This is part 2 of 3 in the “Finding Value” series where I look at finding pieces for the right combination of players to maximize your points while navigating the budget constraints. Today we’re looking for value at midfield. Here’s a look back at the forwards.

I ran a regression that looked to see what PP90 a player with a given price is expected to get (e.g a player priced at 10.0 should get about 6.31 PP90). The column labeled “PP90 above predicted” is the important one for these purposes. The larger the number, the more undervalued the player is and anything less than zero indicates the player is priced too high.

If a cell is highlighted in green, it is within the top 25% for all players across all three positions for that category. Players that are highlighted for each of the three categories are the ones that should draw our attention the most as they not only produce well, but they outperform what should be expected at their pricing too.

Midfield Analysis

Father Time himself and @JayMSLFI ‘s boyfriend, Javier Morales, is the best value at midfield. I’m not a fan of RSL’s schedule the first couple weeks, and someday his age will catch up to him. Right behind him is Marco Pappa who has gone from Seattle to Colorado. I think that signals a massive drop off for him – and really any attacking player unlucky enough to play for Pablo Mastroeni. Mauro Diaz is the man for me and my week 1 captain.

Coming in at number 7 and priced at 7 is Will Trapp, who has steadily been rising in my consciousness the last couple days. I think he’s great value and will potentially grab him in a couple weeks when the schedule is more favorable for Columbus.

An interesting point of interest is that this analysis shows Kaka to be overvalued pretty significantly. This is one of those instances where the eyeball test and the data just don’t match up and I think he’s likely to outperform compared to last year.

Conclusion:

There’s value at midfield in several different price tiers and it makes sense to grab players from a couple tiers so you can go big on the forwards.

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