MLS Fantasy Top Tips

Over the last two seasons I’ve really started to knuckle down and try to improve my rank. In 2017 I broke my personal best with a rank of 7,108, followed by my best rank to date of 3,109 last season. So what exactly happened? What factors did I consider that influenced my decisions and helped improve my rank? Or was it all down to blind luck? I’ve listed below several factors and pieces of advice that I received on MLS Scout that might help others see a nice rank jump next year.




PLAYERS AND OWNERSHIP

As someone pointed out a while back, you don’t necessarily need a team full of low owned differentials to soar up the ranks, quite the opposite in fact. For example if you have give players in your side that each have 30% or more ownership, the percentage of people that owns all of those five same players is actually 0.25%, which as a fraction is 1/400. With around 3.5m players in the game this works out at around 8,750 managers. So stocking up on popular players such as Josef Martinez and Zlatan Ibrahimovic can be a differential in itself.

VALUE OVER REPLACEMENT PLAYER (VORP)

This is a new concept on my radar and understanding it has really helped my Fantasy MLS management. It is the idea that by looking at previous seasons, we can quantify our budget to see what points we need to be getting for every 0.5m of our 100m budget in order to reach the top 1000 in the overall rankings. So for example, let’s imagine Martinez scores 20 goals and Ibrahimovic scores 15 goals over a given season. Using last year’s prices, Martinez (11.6m) might have scored more goals and points than Ibrahimovic (15.0m), but we have to ask how much that 3.5m difference can be utilised elsewhere by owning Martinez, and how many more points we expect Martinez to outscore Ibrahimovic from that 3.5m throughout the season.

CRITICAL THINKING AND FOCUS

Psychology is another factor to consider and has been raised expertly by MLSScout community regular Ludo in his article entitled The Psychology of Fantasy Football. As a former philosophy and psychology student, I was well aware of fallacies and bias, but never thought to consider that they might be a factor affecting my decision-making and choices in my MLS Fantasy team. As a neutral, I owe no allegiance to a particular club but do like to fancy the underdog from time to time. For many  that do support a club, they may be influenced to triple up on their own team’s players, or to avoid putting in players from rival teams out of superstition in case they do well. Ludo lists out a number of biases and fallacies that we all fall victim to at one point or another over the season. I think it has helped a lot to notice when this is happening in order to approach the game as sensibly and logically as possible (even though at times our plans can fall apart).

FORM VERSUS FIXTURES

Last season, the argument about “form vs fixtures”  came to the fore when the fine form of teams such as Leicester, Watford and Bournemouth trumped their on-paper tough fixtures.

Ultimately most people will still side with one or the other; for me it is fixtures from the start of the season, and then adjust slowly as the whipping boys and title contenders reveal themselves as the season goes on. In a way, I think a hybrid approach might be the best thing to go by. For instance, one might look at the MLS Scout Season Ticker (see home page or sign up for Membership for the season long, interactive version) and see a player they want to bring in faces Orlando City. The “fixture” managers will likely be put off, and the “form” managers might be sceptical depending on the form of the player they want to bring in. But if, for example, Orlando City are conceding a lot, then there is a good case for bringing in a player, especially if he has strong underlying statistics indicating a goal is on the horizon (Members can see Jonty’s goals imminent table to see the latest potential goalscorer throughout the season).

STATISTICS VERSUS THE MAN IN THE STANDS

Another popular debate is statistics versus man in the stands. At many times over the season you’ll come across a MLS Scout Members table advocating player X or player Y, based on strong statistics such as shots in the box or chances created. I must admit I do find comfort in picking a player by looking at his statistics to try justify my faith in him. However, there are times when the numbers are misleading and we can only get a true representation of a player by watching him play. As the saying goes, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” 

Statistics do play a role though and the best approach may be to combine analysing statistics with watching a player actually perform. A player may have many shots in the box, but if by watching him play you realise that all are weak then you get a far more accurate picture of his potential.

PRESEASON

Some people believe preseason shows us a lot, whereas others disregard it. Pre season can give MLS Fantasy managers an edge in player selection from the start of the season and  also give an indication as to where players will play and whether they are likely to start or are on set pieces.  But at the same time, we can’t take too much from friendlies given the oppositions teams face as well as the strength of the squad that is put out. A player may only be on the pitch during a friendly as a deputy for another who is late back from international duty, for example.

CAPTAINCY

A huge factor that I always seemed to struggle with is captaincy, whereby your player gets double points. Often sticking with one or two tried and tested candidates can be a good tactic, with Martinez and Ibrahimovic good examples of investing in reliable goal scorers. But last season was unpredictable and often a plum home tie can deliver a blank, while a captaincy candidate’s biggest haul can come in an on-paper tricky away fixture. Generally though,  home teams do better so if it came down to a 50/50 split between two players I would favour the home option.

As mentioned with VORP, captaincy has to be taken into account. The likes of Martinez and Ibrahimovic offer you that extra bit of security in getting above average scores.  Picking a poorly owned captain does have its advantages though, despite the risk, as they can help when chasing a lead. The risk is though that you may fall even further behind.

LUCK VERSUS SKILL

I’m a firm believer that the high majority of Fantasy management is luck. You can pick all of the ‘good’ players, but at the end of the day, they are the ones who have to go out and deliver. They might be sent off, they might blank, they might break a leg, they might score a hatrick. Who knows really? It might seem simple, but at the end of the day the best strategy is to maximise your chances of success and minimise your chances of failure.

How do we do this? The answer is through effective management of risk. If, say, luck accounts for 75% of the game and the other 25% is management, then that 25% is the difference between a stellar overall rank and a poor one. Plan ahead, but not too far ahead. When you start the game, don’t have the mentality of “in Gameweek 2 I will transfer X to Y” or “I will wildcard in Gameweek 4”. This can be a recipe for disaster as unexpected injuries and suspensions are all part of the game that crop up when we least expect them. As they say, ‘the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’. But by planning for the unexpected and giving yourself some money left over in the bank in Gameweek 1 then you may be able to draft in an early season surprise sensation. Such tactics can significantly reduce the reliance on luck in the game.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Above are just a few pieces of advice that I received over the last two years and have applied to my game. Hopefully the trend can continue in improving my rank, but the bar is certainly set high for next year. Please feel free to comment if you agree or disagree, or if you have any other advice that you feel is noteworthy for others. Good luck to all in the coming season and hopefully many more quality articles will appear from the community that will help others as they have helped me.