Am I Screwed? The FSA DS Existential Disaster of Not Choosing Pogačar

Andrew received Pogačar Week began in fantastic type by taking inventory of the fan expertise within the early days of this courageous new period that the younger Slovenian Tour de France champion is immediately stamping his authority throughout. Tadej the Nice is being fitted for each crown conceivable proper now after his commanding efficiency in Tirreno-Adriatico, a race which is barely gained by the game’s best champions, like Simon Yates, Nairo Quintana, Greg Van Avermaet… you get my level.

All passive-aggressive kidding apart, Pogačar is undoubtedly manipulating one essential a part of biking in fairly excessive methods — the 2022 FSA Directeur Sportif Males’s competitors. Pogs is on a whopping 422 groups and is well the highest scorer proper now — the scenario is so excessive that as of immediately, each single group ranked within the high 77 of the lads’s competitors has Pogačar as their lodestar. We now have had precisely 30 race days, which suggests there are… 342 left to go. So if you wish to pump the brakes on this phenomenon, OK. However the eye check is frightening. Particularly for the 437 groups who handed on the Slovenian Genius. And to these 437 groups — this put up is for you.

[Sitting bravely in 78th place is BeNNfica, the highest-ranked team to take a pass on Pog. BeNNfica went all lower-priced and so far has hit the jackpot. With nobody costing more than 14 points, they have 13 riders scoring more than 100 points, led by Guillaume Martin and Pello Bilbao north of 400, and Fabio Jakobsen at 300. At 3260 points, BeNNfica is 700 points out of the overall lead, which isn’t a ton, but still represents a mountain to climb.]

Photograph by Tim de Waele/Getty Photographs

Are you able to survive with out Pogačar? That’s the query. And I believe the reply is sure, however it gained’t be simple. Let’s begin with the current. You possibly can simply put collectively a non-Pog group of everybody who has gotten off to a scorching begin, presumably with Wout Van Aert because the double-restricted man and undoubtedly with Jonas Vingegaard as your single-restricted man, and assemble a group that’s presently successful the competitors. You may have about pretty much as good an opportunity of assembling an NCAA basketball event bracket that hits on 100% of the video games. And successful the competitors on March 14 just isn’t the purpose. However this alone is an indication that every one hope, nonetheless faint, just isn’t misplaced.

What actually issues is the place that is going. Pogačar’s 1,236 factors is 198 greater than he had at this level final yr — reflecting a rise in factors at Strade (+150) and UAE Tour (+50). However assuming he repeats his regular schedule (and verify me on this if he isn’t, other than the spring classics), effectively, his main classics wins from 2021 will probably be arduous to repeat, and he has nowhere to go however down on the two greatest factors chaches (Liege and Lombardia), plus the Olympics coming off the calendar. Certain, he’s displaying up at MSR and Flanders, so possibly you’ll be able to add again some factors there, however other than cleansing up his spring efforts and hoping to repeat his wonderful summer season, do we actually suppose Pogs goes to considerably improve his totals?

[A related, if uncomfortable, question is, should Pogačar have been priced higher? Sure, that’s easy to say now, and some of you guys said so once the prices went out. I don’t have huge regrets (yet). First, don’t look at women’s prices as a reference. Annemiek van Vleuten is worth 52 points for scoring similarly to Pogs, but she does that in a field that has about 60% fewer race days — meaning she takes the same size slice of a much smaller pie. Also the women’s game requires you to find 15 riders with your 150 points, so it’s a completely different calculation. And like I said above, he was maxed out on points last summer with the extra Olympics haul too, so the case for him being priced higher is not that he’s about to massively expand his program; it’s that he’s the safest bet around to maintain his extremely high level. The guy just keeps delivering.]

Personally, my guess is that Pogs ends the season scoring fairly near the place he was in 2021. Flanders means he would have a very arduous time doing the Itzulia Basque Nation Tour, and I believe he’s already mentioned no to that. By the point he will get to the Tour, I believe he will probably be near stage together with his 2021 progress. [But he’s doing the Vuelta… insert scary noises. Still, there has to be a price to pay somewhere for all this effort.] If I’m proper, then the large case for not having him in your group is since you want to make smaller bets on a handful of different high riders, hinging largely on Vingegaard. Roglič tends to pay his payments, as does Van Aert, however they appear fairly prone to just do that, not attain some new peak, and at a worth simply two factors beneath Pogs.

Photograph by Tim de Waele/Getty Photographs

I might describe a viable not-Pogs technique as follows. Vingegaard, at 18 factors (and on 111 groups), appears like a dangerous however not insane selection for constructing round, given his efficiency up to now: second solely to Pogs with 560 factors. Lower than half of what Pogačar has, however there are all kinds of guesses as to the place that is going. Final yr at this level the Dane had a mere 50 factors, so he’s already padded his totals thus far and will have the ability to grasp on to loads of what he scored final yr. As a part of the Jumbo Juggernaut, his second general on the Tour could possibly be supplanted by Roglič, and if there’s sufficient separation between the teammates then Vingegaard might need to sacrifice his putting and his factors. However a extra probably situation is that they each chase Pogs as arduous as they’ll all the way in which to Paris. With one final shot on the white jersey, Vingegaard may rating huge once more. My guess is that he leads to the 2700-point vary, assuming he ranges up all season and contests extra secondary races, as he has proven thus far.

That plus a 12-pointer (or cheaper) who scores 1500 places the non-Pogs proprietor inside vary of the place they’d be if they’d Pogs. There are many candidates for this function, though one, Juan Ayuso, is on nearly as many groups, so to catch the 422 Pogs groups you will have him and one other high-value high-scorer. And that, in fact, is the important thing to the entire competitors. Excessive scorers are good, however not at all times good worth. Excessive worth guys who rating 150 factors on a 1-point funding are good, however don’t win the competitors by themselves.

[A brief aside on FSA DS strategy… High scorers are easy to spot: anything over 1000 is making a big impact on your team. So what is high value? Roughly speaking, the pricing of riders comes down to somewhere between 75 and 100 points per point spent. For example, riders costing 20 points this year scored from 1500-1700 last year, with a mean of 1600, i.e. if they match their performance they will deliver 80 points scored per point invested. The top guys were well above 100 points scored in 2021/spent in 2022, but there were only three of them, and each one may find that value hard to repeat. Or else the top prices will look much different next year. Anyway, riders in the teens had the lowest values scored ‘21/spent ‘22, but they are important because you can afford a few of them and hope for a breakout. Lower priced riders had >100 scored ‘21/spent ‘22 except for the 1-pointers, but they are more like lottery tickets for the most part.]

Anyway, if Vingegaard received to 2700, that will be 150 factors scored/spent, a excessive worth and a excessive whole. If you’ll find two or three of these from the restricted space, guys who you’ll be able to’t have (multiple of) if you happen to picked Pogačar, then you’re within the hunt. One other level for this technique is that Pogs is one man, and also you’ve put loads of eggs in that basket. One ill-timed knock of damage or sickness — god forbid, however that’s biking — and 422 groups are immediately in serious trouble. Like all funding technique, it’s theoretically safer to unfold your threat round to a number of locations.

Until there’s one funding that simply blows the remainder of them out of the water, after which you’ll want you bought in on that. That’s Pogačar up to now this season.

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On the ladies’s aspect, I’ll simply put up a quick be aware that this chalky I-told-you-so-ness that has engulfed the lads’s race just isn’t even barely a factor on the ladies’s aspect proper now, additional proof that in case you are to play this sport and have a shot at not being depressing, you need to enter groups in each competitions. I, of all individuals, can attest to this, as I now lie third general within the girls’s comp, and twenty third in mixed, as a result of I did what I at all times do — I used the random group generator to pack out a roster, then swapped a number of riders out for a number of others I like for some random cause, and presto! Che Cazzo Ragazze are stomping it, shedding out on the highest spot solely Crew Wheeling and Dealing added Lotte Kopecky the place I opted for Chiara Consonni, principally as a result of we considered Chiara as a potential lady’s identify again in our pre-parenting years (earlier than it received taken many instances over within the higher Seattle space). I additionally spent 20 factors on Marta Cavalli, which has but to repay, however it’s early.

Photograph by Luc Claessen/Getty Photographs

Anyway, the purpose isn’t that I’m good at this. The purpose is that the ladies’s FSA DS is off to a fairly rollicking begin. Annemiek van Vleuten just isn’t, repeat NOT, working away with the season already — she’s second to Lorena Wiebes by 40 factors — and of the 5 30+ pointers, solely Unstoppable Annemiek has had a serious affect on the season in any respect. Kopecky and Emma Norsgaard Jørgensen are the one 28-pointers close to the highest of the rankings, and from there the standings are dotted with high- and low-cost riders, together with cyclocrossers-on-the-cheap Shirin van Anrooij and Silvia Persico, squeezing a number of spring outcomes out of their winter type. [Technically it’s not even spring yet.]

I don’t have a lot so as to add besides that it’s been extremely enjoyable up to now. And issues are about to hit the large time over the following six weeks, together with FIVE monument-level races. Folks complain that there is no such thing as a girls’s Milano Sanremo, which they need to complain about possibly, however there’s the Trofeo Alfredo Binda coming Sunday, a race of equal prominence. Then it’s onto the Cobbles and the Ardennes, the place you might have all the same old suspects, plus an up-ranking of Amstel Gold to monument ranges — for the easy cause that AGR kicked off the ladies’s comp in 2001, albeit with an extended break earlier than 2017 — however nonetheless, that’s higher than LBL can say, and a full 20 years earlier than ASO begrudgingly had a Paris-Roubaix version for the women. By the top of this run, van Vleuten and Demi Vollering might have depressed the competitors once more, however keep tuned.

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One ultimate be aware: for the 69 groups that purchased low on Marc Hirschi and his newly shaved… uh, hip bone, apparently he’s taking the beginning within the Per Sempre Alfredo race this coming weekend. The darkest hour is simply earlier than the daybreak!