The trials and tribulations of being a manager in MLS Fantasy are real. Over the course of the grueling 34-round season, you’ll be forced to deal with many instances that actual MLS managers are faced with overcoming on a weekly basis.
International duty, injuries, congested schedules, silly red cards, Disciplinary Committee suspensions and even turf fields are all factors that will come into play and will drive you absolutely crazy. How you deal with these issues will go a long way in determining where your team ends up on the leaderboard at the end of the season.
Plan Ahead
With just two free transfers each round until Round 19, it’s vital that you do your homework to set your team up for success on the front end. Try to plan three-to-four rounds in advance when making your transfers. Consider players who have upcoming double game weeks (DGWs), byes or international fixtures.
Tip: The first international fixture date to be mindful of comes in Round 4, which also happens to be the first DGW of the fantasy season.
Bench Importance
As the MLS Fantasy Boss pointed out, you simply can’t ignore your bench this season with the revised roster size. There is only so much you can do to plan ahead, and there are sure to be unforeseen instances where one of your starters is a late scratch after the round has already started. Avoid any goose eggs by having 2-3 bench options ready to sub in when this happens.
Tip: Study how Manager Substitutions and Automatic Substitutions work (within the “Managing Your Team” section). Knowing how to properly execute manager substitutions could help you score extra fantasy points throughout the season.
Work the Transfer Deadline
The transfer window opens at 9 AM ET the day after the last match of the round (usually on a Monday). I advise resisting the urge to make your moves early in the week so that you can process any fantasy related bits of information as they come in throughout the week. This gives you time to tinker with your team to get an idea of what moves you want to make before finalizing your transfers prior to the transfer deadline.
Tip: On DGWs wait until the Starting XIs for the first match of the round are released to confirm your transfers (usually an hour before the transfer deadline). Teams are prone to rest certain players when they play twice in the same week. This will save you the frustration of transferring in someone who doesn’t start on the front end of the DGW.
Use Your Resources
In addition to the fantasy advice found here, there are several resources at your disposal to make informed decisions when making transfers:
Spend some time getting familiar with the Schedule feature and use the drop down filter options to get an overview of all competitions for any given month.
The Injury Report provides a good rundown of injured player reports across all MLS teams and is worth looking over before finalizing your moves.
If you want to dig deeper, seek out team beat writers on Twitter. These are the people who are around the teams they cover on a daily basis. The information they provide, from practice reports to game-day roster insight, can be very valuable from a fantasy standpoint. Many of the team beat writers can be found within the Twitter lists that I’ve created for each team.
Lastly, if you’re jonesing for even more fantasy chatter, jump into the /r/FantasyMLS conversation on the reddit forum.
Do you have any tips you want to share with your fellow fantasy managers? Let us know in the comments below.
