Gah ... How bad are Worcester???

[zeduck]

I have done a season with Worcestershire (on normal) and they wern't half bad.. won the 20 over cup, 7th in County Champ group, 5th in 40-over group

Mitchell started the season slow, but then was by far the best batter in the team, ending with a FC average over 50. Solanki was good in the one day matches. And would recommend before the season starts, picking up an extra batter in Dominic Telo from the uncontracted players, who is quite good in the game.

Bowling, Richardson & Mason are both solid. Shantry can be worked on. And Al Hasan took 71 wickets.

At the end of the season, you can cut and terminate the contracts of the crappy players and actually have enough money for some good signings.

[enigma]

Originally Posted by BigCisHere

My total budget is 735,000. I currently have the bare minimum of 18 players, which takes up 631,500 of that budget.

I'm also spending 50,000 on Coaching, because my players seem to hit bad patches pretty regularly otherwise. 30,000 on Physio, and 20,000 on Youth Team. This takes up the other 100,000 of my budget.

I could consider dropping the Youth Team to 10,000 and the Coaching to perhaps 30,000 and Physio to 20,000. (I wouldn't consider any more than that). Which would give me 40,000 budget to play with. However, this I don't believe would be enough to get a good enough overseas player to outweigh the benefits I get from having the extra Coaching slots to keep my current players in good form.

I have one guy in my team that is earning a LOT more than I realised. I could consider ditching him when his contract comes up for renewal at the end of the season. But he's an all-rounder, and one of the better players in my team, both for batting and bowling. He is averaging 44.07 with the bat and 21.52 with the ball this season.

Bowling is my weak point. But I'm reluctant to let all my bowlers go, in case I can't replace them. The highest paid of those is on 40,000.

I have two other batsmen on over 50,000, but these are my two best bastmen. So again, I don't want to lose these. The one guy averages 48.65 in FC matches in his career so far, and is only 26.

Most of my other players are around 30,000 or less.

Any suggestions as to what I can do are more than welcome

NOTE - Please note that IF your county is doing well & you're happy with your performances then I don't think it's worth dropping your players just to get an overseas.

Ok, I think you're one those who cling onto their performing players too much & are reluctant to let them go, no matter how much money they demand. I think it's important to assess the money spent on a player & the value they bring to the county. I think decent youth batsmen are very easy to get & they'll perform, if one knows how to choose them so I rarely mind letting go some of my current "star batsmen" if they're asking exorbitant amounts of money, I'd rather get cheap youth, train them & they'll probably be just as good.

Pick youths who you won't've to work on as much, technically, & who are aggressive or very aggressive so they can play all 3 formats as opposed to defensive or very defensive who'll pretty much be relegated to playing FC although I will say that one mustn't ignore a really good youth averaging 50-60+ just because they're defensive, of course, they can be trained to be aggressive, especially when there's very little or no work to be done on their other batting preferences.

Always try to push your highly-paid "stars" for every penny they get by say offerring 50K for 3 years, if they're asking for 55k for 2 years; even your youth signings, if they're asking for 27k, offer them 25k & so on because every 500 or 1000 that you save will & does count over time. I once had my star batsmen asking for 55k, I offered him 45K for 3 years & he agreed straight away,even though he'd averaged 50+ in the last season , it's not that common but just saying it can happen.

Apart from pushing star batsmen for money ie offering them slightly less than what they're asking for & letting them go if they don't respond positively or demand exorbitant salaries, you can save a fair bit without compromising your team too much but DO NOT let go of your domestic bowlers, especially when they're asking for less than 40K, because it's very difficult to find good bowlers on the county circuit; you'll've hordes of youth batsmen coming up with great batting averages but hardly any youths good bowling averages.

My budget was about 750-800k (pretty close to yours as I usually spared 25-30k), I used to spend full 150k on coaching, physio & youth team; extra coaching & physios are always useful as I usually have big squads, & spending a little extra on youth team gives you a couple of nice youths for the future & you can play them both for only an extra 20k for half the season & of course, if you train them & they've responded positively (which they usually do if you spend 50k on youth team) then you get a shot at them for the next season in the pre-bidding process.

Another thing I'd tried is to play your "star batsmen" (or even bowlers especially in case of limited overs games since you can always play cheap youth bowlers & it won't make a huge difference to the totals your opponents get) a limited number of games in a season then they'll drop their salaries by a few thousands, may be 10-15k if you're lucky, & then you pounce on them & get them to sign a 3 year contract on a cheaper salary but this one is harder to implement for may be more than a couple of seniors but can be done IF you've groomed your youngsters & a bigger squad with more coaching sessions.

By the way, your allrounder seems too good so I wouldn't let him go unless he was really making a hole in my pocket.

[enigma]

Originally Posted by bnd3

Reserve overseas players are free as long as their salary is less than your main overseas player.

I'll add to that & say that the salary of your Reserve can't be higher than that of your Main, something I didn't realize before I experienced it first hand.

Once, I wanted Kaneria & Tahir as my Main & Reserve respectively but Kaneria was costly (67k) & since a couple of my senior bowlers & batsmen had retired, I didn't know if I could afford him so I picked Tahir as my Main (Main must be picked before Reserve) who was cheaper (40k) & thought I'll get Kaneria if I'd enough money after I'm done with my other purchases, later, I'd enough to buy him but it wouldn't let me offer him more than 40k & said I can't bid higher for my Reserve than what I'm paying for my Main & there were no desirable players left in the pool by that time so I'd to settle for David Warner but Tahir didn't get injured or miss any matches so in the end, it didn't cost me that much but just to let everyone know.

[BigCisHere]

Thanks enigma I will try out your suggestions and see if I can push down some of the salaries of the players.

I will see what the all-rounder wants come the end of the season. If he asks for the same or less, I will try to negotiate him down a little. But if he starts asking for more than he is already on, I think I will ditch him and bring in a couple younger players to fill out my squad.

I will also try to negotiate the others that are for renewal by a few thousand. I want my Youth Team spending to be higher, and I did have it higher for a while, but I needed the money so I reduced it.

Let's see how this goes

[lancashire r the best]

so if for example my main overseas player cost 150k and my reserve cost 149k would i get my reserve player totally free or would he be paid based on the number of games played. Another question, just say i signed ponting (main) clarke (reserve) as my overseas players, in the T20 would i b able to play them both (both being available) even though clarke is only allowed to play when ponting cant or would only one b able to play regarding i haven't signed any T20 players

[enigma]

Originally Posted by lancashire r the best

so if for example my main overseas player cost 150k and my reserve cost 149k would i get my reserve player totally free or would he be paid based on the number of games played. Another question, just say i signed ponting (main) clarke (reserve) as my overseas players, in the T20 would i b able to play them both (both being available) even though clarke is only allowed to play when ponting cant or would only one b able to play regarding i haven't signed any T20 players

Hell, it wouldn't cost you anything even if your Reserve was worth 150k but it can't be MORE than 150k though. I suppose he'll be paid on the number of games played but they'll BOTH be sharing that money but as far as this game is concerned, we don't have to worry about that though.

Regarding your other query, NO, you can't play them both, he's a "Reserve" remember! In the presented scenario, for T20, you can play both of your T20 specialists or only ONE of them along with Ponting (or Clarke, IF Ponting is unavailable).

Notes:
1. Your Main & Reserve can't be of the same nationality (so the above Ponting & Clarke scenario would be, in one word - impossible)
2. If your Main is playing IPL then you can't pick a Reserve who is also playing IPL (because then both of them will be unavaible to you at the same time)

[enigma]

Originally Posted by BigCisHere

Thanks enigma. I will try out your suggestions and see if I can push down some of the salaries of the players.

I will see what the all-rounder wants come the end of the season. If he asks for the same or less, I will try to negotiate him down a little. But if he starts asking for more than he is already on, I think I will ditch him and bring in a couple younger players to fill out my squad.

I will also try to negotiate the others that are for renewal by a few thousand. I want my Youth Team spending to be higher, and I did have it higher for a while, but I needed the money so I reduced it.

Let's see how this goes

A word of caution just so you don't curse me later on , just to reiterate my point about not pushing players TOO MUCH because sometimes, they'll just leave without negotiating any further & if they're good then they'll be snapped up by someone else; on other occasions, I've just released players for asking too much & no one took them for the same reason I suppose & then I bid for them much lower than what they'd originally asked for & they took it at the first instant If you're thinking of releasing some of your players because you think they are asking for too much then sometimes it's worth it to release them even at the risk of losing them since you always have the opportunity to get them back in the first couple of bids if you think the players in the domestic pool are not satisfactory & get them back for what they were asking or if you're lucky then cheaper, especially, if no one has taken them till 5th,6th,7th... rounds, then they're likely to accept substantially lower salary than what they were asking for from you before the bidding started but this again depends on your bench strengths ie youths & how much faith you've in them.

Moreover, there're always some individuals who we don't want to lose so IF you think they're asking for what's REASONABLE then it is best NOT to haggle & just give them what they want & retain them, like for eg. I remember I'd people like Shreck, Franks who were wonderful when Broad, Sidebottom were on England duty (which was quite a lot) so when they asked for 35-40K, I didn't hesitate one bit, didn't haggle because I knew it was going to be difficult to find cheaper alternatives, on the other hand Pattinson had asked for 38K for his 17 wickets in 6 FC at ~40 previous season so I offered him 30K, he didn't like it, I showed him the door. Chris Read who'd averaged a little below 40 in FC for a couple of seasons at the price of ~50k, when his contract ended, he all of a sudden asked for 63500, I thought it was unreasonable to offer almost 1/10th of my budget (after deduction of contingency reserve & 150k of coaching, physio & youth team) to a wicketkeeper-batsmen (unless it was someone Gilchrist-like ) so I released him without any pre-knowledge of who my senior keeper was going to be. When bidding started I'd the option of Pothas (38K) & Sutton (27k), I took Sutton, trained him & he batted just as well as Read & cost me 2/5th of what Read was asking for so if you use your better judgement, there're always cheaper options available while other times it's better not to push it too
much, it's about finding the balance. Cheers.