MLS GW5 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer

MLS GW5 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer

GW4 in FMLS turned out to be a bit more controversial than we thought it would be. Maybe ‘controversy’ isn’t the right term – but it was certainly more…divisive? That sounds about right. With the first DGW schedule of our MLS season now behind us, it’s clear that people were really of two minds about how to proceed with their teams. Some people greatly believed in the DGW squads’ ability to score points, and others really thought it wasn’t worth the transfers to bring extra players in. The result? Both camps were partly right, and now everybody gets to say “I told you so” on some level and feel justified with their team.

But not everybody gets to write a column about it, folks. So here’s what I think happened.

First off, I think that it was worth taking the risk to chase points on the double. But I’m of the mind that it’s always right to chase points on a double – without exception. And the Dream Team of the week reflects that. With the exception of Kaka and Molino (more on that later), every member of the Dream Team had the advantage of playing twice and scored more points than anyone else at their position. So is it worth going after the doubles? Absolutely. But did this DGW really shine? Not so much.

The high score of this last round was 145 points. Now that might seem like a lot, but the other high scores previously have been 119, 103 and 109, all decent scores without any DGW help. So an uptick of 26 points off the previous mark really isn’t that remarkable when you think about it. And there were teams out there that scored decently without any more than 4 to 5 players on a double. But my standard advice still stands – getting DGW players is nearly always the best bet to increase points. And it just so happens we have another major DGW coming up next round, so we’ll talk about whether now is the time to prepare for that or not. Here are your keys for the week:

#1) Odds vs. Evens
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[/three_fourth]In some strange way, the schedule has lined up so that GWs 5, 7 and 9 will not feature any team on a double. But weeks 6, 8 and 10 will be featuring a very heavy slate of teams on a DGW. What this means for you right now could range from ‘very important’ to ‘not interested’. It all depends on how you want to start to craft your team. But suffice to say, there are people who are actively planning out their next five to six rounds based on this wrinkle in the schedule.

Without getting into who all of those DGW teams are going to be, here’s the basic strategy that you’ll be seeing employed as we move through these rounds: use the odd weeks to win the even weeks, and don’t worry about trying to achieve the perfect score when on an odd round. The first thing you’ll notice is that nearly everybody will be burning their wildcard in one of the even rounds in this stretch. But for the other two DGW rounds, they plan to use the odd week prior to really start to bolster their DGW chances. Does that sound contrived? Confusing? Welcome to the MLS.

Let’s look at an example. If you plan on using the wildcard on GW6, then you’ll play this round however you like – because you can blow your whole team up next week. But if you want to hold on until the last possible moment (and you people do exist…) and use the wildcard on GW10 that has 10 teams on a double, then you’ll have to alter your plan a bit going into this week. What the person in this scenario would do is forsake trying to build huge points in this round and start to build their team for the round to come. There are inherent risks involved in this strategy though. Do you start to accumulate Portland players this week for their double next week? Portland will play twice at home next round – but they’re on the road to LA this week. Each person will have to decide for themselves how to move forward, but just really look at the schedule for a moment and find a level of risk/reward that you’d be comfortable in employing.

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#2) Speaking of risk/reward – can you pick up Kaka?
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[/three_fourth]Great googly moogly, Kaka was everything we remembered him to be wasn’t he? His 16 point performance against the Timbers consisted of 2 assists, a goal, a clean sheet and 2 attacking bonus. It was a phenomenal performance against a good team. And this week Orlando will be traveling to Philadelphia – a not so good team that has no evident strategy to counter Kaka playing at his best. So do you pull the trigger and pick him up? I won’t be, so let me know how it goes.

This all ties into what I was saying above, you can either build the best team for the week at hand – or you can build the best team for the week full of doubles. And Kaka nearly scored as much as the highest DGW scorer last week, so that can work out sometimes. But looking at Orlando’s schedule, you see that they will be playing three of their next four on the road, and they don’t have any DGWs on the horizon. It’s just not doable for me right now to bring him in instead of another DGW midfielder.

However, if you’ve already pegged which DGW you plan on using your wildcard on, then you could afford to bring Kaka in the week prior in an odd week for a chance at big points. Outside of that scenario, road fixtures and teams playing just once a round won’t pencil out for you in the end.

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#3) Time to jettison Giovinco?
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[/three_fourth]The great thing about MLS is that it doesn’t have the sell-on penalty, so you can sell anybody and buy them back later at the same price. The unfortunate thing about Giovinco is that he’s only risen $0.3 since the start of the year, so he’s not playing well enough right now to make this an issue for most owners.

We all knew that this would happen at some point this year – Toronto just can’t be expected to perform at a high level each and every week over the course of eight straight road games. They started out the year pretty decently because both of their first games were in New York, but travelling to Kansas City and then Colorado was just too much. Giovinco earned a whopping 4 points in each of those games. And now Toronto are travelling to New England, so what do we do with that?

I’m of the opinion that Giovinco will perform better in East Coast games, so staying in the Boston area before heading down to DC isn’t as much of a travel grind as what he’s gone through in the past two weeks. But it’s anybody guess nowadays how any game in New England is going to play out, so buyer beware.

I’m going to say that Giovinco is a HOLD this week. Keep him if you got him. But next week at the start of the doubles? Urruti, BWP, Adi, Wondo and Dwyer will all be playing twice. I would be hard pressed to keep Giovinco playing once against some of these guys playing twice.

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#4) If your wildcard is coming up, build a better bench
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[/three_fourth]We all re-learned a valuable lesson this week; the MLS doesn’t care one bit about injury reporting. We learned of Robbie Keane’s injury…from Robbie Keane. But that didn’t affect many people. But when Mauro Diaz was held out of Dallas’ second match because of an injury he’d picked up in practice a full day earlier, we were all left scrambling to find out how we’d missed that. Granted, we couldn’t have changed anything about the situation halfway through a double, but it still would’ve been nice to know. And what we found was that we didn’t miss anything, it just went unreported to the masses.

And it’s a sad fact of the league, it’s just not held to the same standards of self-reporting as other leagues around the world are. But now that we know that, we can either continue to complain about it (which we still will), or we can start to plan around it. Personally, my bench consists solely of Tsubasa Endoh, a Toronto midfielder who didn’t play this last round. He was my one ‘active’ player on my bench in case of emergency. And had I needed a sub, I wouldn’t have had one.

I’m not advocating putting a ton of money into your bench, but with major players being held out all the time, you have to have some sort of quality sub on the bench to cover you in these rounds coming up.

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#5) Quick takes
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[/three_fourth]LA are still without many star players, but I think Portland still have a ways to go before they figure out how to effectively play on the road. Hold off on buying too many Portland players before the DGW.
Dallas weren’t the same team without Mauro Diaz on the field. Their second game of the round wasn’t good. But the team still has a lot of great players – and I really like them to come up big against San Jose this weekend. I don’t expect San Jose to even come close to getting their first road win of the year against Dallas.
Referee Mark Geiger has been assigned to the NYCFC vs. Chicago game this week. So take that for what it’s worth. Given a big stage at Yankee Stadium…anything is possible.
Speaking of Chicago, they have two bye weeks coming up in the next four rounds – so even if you’re one of those people that pretended to be really high on them, you can’t stop the act now and drop them. From a purely pragmatic view, they’re no longer worth owning in fantasy until their doubles roll around in GW10.
Houston are still on top of the board with 11 goals scored on the season. They’ll be coming home after a two-game road series, and if you’re looking for a sneaky play this week, they could have a player that nobody would see coming in a head to head match. Again, assuming that you’ll wildcard out of the pick next week.

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#6) Captain Picks
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[/three_fourth]The top of this list is still Giovinco – and that’s doubly true in a round without DGWs trying to outpace him. Toronto playing in New England isn’t the worst thing either. The Revs are the only team in the playoff places that have a negative goal differential.

Second, Kaka is going to be a popular pick no matter what. Right now he’s the second most purchased midfielder this round – and I doubt people are bringing him in without seriously giving him a look as a captain choice, especially at his price.

Lastly, Max Urruti is probably my actual top pick. He’s been absolutely phenomenal up front for Dallas this year, and I can’t wait to see how good he and Fabian Castillo (and Diaz when healthy) can continue to be as the year goes on. Dallas playing at home against San Jose (who have their own injuries to worry about) should be a no-brainer this week.

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The MLSFI Podcast
We mentioned this last week and we hope you had a chance to listen in but if you didn’t then be sure to try and check out this weeks edition. The guys know MLS inside out but more than that they’re just a great listen every week and you get to follow their teams, their successes and their woes. Pretty much the same soap story that unfolds on our FPL comments on here every week, only in a podcast format!

The link to the podcast itself is here MLSFI – DGW5 but even if you don’t find the time then their handy chalkboard of pundits picks is back this week also as per below.

Don’t forget to stop by mlsfantasyboss.com to catch up on their great weekly articles that lead into the deadline.

Or if you are after listening to more of Guy himself then be sure to drop in and give his Married Man’s Guide to Sports Addiction a listen!

To play the MLS game itself it’s fantasy.mlssoccer.com that you need.

And last but not least, don’t forget to join the FF247 MLS League, Code is: 123-361

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MLS GW5 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer This article was written by Guy Sanchez (FootyFantastic)

Follow @Guy_M_Sanchez