The Recap - Gameweek 5
Right Fantasy Game, Wrong Captain
Where is Rick Flare when I need him? FlavorTownSC finished the week with 103 points, a weekly rank of 283 and an overall rank of 281, moving up over two hundred spots. First place is still far off, now by sixty-seven points and will need to find ways to close the gap. Looking at the top 50, FlavorTown is twenty-seven points behind and eighteen points from the top 100. Nice work for a weekend, however - given that the best score on the week was 129, my captain choice cost me. Team value also increased to $118.8M, a $3.7M gain from last week.
I will confess that I was misleading with my lineup, I checked player ownership before the Cincinnati and Atlanta match on Saturday and noticed that almost 30% of managers had Evander in their lineup or at least that’s what the fantasy game said. And if I’m focusing on being competitive, that means I have to account for what other fantasy managers are doing. That was one of my mistakes last season and it’s an easy one not to repeat. Even with Evander on my bench at the last minute, the failure to get the captain pick right - still stings.
The Good
FlavorTownSC scored over a hundred points. And scoring over a hundred points means that I had five of the eleven players on the weekly dream team in my lineup. Even Rusnak (Seattle) and Mukhtar (Nashville) returned seven and eight points respectively. Hell, Benteke (D.C.) grabbed 6 points in a 1-4 loss to Orlando.
The Bad
My affordable goalkeepers and the defenses in front of them did not have a good week. Both Colorado and Minnesota, who had favorable matchups at home against lower ranked opponents, gave up two or more goals. Colorado were burgled at home, losing to Portland 0-3 and Minnesota were lucky to finish their matchup against LA Galaxy in a 2-2 draw. Having a goalkeeper and defender from each team did not work out.
Navarro (Colorado) was another disappointment, finishing with 2 points. I had Benteke (D.C.) on my bench with 6 points, so I lost out on an additional 4 points.
The MLS
Captaining the lowest scoring midfielder in my lineup. Rusnak (Seattle) finished with seven points while there were three midfielders in my lineup who scored double digits. Those who captained Evander (Portland) last weekend ran the scoring show and that’s why FlavorTown didn’t make up any ground on first place. Captaining Evander, Ojeda (Orlando) or Forsberg (NJ Red Bulls), would have meant being ranked in the top one hundred fifty and being one point out of the top one hundred - #becauseMLS. Sigh.
Strategy and Data
Despite my poor showing at picking defenders last week, there were nine shutouts and four of the shutouts were tallied by clubs playing at home. And it’s the third week in a row, where fresh sheets were almost evenly split between home and away clubs.
Gameweek 5 marked the first time this season, where 5 teams both home and away, scored 3 or more goals. Playing matches while some MLS players were away on international duty, was rough on the clubs that didn’t have a bye this week. Interesting that Miami was one of the two clubs that had a bye week during the first international window of the season.
Who’s getting the fantasy points? Right now the range for the top ten forwards in terms of total points is between twenty-seven to forty-three, Baribo (Philadelphia) and Martinez (NYCFC) are the only non-designated players in the top ten, despite not playing last weekend. For midfielders the range is between twenty-seven to forty-six, and the only non-designated players in the top ten is Lukic (Philadelphia). When looking at defenders, the top ten score range is thirty to thirty-eight. The majority of the top ten is occupied by six defenders from two different teams - St. Louis and Nashville. The only standout in the top ten is Wagner (Philadelphia), which isn’t a surprise. Cheberko (Columbus) is another, but that’s because Columbus kept a shutout last weekend despite missing six starting defenders. Columbus defenders are money?
Onwards and upwards to higher ranks and better captain picks. Praise be.