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SBI MLS Fantasy Corner

Landon Donovan 3 (ISIphotos.com)

                                                                                Photo by ISIphotos.com

By CASEY CANNON

Hello and Welcome to the Soccer by Ives Fantasy Corner – now with free shipping and handling!  Every week I dig through statistics, news, and rumors to provide the reader with the kind of fantasy advice that only a man who is going to produce his own pickles can provide.  I am writing this well before the official injury reports come out, so don't be grumpy if I tell you to pick a hurt player.  For information on MLS Fantasy Football go to http://fantasy.mlsnet.com/

Here are a couple of quick notes before the recommendations for the week.

  • The deadline is Wednesday (TODAY)!  Go make rough draft picks right now!!

  • If LeBron James played soccer, would he be the greatest forward ever?

  • The Fire managed to earn a draw against another 10-man team.  I wonder what Blanco gave the ref this time.

  • To the Crew Defenders and Staff: Watching the Chicago game tape, we see an unmarked Brain McBride score on header when the ball goes down the left side of the field.  Against Toronto we see Barrett score the tying goal unmarked after the ball comes in from the left side of the field. Please develop a plan to handle this devastating “left side of the field” strategy teams are implementing against you.

  • After Donovan hit that PK, did one of the other Galaxy players ask LD to give someone else a chance?

  • Speaking of the Galaxy, shocking news.  LA has the 6th-ranked defense in the league. Better than Chicago and New England.  Adjust mindsets accordingly.

  • Continued congratulations to “Celtic1888” 1st in the SBI league and 2nd overall. 100 points behind and 2nd in the SBI league is “champ chelsea” . Team “dcunited1996” won the week for SBI.

  • For those of you wondering, my team is “Duncan Can Score” now sitting 41st overall.

Now, onto this week's picks:

Team Picks

Take Three – LA Galaxy. LA plays two games this week, one against depleted RSL.  RSL isn’t a great defensive team under normal conditions. With RSL missing three starters, the Galaxy might, maybe, possibly be able to earn a point on the road. Consider the second game against Seattle a bonus.

Take Three – DC United.  United gets two winnable games this week.  In all honesty, any game against the Wizards is winnable, and then Toronto pays a visit to RFK.  Pontius, Moreno, Emilio?  Maybe throw in Crayton (11.5 points per game)?

Avoid – New England Revolution.  A team that has been awful against a team that has been mediocre (Chicago). Home field advantage says New England loses.  Further recent history implies a New England player earns a red card. With that in mind, here are our odds for New England player most likely to get the first ced card: Sharlie Joseph 2-1, Jeff Larentowicz 2-1, Jay Heaps 3-1, Steve Nicol 3-1, Matt Reis 4-1, Sainey Nyassi 5-1, Chris Albright 5-1,  Taylor Twellman 5-1, Steve “Classy” Ralson 50-1. 

Individual picks

Captain – Landon Donovan.  Shocker.  Half of the accounts have Landon on their teams.  Still he plays the full ninety every game and I expect him to make 39.9 points this week.   The game winning goal bonus was made for this guy.

Value – Chris Pontius. The value pick from last week had his price fall.  The United Midfielder plays two games this week and is 5th on the spreadsheet. For a dirt cheap $176,000 the spreadsheet says he will earn 31.89 points this week.

Overpriced – Alejandro Moreno. This Crew Forward is only making 3.83 points per game, yet he costs $483,000. He is the 100th field player on the spreadsheet, behind luminaries like Alan Gordon, Bojan Stepanovic and James Riley.

What player picks do you like this week? Who are you avoiding this week?

Share your thoughts on this week's Fantasy MLS action in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. Lebron’s physical talents would translate well into the NFL. He would be a one of a kind wide receiver in the NFL. He was recruited to play football by basically every top program in the nation until he announced he was only going to focus on basketball. With that said, I don’t know if his physical attributes would translate into soccer. Football and basketball require different skill sets. However, if his basketball skills were to translate into the pitch, it would be as a goalie. I remember watching an interview with Marcus Hahnemann and he said he thinks the success of American goalies is due to the fact as kids they grew up playing baseball and basketball too and those skills gave them good hand eye coordination. With his length and vertical leap, it is possible LeBron James would make a world class goalie, but it’s hard to say if he could be an effective forward.

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  2. About Crayton, I am trying to find the starting keeper now… not happy bout it. Hartman, or Zach if not dc I think.

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  3. Ives,

    I’m not one of those calling for Osario’s dismissal, but I do have to step in and defend those disgruntled fans. While you are absolutely correct that Osario led the Red Bulls to the MLS Cup Championship–and that’s something to be proud of–it’s also worth noting that that Red Bulls team posted only the 8th-best record in a 14-team league. If you combine last year’s 11-10-9 with this year’s 2-5-2, RBNY are only 13-15-11 under his watch. Should he be fired for this? No. But I also don’t think making the finals completely excuses a bottom-half finish to 2008 and a 2-5-2 start to 2009…firing him is premature, but the debate is completely fair, in my opinion.

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  4. I think one place the Galaxy have improved is defensively. But they are lacking at midfield and forward.

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  5. Denny: Jaime is likely to play a half against KC, if that. he’s not a two game a week 90 minute player anymore, with the depth that DC has now. I’d look to Santino as a decent option in midfield, he’s rounding into form and is likely to play 180 minutes this week.

    I don’t know why everyone doesn’t have PartyBoy on their roster, frankly, especially as his value doesn’t seem to increase much. he’s likely to play 180 this week as well, and nab at least an assist and a few SOG. for the price, you can’t do better.

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  6. “If LeBron played any other sport, he’d be as good as Michael Jordan was at baseball.”

    LeBron has no physical equal on the planet, he makes NFL players look slow for their size.. In highschool he was a WR and ran a 4.4 40… a 4.4 40 and hes 6’8″ 260 lbs, 44 inch vertical and huge soft hands.. its safe to say he could play basically any posistion in the NFL he wanted sans O-line. While I dont buy into the whole “if so and so played soccer then…” crap but LeBron is a one of a kinda athlete who is skillful enough that he was scoring 24 a game in the NBA at age 18. I dont think ppl that dont watch the NBA realize just how big of a freak he is, he is a freak amoungst freaks in the NBA

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  7. “If LeBron James played soccer, would he be the greatest forward ever?’

    No, because of so many hits to the ankles and heels, his career would end quicker than Marco Van Basten’s.

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  8. Conor Casey is definetely the highest value overall, but not for this week obviously since he isn’t playing. He costs about 248k I believe, and is second overall in scoring. Just FYI readers.

    I don’t see how Pontius doesn’t get Rookie of the year, and hopefully an all-star nod.

    Still bitter about the week that could have been, when MLSnet.com decided to botch my team and give me ZERO points for a week. I’d have 1000 plus points if it didn’t, but that’s why I suck at fantasy sports, because I have the worst luck ever.

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