The difference between Peraud's learning year and Hatherly's learning year was that Peraud was 8th in Paris-Nice, 4th in Pais Vasco, 6th in a strong field ahead of Samu, Klöden and Purito at Malhao, rode an almost exclusively WT schedule and rode a GT. And, perhaps most important of all, didn't still focus a lot on MTB as far as I know (don't see how he had time for that with all those race days). Hatherly won the WC in MTB again in 2025 and will continue mixing the two disciplines. His notable results on the road were in extremely weak fields. I see 800 points as completely out of the question and 500 as still wildly optimistic. One element in his favour though is the points-farming approach that Jayco have said they will take. And I also love the late-comers to the sport for this game. Don't know if I've actually picked that many of them over the years, but their potential for a rapid rise has always been very much at the forefront of my mind.
I strongly agree with your point about managing upside risk in the lower price ranges. A few picks will inevitably tank there anyway, so you mostly want to cover as many possible De Lies as possible. I just don't think Hatherly has that much upside compared to for example someone like Dunbar or Page who I picked or L'hote who I maybe should have picked. Or even Gualdi. But who knows, there's a reason why you're historically the most successful player in this game. I just feel like some of your super rare picks have a tendency to not turn out so well.
Like Grosu, Van de Paar, Van Bekkum etc.
Your analysis is sound in terms of ceiling, you're right that 800 would be a pretty optimistic stretch. But the Peraud comp was with the level of results in mind - Peraud nearly tripled his score from a higher first year score with better results, for sure. He was a better road rider. But I'm just looking for an improvement on the base, I don't care what competition it comes against.
But you're definitely right in the bigger picture - I didn't super seriously consider Hatherly until I was doing the slide puzzle of getting the last pieces to fit, so I didn't do a deep analysis of how many MTB days he might do, I just read a couple of things on what he thought about the road and let my imagination fill in an optimistic outcome. "Sure he's doing MTB and someone like Peraud made a full switch, but kids these days are doing all kinds of disciplines", etc.
I think the reason some of my more unique picks do poorly is because those are the ones that I put in at the end of my process, and I get so fatigued by the end of refining my team that I'm just like 'screw it, I'll throw in this guy' without too much thought as to who in that range I hadn't considered before but maybe should. If I expanded my longlist I might be able to consider someone like Page at that point, or if I had the energy I could be like 'wait is this what I'm really doing?' and take a breath and go back to CQ to re-look at riders in the range I need to fill rather than just tossing in riders from my list that fit even if I'm not wildly enthusiastic. Definitely the difference between a successful rare pick like Almeida, who I had my eye on as a central focus of my team from the start, and Van Bekkum and Van De Paar who I literally knew (and still know) nothing about. Van Bekkum was a 'sure he's going to Astana who want to get points so if he's good he'll get points', and he wasn't good. Van De Paar was just a set of results on a CQ page and the mystery was intriguing. Since I guess he went back to his home planet sometime in 2025 and no longer exists, this year I told myself to not spend 200 points on unknown unknowns. But I'll still take a flier for a little intrigue and a rider who would be fun to follow over hoping that Dunbar finally puts it together, for example. It's a little bit of a weakness for the weakest riders on my team, but obviously my overall process has worked for me (forget last year existed).
I know it's a bit of a recurring joke, but Grosu was defensible to pick, I still think. He did a notably good ride (I thought, at least) in the breakaway of the U23 worlds, and he was a sprinter on a smaller team so I figured he'd get chances, and as I've said the upside of getting someone who can maybe break through and start getting first place points is worth a shot. It definitely didn't hurt that he came from a non-traditional cycling nation, which of course made the 'I'd like to see this work' factor creep in, always dangerous but part an parcel of this game. Anyway then he showed a few glimpses to my optimistic eye in the first year, especially one Giro sprint where he looked like the fastest for a few hundred meters but went way too early and finished like 12th. "Boy", I thought, "if he learns how to get his timing better he seems like he's fast enough to put it together". So I picked him a second year, and he didn't get his timing right and it turns out he wasn't fast enough, oops. Since then I've figured that the 200+ points I spent on him was too much for that limited upside, so I largely stayed away from that (I re-learned that lesson with Van De Paar last year, we need reminders every once and awhile). But I definitely had a more sound process on that one than picking Kristjan Koren in the first year of the game because he had middling results and "boy wouldn't it be cool if a Slovenian was good at cycling" was basically my reasoning. Should have just waited on that second one. We've all grown since then.
Also: good to know Kron is (hopefully) over his issues!
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