Fantasy Strategy Clinic: Round 3 How to Build your Budget

Welcome back! How are you feeling with two game weeks in the books? Everybody knows the heavy hitting players to choose in FMLS, but are you starting to get a sense of some value players in the game? Early weeks can be stressful when it comes to budget. It’s not always possible to grab every player you want without hitting your limit, so finding those cheap enablers and mid-priced producers can be a huge advantage when you’re feeling the pinch of budget constraints. But just how much should you be focusing on building your budget during those key first few weeks of the season? Is it worth sacrificing potential big scores in the early part of the season to fatten up your team value? The Fantasy Strategy Clinic is here to help you decide which route to take.

Building your Budget vs. Points?

A quick budget refresher: All teams begin the season with a budget of $100M. Each week, player prices rise or fall based on how many points they scored the previous week. Going into the new week, the 15 players you choose will need to fit into your overall $100m budget + any additional budget you’ve accrued (or lost) on top of that.

Ex: $100m budget + $3.5m price increase = $103.5m to spend the following week.

While we don’t know the exact formula for price changes, a player’s most recent three-game average seems to be a major factor in the game’s algorithm. It also seems to factor in the player’s immediate prior game’s performance, most recent five-game average, prior season performance, and season-long performance. (Important note: A player’s value will only change if they see the field.)

Using the game’s scoring system to maximize your budget each week is key to being able to afford big-budget players later on in the season, but how do you find the balance between gaining value and staying competitive? When it comes to this question, there are two schools of thought:

Play for points. If your team scores well each week, the budget will rise naturally as a result of good performance. Focus primarily on strength of team and strength of matchup for player evaluation. Focus on price-rise potential is secondary. Higher risk of budget loss.
Focus mostly on players due for a price-rise for the first few weeks of the season. Put focus primarily on player point output (some consider this a way of evaluating “form”) in relation to player cost. Once you have enough money that budget isn’t an issue, try to make up any ground you may have lost by being able to choose higher-valued players.

One issue with the second approach is that chasing price-rise often leads to chasing points, which is not traditionally a sound strategy for FMLS success. Is getting that price-rise worth passing up points that another player with a better matchup might have earned? Targeting strong attacks and matchups against weak defenses are key to FMLS success, and factors like these can often take a backseat when players are being evaluated largely on price-rise potential. One way to avoid straight-up point chasing is choosing a strong starting XI, while tossing cheap price-risers on the bench for value only. Plenty of newer players use this setup, but once you understand and become comfortable with using the switcheroo strategy, this approach becomes less viable since those bench spots become vital pieces of your team build.

Personally, I prefer using the first method. Over the past four seasons, I’ve never had a major issue affording players beyond Week 6 or 7, and I don’t like digging my team into a scoring hole just to gain a few more dollars. The only time I use price-rise as a factor when considering players is if I’m trying to decide between two players with similar stats or matchups. If one is more likely to be on a price rise, I’ll let that be the tiebreaker.

Whichever strategy you decide, you’ll likely need to employ one of these methods to avoid falling behind as the season progresses.

How Does this Apply for Game Week 3?

Now that you know a player’s three game average does a lot of heavy lifting, you can use their previous two scores to easily evaluate whether the player’s value will rise, fall or stay about the same.

Take a forward like Tai Baribo ($8.3m) or Peter Musa ($9.5m), who have both scored double-digit points in their first two matches. Each will assuredly receive another price-rise this upcoming round, even if their scores are low—potentially even receiving gains for the next couple weeks. Even a player like Diego Rossi ($9.0m) should be due for another rise this week, despite putting up only two points this weekend after scoring 16pts in the first round. While anything less than double-digit scores this week for players like Marco Reus ($8.1m) or Denis Bouanga ($8.5m) will likely see them stay the same or fall again, based on their poor scores from their first two matches. Keep in mind that higher-priced players need a higher average to gain value, and lose value more easily. A lower-priced player, like Jamar Ricketts ($5m), doesn’t need as high of a score to gain value—even after his 13 points from Round 1 fall off his three game average.

One tip for finding players, make the “LAST 3 AVG” sort function in the team page your best friend. This will allow you to see exactly what the game algorithm thinks that player’s average is. This is especially important with players who are new to the league, because often there are some stats baked in as “past history” that fall in line with expected performance to help determine their price adjustments at the beginning of the year. Once you’ve identified teams with favorable matchups for this round, you can also use “LAST 3 AVG” to evaluate which players from those matchups are due to rise. Who knows, maybe you’ll even find a sneaky value bench play or two!

Knowing how to manage and evaluate player values can help you stretch your budget, but don’t stress too much if your team value feels a little low to at this point. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and there’s plenty of time to boost that team value. Hopefully the Fantasy Strategy Clinic can help you get there a little quicker. 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