As in the previous year, an excellent analysis, very pleasant to read. Congratulations for the excellent work.
As far as my team is concerned I flatly agree with what was said, but I can assure you that the fingers of one hand are sufficient and there are still enough to count the races where Swift / Silvestre / Kupfernagel will be present. DownUnder Classic is one of those rare occasions and I think it makes sense because 90km will not wear out any of these riders so Res can be left out.
My idea was not to leave either Chiarello or Roglic, unfortunately, bad management in the renewals forced them to leave, even after that, Montoya was never a priority, but an achievement, since all other deals forced me to sell Kupfernagel due to salary cap. Unfortunately, a concrete proposal never arrived for Kupfernagel and the limitation of the salary cap meant that the reinforcements could not be other.
But as I said in the previous year, the goal is not to join the PT. For now, Goal is to finish the evolution mainly of Aular and Almeida, thus having 2 decent leaders and with 1 or 2 more decent riders then attack a place in the PT with the possibility of later continuing there for some seasons.
Well done again with this. It's very impressive. Haven't been able to read it all yet, but skipped around to read everything about us.
I think the battle between Tenorio and Pluchkin will be a lot closer this season and will allow Tenorio to score more points than last season. Yates can't be much worse than last season, so add in the training and improved stage design should mean way more points. I don't see Fraile having a better season (he got pretty lucky in a PTHC race to score a bulk of his points a year ago), but the addition of Abal should offset that. Losing Rick Zabel will hurt the most but he just didn't have that top-end firepower to win races (but at least he was consistent unlike a former Russian sprinter who we won't name...) Maybe Eric Young can make up some of those points with a mixture of cobbled races and a good showing at the Tour of America.
Other than that our depth has improved significantly and I like the youth foundation we have for the future. We didn't sell out to chase promotion this season (we easily could have). I already did that a few years ago and it worked initially to get us to the Pro Tour, but it didn't give us a chance to stay up. Now, with this setup, I feel like we are in a better position to not only promote in the near future but to stay in the Pro Tour long-term as well.
My little comment is no match to the amazing work you guys have done with this preview, absolutely top notch!
As to my Vanspeybrouck plans yeah absolutely it was not a Plan A, neither B, neither C. Truth is I entered transfer season 2 days late, had clear ideas of netting a top puncheur and had made several offers that for one reason or another didn't work, getting a climber again wasn't gonna work due to wages, sprinters and TTists are unreliable so...
Vanspeybrouck was an emergency response to a completely failed week of transfers. My thought behind it, he can help make sure Summerhill doesn't waste points on some cobbled races like last year, he can score himself as the team is no doubt strong enough to support both and also may be an important card in an ever-agressive AI that I hope to see. Not the best transfer I always admited that, but having so much money to spend/not much wage and the need of a strong rider as soon as possible led to this.
The wage spent on the (accurately put VERY strong talents) came after, when there were no big scorers on the FA market that would be worth it, so I turned my attention on the future and managed to grab some of the most wanted young names which I expect to develop in the coming seasons (whichever division I may end up in), it's the first time season I'm thinking long-term and it's good to gather that experience.
Mresuperstar wrote:
Well done again with this. It's very impressive. Haven't been able to read it all yet, but skipped around to read everything about us.
I think the battle between Tenorio and Pluchkin will be a lot closer this season and will allow Tenorio to score more points than last season. Yates can't be much worse than last season, so add in the training and improved stage design should mean way more points. I don't see Fraile having a better season (he got pretty lucky in a PTHC race to score a bulk of his points a year ago), but the addition of Abal should offset that. Losing Rick Zabel will hurt the most but he just didn't have that top-end firepower to win races (but at least he was consistent unlike a former Russian sprinter who we won't name...) Maybe Eric Young can make up some of those points with a mixture of cobbled races and a good showing at the Tour of America.
Other than that our depth has improved significantly and I like the youth foundation we have for the future. We didn't sell out to chase promotion this season (we easily could have). I already did that a few years ago and it worked initially to get us to the Pro Tour, but it didn't give us a chance to stay up. Now, with this setup, I feel like we are in a better position to not only promote in the near future but to stay in the Pro Tour long-term as well.
I usually go through the DB and sum up my expectation of point scoring for each team as it helps me to balance leaders vs depth scoring (only as a base for my expert prediction) and i had Tenorio at +200 compared to last season, Yates at +200 and Fraile at -100 to -150 so we seem to be largely in agreement about this. I don't think your depth has really improved enough to give you a depth scoring advantage over most other teams in the promotion spots but i see you close enough that you should be competitive.
Interesting that the expert predictions have us as high as 6th and as low as 16th. Looks like were about 10th on average though, which isn’t far off my own prediction.
I’m not sure I agree with Abhi that we have regressed since last season, but on the other hand, I think other teams have gotten comparably stronger, so with that in mind I guess it’s a fair assessment. Nice to see that Croatia rates us as a promotion contender, meanwhile! I certainly wouldn’t mind it if we pull that off, but to be honest I think there are at least 7-8 teams out there that are so much stronger than us that it’s unrealistic even with outstanding planning.
With regards to the question you discussed for me, good that you all rate my decision of spending big on talents. I could definitely have spent that salary on getting another rider or two that would have propelled me into the promotion discussion instead, but having thought about it, I think taking a more long-term approach is sensible. Given that all my major point scorers are 30+, it’s easy to get stuck in a loop of having to replace leaders every season and not obtaining enough cash to go for someone of quality that’s also a bit younger. So spending a few seasons now in PCT while trying to build up a spine of young talent seems to me to be the best approach in order to set us up for long-term success.
With regards to other teams, seems like the average of your expert predictions isn’t too far off my own predictions. I’ve predicted Fablok, Valio and Kraftwerk a fair bit higher, but I find those teams from ~10th to ~20th really hard to separate, so we don’t necessarily disagree too much over them. Biggest difference of opinion is perhaps MOL, where none of you have them as a promoting team, whereas I’ve rated them as a clear 2nd. To me, they’re easily the most improved team of the division, as much as I enjoy being mentioned in that discussion
Oh, and going off last season, I was a bit surprised to see Lo Cicero over Guarnieri in the sprinter terrain battle, but I guess I’m slightly biased there Nice to see Gallopin being mentioned again as a rider that can overperform, though!
Anyways, as always, fantastic work fellas! Was a welcome surprise to enjoy at 4 AM during election night
Awesome work yet again guys, such an entertaining and informative read.
I agree with your assessment of Kraftwerk. On the Cav wage thing I offered a value that I thought I would need to pay in a very tight free agency to get a SP81 rider but did not expect him to sign. Bit of a surprise that he took my 3rd round offer.
After missing my main transfer targets I did have half an eye on preparing a CT ready core in case we relegate so could bounce back.
I am reassured that nobody put us in the relegation zone but its going to be a nervous season relying on depth scoring, counting top 20 results and hoping its enough
Well unfortunately this year ended up a lot like 2018, same plan, same result. Went to add another team leader, but in several cases was simply unable to compete in the market for those riders. In the end you get 800Kish in wage space left empty and nothing to use it on other than riders to potentially build on for the future.
Guys like Alarcon, van Garderen were both big targets this offseason, Tejay quickly become too expensive in his transfer deal, and ultimately a PT squad was able to bid 750k which I couldn't top for Alarcon which meant I had to let go of that deal as well. I enquired about Cataford to potentially boost the teams TT capability, and was unable to make any inroads there. And sadly in the Americas, basically only Summerhill is an upgrade to what I have on the cobbles, and I determined he wasn't available. In the sprints only Gaviria would be a functional sprinter from the Americas until I can finish and train Tiavini, and he certainly wasn't available.
Also terrific work from you guys to create the content for the PCT and a great review of teams and riders we will see for the next season.
Edited by Kentaurus on 06-11-2020 21:08
Kentaurus wrote:
Well unfortunately this year ended up a lot like 2018, same plan, same result. Went to add another team leader, but in several cases was simply unable to compete in the market for those riders. In the end you get 800Kish in wage space left empty and nothing to use it on other than riders to potentially build on for the future.
Guys like Alarcon, van Garderen were both big targets this offseason, Tejay quickly become too expensive in his transfer deal, and ultimately a PT squad was able to bid 750k which I couldn't top for Alarcon which meant I had to let go of that deal as well. I enquired about Cataford to potentially boost the teams TT capability, and was unable to make any inroads there. And sadly in the Americas, basically only Summerhill is an upgrade to what I have on the cobbles, and I determined he wasn't available. In the sprints only Gaviria would be a functional sprinter from the Americas until I can finish and train Tiavini, and he certainly wasn't available.
I was quite scared when my own deal for Chiarello was posted that you'd jump on that. Another stage racer might not have been what you needed the most but I think that would have been a better investment than the training for Eastman and would have secured you another year in PCT. Glad you were still occupied with other targets at that point
knockout wrote:
I was quite scared when my own deal for Chiarello was posted that you'd jump on that. Another stage racer might not have been what you needed the most but I think that would have been a better investment than the training for Eastman and would have secured you another year in PCT. Glad you were still occupied with other targets at that point
With minimum wage deals for a pair of 78MO guys to support Eastman, as well as a handful of climbers I kept over, adding another sub80 climber just didn't really make sense, I did see it and thought about it. I don't think he'd be any sort of consistent point scorer in the PCT which is what I really needed.
The deal I missed on that I probably should have put more into was getting Betancourt though his massive rider swap deal might have been a mess.
Was a welcome surprise to enjoy at 4 AM during election night 
