Does homefield advantage exist in fantasy MLS?

 

By Andrew Crollard, @crollaa

The idea of a homefield advantage has been around for forever. It is certainly true in soccer and MLS, but what does it look like for MLS Fantasy? Note: the data used is 2015 data and does not account for the new scoring changes. It is assumed that the new scoring changes won’t significantly change the outcomes.

On average, defenders score about 22% more PP90 at home while both midfielders and forwards score about 17% more at home. This makes sense as the home team scores more goals on average than the away team. Additionally, many away teams tend to play more defensively, resulting in more possession and attacking opportunities for the home team. What all this means, and what many of you already know, is that we should pick as many home players as possible for our weekly lineups.

On a specific note, Toronto starts the season with 8 straight away games. At the time of writing, Giovinco was owned by over two thirds of all FMLS managers (seriously, what were the people who assign prices thinking?). Giovinco might be a player where we throw the above advice out the window. If we take his league-leading away PP90 of 7.54 and just plunk it down with the rest of the league’s home PP90, he would rank 14^th. Even with the extended road trip, Giovinco is probably the best “set and forget” player in the game. However, I do think that you can find a rotation that will outperform him of Keane, Drogba, Kamara, BWP, insert your favorite forward here.

Goalkeepers score only 6% more PP90 at home than away. That is really surprising considering that defenders had the largest difference between home and away performance. The strategy of rotating goalkeepers to have as many home games as possible is one that is widely used across fantasy soccer games. Given how little difference there is between home and away points for keepers in FMLS, it doesn’t make much sense to spend extra money to get a second keeper – something I had initially planned to do this season but have just brought in a scrub instead.

There’s always exceptions to the rule as guys like Wondolowski, Amerikwa, and a host of players from Colorado actually performed better away from their familiar grounds. At the other extreme, we have guys that perform extraordinarily better at home – 2015 saw most of those players wearing a Galaxy uniform.

last_name	first_name	2015 Team	position	Total PP90	Home PP90	Away PP90	Difference	Away/Home
Amarikwa	Quincy	SJ	Forward	4.39	2.73	6.61	3.89	2.43
Harris	Atiba	DAL	Defender	5.29	3.89	6.97	3.08	1.79
Wondolowski	Chris	SJ	Forward	5.19	4.14	6.36	2.22	1.54
Moor	Drew	COL	Defender	3.08	2.71	4.00	1.29	1.48
Burling	Bobby	COL	Defender	3.68	3.00	4.26	1.26	1.42
Powers	Dillon	COL	Midfielder	4.19	3.49	4.90	1.42	1.41
Sarvas	Marcelo	COL	Midfielder	3.90	3.30	4.44	1.15	1.35
Wahl	Tyson	CLB	Defender	3.30	2.88	3.70	0.82	1.28
Hedges	Matt	DAL	Defender	5.52	4.93	6.04	1.11	1.23
Beckerman	Kyle	RSL	Midfielder	3.47	3.15	3.79	0.63	1.20
DeLaGarza	AJ	LA	Defender	4.04	5.64	2.75	-2.89	0.49
Dos Santos	Giovani	LA	Midfielder	6.64	9.16	4.32	-4.85	0.47
Donadel	Marco	MTL	Midfielder	4.29	5.65	2.63	-3.03	0.46
Lletget	Sebastian	LA	Midfielder	5.93	8.31	3.72	-4.59	0.45
Keane	Robbie	LA	Forward	7.73	10.24	4.50	-5.74	0.44
S Williams	Sheanon	HOU	Defender	3.85	5.24	2.29	-2.95	0.44
Barnes	Giles	HOU	Midfielder	3.75	5.09	2.20	-2.89	0.43
Polster	Matt	CHI	Defender	2.98	4.40	1.56	-2.85	0.35
Woodberry	London	NE	Defender	2.76	3.89	1.26	-2.64	0.32
Espindola	Fabian	DC	Forward	6.08	9.12	2.15	-6.97	0.24