Fantasy Strategy Clinic Round 6: What are Floors & Ceilings?

Visitors to my real clinic (I am both a Fantasy Physician and one in real life) may ask, “Doctor, which foods should I eat?” My answer is “Healthy ones, of course.” Then, they of course follow up with “Any foods I should avoid?” to which I reply, “Certainly, avoid the unhealthy ones.”  So too in the MLS Fantasy game, we need to look for healthy player choices. There is usually a high amount of variance in most player’s scores from week-to-week. A few highly consistent players tend to be your must-haves; those select few make the small pool of potential fantasy captains. But the variance changes from player to player. We want players with consistent potential for very high scores, or as we say with “high ceilings,” and we want to avoid players who get low scores often–we say those players have “low floors.” Players can often have both a low floor and a high ceiling (also called Boom/Bust players). Our job is to help you determine how to identify players you can trust for consistent points.

Using Floors and Ceilings in Your Team Build

Any player who plays at least 60 minutes gets a foundation of 2 fantasy points, but beyond that, player performance determines the rest of the floor. The floor is built from usage, i.e. stats that accumulate and give bonus points like passes completed, shots taken, successful crosses, clearances, and “key plays” (sometimes referred to as “key passes”) which represent shot creating actions, goal creating actions, passes that would have been assists if the recipient had scored, etc. Higher usage players, well-correlated with how long they play and how often they touch the ball – especially in high leverage situations around the opponents’ box – have higher floors. Indeed, players who play on teams that like to possess the ball – i.e. Yehven Cheberko from the Columbus Crew and Paddy McNair from San Diego FC – have higher floors. Players located in the middle of the field – as opposed to wings – tend to be more invoved, dictating play, have higher floors. Certain factors erode players’ floors: the tendency to get yellow or red cards, defenders on teams that concede many goals, forwards on teams with difficulty advancing the ball, and players that frequently are substituted before the end of games.  Because teams playing away from home possess the ball less and play more conservatively, players on the road tend to have a lower floor.

The ceiling is built from the floor actions (commonly referred to as bonus points in FMLS), plus the addition for potential for goals and primary assists (together termed “goal contributions”) and the potential for clean sheets in defenders. Defenders with high involvement in attack–wingbacks and attacking fullbacks like Kai Wagner of Philadelphia may have very high ceilings. Players who take penalty kicks for their teams have higher ceilings. Set-piece taking i.e. free kicks and corner kicks, may contribute to both floor and ceiling because they can contribute to attacking bonuses and can directly result in goals and assists.

	High Floor	Low Floor
High Ceiling	-Midfielders with high goal contributions who shoot a lot, take PKs & SPs, active in attack -Forwards with high goal contributions, who shoot a lot, take PKs, lots of KPs  -Captains, MVP candidates These are Candidates for Captain	-Attackers who don’t generate many bonus points, but have high potential for goal contributions -Wingers and Many Wingbacks who are active in the attack These Players Go on Bench
Low Ceiling	– Centerbacks on higher possession teams  -Central defensive midfielders on higher possession teams Consider Centerbacks on high possession teams but not DMIDS	-Low-cost defenders -Players you are avoiding unless you have no choice -All goalkeepers Take because you have no choice.  Don’t spend a lot.

Nothing is guaranteed in life, and floor is still a relative promise that for any player is just one red card away from collapse. Achieving ceilings may be even dicier. For example, the ceiling for any defender or goalkeeper is largely dependent on whether his team keeps a clean sheet, an event that happens less often than not for the best defenses in the league. People who play the lottery may have a very high ceiling for their annual income; they just won’t often achieve it.

Keep in mind, a player’s ceiling status can be highly influenced by their team and matchup. A home match against a weak defense is likely to provide a player a higher ceiling than normal, where an away match vs a tougher defense likely lowers their ceiling. Also, if a player plays for a team with a weak attack, their ceiling may be lower than a player from a strong attack.

Floors and Ceilings in Game Week 6?

As you look to select players in Game Week 6 (and beyond), the question of whether the player you are considering will achieve their floors and ceilings should loom large.  

Examples of high floor, high ceiling players for Game Week 6:

Forwards: L. Messi (MIA, if starting), K. Yeboah (MIN), H. Cuypers (CHI), C. Benteke (DCU)

Midfielders: A. Dreyer (SDFC), A. Rusnak (SEA), H. Mukhtar (NSH) Evander (CIN), M. Ojeda (ORL), L. Acosta (DAL)

Defenders: K Wagner (PHI)

Examples of low floor, high ceiling players for Game Week 6

L Suarez (FWD, MIA), E. Latte Lath (FWD, ATL), D. Gazdag (MID, PHI….the epitome of boom/bust player), F. Bernadeschi (MID, TOR), T. Segovia (MID, MIA), J. Alba (DEF, MIA)

Again, if you like a player’s ceiling but not his floor, the bench is his home, because the bench gives you mechanisms to collect a ceiling result but avoid a floor one. See the Fantasy Strategy Clinic article from Game Week 4 if you need a refresher (or a primer!) on how those mechanisms work. The same logic drives clean-sheet hunters to put defenders dependent on those for returns on the bench.

Examples of high floor, low ceiling players for Game Week 6

G. Pec (FWD, LAG), C. Teuchert (FWD, STL), M. Hartel (MID, STL), P. McNair (DEF, SDFC), Y. Cheberko (DEF, CLB)

Finally, your specific game goals may dictate whether you emphasize floor or ceiling in a given week including this one. Players on either side of the bubble of qualifying for MLS Fantasy Champions League in this the final week of the first qualifying period may also take the conservative floor approach or ”risk-it-for-the-biscuit” with emphasis on ceiling if they are on the outside looking in. Either way, be sure to have fun!

 

---

The “Fantasy Physician” is Ron Birnbaum, @Half Century City on  Discord 

The “Fantasy Therapist” is Mike Leister, @Kenobi on  Discord