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Your alternative method assumes that someone else at the end of the road is investing. Thats not suggesting your right and i am wrong 100% of the time, thats suggesting that in D.III, not D.V, that you can throw away someone at age 32-35 for a fraction of the cost, and make it worth your investment. You might be able to do it in D.IV, but there isn't a real D.VI USA pool going right now.

So if the original poster wants to decide between a 27 year old and a 32 year old, he's likely to want to buy a 6-10k salaried player that costs him a lot less than what we're talking about. Lets take your alternative method to this.

Lets say player A costs 200k, player B costs 75k. this is far more likely at D.V than the original numbers.

If they are let go at roughly 33, most players are still similarly sold at 50k, it's not a sever dropoff. So for one year the cost of a veteran in D.V territory is really good. However, if it's 34 or 35, i've assume a little decline and looked for less. and some sell for roughly 8-10k.

200k-50k = 150k/6 = 25k per year
75k-50k = 25k/1yr = 25k per year.

200k-10k = 190k/6 = ~31.67 per
75k-10k = 65k/1yr = 65k per

So while your math might be better than mine, at the end of the day it's still a judgment call, and doesn't make a guy age 32 instantly better depending on what the team's division is at minimum. The answer therefore is more along what i was suggesting that you notice, which is that it is more of an 'it depends'.

You can argue opportunity costs of arena expansion, it can be a valid point, but it wont always be a valid alternative.

You are attributing a lot of arguments to me that I didn't make. The numbers I chose in my example were just to illustrate what difference the better calculation method can make, and that it makes short term players look closer to their true value, nothing more. I would certainly agree with "it depends" on buying older players in general. That being said I would like to discuss some of the points you bring up further.

thats suggesting that in D.III, not D.V, that you can throw away someone at age 32-35 for a fraction of the cost, and make it worth your investment. You might be able to do it in D.IV, but there isn't a real D.VI USA pool going right now.

I think it's actually easier the lower division you are. The markets aren't as good at pricing these players because lower division managers are usually less experienced. I was in DV only a couple seasons ago and have been able to promote quickly by buying lots of cheap veterans that didn't devalue much and because it's been cheap I've been able to spend loads on my stadium. Now that I'm in D3 there are noticeably less under-priced veterans on the market that appeal to me.

If they are let go at roughly 33, most players are still similarly sold at 50k, it's not a sever dropoff. So for one year the cost of a veteran in D.V territory is really good. However, if it's 34 or 35, i've assume a little decline and looked for less. and some sell for roughly 8-10k.

(snip)
75k-10k = 65k/1yr = 65k per

If you had read the only advice I have given on this subject (linked to it, haven't talked about it in this thread) you would know that I think selling at 33 is usually best (plenty of exceptions), so we agree here. Also the only thing your numbers show is that buying a player at 75k and having him devalue to 10k in one year is bad. Can't disagree with that.

Wow, this topic exploded but that's good. Thank you for all of your comments. I am planning on selling my 32 and 33 yr old and buying 30 yr. olds because I am still training guards.

Then i'll agree to disagree on the first point you have here. I don't think it's easier at all to sell a guy in D.V, because the amount of teams below the standard that is acceptable for your team in most cases is going to not be worth their time either. If you just look under 8k salary at age 33+, most of the players there aren't selling. If you look at the 8-15k bracket, anyone priced in the 50-75k region thats closer to 9k salary or above does sell.

I also haven't had any trouble finding lower priced veterans at the D.IV level. And i don't think it's that hard at D.III either, it's just more about what you're looking for. At D.V all you need to promote is a few good players that are roughly 6-8k in salary. In D.IV, all you need is a few 20k guys that can carry a few of those 6-8k guy who might now be on the bench. In D.III, i suspect you can still replace the 6-8k'ers with 31-32 year olds that can fill out the 6th-8th or 9th best positions on your team. Given, you might be searching for guys that are good at both inside and outside play at each position rather than one-dimensional players, but for one dimensional i see a few good buys sitting out there in the 100k range, which for a D.III would be like buying a guy at 30-40k at D.V assuming you've invested your money well to this point.

On the TL right now, there are two centers (no links, per forum rules):

Player A: $19.2k, 27yo, 3/1/1/2/5/3 - 9/11/12/7 - ST:9 FT:2 - EXP:5
Starting Price: $192k
TPE = $200k-$300k

Player B:
$15.5k, 32yo 2/7/3/2/7/4 - 9/11/12/7 - ST:6 FT:7 - EXP:10
Starting Price: $150k
TPE = $130k-$170k

In Season 19, they were playing for D4 Eesti and Lietuva teams (comparable) and had comparable stats:

Player A: 30.2 min/G @ C, 11.9 RB, 2.0 AST, 2.2 TO, 0.2 STL, 2.4 BLK, 2.3 PF, 12.5 PTS, 10.7 Rating
Player B: 36.0 min/G @ C, 12.9 RB, 3.4 AST, 1.8 TO, 0.9 STL, 1.5 BLK, 2.2 PF, 10.2 PTS, 10.1 Rating

So they are essentially the same player. Maybe player B has a slight edge with 10 more guard skills and +5 EXP?

Let's say you can sell both of them at 34yo for $80k. What's the average cost per week for the duration of the player's stay on your team?

(I'll assume you can get them for the mean of their two TPE numbers, and that you pay the full 14 weeks of salary each season, 7 of which are left in this season.) That means 91 wks of ownership for Player A and 21 wks for Player B.

aCPW = (price - revenue from sale + [salary * weeks of employment] ) / weeks of employment

Player A's aCPW = ($250k - $80k + [$19.2k/wk * 91 wks] ) / 91 wks = $21.1k/wk
Player B's aCPW = ($150k - $80k + [$15.5k/wk * 21 wks] ) / 21 wks = $18.8k/wk

I see a few things worth noting.
1) The longer you plan to keep a player, the more worthwhile it is to pay a high price on the TL.
2) Salary makes up the bulk of the average cost per week (91% for Player A & 82% for Player. This suggests that the biggest advantage is to be gained in having players who perform well in comparison to others with the same salary.

I don't necessarily come down on one side or the other of this debate. I think owners should diversify: have long-term franchise players and then make constellations around them that achieve the goals they have for each season. That way you can help your team train, promote, build the arena or whatever your goal is while having both longevity (which means merch) and adaptability.

Well I have bought one big. He has 12/13/12 stats. 29 years old for $183,200. He does have a salary of 27k but I think that was a good bargain.

depends mostly on secondaries.

Rhymin Simon, I meant to respond to your post a while ago with this sentiment, but didn't have time to right it out in full so put it off. Sorry for the delay.

First of all I appreciate the care you have taken with attempting to find two players with similar builds. The analysis is sound overall, but I do not draw the same conclusions you draw.

Although the costs per week may be similar, the fact that you have to pay a larger portion of this cost up front is significant because this extra money can be put to better uses. To illustrate this point, let's say that 100k saved on the older player was instead used to buy a better version of the older player with higher secondaries, Player C. Let's say player C also is 32 and depreciates to 53.3% of initial value over 21 weeks (like, from 250k to 136k, and has the same salary as player B. Using your formula:

Player C's aCPW = ($250k - $136k + [$15.5k/wk * 21 wks] ) / 21 wks = $20.9k/wk

Still very slightly less per week than Player A, and paying 67% higher initial price compared to player B will buy a good amount of secondaries, and his performance will be significantly better overall. The team would clearly be better off with this player.

Now you may be thinking that this is only works out like it did because the example players had bad secondaries, but the truth is any team in d4 or d5 needs players with better secondaries. On these example players initial cost wasn't much compared to salary, because their secondaries sucked. But the more secondaries you add, the higher initial cost will become compared to salary.

This quickly becomes the limiting factor for newer teams; because they do not have enough cash to buy high secondary builds at every position, they compromise build efficiency for cost. This is a compromise they make whether they realize it or not. The key issue here is that high secondaries isn't the only thing that drives up initial costs, it is also age. In this way teams that buy younger players are necessarily buying players with worse builds. For the vast majority of the teams in d4 or d5 it is better to spend this initial cost on build efficiency instead of age for every player that they aren't training.

Edit for cliff notes: It's better to compare players with similar cost profiles than similar builds, and when similar cost profiles are used the older player will always have a better build.

Last edited by w_alloy at 10/22/2012 6:45:33 AM

I think our conclusions are more similar than you think.

This suggests that the biggest advantage is to be gained in having players who perform well in comparison to others with the same salary.

Your response went the next step by suggesting that the way to have performance exceed salary was to have older players with better secondaries. And from the standpoint of the TL I think this is true.

The way to make an end run on all this is to train good players yourself. This takes time, but has the added bonuses of merchandise revenue and comparatively low initial cost (unless you're shooting for somebody with superstar+ potential, which is not necessary unless you're shooting to make a NT player).

(BTW, I was interested, in light of this discussion, to find Gatovskis (19633668), a player I'd scouted on the TL, on your team.) And I still think that the merch benefits of having long-term players at least somewhat offsets the disadvantage of higher up front costs on a younger player, provided you plan to keep them for a while and they are a starter.