Monday, April 4, 2016

Strategy Session: $20MM Medical

I used to be one of those owners who punted the Medical category...took it all the way to $0 in all my worlds.

My thinking was that you don't want to spend $$ to remedy things that are rare events...better to spend $$ on categories that affect players a lot, or all the time.  So I parked $20mm in training and left it there, went to $0 medical, and decided to put up with the consequent long injuries.

The results were utterly disastrous.  A huge increase in the frequency of injuries, and a lot of them were very long-term and devastating.  With $0 in Medical, I obviously also got very little recovery.

I hasten to add that my understanding, formed so long ago that I can't remember the source of it, was that Training, not Medical, was what affected the frequency of injuries.  I'm wondering about that now.  Could be that I had an unlucky run right as I took my Med to $0, but I'm also wondering if my long-held belief was incorrect...?

In any event, I've been working my Med budgets back up the last few seasons and most are north of $10MM now.  I'm wondering how far to take them.

My IF Pablo Valbuena suffered an ACL tear last year that took his Range from 80 to 66; over the off-season and the first half of this year it recovered 9 points to 75.  For my purposes (backup 2B and 3B) he's recovered just about all his value (with a range of 80 I doubt I would've used him as a backup CF...I'd use my backup SS for that and still only have to carry 2 players to back up SS, CF, 2B and 3B).

My general question is this:  Is $20MM Medical worth it?

I know it occasionally (not always...???) takes an injured player's ratings above their pre-injury levels when they go on the 60-day DL (the "super-soldier protocol).  That's the big appeal.

But it's still a big price to pay for something that happens infrequently.  It probably means you don't play in the IFA market, at least for the top guys, unless your payroll is very low or you get very lucky.

What's your experience with $20MM Medical budgets?









3 comments:

  1. I use 20 in both training and medical, everywhere. I can't be bothered to tease out where the sweet spot it, as I find injuries to be about the least enjoyable part of this game (ignoring that they are already a fraction of real life rates).

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  2. I have been slowly moving medical up towards $20M in some worlds. In others, I usually hold somewhere around $12-15M. I have seen the $20M super soldier plan work for some other owners, but I have never had a player go above his previous ratings yet. ALWAYS keep $20M in training.

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  3. I use 20 in both training and medical. Keep ratings pretty steady, low medical results in more severe injuries. Easier to plan when you can reasonably assume a players rating in the future.

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