VDS Value: VDS points earned/VDS cost

by ursula on Jun 27, 2008 12:33 AM EDT

In the few minutes I've allowed myself to do something other than gnash my teeth over the prospect of not seeing Benna in the Tour- deep breath- I got interested in comparing riders with different VDS point values. For instance, at the beginning of the season many of us had to sort through a whole bunch of trade-offs like: who is a better VDS value on your team: 25 point Oscar Freire and some 1 pointer or a combination of 16 point Robbie McEwen and 10 pointer JJ Rojas? We now know that Freire has 757 points, McEwen 300, and Rojas 110 so THAT trade off seems clear but what about the larger question of should you stock up on high cost guys and a whole bunch of scrubeenies or should you take a more even-handed approach knowing that if a real high pointer goes in the tank (Petacchi) you are totally screwed.

So I made a table. That last column gives us the number of riders in each point category who've earned less than 100 points. Take a look and note that for some reason my last two columns are offset. Haven't a clue why but I need to go out and I have no time to fix it:

Rider Cost	Av points earned	pts/rider cost	# riders w/ less than 100 pts earned
25 points	822	33	6	0
20 points	608	30	7	0
18 points	514	29	7	1
16 points	319	20	13	5
14 points	202	14	11	6
12 points	197	16	17	10
10 points	186	19	17	6
8 points	76	10	12	9
6 points	113	19	25	15
4 points	98	25	45	23
2 points	56	28	72	58
1 point	25	25	147	131

Roughly the higher the rider costs the more return on your money you get.

Of course to do well in the competition you have to do more than just pick a random 25 pointer or even random 20, 18, or 16 pointers etc. since within each group of riders some are doing much better than others. Bert has a VDS point/cost ratio of 48. Cancellara's is 57. Tin Tin's is an unholy 65, easily the best of the expensive riders. Of all the non-one pointers Kreuzinger is currently the best at 273. But as you can see from the table the number of busts among the cheap riders is huge.

It will be interesting to see which, if any, expensive riders can overtake Tin Tin in this VDS point/cost ratio by the end of the year. (Bert would need about 1650 points earned right now to equal him.) Rebellin will probably ride San Sebastian, Deutchland, Vattenfall (not the Vuelta), World RR, Emilia, and Lombardy. Don't know about the Olympics. He could do well in all of them. It is interesting that the 14, 12, and particularly the 8 pointers are generally a poor value. Why is this? is it because they got most of the CQ points from lesser races and so artificially boosted their values for the more particular VDS race set? Why are the 10 pointers relatively better? What am I blatantly missing here?

Also I would love some of the folks here who are in the top 10 or 20 in the VDS standings to say how they picked who they did, particularly if they are scoring big with their cheaper riders.

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Math is hard.

Thank you for doing it for me.

by Sui Juris on Jun 27, 2008 1:52 AM EDT 0 recs

Honestly

I didn’t think about it that hard. I just looked at the rules and went by a couple of rules of thumb:
1. Pick sprinters who are either top tier, or, are good at one day races because stage race stage points are a bit stingy and don’t go too deep. Preferably both. Hence Boonen, Vaitkus, Haussler, errrm maybe that rule should have been ignored.
2. Pick young-uns. Despite Chris attempting to up the price of emerging talent I figured there would more likely be year-on-year improvement from young riders than older. Plus bonus young rider classification points. An 8th on GC plus the young rider classification is a nice points haul + white jersey points every stage in GTs. So in come Ricco, Gesink, Kreuziger, CAS, LL Sanchez, Rigoberto Uran, Tony Martin, plus young classics guys like Gilbert, Haussler, and Vaitkus. Rogers too is still relatively young in GC rider terms but was an unlucky pick.
3. Ignore the big time stage racers likely to concentrate on the TdF. Far too competitive. You get the same score by picking Vuelta and Giro riders and a more predictable result. SO in comes Cunego (ooops), David Arroyo (Damn – but how did he get to be only one point?), Ricco, and Sella (Score!) – all of who are still youngish too so go with rule 2.

I know that doesn’t really address the cost issue vs potential point haul, but I thought pick a good quality roster of young(ish) riders and the rest would sort itself out.

by Rothko on Jun 27, 2008 8:16 AM EDT 0 recs

Honestly back atcha

Oh I surely didn’t do these tables in picking my team. This is all just after the fact. Myself, I had sort of your logic except I picked too light on sprinters. Hence my 24th placing. But I think your logic dovetails with what I wrote above.

- Yeah that young rider premium Chris threw on some of the riders threw me a bit. Makes me want to eat a salmon! lol

by ursula on Jun 27, 2008 10:19 AM EDT up 0 recs

I have 6016 points

and I’m going to tell my mistakes.

Oscar Pereiro Sio 0
WTF?? Can’t he even finish in the top 10 of a VDS race? He could still make it to the top-10 in both Vuelta and Tour…

Arkaitz Duran 0
Ok, Arkaitz Duran was my ‘dark horse’ 1-pointer. Matxin (Saunier’s DS) said early in the year that he had confidence that he was prepared to jump to the highest level, and yes, I trusted him. He was once the best junior rider of his [spanish] generation but unfortunately he has retired from every stage race he has done in the last few months. Worst pick!

Soler also got only 2 points, but mainly because of the injury (which could still affect his Tour de France). Marchante is also injured (missing the Tour) with only 10 points.

by King of Doping on Jun 27, 2008 8:52 AM EDT 0 recs

Cheap riders

Yeah that’s the thing with the cheap riders: they are sort of like Las Vegas in that they are rarely feast (SELLA!, Nocentini, Kreuzinger) and much more likely famine with most of them barely earning squat- if anything at all. It would be interesting to see what percentage of points the top ten teams have earned from 1-6 point riders.

by ursula on Jun 27, 2008 10:24 AM EDT up 0 recs

I think some points should be figured in for break aways

as that would be where those cheaper riders would cash in for us!

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed."

by nikki on Jun 27, 2008 10:39 AM EDT up 0 recs

Interesting...

That’s true that many of the cheaper riders go on breaks. I keep seeing my man Botchorov out on breaks only to be swallowed up for no points. The trick would be how to keep track. The Grand Tours have intermediate sprint points that could be used but the single day races don’t as far as I’m aware. What do ya think?

by ursula on Jun 27, 2008 10:44 AM EDT up 0 recs

It would be tricky

and somehow distance/time out there would have to be considered – maybe as % of K’s or total time? A break of 30K might not be that big but like Will in MSR out there for 233K – that should’ve gotten him something other than a “nice ride”.
It would be great to see riders get something for those efforts. It seems some have the knack which is good for sponsers but breaks are not “normally” known to stay clear for the wins. Still worthy efforts and it would be cool to see that added in somehow but I’m not sure how to do it. Maybe the “main” break of race gets a set # pts divided up with who ever is there? Going solo would then get more than a pack of 10 that stands a better chance.

"The most wasted day is that in which we have not laughed."

by nikki on Jun 27, 2008 10:51 AM EDT up 0 recs

Matxin named 5 promising riders

if I’m not mistaken?
Duran IS a solid pick though, while Fernandez de la…., De La Fuente, Del Nero and Mejias / Passeron are all very promising talents, the two latter in the sprints.

You can't lose against Italy, we can only fail to win - Johan Cruijff

by DZI on Jun 27, 2008 5:28 PM EDT up 0 recs

Dark Horses Run ( Ride ) FAST !!!

First time ( joiner ), long time ( lurker ). Great analysis here Ursula !!!

Putting my team together “DIdyagetanyonya” ( well, DID YA ??? ) I tried for some not so obvious picks and a couple of dudes that always seemed to come outta no where and kick my butt when I’m playing Pro Cycling Manager ‘07. Sella was a HUGE pick, Tin Tin was my guy for the hills in the north and that paid off in spades and will continue to into the late season I believe. Aside from that I just couldn’t pick Cadel or Boonen or Tony Montana because it seemed like EVERYONE was going to pick them and hey, who wants to be just like the next guy.My one big miss was JJ Haedo as I thought THIS would be his big Euro breakthrough year, but he’ll be on my team next year in any case. So far it’s looking good and I’m hanging in the top 15 now…so far, so good. My Tour hopes are tied to Menchov and I’ve been talkin so much trash on Cadel with my riding buddies form the shop ( JB Mountain Bikes…The Dirtiest Shop in Pennsylvania ) that I’m either gonna be a genius or a stone-cold LOSER…I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the former.

Why did they ever disconnetc the toll free Barfko Swill Hotline ??? WHY !!!???

by FrankEffinZappa on Jun 27, 2008 9:53 AM EDT 0 recs

My next post below is in reply to yours...

by ursula on Jun 27, 2008 10:41 AM EDT up 0 recs

Tin Tin & the expensive guys

- I had Rebellin on my team until the last second. Argh! Just a remarkable season.- which will lead to much waffling with him again next year when he’s a year older and probably on a team (LPR) that was shunned by ASO or might get shunned by at least some Pro Tour races. (Yes, I figure that the PR will be around although it will be changed.)

- I am most interested to see if the expensive guys really put distance between themselves and hoi polloi (14 points and under) the rest of the way the way I’m thinking they will. Outside of Menchov (I don’t know what he’ll do post-Tour) the rest seem to be planning heavy schedules for season’s end. For instance I can easily imagine Contador, Evans, and Valverde all over 2000 points by season’s end. Boonen and Freire well over 1000 with a chance at 1500. (Boonen says he’ll ride the Vuelta now.)

I don’t know what Chris might do to tweak the prices of the riders but if he uses the same system as this year my prediction for the most expensive riders for next year- Contador, Evans, Valverde, Boonen, Freire, Cancellara, Rebellin, Ricco. Menchov again I don’t know. Cunego a dark horse. Benna would be if not for his knee.

by ursula on Jun 27, 2008 10:40 AM EDT 0 recs

Halfway only

There are still two GTs to score, and the Giro is probably the least representative b/c it’s before the Tour. People aren’t afraid to waste themselves at the Vuelta (though with Contador in this year maybe they should be).

Anyway, the scoring is too weighted at the moment to April guys. Tintin, for example, has probably scored his last point, unless he shows up for Lombardia.

"If writing too much about the Classics is wrong, I don't want to be right."

by Chris... on Jun 27, 2008 11:54 AM EDT 0 recs

I'll answer for Jered.

Doping.

I’m telling you.

by Sui Juris on Jun 27, 2008 3:15 PM EDT 0 recs

blatantly missing

New guys, no matter how good or bad, don’t rate 8 points.

However, if they are good, and are slated into roles where they can pick up wins / place tolerably well, they quickly climb the ratings. It’s the injured, the older domestiques, the guys who don’t have the stamina, but can pull & drop, whose best results are sporadic low-level placings at minor races. They end up WAAAY over-represented in the low-mid range (8 point category). If you pick someone off that mid-range, they should probably be in their first couple of years, or switched to a new team. That’s a theory, anyway.

The chart is also a bit misleading, in that a 40 pt. season is an OK result…for a 1 pt rider. So what if 89% of them don’t get 100 pts? Same argument for a 2 pt rider who earns 80 pts. Might be worth doing the “at least 30 pts” breakdown for the 1 pointers.

by JFS_PGH on Jun 28, 2008 3:08 AM EDT 0 recs