Why calculate the potential ratings for my players?
Who really cares about potential ability? Well Hong Kong doesn't need to worry
much about it with their stacked roster, but I sure do. I'll bet several other
coaches do as well. If you are trying to mold that young player into the best
possible football player he can be, then you also should care. This technique
will also help you separate the possible guys with a future from the ones who
never will amount to anything. Read on for all the juicy details...
One other thing just so you know, 99 is the highest possible potential for any
ability a player can have. Once a player is close to his potential he stops
gaining points in camp. So there is not much point to using a 25% camp on a
score of 96 for any ability, unless the guy is maxed out everywhere. If you
have some players like this, they should be traded to Taiwan immediately. :-)
Let's discuss the formula first.
The old veterans on your roster are pretty predictable, especially since they're
potential is not masked. Any player that is 7+ years has his actual potential
shown in broad day light. He is dependable and you know how he will train. We
want to know how to get the most out of the young guy, 0-6 year players. The
potential for any player can be estimated once he has been through training
camp. The biggest problem is tracking what you spend on each ability. I use
an Excel spreadsheet for all of my roster tracking and you can too. Here is the
super secret formula for calculating potential.
(Post Camp # - Pre Camp # - .5) / (Train % / 100) + Pre Camp # = Potential
Let's see how that looks with some real numbers. I had a player with an
84 speed going into camp. I applied a 20% camp to his speed and he had
87 speed after camp. Here are the numbers plugged into the formula.
(87 - 84 - .5) / (20% / 100) + 84 = 96.5
I try to be pessimistic about the post camp number, so I assume that it was rounded
up at least by a small amount. This formula will give you the bare minimum a
potential can be, but you would need to round the final number up to the next whole
number. So the bare minimum is actually 97 for this ability. The ".5" that
is subtracted from the Post Camp ability ensures that I don't estimate high when later
training this same ability.
Calculating all these numbers by hand would take way too long, so I devised a
spreadsheet that helps the cause. You can download it here. In the following
sections I will describe how the spreadsheet works.
Taking advantage of Tim's hard work.
Explanation of the tabs...
PostCamp is the first tab and it should be used to enter the data for each
player's abilities AFTER they have passed through camp.
PreCamp is the second tab and it should be used to enter the data for each
player's abilities PRIOR to training camp.
CalculatedMax is the third tab and it will show the player's potential
abilities calculated based on the training camp data and formula listed above.
Known Max is the fourth tab and I use it to track the player's potential
abilities as they go through multiple training camps. This will help you
ultimately decide how you want to train the player during the subsequent camps.
Explanation of the player data...
Pos is the column for the player's Position that is listed on the current
row. NOTE: This information is linked from the PostCamp tab to the other
tabs in the spreadsheet. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THIS COLUMN ON ANY TAB EXCEPT THE
PostCamp TAB.
Name is the column for the player's Name that is listed on the current row.
NOTE: This information is linked from the PostCamp tab to the other
tabs in the spreadsheet. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THIS COLUMN ON ANY TAB EXCEPT THE
PostCamp TAB.
Yr is the column for the player's Years of experience that is listed on the
current row. NOTE: This information is linked from the
PostCamp tab to the other tabs in the spreadsheet. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO
THIS COLUMN ON ANY TAB EXCEPT THE PostCamp TAB.
SP AC AG... are the columns for the player's abilities that is listed on the
current row.
NOTE: The abilities should be filled in for the current
tab (eg. the PostCamp tab should have the abilities after the player has
trained) so that the Potential can be calculated.
FA Yr is the column for the player's Free Agent Year that is listed on the current
row. This information does nothing more than help you track your roster if you want to
keep data on every aspect of player management in one file.
NOTE: This information is linked from the PostCamp tab to the other
tabs in the spreadsheet. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THIS COLUMN ON ANY TAB EXCEPT THE
PostCamp TAB.
SP AC AG... are the columns for the player's Camp Percentages that is listed on the
current row. Column U is an auto sum of the training percentages, so you can see when you
get to 100%.
NOTE: This information is linked from the PostCamp tab to the other
tabs in the spreadsheet. DO NOT MAKE CHANGES TO THIS COLUMN ON ANY TAB EXCEPT THE
PostCamp TAB.
KEEP IN MIND... You should never need to make changes on the
CalculatedMax tab because all calculations and data are fed from the other tabs.
Tracking the player data...
The Known Max tab is where I keep track of the potentials as the young players are
trained. I also put the true potential for the veterans in this area as well, it makes
for a handy reference when you start deciding how to train your players for the next camp. You
should be careful when transferring numbers from the CalculatedMax tab to the
Known Max tab because a player may appear to loose potential points. How is that possible?
Well if you work on an ability during one camp and not the next, he could show no potential or
significantly less potential because his ability won't change much. The higher the percentage
of camp you spend on an ability, the more accurately you can predict it's true potential...
