty sneaky but doesn't that require entering the rider IDs as well?

No, just names. That's what the spreadsheet tracks.

 

[vladimir]

Dumo in 109 out of 113 teams. Is he the most popular rider in this game ever?

 

[Koronin]

I'm a little surprised Enric Mas is as rare of a pick as he is. Yes is a bit on the expensive side, yet he will have this year with a team to support him to really show his full potential.

As for the question about Landa. My reason for not even considering him is simply because he typically seems to struggle in his first year in a new team.

It appears I have a lot of faith/confidence in this revamped Movistar team that's going with a youth movement for next year as virtually 1/3rd of my team is their riders. Well the kids will get their opportunities.

 

[Eyeballs Out]

snip
BENNETT Sam (picked 5 times): I don’t see where the upside is. He’s a 29 year old sprinter coming off a career year. Yeah he’s probably in the best possible team to maximize his points total but the ceiling is just too low for my taste. He’s shown very little ability in one day races and that seriously caps what a sprinter can do in this game. If you want to see how far world class sprinting skills can carry you if you don’t score in one day races, I always use the most dominant sprinter of the last couple of decades as a reference point. Peak Cavendish scored 1733 points in 2009 (and that was with his ridiculous win at San Remo) and 1843 in 2013. As good as Bennett is, he’s not that good. So what’s his best case scenario: 1500 points? Pass.
snip

I was pretty close to taking Bennett

Ackermann got over 1800 this year and I don't think he did anything in particular that Bennett can't do. The key I guess is riding the right races and staying injury free