The Fantasy Strategy- The 4 Million Dollar Man

By Nic Shellabarger

Having only $120 million in your pocket to spend sounds like a problem I’d like to have. However, as you get involved as a MLS Fantasy Soccer Manager, you’ll likely find that $120 m is nowhere near enough to buy all of the players you want for your perfect team. A team comprised solely of top shelf players would cost you upwards of $180 million. A few concessions must be made.

The Balancing Act

Salary caps in the MLS strive to keep the pitch equal and the same is true for the initial $120 m allotment for MLS Fantasy managers. As is the case with the pro counterparts, many fantasy managers attempt to create a well-balanced team within the confines of their given budget. Sure, you might splurge and spend $11 m on Thierry Henry, but then you’ll look at saving money elsewhere such as purchasing a low-cost alternative for the forward position when Henry won’t play because of artificial turf. That, or you may have to skimp a bit on another position to make up for the high cost of your handsome French forward.

These accommodations for budget aren’t necessarily a bad thing. The majority of players on MLS teams don’t make a whole lot more than the $36,500 minimum, but they’re still a strong contributing factor for the success of their team. Take Luke Mulholland for example. As a relatively low played member of Real Salt Lake’s team, Mulholland has been a huge contributing factor to their success, making an appearance in all 9 games and contributing 2 goals and an assist to the score sheet.

Mulholland has been a great acquisition for RSL this year providing a very high cost-to-benefit ratio. However, if money weren’t an issue, do you think Real would hesitate to snag Landon Donovan or Tim Cahill to fill that position? I doubt it.

Unfortunately, in the real world and in MLS Fantasy Manager, money is an issue and we must carefully distribute it to get the greatest players and most depth that we can afford with our allotted portion. Or do we?

Loose the Depth

In case you’ve gotten a little too involved with your fantasy team lately, let me remind you (and myself) that this is not the real world. We don’t have to and shouldn’t play by real-world logic.

Depth on the bench is a necessity in the real world as you can’t exactly predict game situations and injuries that you will face in any given match and you have to be prepared to deal with whatever you face. Fantasy soccer is different. There is nothing you can do during a match to adjust for in-game situations. All adjustments must be made prior to the beginning of the match. Because of this, depth becomes an unnecessary option.

Your team is comprised of 18 players and only 11 of them can be used on game day. The other 7 do you absolutely no good. That’s a lot of wasted players and a lot of wasted money. You have no control over how many players are on your team, but you can control to an extent how much you spend on wasted players by purchasing as many $4 m players as possible.

On the conservative end, I would suggest that you have at least three $4 m players. One in each third of the field. This arrangement would still leave you at least one solid backup for each position while freeing up a little bit of money to buy quality players that will actually see time on your virtual pitch.

Unfortunately, conservative measures aren’t likely to make you the hero on game day, so I’d like to suggest something a little more drastic: fill your virtual bench with five $4 m players. That’s right, five players that will never step foot on the field. Five players that will never earn a single point.

Five unusable players seems to create a situation where you only have a single substitute on the bench. If you use that substitute, there’s also a pretty good chance your team’s formation will be forced to change. This is the stuff that a football manager’s nightmares are made of. However, this only sounds like bad news.

The good news is that it’s not true. In MLS Fantasy Manager, you have an additional 2 transfers each week to compensate for players who were injured, disciplined, or just not performing. A little bit of quick, careful math tells us that 2+1=3, and we’re right back up to real-world substitution options with a little bit more money to spend on quality.

A quick word of caution though, this approach will require a bit more foreword planning if you still want to take advantage of double-game weeks and lopsided matchups, so be prepared to put in a little more prep time each week.

Fantasy Strategy- Double-game Weeks

By Nic Shellabarger

In the weeks before this year’s season began, the guys over at MLS.com made one bit of fantasy strategy quite clear: take advantage of the weeks when teams play twice to double your opportunities to earn points. Seems like simple multiplication, but low scores in week 7 taught me that there’s a little more to it.

Know Your Players

It’s easy to look at a player’s current total score compared to their cost and make value judgments, but unfortunately these two pieces of information may not be enough to judge a player’s quality and points potential for any given game, especially this early in the season.

Take for example Leonardo Fernandes of the Philadelphia Union. At 26 total points for only $5.4, Fernandes seems a great buy at the bigginning of week seven with the Union headed into a double-game week. Such was my thinking as I snagged him up before the set of two games. Unfortunately, the purchase didn’t pan out as I’d hoped.

While Fernandes’s point’s average looked good, I missed two key factors that might have helped me make a better purchasing decision. First, Fernandes is not consistent in his points per game. A couple of seven to eight point games increased his early average, but the majority of his games were ones and zeroes. Despite the two game advantage, a little basic math tells us that one times two isn’t very much.

The second factor I should have considered was Fernandes’s playing time in each game. A quick look at his history shows me that he has only played the full 90 minutes twice this season. This should have been a sure sign to me that he would be subbed, which he was, in a two match week. Twice as many games doesn’t mean much when a player only spends a total of 90 minutes on the pitch.

In week seven, the two-game week for the Union, Fernandes scored a total of 3 points. Not exactly a high-benefit trade for the week.

Consistent Scoring Positions

Instead of looking at solely at point totals and cost, you might be better off looking at consistent scorers in consistent scoring positions. Forwards and attacking midfielders are good investments in the long run, when the games that they contribute to scoring drives average out with the games that they don’t, but relying on them to perform in a single game might be a bit of a gamble.

Instead, look at defenders who are defending well every game. Regardless of the outcome of any given game, a good defender will accrue at least a few points. An almost guaranteed 6 points from a defender in a two game week seems a pretty solid buy. If you’re lucky, you may even get a stand-out performance such as the one from Gaddis or Okugo in week seven and double that point total.

Stick With What Works

Another option is to just forget about the double game week and stick with what’s working for you. I dropped Aurelien Collin in week seven in order to free up funds to purchase some Philadelphia Union players. Had I stuck with Collin, I would have bagged 14 points for the week (possibly even 28 if I captained him), more points than the total of all my Union players put together for week 7.

Of course, an opportunity for double points is hard to pass up, so…

Upcoming Double Game Weeks
Week 10	Houston Dynamo Columbus Crew Seattle Sounders FC Dallas San Jose Earthquakes Colorado Rapids
Week 11	Sporting KC Philadelphia Union
Week 12	DC United Houston Dynamo LA Galaxy FC Dallas
Week 13	Sporting KC Chivas USA Portland Timbers
Week 14	Columbus Crew Real Salt Lake Colorado Rapids Chicago Fire
Week 15	NONE
Week 16	Vancouver Whitecaps Montreal Impact

The Fantasy Strategy

(Editors Note: This is the first in a new series of articles looking at fantasy soccer that will be written by Nic. I hope you enjoy it)

By Nic Shellabarger

Let me begin by explaining a few things. First, I’m fairly new to soccer. I’ve been a pretty big fan and avid follower for about 3 years now. Before that I played in AYSO. My experience is pretty limited. However, something about the beautiful game has caught my attention (obsession) and lately the hours spent thinking/reading/watching the game have started adding up.

This season I took my first stab at creating an MLS Fantasy Soccer team. I came into it with little knowledge of how fantasy soccer works and my team has suffered because of it.

I am now 7 weeks in. I’ve learned a few things and thought about many things that I need to learn more about. I’m ready to see if I can turn this team around.

The Situation

It’s week 8 and my fantasy team is down in every one of the 14 leagues I’m in. I’m down to 1,365^th place overall. It’s time for a strategy change and even though I haven’t had a statistics class for over 15 years, I think it’s time to crunch some numbers.

In fantasy soccer there are four different positions to be filled: goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, and forwards. My first task is to crunch some numbers to see which position offers the most value-per-dollar. To do this I have taken the average points earned of the top 30 players in each position (top 20 for goalkeepers) and divided that with the average cost (in millions) of a player in that position.

Goalkeepers                 5.08 pts/million

The goalkeeper is a bit of an exception to most considerations of fantasy soccer statistics. The cost of each goalkeeper is so similar, that I think it’s probably best to go with one that you are familiar with and who is performing well, and not worry too much more about it.

The average goalkeeper has a cost of $5.27, has earned 26.75 points across seven games, and has a point/cost ratio of 5.08 pts/million.

Forwards                      3.41 pts/million

The forwards are the stars. These are the guys that we see on the Goal of the Week videos, the league MVP’s, the Golden Boot winners. Their frequent appearances on the highlight reels make them a tempting purchase.

But, before you stack your front line, consider this. When they score or assist, they score big for your fantasy team. The problem is they don’t score often enough. Forwards don’t often get the attacking bonus that midfielders can, and they almost never get defending bonuses. Their points opportunities are limited and thus they have the lowest points to cost ratio of anyone on the fantasy field.

Yes, get yourself a good forward, but you probably shouldn't run a forward heavy formation on your team.

The average forward has a cost of $8.15, has earned 27.83 points across seven games, and has a point/cost ratio of 3.41 pts/million.

Midfielders                   4.1 pts/million

Like the media darlings on the front line, a good attacking midfielder will have the opportunity to make goals. They are, however, also more likely to rack up assists, key passes, crosses, and attacking bonuses. Defending mids also get in on these points to a lesser extent, but also capitalize on the defending bonuses.

This balance of opportunity makes the midfield possibly the best place to stack players as they have the highest point to cost ratio of any of the field players.

The average midfielder has a cost of $8.13, has earned 33.36 points across seven games, and has a point/cost ratio of 4.1 pts/million.

Defenders                    3.96 pts/million

The right defenders can be a serious boon to your weekly points. Defenders earn points for doing their job over and over again. No highlight reel worthy plays are necessary for a defender to earn points for your team, just good, consistent defending over the course of 90 minutes.

As an added bonus, look for some of the bigger, taller defenders like  Aurelien Collin or Matt Hedges who are likely to add to their points when they score on set pieces.

The average defender has a cost of $7.94, has earned 31.46 points across seven games, and has a point/cost ratio of 3.96 pts/million.

Conclusions

All of these statistics aside, there are going to be outliers. There will be players that consistently score high each week regardless of their position on the field. Get yourself some of these players. However, when you’re looking to fill out the depth of your team, your money is probably better spent creating a dynamic midfield or a solid back line. 

It looks like I have a couple of changes to make on my team!