MLS Fantasy Boss A Fantasy MLS Community
By: The Fantasy Therapist
Welcome back. I hope your weird two-week DGW went well. Chalky attackers all performed surprisingly well, especially if you stacked some players as recommended by the Fantasy Physician last week. I chose to leave a few SGW slots available and then made some poor choices in filling those slots thanks to a little last-minute tinkering. I found myself suffering from an acute case of lineup drop anxiety, which often leads to panic picks. This can be a common condition among FMLS players, so this week we’ll discuss some strategies to make that hour between lineup drops and player lock as smooth and easy as possible.
You’ve probably been there at some point or another: You’ve had your team set for days, but now lineups have dropped and a guy you had cemented in your team didn’t make the 18! Time is ticking away before players lock, and you’re sweating as you frantically pull up your stats provider of choice to see which midfielder is more likely to be on set pieces or which defender has been earning the most passing BPs. As you get closer and closer to lock, you’re paralyzed by indecision. You’ve added and removed three different players in the last 5 minutes. You’ve started to think about changing other spots on your team to accommodate a guy you didn’t even really want in the first place. None of the choices seem ideal, and all the confidence you had in your team yesterday is slowly leaking away. Who should you pick?
By the time you reach this point, the added stress and pressure of having to make a last-minute decision makes it likely that you’ll choose a player you won’t be happy with, so there are a few steps you can take to make sure you don’t find yourself in this position.
Step 1: Make a plan
This may seem pretty obvious and self-explanatory, but it’s worth saying because it really does make a difference. When you sit down to make your team each week, think of a Plan B (and maybe even a Plan C). Ideally, these backup plans should be a one-for-one swap of players – “If Messi doesn’t start, pivot to Bouanga” – because the more moving parts you have, the higher the chance for disappointment (more on that later). Choosing a backup player ahead of time when you have the chance to think it through and make a case for your choice (with stats, if that’s how you like to play) is always preferable to having to panic pick somebody just before lock.
For instance, Seattle has two games this week against Miami and Austin. Both games are on the road, but they’re still matches where Albert Rusnak ought to thrive and I’d like to have him in my team. However, he’s returning from an injury and hasn’t played a full 90 since Week 21, so this is the perfect situation for a backup plan. Because Seattle’s first game is Tuesday night, there are plenty of options to pivot to in later games. If Rusnak doesn’t start, do you take another Seattle mid like Paul Rothrock or Cristian Roldan? Do you move to another DGW midfielder from one of the Wednesday games? Or do you leave Rusnak on your bench and hope he gets enough points over the two games and have a SGW mid on the field to take his place in case he blanks? All valid options, and worth considering ahead of time.
Step 2: Clear your mind
Whenever possible, try to put yourself in a space (physical and mental) that’s going to allow you to make the best choices. You want your focus on the quick decisions you need to make. Removing yourself from distracting situations by going to another room or stepping outside will help make those decisions a little easier to process. For some people (like me), this might mean switching devices – for some reason, I always find it easier to envision my team and make good decisions when I’m on my laptop rather than my phone. For others, it may mean opening multiple apps or spreadsheets. And unless you are a master multitasker who can handle all kinds of chaos, I do not, under any circumstances, recommend trying to lineup tinker while putting your kids to bed. That’s some next-level chaos that only truly elite zen masters can manage.
Distractions can also include Discord. The MLSFB Discord is a hugely helpful resource that I highly recommend for players of all levels – my game has improved immensely since I joined. However, there can be a lot of opinions and wild takes being thrown in chat around after lineups drop, and groupthink tends to get even stronger during that last hour. It’s up to you to choose how much to listen to those takes. Personally, I try to only use Discord to run ideas past my lineup buddies once we’ve reached that stage.
I realize it’s not always possible to fully control your environment, so do what you can. If you’ve already followed step one and made your backup plan ahead of time, this won’t be as much of an issue.
Step 3: Take your time
This step may seem a little counterintuitive, especially when you have a limited amount of time to make a decision. But taking an extra few minutes to really study lineups when they’re released can have benefits for the current week and beyond. For instance, the graphics posted on Twitter/X and Bluesky often only list the player’s names and numbers and don’t give you a picture of how the team is set up, so take the extra time to look at a site that shows the team’s formation. In the case of mlssoccer.com, their graphics also show the opponent’s lineup in the same image. It’s often very helpful to be able to see the teams lined up against each other because you’re able to notice things like when the winger you’ve been considering happens to be going up against a rookie defender, or when a defender is playing out of position (OOP) as a forward.
Also, don’t pass over the list of bench players. Besides giving you a look at whether your scrubs are safe, you can also get a sense of how strong a team is beyond the starting 11 and if there’s somebody on the bench who may be subbing in early for one of your players. This can also help familiarize you with a team’s depth pieces, useful information to have for future weeks or seasons.
Step 4: Trust yourself
Again, this may seem obvious, but trust in the choices you’ve made. There are no guarantees in fantasy, but you’re almost always going to make a better decision when you do it ahead of time. Don’t doubt yourself when the time comes to actually make a switch. New information that changes your plan doesn’t have to be a cause for panic.
However, this also works in the other direction. If you’ve got a player in your team and you no longer feel confident in them for some reason when lineups drop (the opponent is stronger than expected or your player’s team has heavily rotated), trust yourself to make a change as well. Don’t be so inflexible that you can’t react when something in lineups is setting off alarm bells.
Traps to watch for
One mistake that gets made a lot during lineup drop tinkering is to start pulling apart the team you’ve had all week to fit one player in. This is a lot more common earlier in the season when budgets are tight, but it can happen at any point, especially if you’ve already got three players from a team and suddenly you find yourself wanting a fourth as a replacement for someone who didn’t start. The more players you think about changing at the last minute, the more chance there is to let doubt creep in and undermine the choices that you felt good about already. Aim for fewer moving parts, not more, when making last-minute decisions.
Another common lineup trap is the “too good to be true” OOP player. I fall victim to this a lot, like last week in the first slate of the DGW when Austin defender Jon Gallagher lined up as a winger against the worst defense in the league. Surely, I thought, he should get involved in the attack. (He did not). Also working against him, which I chose to ignore, is that Austin’s defense is… not great, so he didn’t get any cs points either and ended the week with 3 points from two games. On the other hand, Vancouver defender Ali Ahmed lined up as a winger against a heavily rotated Philadelphia team that had traveled across the continent and was looking ahead to a US Open Cup semifinal this week. Vancouver’s defense is much better than Austin’s, and this was a matchup that I normally would have jumped all over. But since it was a double game week, by the time that game started, I had already committed all my defender spots. If I had trusted myself and stuck to my original plan (keeping Gallagher’s spot open for a SGW defender), I would’ve been able to take Ahmed, who did get involved with Vancouver’s 7-goal scorefest and ended the week with 12 points from one game. Womp womp.
Finally, when making a backup choice under pressure, it’s easy to get caught up in what I like to call a “toy store” scenario. You had a guy picked out, but now that he’s not available, you suddenly have the whole league to choose from – every toy in the store is now an option, but none of them are the one you really wanted. Now you’re faced with either choosing from a group of players you kind of like or a whole bunch of guys you don’t. This can be overwhelming, so again, having your backup plans mapped out before lineups start dropping can help you skip right past the paralysis that can come from too many choices.
How Does this Apply for Week 28?
Start making your backup plan now. As I mentioned earlier, the first game this week is Tuesday night – a rematch of the Leagues Cup final between Seattle and Miami – and there are six teams on a DGW (Seattle, Miami, NYC, Columbus, RSL and LAFC). Because of where we are in the season, it’s reasonable to expect some rotation by the DGW teams, so be prepared to make adjustments when lineups drop. It’s almost a guarantee that one of the guys you want won’t start, so a little planning now can save you from lineup drop anxiety and panic picks on Tuesday and Wednesday nights!
Good luck, check back for more tips next week, and don’t forget to have fun!
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
