Hello Managers,
Just like that, we’re down to only one more World Cup
before the season ending World Championships takes place. I keep promising an
update to the
Free Agent and Injury Trackers
and then getting
distracted, but I’m finally here to make good on my word. Better late than
never, right?
I’ll start off today with a bit of free agent strategy
before jumping into the trackers. I see a lot of bad free agent pickups and
drops every year, so hopefully some of you can learn a thing or two.
Picking A Free Agent
There’s a lot of good and bad approaches to picking
free agents, particularly when looking at the full season. Since we’ve only got
two weekends of racing to go, I’m only gonna cover a few points that are still
relevant for the end of this season. If I remember, I’ll try to do a longer
piece on free agent pickups sometime down the road.
The Difference Between World Cups and World
Champs
One of the key things we need to address first is the
difference between a regular World Cup and World Championships. For the sake of
fantasy speed skating, there’s four main things that really matter:
1. 4x
Points
2. Different
Combination of Events
3. No
Bouncing from A to B
4. Limited
National Team Quotas
1 – For us, the most important thing to remember is
that World Champs is worth 4x the base World Cup points. If you have skaters
who are particularly clutch, don’t hesitate to take em off the bench. Common tactics
and the repercussions of the 4x points will be more clear once we get through
the next few items.
2 – World Champs has a slightly different (but very significant)
combination of events. This season the two main things worth mentioning are (1)
there is only one 500m event and (2) both the long-distance events are held
(3000m/5000m for women and 5000m/10,000m for men). Sprinters usually get 2x
500m each weekend, which really helps them tally up the points during the regular
World Cups. On the other hand, long-distance skaters often only race once a
weekend during the World Cups but then the top 12 (roughly) get an extra race
at Worlds. When you factor in the 4x points at Worlds, long distance skaters
can really close the gap quick on the sprinters during the last weekend of the
year.
To illustrate this, let’s look at the difference in World
Cup Equivalents for a pure 500m skater versus a pure long-distance skater. As
examples, we’ll use Kim Jun-Ho and Graeme Fish.
Category
Kim
Fish
World Cups
9
6
WC Classification
2
2
World Champs
4
8
TOTAL
15
16
As is clear in the table, Fish will actually compete
for 16 World Cup Equivalents worth of points, compared to only 15 for Kim. It’s
important to note though that, at this point in the season, Kim has raced 7
times and Fish only 5. This means Kim’s season is just shy of 50% finished, while
Fish’s season has just hit the 33% completion mark. Theoretically, if you were currently
juicing every last point out of Kim at the World Cups, it would be worth considering
dropping a pure 500m skater like him for a long-distance specialist between WC6
and World Champs. Now, obviously we have to factor in skill and likelihood of
medalling and all that too, but the math favours sprinters early in the season
and long-distance skaters later.
3 – Skaters sometimes get stuck bouncing between A and
B Group during the regular season, especially if they don’t race a given event
every single week. An example of this could be Nikola Zdrahalova who started
her season late and thus has less World Cup Points than her competitors. She made
it into A Group in the 1500m at WC4, then made it into A Group in the 1000m and
3000m for WC5, and will now be in A Group once again for the 1500m at WC6. Despite
the limited opportunity to earn points each World Cup, there’s a very good
chance that she skates all three races at Worlds, therefore allowing her points
to go up faster than normal.
Other similar examples could be Ryota Kojima, Miho
Takagi, or Yevgeniy Koshkin. These skaters have all qualified for A Group
multiple times in the 500m (through a B Group podium) but then sacrificed the
spot the next weekend by not signing up for the 500m. At Worlds, there is a higher
chance that skaters who historically dabble in a 2
nd
, 3
rd
,
or 4
th
distance actually race all of the distances. We often see
Mommy Miho add a third distance to her repertoire at Worlds, and I wouldn’t be surprised
if a skater like Ning Zhongyan did the same.
4 – Finally, we always have to keep in mind that
maximum quota per country per distance drops from 5 to 3 in most distances, and
down to only 2 in the 5000m/10,000m events (it also stays at 2 in the mass
start). This means that skaters who earn a lot of points at the World Cups but
aren’t in the top 3 in their country won’t even be at Worlds. An example of
this would be Suzanne Schulting who failed to qualify for Worlds in any
distance. Her value as a skater on any of your teams will likely become
non-existent once World Cup 6 wraps up. It’s also good to pay attention to
which distances skaters qualify for Worlds in. It’s very common, particularly from
the Netherlands and Japan, for skaters to still qualify for Worlds but in less
distances than at a regular World Cup. Examples of this include Joep Wennemars
and Angel Daleman, both of whom got a ticket for Worlds but in only one
distance each.
World Cup Classification Points
Now that we’ve covered World Champs, we need to
briefly talk about the World Cup Classification points that get paid out at the
end of World Cup 6. These points are often overlooked but can be a great opportunity
to pick up a few easy points.
At the end of the last World Cup of the season, our
league pays out 2x points to every single skater based on their world rank.
This means that a skater who finishes first in a classification gets 50 points.
Skaters who can win 2 or more classifications, like Ning or Miho, can easily
earn their teams over 100 points. These points are on top of the points that
these skaters earn by placing in each individual race.
One of the easiest way to collect some extra points is
to simply ensure a skater high up in any distance classification (or in the top
15 for multiple distances) is on your roster. Looking at an event like the men’s
mass start, it’s pretty easy to see a couple names that are free agents in most
pools but could earn their teams big points from their classification payout. Andrea
Giovannini is 4
th
, Indra Medard is 6
th
, and Fridtjof
Petzold is 8
th
. If the World Cups were to end today, they would earn
their teams 24, 20, and 16 points just for being a part of the roster. Smart
managers with spare free agent pickups often use this strategy to give their
team a little boost heading into the head of the season.
Now, I’ll also quickly mention that the opposite is
true. Skater who are not ranked very high, particularly in the top 15, are good
candidates to drop heading into the last World Cup if you need to free up space
for someone else.
So… What The Hell Should I Do??
Now, time to put this all together. The number one
thing that I would first aim for is a roster of 8 solid skaters at World Champs.
If you’re going to be short active skaters at the most important competition of
the year, I would prioritize picking up skaters who can earn the most at
Worlds. This often means looking for multi-distance (and particularly
long-distance) skaters. Any potential classification points would just be a
bonus.
If you have 8 skaters you are happy to use at Worlds,
then you can start getting more creative. Do you want to pick up one or two
skaters just to earn their classification bonus? Maybe you even want to pickup
one or two free agents as minor upgrades to your bench skaters as a backup just
in case someone gets hurt? Maybe even to block other managers in your pool from
being able to use them. The reality is that almost every roster could be
improved one way or another with a free agent pickup. Just because your team
may be sitting in the top 10 right now doesn’t mean it’s as good as it could
be.
Not every free agent swap will be an obvious or easy
choice to make though. For an example, let’s look at Sato who has had a relatively
disappointing season. She’s ranked 10
th
in the 1000m but outside the
top 15 in the 1500m and mass start. This mean’s she’ll only earn in the
ballpark of 12 points for her classification bonus. But she’s also a skater who
might skate three distances at Worlds and has the ability to pop off. It’s therefore
up to managers to decide to replace a skater like this for an easier classification
payout or to just keep them on the roster despite the low payout but with the
intent of earning a lot of points off them at Worlds.
Maybe an easier example to imagine someone dropping
would be Gao Tingyu. He is currently ranked 18
th
in the 500m, so he
is not on track to earn classification points. He’s also a 500m specialist, so
he will only have the one race at Worlds. If you already have 8 skaters you
would rather use than him at Worlds and he’s likely to end up on the bench,
then maybe it’s worth swapping him out before WC6 for someone who will at least
earn your team some classification points. It might feel bad swapping a skater
like Gao out for much less flashy names like Greta Myers or Indra Medard, but
these are the smart moves that can really help a team move up the standings.
Every team’s needs are different, and so is every manager’s
risk profile. Seeing big names like Kimi Goetz getting dropped by managers is
evidence of smart thinking – just because someone was your first overall pick doesn’t
mean they’re immune from being your most worthless skater through the final
stretch of the season. I recommend everyone take a good long look at your
roster and ask yourself three things: Will I have 8 good skaters at Worlds? Am
I getting a solid enough number of points from the classification payout? And
do I need to take some risk to close a big gap on the teams ahead of me? Based
on how your answer these three, I’m sure you’ll realize which tough decisions
you might need to make.
Injury Tracker
Kimi Goetz –
Looks
like she’ll be getting some back surgery done, so her season is now over. There’s
also rumours that her ex-fiancé was caught on video in some sort of orgy with
his skaters, so maybe a break from the circuit will be good for her mental as
well.
Ragne Wiklund –
She
got taken away in a wheelchair after her dominant 3000m win at World Cup 5. She
was clutching her back as she got off the ice, so I’d wager those two are related.
With Worlds just around the corner, an injury to Wiklund would be an enormous
hit to the teams she represents.
Erin Jackson –
The
announcer kept saying that she is dealing with an ongoing back injury. We witnessed
her barely skate off the line in Calgary back in January but she seems to be
making a quick recovery. With back-to-back 500m wins at World Cup 5, I think it’s
pretty safe to take her off this tracker.
Suzanne Schulting –
Medical
staff have diagnosed her with
extreme disappointment
after getting her
cheeks clapped at Dutch Trials by a bunch of actual long track speed skaters
(and a 17-year-old girl). Did someone forget to tell her that it’s really,
really, really hard to qualify for World Championships in the Netherlands?
Damian Zurek –
A
monster fall in the team sprint on Sunday left this balding Polish hunk with a 1000-yard
stare. Maybe he was just rattled in the moment, or maybe his body took a significant
beating. No diagnosis yet, but we’ll be monitoring the situation.
Timothy Loubineaud –
This
filthy Frenchman has now struggled for back-to-back weekends with an unusual
diagnosis. After being on top of the world for a few weeks (and by that I
literally mean he was at the top of the World Rankings), he’s now struggling to
compete against the best mass start skaters in the world. This is not due to a physical
injury, but more of a frustration with not being able to break from the pack as
easily as before. I guess we could just say that his competitors
respect
him.
Is respect an illness? An injury? In this instance, it’s hard to classify. All
I know is that this is bad for Loubineaud.
Chung Jae-Won –
He
narrowly made it out of the B Group mass start for World Cup 6, but he appears
to be a shell of his former self. I have no idea what’s wrong with him, but he
surely is not the depth-pick points machine of past seasons.
Free Agent Tracker
Kimi Goetz –
With
her season now over, she has quickly become a free agent as managers rush to
replace her dead weight. I do not recommend picking up their scraps.
Kim Jun-Ho –
He’s
been one of the steadiest men’s 500m skaters of the season, and yet he’s still
a free agent in 1 pool. If you are thinking of taking him, just keep in mind
the discussion above about how a 500m skater’s season is weighted.
Merijn Scheperkamp –
He
started as a free agent in every pool. He’s been picked up by 3 managers, but
still available in 2 pools. With his ticket to World Champs secured, he’s still
worth having on your team.
Andrea Giovannini –
I
briefly mentioned this one earlier, but this somewhat washed up Italian mass
start skater is still a free agent (in only one pool though). If you want an
outside podium threat and a pile of classification points, he could very well
be your best option.
Greta Myers –
She
might not be likely to earn another gold medal this season, but she will
probably feature in a handful of distances at Worlds (thanks in part to Kimi’s
absence). She’s a risker pick, but there is potential here.
Casey Dawson –
A
super impressive string of races has Casey set for a great points haul at
Worlds. If he can keep the train going and finish around the top 6 in both the
5000m and 10,000m events, that could earn his teams upwards of 80 points.
Rio Yamada –
After
getting dropped by three managers, she quickly decided to turn her season
around and earn her first individual medal on the World Cup circuit. Crazy how
that happens. She’s still available in those three pools.
Yevgeniy Koshkin
–
The Stolz Slayer made a big splash at World Cup 5 by making it out of B Group
in the first 500m and then winning gold in the second 500m, an incredible move
to the top. He’s still free in 3 pools.
Nikola Zdrahalova –
It
looks likely that she’ll skate three distances at Worlds, all of which she has top
10 potential in. If you need another skater at Worlds, this would be a strong
pick. She’s still available in 4 pools.
Joep Wennemars –
Despite
making the 1000m at Worlds, he’s on less teams now than when the season
started. He is now available in 3 pools.
Sanne In ‘t Hof –
She’s
been in a slight downward trajectory the last month or two, but she did manage
to sneak into World in the 5000m ahead of Beune and Groenewoud. With only 12
skaters participating, she’s guaranteed at least 16 points. The Dutch generally
do much better in this distance though.
That’s all for today. Racing resumes this weekend with
World Cup 6 in Heerenveen, which means roster updates need to be in by 11:59 PM
Mountain Time on Thursday. As discussed above, World Cup Classification points
will be paid out this weekend so don’t forget to keep that in mind. Happy World
Cup watching!
Cheers,
Dad