Interesting battles all over the place. Some have raged all season (such as the bottom feeders) and some are just developing (the fancy dans at the top).
Wikipedia vs Vesuvio for the king of the castle by the looks, though no reason Pokerstars cannot sneak in there if Boonan starts being a bastard again at TONE. Ginanni could easily win Lombardy - he'll need to if Pokerstars are going to nick it I think.
Vesuvio have had a big run with the Schlecks and now a brilliant Suaza surprise which has combatted Wikipedia. But Phinney is the dangerman from them...
For me I am desperately looking up and I badly need someone to break Bewley's legs or something if I am to make the top 5. That was always unlikely it does look likely SRB will be comfortably in the top 10 though.
At the bottom, I think Santander will comfortably be in the bottom four and whilst Rothaus and VW may outscore those above I just cannot see them closing the gap. A shame because then things would be really terrifying.
@Sotd: I think a top team has to have a really big scorer and a solid back up team. They also have to pick the right races to get the most out of their leaders. Festina for me could have had a better season, they were unlucky in the main. Spilak should have done better from the Tour-Dauphine double and perhaps over slightly different parcours he would have done. Guerao obviously was a big fail - but sprinters didn't work for me in this edition. Swift has been fine he is probably the best of the non crossover ones. Cobblers/wind resistent immortals Bewley and Boonan are just bastardly overpowered (like Alarcon of course) in this edition.
On a final note - it does seem such a shame to bar the strange one dimensional Santander that the majority of teams going down will be promoted teams. I was thinking in response also to the lazy to post MG veterans comments in the Colombia thread - that maybe something a little more creative with relegation places could happen next year. Something along the lines of 5 teams relegate with a maximum of three from the promoted teams.
In this season it would mean of course Rothaus and VW were safe with the likes of Swisscom/Vueling/Boutgues/Project/Lotto/Pendletons sweating over the last relegation place. It does feel it is a little easy for the long term managers to get in a safe place.
Final thing Gomez Marchante has scored more points then Coppel ...
Thanks for the update, I still don't feel that safe [although I am a terrible pessimist]. Most of my great results are a bit flukey and then riders often won't show up at all for other races so it could go either way. Interesting battle at the top, impressed with Tinkoff as well.
Smowz wrote:
For me I am desperately looking up and I badly need someone to break Bewley's legs or something if I am to make the top 5. That was always unlikely it does look likely SRB will be comfortably in the top 10 though.
Smowz wrote:
Final thing Gomez Marchante has scored more points then Coppel ...
But Coppel still has TONE (where he won the last year) and Tasmania left, hasn't he?
Thanks to both SN and Count for great update. Regarding to battle for title, I´m almost sure only Vesuvio and Wikipedia are still in contention. I´m fancying Vesuvio.
Good Energy and my team will most likely fight for remaining podium place, I believe both managers didn´t expect this can happen before season and are happy how things developed over months. At least I´m happy! I definitely need Boonen and Ginanni to perform well in their remaining races, battles against Ponzi and Guarnieri might be really tight. Hopefully gap between us and especially Becherovka is big enough to secure 4th place as worst.
Battle for avoiding relegation will be extremely interesting as well. Looking at schedule, Santander seems to be doomed, while both Rothaus & VW are still making their hopes alive. VW are still in better start position, though! Or is there any little chance both will overtake Vueling (Kennaugh made hell of great work in Colombia) or another team from 11th to lower places?
Many open questions, not so many races left - it´s gonna be exciting end of season. Let´s the best win/survive!
Interesting battles throughout. Would be better to see Santander relegate if they are on the way out and a more active participant can overtake them. Good luck to all whether you are fighting at the top, or the bottom - is making great viewing.
The general difficulty (lets ignore the excellent confounding example set by Tinkoff!) of promoting teams surviving is not really that surprising given that it likely takes a couple of transfer seasons at least to transition to most efficient use of extra budget as opposed to likely high rider turnover in season 1 after promotion in attempt to compete. Expect PCT would be a similar experience if almost the whole CT division hadn't promoted en-mass last season.
Edited by Scorchio on 21-01-2015 01:36
The promotion issue is down to the amount of promoted teams I think. This season there was 6-7 promoted teams, hence some of them not ready for the task. That also meant that some of them was promoted a year too early to actually have a realistic shot at staying, and if they wanted to stick to the team they already had, that was a major blow to the chances of staying up.
If we were to pick the top 3 teams to promote, then we would have Tinkoff, ING and Vueling. ING decided to make a total transition of the team, which was already doomed when they got Sicard for 1,5mio. That left absolutely no room for other point scoring types, and as ING decided to go for TT'ers that normally doesn't score big (and they don't even have the best ones) it couldn't go any other way.
Tinkoff is safely put inside the top 10 and will stay there, while Vueling is currently 15th of 22 teams, but more important, ahead of ING, Santander and Swisscom, meaning that they would be safe anyway.
If we have 3 demoting teams this year, it would be no. 9 of last years PCT, no. 6 and ING who changed the entire team. Those teams were, sorry to say, A LOOONG way from PT level, and had to take some chances in the off season. When 7 teams promote we are bound to have a large potion demoting again.
Whether it is to be expected or not, it is still a shame as the promoted teams - particularly if in PT for the first time - tend to be amongst the most active managers.
beagle wrote:
Good Energy and my team will most likely fight for remaining podium place, I believe both managers didn´t expect this can happen before season and are happy how things developed over months. At least I´m happy! I definitely need Boonen and Ginanni to perform well in their remaining races, battles against Ponzi and Guarnieri might be really tight. Hopefully gap between us and especially Becherovka is big enough to secure 4th place as worst.
Quite right! Did not see this season happening the way it has, though I fear my end of season stage races aren't going to be up to par with the more hilly start of season ones where Ponzi did so well.
Boonen is my fear for outscoring Guarnieri, but I'm hoping that Luke Rowe (who would have thought he'd score so well this year!?) will provide me with that added boost of one of the best lead out men going. As long as Swift/Boonen don't sit on Guarnieri's wheel...
Whilst I do agree that it's a pity the more active managers aren't rewarded, at the same time, if you get demoted, it's how you utilise that time in lower ranks to your advantage - building an indepth team that mature to give you points all round. I know it's a lot harder to do now, but it's still the strategy I would use should I demote in the future. Or be demoted for being inactive.
beagle wrote:
Battle for avoiding relegation will be extremely interesting as well. Looking at schedule, Santander seems to be doomed, while both Rothaus & VW are still making their hopes alive. VW are still in better start position, though! Or is there any little chance both will overtake Vueling (Kennaugh made hell of great work in Colombia) or another team from 11th to lower places?
Hey now! Let's not even open the possibility of that happening
Thanks for the update, though. Very interesting with the additional stats afterwards. My team has rarely ever won much, but the addition of a capable sprinter has helped boost the winning numbers.
Classification wise I hope I'm safe. Nice solid gap to the relegation zone. But anything can happen...
Thanks for the debate SotD. I'd forgotten that Veuling were also amongst the promoted cadre. Still think in general it is more difficult proposition (perhaps expected is not the best phraseology) for a promoted team to put the additional extra wage available immediately to the best use as forced into a splurge on the inflated transfer market and/or inflated wages through free agency. After a season or two in n a new division if you can hang on in, there is then the opportunity to better utilise the available resource by having established leaders and key domestiques on more reasonable wages cumulatively acquired and on the roster. Will be interesting to see how this plays out going into next year, as some of the potential promotion candidates to PT look well placed to make that transition. Should ensure that life remains tough at the top!
In my oppinion the best possible way of promoting is to have a couple of level 4 riders that is not maxed out, that will become quality pointscorers the next season. Or level 4 riders that is easily trained the first season they promote.
A team such as Team Puma - SAP is for me the schoolway of promoting. This season a midtable team, next season with:
Also, back from loan will come Maxime Daniel, Francesco Bongiorno, Christian Mager and Patrick Bercz who will also be worthwhile riders according to wages.
In the ideal world Herklotz would have been level 4 with 81MO next season. That way he would move up in the PT with 83. But as he is such a unique talent, it doesn't matter that much, as he will score a decent amount of points with 81MO also. The team have A LOT of riders that can perform straight away into the PT, and as half of them have already maxed out the promoting season, it will make for a much easier decision as to which of them you should train. My guess would be Nerz this season, Kelderman or Vogt the first PT season and then Demare. By that time the team is already well established in the PT with a fully developped team.
If we look at the top 3, currently looking for promotion, then let's shake things down to see what I reckon their strenghts and weakenesses will be:
Heineken-Cal Giant has been up before and knows the drill, that is a strength. Brajkovic as one of their main reasons for promoting, though, is a HUGE weaknes, as he will be useless in the PT due to the combination of current stats and his age, meaning he will further decline. The talisman of the team, Eastman is a great man for them though, as this guy and his forever youth will make him win several white jerseys aswell as being trainable and getting constantly around 10th in the smaller GC races. The team have a long list of pretty decent riders, but they all lack the strength to carry their points haul over to the PT. Ligthart with 78TT will be just another TTer, and he is unlikely to score anything really. Sebastian Langeveld and Damien Gaudin will both need to be extremely lucky to get a single top 10 in a cobbled race. They will score here and there, but with a combined wage of 240.000 ATM, an age of 29 and 30 which will make it pointless to train them will make their value for money too small. Dan Holloway is a good sprinter, but in the PT he would actually be a luxury leadout without any training, and as he is 28 next season he needs imidiate training to succed. In terms of talent, neither Robby Squire, Thomas Vauvourzeix, Thom Thill, Tanner Putt or Evan Huffman will have any impact on the PT, and that leaves the job to Ian Boswell who might score decent, but at 78HI it isn't a given. The season after he would be 80, so if things where timed better, he would be ready. Steel von Hoff will be a decent leadout, but aslong as Holloway isn't any better it will make no difference.
So Heineken needs a serious remake to stand a realistic shot at staying up. The positive is that if the team will let Brajkovic go (and they should) that will free up an additional 650K on top of their extra 500K. If spend well that could secure the team another season in the PT, but it is all down to the off season, which, historically, is dangerous for a newly promoted PT team.
Quickstep seems to be more apt, although they could seriously need a better climber - But this season shows that it is not live or dead, if the other parts are strong enough. I do think they lack the striking power from the other aspects though, so they should probably go for one. Florentino Marquez is a very nice domestique, but he would struggle to get any top 10GCs in the PT, and with a wage of 350K that is not good. In the hilly section the team is pretty good covered. Froome is already decent, and should do alright (A few top 10s here and there), unluckily he lacks the sprint to win from a group though. But the team also have a fully developped Pieter Serry, a talented Zico Waeytens a similar Enrico Barbin and some good allround riders. So the hills should be covered to some point. In the cobbles the team is doing well, although with another season in the CT, they would have been even better of. Baugnies with 80 will do OK, but nothing more I reckon, and Steurs on the decline will be nothing but a helper. Vanbilsen and Van Aasbroeck will be level 4, but not fully developped. They both have the talent to be good PT riders, but they are up a year too early to make an impact. Maxime Vantomme could go well in the PT, atleast if trained a bit. There is nothing from a loan-out to come back and save them really.
Quickstep will, overall, outscore Heineken in the current state, but as Heineken has Eastman and over 1mio free to spend, they could overtake Quickstep. I fear that Quickstep could go down again, because they promoted a year too early...
Oz Cycling Team could potentially struggle aswell, as Michael Rogers will be useless next season in the PT, Kristjan Koren will struggle to get a lot of points, unless trained a bit and the teams biggest developping talent, George Bennett will be nothing but a helper in the PT. Jack Bobridge is a perfect PT fit, and he will be extremely good if a little bit of extra cash was splashed on him, but he can't lift the team alone, and with a limited amount of racedays he needs to be planned to perfection as Giovanni Visconti can't take over for him, and also is declining. As are Jesus del Nero btw. The team will feat well in the TTTs which could give a few nice points here and there, aswell as some leaders jersey, which I think, is a clever thing for a newly promoted team. TT'ers seems like a fairly cheap buy, if they are one dimensional like Ford, Li, Durbridge and Olman. Matthew Goss will be a very good PT sprinter, but still lacks a bit of firepower to be among the best, which is usually required to score well. Jack Haig, the other big talent, is unfortunately only level 3 when promoted, and that is not enough for him to do anything of significance. If the team is to stay up, they need to make a tough decision, and probably let Rogers, Del Nero and Visconti go which will free up 480K leaving them with almost 1mio to improve the team. Having no cobblers and no GC riders and their best hilly rider needs to ride GC races aswell will leave them with a serious problem, that needs solving though.
Teams that could stay up without too much of an issue (If training money spend wisely and planning done well), though is Bacardi who recently demoted, but managed to keep the riders that can perform in the PT. It is a bald move in the PCT as they have limited racedays, but if they do promote it will pay off from day one. Intxausti and Uran will be regularly in the top 10 og GC races, and are both in good age to be trained aswell as the team having decent backup for them in the mountains. In the hills the combination og Ulissi and Bilbao will help them score quite well. They do need a cobbler and a good sprinter to be versatile, but it is not necessary to stay up I think. And with an additional 500K they could get another rider or two that could help their chances. A decent cobbler could be aquired for that amount, and a top TTer could probably also.
I think it is cool that the promoted teams need at least one maturing season to become a good PT team instead of just biting into the top half right away... This is in terms of game puzzles I think. I haven't taken game activity into account here at all.
The "problem" I think, is whether or not the team is ready to stay up, and if not whether or not the manager is ready to change the team quite drastically. If you have a PT team with no riders in, I'm fairly sure you could indeed build a new one and make it survive. Especially if you did have a free team because you sold every single rider for pure cash, you would also have a good amount of money to spend on training a few riders into top riders. I have actually played with that idea myself because I think it could be fun, but I decided to go the youth way instead
A lot of things can change in the Transfer season.
It's an interesting point though. You say that teams shouldn't go straight to the top half in first season, but the game mechanic isn't working if it is too hard to even challenge a mid-order team.
I'm not so sure that if you abandoned all riders it would be easy to rebuild a strong enough team. You have to face the free agent market, and are unable to trade riders - which some managers always prefer to 'just' money.
Why do you think having many Level 4 riders in trying to achieve promotion season is good for PCT team?
You can't in no way max them out at PCT level (unless they start already veryyy high in XP which doesn't happen often I'd say) so they will have one year wasted. Only wait is to loan them out, and that weakens the team leaving them in a limbo ie. keep their best level 4 riders in order to achieve promotion or loan them out and risk it a bit. That's why I did with Van der Lijke and it looks like it paid off, but with him in the team we would have done better in few stage races I am sure. To be fair I am happy to timed it perfectly with that, I bought many talents in my first season and now they all are 4.00 I am going to PT where I can max them out, nice luck I think, no need to loan etc
The thing you say about Marquez is true at PT level ( and Quickstep overall is true). However you said not having great climber at PCT is ''But this season shows that it is not live or dead''.
Actually Marquez, bar Brajkovic has been easily the 2nd best climber in the division He's been scarily consistent and winning lots of stages as well. I am not sure how the Individual rankings look like since we didn't have them for a long time but he has to be up there close to the top for sure.
Quickstep will, overall, outscore Heineken in the current state, but as Heineken has Eastman and over 1mio free to spend, they could overtake Quickstep.
I don't get this part you wrote. Your point makes out that Quickstep won't have over 1m to spend as well? That points looks this way to me at least .
Only we (and CSC) selected the hardest goals this season 23/23 points and with some yet to race hopefully we get 75/100 which is very nice considering how hard some were. And I assume if we would go to win division that gives some more money that finishing 2nd, 3rd or 5th etc. So we should really have same amount of money to spend, if not slightly more if we would finish the goals well and finish above them (I guess)
I fear that Quickstep could go down again, because they promoted a year too early...
We were never in PT 13th in PCT in first season and now fighting to win PCT and promote for first time in PT.
I am not sure of my strategy yet, at the minute I find the PCT circuit to be more fun than PT, that could change though. I am confident though if we go with strategy of staying up, we could have a solid chance. But we'll see Edited by Alakagom on 23-01-2015 10:00
Two biggest powergamers in the man-game having a chat, should i take some popcorn?
That idea with changing the whole team is so terrible SotD. Maybe it would work, but i would lost all the respect for involved manager and never would negotiate with him.
I might go exactly the other way a bit like Santander did for years.
Keeping all the team together this time and just swap 2-3 veterans for 2-3 talents.
Pretty spot on my team, unfortunatelly As somewhere said before, my team would need a huge upgrade to be competitive on PT-level. So I'm not that over-ambitious when it comes to defending our current spot.. Rogers, Visconti and Del Nero were likely to leave. Koren... with this AI (where the bunch sits up too often), he's already struggling on PCT-level sometimes (as to be seen in Portugal). May sell him for 2mio to a PCT/CT-team
SportingNonsense wrote:
A lot of things can change in the Transfer season.
It's an interesting point though. You say that teams shouldn't go straight to the top half in first season, but the game mechanic isn't working if it is too hard to even challenge a mid-order team.
I'm not so sure that if you abandoned all riders it would be easy to rebuild a strong enough team. You have to face the free agent market, and are unable to trade riders - which some managers always prefer to 'just' money.
Nah, of course it should be possible to get into the top half, like Tinkoff have done, but I don't think it is a problem that the teams end up in 12th or 14th in their first season, or end up fighting relegation. Half the teams in the PT fight relegation for the first half of the season. Then it tends to break a bit where a team or two isolates themselves and then there is a few teams fighting for the final relegations.
Was it Mattiasgt who went on to win the PT the first season after promotion? That shouldn't happen I think. The teams that promote are probably more than happy to fight for a safe mid-position the first season, and then strike for the top 5. We can't entirely control what happens, so every team can end up demoting or overperforming, and that is the charm of the game. But I don't think that it is too difficult to stay up. Tinkoff is a brilliant example of cunning planning, and buying 1 big star works out great. Whereas buying a team that can compete everywhere seems to be very difficult as it will give a nice amount of top 10s, but most of the top PT teams will beat them on crossovers to take the most points. A team such as Rothaus is a great example of a team that is actually very well equipped on paper, really struggleing because they have spread out their talents instead of putting a bit of effort into excelling in two terrains fx. - I would have made the same mistake if I was to promote. And I don't know if it really is a mistake, as it is a way of playing the game - AND if it does pan out, and they stay up, they are probably in a better position than the team that survived because they put all eggs in one basket.
There isn't a real or a wrong way to do it, but experience have shown, I think, that a good way of staying up is to have 2-3 top riders that will score a significant amount of points, and then leave the rest up to luck and breakaways, while if you are all over the place with subtop riders it will backfire. You CAN survive there, but you need to pick the right subtop riders - Something that can basically only be done by a lucky Transferperiod or planning ahead, with talents. Like my example with Puma.
I agree that it would not be easy, I didn't say it would be. But it would be possible... You would have to stay very aware of what happened on the Free Agents marked, and go for the types of riders that would perform in the PT, because there is a lack of them. So it would give little reason to buy an 82MO rider that can't be trained fx for 700K+ as he wouldn't give you the points you needed. An 82COB rider that can't be trained on the other hand could be interesting (I haven't checked what is available so just making ideas), aswell as a top TT'er could be worth some cash if you know how to use him. Every team needs a good hilly rider otherwise you will fail, that is about as true as it gets I think. So you would have to spend A LOT of money on getting one or making one.
As an example you could probably make a team look like this (I have put 100K on top of the leaders in terms of what they have gotten paid now, to make it realistic, and 50K on the subtop leaders):
And then we say the team have gotten 5-6mio from selling all their riders - That should be possible if you had a decent PT team with some not too old riders this season.
I buy these:
Francesco Ginanni 720.000
Robin van der Hugenhaben 900.000
Jacopo Guarnieri 600.000
Jakob Fiedler 450.000
16x 50K riders 800.000
= 3.470.000
And then 6mio worth training (I haven't checked if any of these were in fact trained this season, so the point my be faulty!)
Robin van der Hugenhaben +1MO = 800.000
Jacopo Guarnieri +2SPR = 3.400.000
Francesco Ginanni +1HI = 1.800.000
That way you have the combined best TT'er, the combined second best sprinter, the combined second best HI'er and van der Hugenhaben with 78MO and 80HI to get a good points haul when planned correctly.
The 50K riders can obviously be of varied value, but if you decide to buy the 50K riders in the start, and then leave a few options open for later, then you are in a good position to get some very decent 50K riders that can score points themselves. There are even some in the DB still, that could be decent as breakaway riders such as Frantisek Padour, Matej Jurco, Simon Galle. Some decent helpers for a climber such as Franco Pellizotti and Klaas Vantornout. Some decent (but not good) leadout riders for Guarnieri, such as Manuel Antonio Cardoso, Lloyd Mondory, Iljo Keisse, Rik Kavsek and Tom Last... But clearly, better riders can also be bought for 50K wages such as Tom Leezer. I wouldn't be worried in terms of getting a quite strong setup of 50K riders if you don't care too much for the development.
With good planning, this team would stand every much a chance to survive as the next. It would not be a top team, but these are the current figures of these riders, whom all need further races where they will score points:
Francesco Ginanni 789
Robin van der Hugenhaben 465
Jakob Fiedler 306
Jacopo Guarnieri 447
I suspect that Ginanni would be somewhere between EBH and Bakelants with his training, atleast better than van Garderen, which would give him ~1200-1700 points over the season.
As Guarnieri is now among the best sprinters, but lack the best train I would assume he would be below Swift, but well above Bennati, which would give him somewhere in the region of ~800-1000 points.
Jakob Fiedler should have done better this season, but have been misused a bit to get Sicard better results. Jerome Coppel have 500 points, and still need atleast one race that will give him additional 100 points. So I would say that Fiedler should have ~550-700 points.
And finally van der Hugenhaben is currently on almost 500pts, and with a bit of training and some very carefully planning he would be atleat 600 points, and hopefully a bit more ~600-900 points.
I don't think these figures are unrealistic looking at what they have gotten thus far. Looking at the stats of Guarnieri and Ginanni they might even get more points. Ginanni have been a double in almost all races this season because of his teammate, and that is probably not the best way to make him score consistently.
The figures adds up to 600+550+800+1200 in worst case + whatever the 50K riders get, which is at minimum 80 points pr. rider due to finishing races = 1280. This has not counted any stage results, fluke wins, mountain jerseys or stuff like that. It adds up to 4430, which would put them close to relegation. If they get a more mediocre results then the figures would be 1450+900+625+750+1440 = 5165, and a good season would give 1700+1000+700+900+1600 = 5900
Like said, I don't think this is an easy way to do it - But it can be done, if you are very active, and aware of what you are after, and not picky in terms of nationalities and combinations, aswell as riding a lot of races where you have absolutely nothing to do.
Trofimov is clearly the rider to sign for a newly promoted team then. First Sony Ericsson, now Tinkoff!
Although it is worth noting that it was not Sony Ericsson's first PT season. They went 2nd in CT -> Bottom in PT -> Top of CT -> Top of PT. That clearly helps - as Tinkoff aside, the best promoted teams this year are Bouygues and Vueling, after bouncing back.
