For those of you who have ignored the cryptic threads with MFLS or RevMFLS in the title, here's the explanation: MFLS is a fantasy soccer league (like rotisserie baseball, but for soccer), long-running and honed to perfection (and run by people who just like doing it, not some corporate conglomerate trying to get ad-clicks). It's easy to play: you pick a team's worth of players, and get points based on how well they do. You get to switch around your lineup every week. There are some other rules, but not very many. It's fun! Not only is it fun in itself, but it gets you more interested in the league and the games and the players. Even a tedious mid-season Columbus/Dallas game becomes fascinating if you've got Brek Shea and Eddie Gaven in your fantasy lineup that week. And when the Revs actually win, and you have Revs players in your lineup, there's this amazing surge of moral superiority. It's also free, and it won't sign you up for any spam. (You can make a small donation towards the expense of running the thing, if you want, but you don't have to.) Anyway, to sign up, go to MFLS.com and follow the signup instructions. There's no "draft", like in some fantasy leagues (players can appear in multiple fantasy-teams' lineups), so you haven't missed anything, and as long as you get your team picked before the first game of the season, you're good to go. And if you want to compare your fortunes to other Revs supporters, then when it asks to choose a "division", pick "RevMFLS", and give it the password "WWSND" (as in What Would Stevie Nicol Do?, five letters, all caps, no question mark). And then watch for messages here with RevMFLS in the title, which will no longer be mysterious to you...
Only 35 teams in RevMFLS division so far. Plenty of room for more! We had 52 last year, where are you?
We've had a surge leading up to First Kick, and now stand at 52 teams (not including the 3 that defected to other divisions). Two of them moved to the Soccer By Ives division. Do us proud, guys! It's not too late to join! Yes, you are too late to play week 1, but you can still create a team and join the division for the rest of the season (missing one week is easy to overcome). Nearly half (24 of 52) of the current teams did not play in our division last year. We are the 2nd largest division in MFLS, with Soccer By Ives a distant first (498).
My stats machine won't really spin up in earnest until we have some results, obviously, but now that week 1 rosters are up, I can measure each RevMFLS team's roster centricity, which is the sum of the RevMFLS starting-lineup-counts for the players in that team's starting lineup. Ralston's Tall Shadow leads by a wide margin, with their 12 players representing 205 total lineup-appearances. At the other end of the spectrum, NK Kicker Conspiracy FC's 12 players represent only 52 appearances, with 31 of those coming from 1 player. 8 of Kicker Conspiracy's players appear in no other RevMFLS lineup. For perspective, Merrimack Attack has 5 unique players, 2 other teams have 4 and 2 have 3, leaving 46 of 52 teams with 2 or fewer unique players.
The 8 is his transfer fee. It explains it in the rules. It ranges from 0 to 100. The most popular players have a 100 fee.
And on the subject of transfer fees, the earliest meaningful stat for a fantasy team is its initial total transfer value, since that's indirectly your budget for making changes. Planning kudos to Pip United, RevSolutions FC and King Zlatan IV for totals >1400. 29 teams have 1000 or more. At the other end, NK Kicker Conspiracy FC has a woeful total of 439. If Ted's guesses are good, he's a genius. If they're bad, he's screwed.
Thanks, I should probably read the rules at some point. Probably would have been useful when picking my players. Oh well.
The TF (Transfer Fee) is probably the toughest part of this game. While the salary remains the same throughout the year, the TF can change, based on the number of other MFLS teams that have that player on their roster. If a player gets injured (for example) and teams start dropping him, his TF will plummet. Likewise, an unknown player scores a hat trick and everyone jumps on the bandwagon and picks him up, his TF will go up. When you transfer a player (drop and add) from your roster, the TF of the outgoing player must be great than or equal to the TF of the player you are adding. If not, the difference will come out of your slush fund. If your slush fund can't cover it, then it comes out of your salary cap (and you can never get it back, so you are pretty much screwed). The important thing is to make your first move a positive one (TF of the player you drop higher than the player you add). The difference (gain) gets added to your slush fund (which starts at 0). Building your slush fund gives you flexibility for future moves. Example A: Drop Brian McBride (175/100) Add Zach Schilawski (80/4) This move would net 95 towards your salary cap, and 96 into your slush fund. A good move (financially, anyway). Example B: Drop Kosuke Kimura (90/1) Add James Riley (110/62) This move would take 20 away from the salary cap, and 61 out of your slush fund. If you didn't have the cap space, you couldn't do it. If you didn't have at least 61 in your slush fund, the difference would come out of your salary cap (again, a bad move).
Is there any suggest for a late addition? I attempted to log into the site but it says it's down due to heavy traffic... and I'm a big fan of fantasy with sports I watch casually or not. Gives me something to root for if things are not going the home teams way.
The advantage to starting late is that you can see all the TFs (they aren't available until the season starts). So, you can stack your lineup with 100 TFs for future moves.
After a delay due to boxscore availability, the week 1 results are now posted on www.MFLS.com. We have 54 players in our division (more than last year!), and there are still a few former members who have created teams but haven't joined a division yet. Congrats to Revs in 2010 and 4 Star Cannonball, co-leaders after week 1 with 46 points.
Yeah Baby! It's all downhill for the cannonball from here. Nice to be at least tied for first place for a week.