MLS Fantasy Lesson in March

By so many measures I've had a decent ESPN Fantasy Season to start 2011. I'm in the 88th percentile. That's good, sure. But I've also missed a few major items.

• Frank Yallop can't judge Defensive talent. Also read "I like Ike Opara better than his coach does." I have starter Opara in two weeks. He has 9 minutes played.
• Club v Country can hurt you. I had no Landon Donovan, no Jay Demerit, no Kei Kamara. This week troubled a lot of contestants with that balance. Pay attention to it.
• Back-up Keeper can be really good. You have two, use the match-ups. In my case Josh Saunders would have gotten me nearly 10 more points than Matt Pickens.
• Pay attention to the Double. If your bench has a guy roughly equal to a starter, and one ha a Double, play him.

Ten of our 201 contestants are in MENSA territory at the end of week two. That's 98th percentile or better. Commenter chrisso is the best S@H reader right now with 130 points. At the end of week one we had the #1 in the game.

Kasey Keller, Fredy Monter, Steve Zakuani and Jhon Kennedy Hurtado are the most common Sounders in the group. Defensive Mids are highly undervalued, so Osvaldo Alonso isn't as common.

That 88th percentile number is good for only 52nd in our group of 201. In the SBN Manager's group I'm 5th, Jeremiah is 6th. In the AmSocc Show group I'm good for 23rd.

Part of the reason that Sounders fans tend to be doing well now is that our team has played 3 matches while most of the league is at 2. Los Angeles Galaxy fans should be doing well, but they probably keep starting David Beckham...