MLS Fantasy Boss A Fantasy MLS Community
By: The Fantasy Physician
Week 3 Big Question – How Do I Know Which Players Will Actually Play?
If you put a player on your squad in the new Kickbase MLS Fantasy game and he does not play, you get zero points. Ignoring that bigger disasters in the game (negative scores are not infrequent in Kickbase) or in life can happen, how are you going to avoid this particular disaster? In years past, a feature of the old game mostly limited this risk: rolling lockouts and the ability to check lineups in the hour before kickoffs. Player availability risk was nevertheless part of the legacy game, because we managers could not react to which players played in the second match on a team that had a double game week or players on teams with weather postponements that turned into cancellations after lineups dropped and players locked. Also, we sometimes had to make calls about taking players in earlier games because there was nowhere to run if a favored player who was a lineup risk in a late game was a late scratch. Even hard core MLS Fantasy sickos sometimes could not check lineups while on a back woods camping trip or while stuck in plane with no Wifi, so last year we ran a Fantasy Strategy Clinic article on “What To Do When You Can’t Check Lineups.”
If you haven’t noticed, Kickbase does not use rolling lockouts; you cannot change the players in your squad after the first match’s (or matches’) scheduled kickoff time. There are a lot of implications to this feature of the game, the most important of which is that you can’t sub out a player (with either a teammate or someone on another team) when you see that he is unexpectedly not in the starting lineup. Also, you can’t make snap decisions about a player based on reassessment of the real time game situation from looking at his team’s lineup and that of his opponents. One important exception: you can make these moves for the first match (or matches) of the game week in Kickbase. Overall and as we will discuss, the absence of rolling lockouts ups the value of pre-match lineup projections in planning your squads.
How Did the Absence of Rolling Lockouts Affect Manager Results in 2026 Game Weeks 1 and 2?
Looking at the problems fantasy managers faced with a single lockout time so far will help us develop our strategy for avoiding these situations (or living in peace with their unavoidability – recall that the equanimitas of a stoic is a good character trait in a Fantasy manager).
- Marcel Hartel (MID, STL): Coming off a strong performance in Week 1, St Louis’ star midfielder was an unexpected scratch for Week 2, because his wife had a baby. The MLS Player Status Report made no mention of this, and even if it did, the part of the report for Sunday games came out Saturday after the Kickbase lockout. St Louis played San Diego on Sunday. Managers who took Hartel got zero points.
- Duran Ferree/Pablo Sisniega/CJ Dos Santos (GKs, SDFC) – the San Diego Goalkeeper Saga: With last year’s starter CJ Dos Santos returning from injury and his understudy Pablo Sisniega dealing with a red card suspension that carried over from 2025 in Week 1, San Diego’s coach Mikey Varas declared young US International Duran Ferree the starter before Week 1; he did well. Your own Fantasy Physician warned you NOT to take Ferree, a brilliantly cheap choice priced under $1M in week 2, based on the expectation that he is third in pecking order and Sisniega was likelier to start. Ferree did play the second match, and earning his second straight shutout and another excellent score, likeliest the best value in the game in both the first 2 weeks. Apologies for that, though the uncertainty was real.
- Ian Pilcher (DEF, SDFC): With an injury to Wilson Eisner, the expected starter at right back for San Diego who showed well in the CONCACAF matches against Mexican side PUMAS, certain widely touted depth charts projected Ian Pilcher to start there in Week 1 against Montreal. The potential to add an inexpensive Ian Pilcher starting on a strong defense was tempting to many. He did not play.
- Sam Surridge (FWD, NSH): 2025 MLS Golden Boot runner up coming off a brace in week 1 and backed by an improved Nashville attack was a widely considered choice for week 2 away at Dallas. The MLS Player Status Report warned that he was questionable because of an unspecified illness. He did not play. Managers who did not see that report and took him got zero points.
- Lionel Messi (FWD, MIA): Most MLS fantasy managers have learned the hard way never to omit Lionel Messi from their lineups if he is playing. Let’s digress for a moment to consider the costs of not taking Messi when he plays. He was the default captain most weeks in 2025 under the legacy FMLS point scoring system, but it turns out he is a considerably better fantasy choice in the Kickbase scoring system. Worried about his cost? On a $M/average fantasy point basis at his current price, he is cheaper than his rivals. A full analysis of his value has to be paired with what the opportunity costs of his pricetag do to other choices in your lineup, but the simple analysis is that his value exceeds that of his top rivals in Kickbase.
Prior to the opening match week 1, there was a lot of speculation that he would not play because of a hamstring injury in a preseason friendly, but by late in the week he was noted to have been training with the team and then to have traveled to LA. He was not mentioned as “out” or “questionable” on the Player Status Report. He played, and recorded a modest but respectable fantasy score of 98 in 3-0 loss to LAFC. Managers who faded him in week 1 did not get punished, but if they got used to fading him and omitted him in week 2, they missed his vesuvian explosion against Orlando: 383 points.
Evander (MID, CIN): The brilliant, mercurial, and generally hardy Cincinnati star suffered a thigh injury in week 1 and left the game early on. He was listed as questionable for week 2 and did not play. His status remains uncertain. Managers who had him in week 1 or week 2 got bad scores; week 1 was unpredictable but week 2 was not.
Strategies for Predicting Who Will Play and Who Will Not in Week 3 and Beyond
Remember, your lineup locks at the time of the first match’s scheduled kickoff. So:
1) Study the Matchday’s schedule: Example, this week’s New England Revolution match against Houston has already been postponed. Don’t take Gil; don’t take Turner; don’t take Jack McGlynn. In some weeks there will be teams on byes that you will avoid and teams on double game weeks (DGWs, points from both matches count) that you will favor. Next, take note of which matches are on Saturday and which matches are on Sunday as well as which match or matches are the very first ones on Saturday (and strategy item 7 on this list). The available information you will have for Sunday will be inferior to that for Sunday. Where there is uncertainty, favor Saturday players as the information you have about them will be fresher. With the postponement of the New England vs Houston match, there is single match to start the week: NYCFC vs Orlando, which will be the only match with lineups reviewable while you can still make fantasy squad changes. Also, look at the next week’s schedule as well:
Nine MLS teams will be playing in CONCACAF next week, Philadelphia and LAFC as early as Tuesday. Might some of these teams rotate players this weekend to keep them fresh for those matches? Maybe, though I think most important players will play this weekend. However, there will be another round of these home-away match dyads the following week, and those may create more impact on legs and availability for matchweeks 4 and 5.
2) Check the MLS Player Status Report: This was important in 2025 but essential to success in 2026. It usually comes out by the end of the day Friday but often contains only the relevant information for the Saturday matches. This report is available in the News section of the MLS website, in social media from the @MLScommunications account, and is always made available on the MLS Fantasy Boss Discord under the injuries and absences tab. The report is an attempt to synthesize information about physical injury, illness, absences for personal reasons, visa problems, and disciplinary suspensions. It generally lists players as “Out,” in which case you should not take that player, or “Questionable” and you should in most cases not take those players. Sunday information comes out on Saturday, generally past the lockout time for Kickbase lineup.
3) Study what happened in the prior week: match summaries and results, last week’s relevant lineups, disciplinary reports, non-MLS fixtures like CONCACAF. Let’s consider Los Angeles Galaxy match versus NYCFC last week. The frontline looks pretty stable for the Galaxy: Pec, Klaus, and Painstil, but Greg Vanney has moved pieces around in the midfield (eg Reus and Haak came off the bench) and on defense. The team played well and won 3-0; that might tempt Vanney to go with the same lineup next week, though will he really keep Reus in sub status? By contrast, Charlotte centerback Andrew Privett – a longtime starter – had a disastrous first half and was benched at halftime. I would not count on him for next week. As noted before, managers who saw that Evander’s low score in week 1 was the result of an early injury departure were already poised not to take him in week 2. Seven players that got red cards in week 2 will not feature in the coming week.
4) Discord and Other Social Media: A fair amount of discussion in the general MLS chat and the injuries and absences tab in the MLS Fantasy Boss Discord center on who will and will not play. There’s a lot of aggregation of posts and clips from managers and reporters about the coming weekend’s player availability. You can go hunting on social media or the internet yourself for information, often derived from reporters’ coverage of press conferences with coaches late in the week and similar sources, but often members of the MLS Fantasy Boss Discord have already gathered some of that information for the community.
If you do go hunting information on your own, favor in-market credible sources. The Sounder at Heart website is the clearest source of information for the Seattle Sounders. Corner of the Galaxy podcaster Josh Guessman – covering the LA Galaxy – is an exemplar of a local reporter who gets information directly from team sources and generally and responsibly clarifies what is source-confirmed fact from his own suppositions.
5) Look at projected lineups, but with a jaded eye: Kickbase has projected lineups; click on the “Base” tab (lower left) and you will see icons of all 30 MLS club’s crests (or all with matches that weekend) in their order on the overall MLS table. Select the team and you will have Kickbase staff’s current speculations. Kickbase USA frontman Favian Rankel recently touted this on their new podcast and confirmed that it’s not AI generated, mentioning that his colleague Justin Ruderman has a lot of responsibility for these. Historically, statistics sites FOTMOB and Sofascore also have lineup projections of variable quality, sometimes just replicating the starting XI from the team’s previous match. Looking at projected lineups and in particular graphics that show both teams in a match is useful in assessing matchups. The absence or presence of a player in these projections is no guarantee at all of what will happen on matchday and are no better than the effort and understanding of whoever assembled the lineup. Still, if a player you fancy is not in one of these lineups, you should have a clear reason why you think the lineup creator is wrong before you put them in a squad. Kickbase lineup projections have a nice feature of a red dot by certain players with a suggestion of who may be playing in their stead. Member level subscribers to Kickbase have access to another layer of speculations about player availability: a system of mini icons in any of the player selection screens, your selected lineups, and their projected lineups that suggest likelihood of player availability. A blue star is the highest likelihood, green check mark next highest, an orange question-mark shows questionable status, and a white X shows the player to be out. Examples: Matthew Corcoran of Nashville got a red following a second yellow card last week and is out. He has a white X by his name. Adri Mehmeti, the 16-year-old breakout midfielder at Red Bull New York had an orange question-mark by his name in the first two games but now has a green check mark, reflecting a view that he has earned a starting lineup spot. His team’s goalkeeper – locked starter Ethan Horvath – has a blue star, reflecting a high likelihood of playing.
6) Check on possible weather conditions that could lead to a game cancellation – See the weather tab in the MLS Fantasy Boss Discord for updates. Taking multiple players from a team with a canceled game will devastate your score.
7) Check lineups from the first match of the matchday– Confirmed lineups for MLS matches start to appear an hour before kickoff. Teams often release these on social media, and then when both teams in a match have done so, they appear on the MLS website’s page for that fixture (as well as on FOTMOB, Sofascore, and other sites). Members of the MLS Fantasy Boss community also take turns posting lineups on the Discord, at the – you guessed it – lineups tab. Kickbase shows them as well within the fixture screen.
It’s hard to oversell the value of studying confirmed lineups for a committed Fantasy manager. That and watching games are what build knowledge that supports elite performance. In terms of confirming player availability, only the first match(es) lineups drop in time to make decisions before the lineup lockout. Setting aside rare late lineup scratches (eg player gets injured during warmups), this is as certain as it gets. The first match this week, NYCFC vs Orlando, kicks-off at 2:30pm Eastern time. So at 1:30pm or shortly thereafter check that one out. Where you have been considering two players close to equally, if one is certain and the other is less so, go with the certain one.
Even if you did not intend to take a player from the first match, you should check that lineup. It might present an unexpected opportunity. For example, a team with a solid defense might deploy their backup goalkeeper. Taking that goalkeeper might free up budget funds for upgrades elsewhere in your lineup. Occasionally, something unusual like a teamwide illness forces a team to play a lot of reserves, and you may be able to prey upon them by taking one of their opponents.
8) Double game week availability – Although not relevant to this week, speculating accurately on who will play both games (or almost all of both games) in double game weeks (DGW) is a skill/awareness worth cultivating. We will return with more advice on that as we approach the first one of the season, but studying who plays this weekend and then plays in the midweek CONCACAF fixtures ahead will help familiarize you with go-to players who have the physical stamina and the centrality to team success to see 180 minutes of playing time over 3-5 days.
9) Figure out if Messi traveled to away games: the importance of Messi (see above) to fantasy lineups is not to be underestimated. Taking him when he is not playing is a huge waste of budget on a zero score. When Messi travels he almost always plays, and when he starts he almost always plays 90 minutes. He shook President Trump’s hand at the Whitehouse this Thursday; he is very likely to see the field versus DC United on Saturday.
10) Have alternatives in mind – Start your planning for a matchweek with a list of players (whether it’s Monday evening or Saturday morning) bigger than the number you need for that position. That way you have pivots in mind as information emerges, eg on the Player Status Report.
Doing well in fantasy football is about getting good scores but also about avoiding bad ones. The risk from players not playing – getting a zero you didn’t need – is considerable, so take a conservative approach on this issue. Kickbase scoring generates a wide variety of viable players, so when all is equal or close to it, protecting your floors, which is to say avoiding zeros, should be a priority.
The “Fantasy Physician” is Ron Birnbaum, @Half Century City on Discord
The “Fantasy Therapist” is Mike Leister, @Kenobi on Discord
The “Fantasy Meteorologist” is Asher Malaschak, @Storminator on Discord
The “Fantasy Gastroenterologist” is Christian Ward, @xward on Discord
