It’s December and we’re one month closer to fantasy season! In this edition of Fantasy Central, we have underrated fantasy strategies for you. While some people have been playing fantasy gymnastics for years, others are new to the game and haven’t learned the ins and outs. Even the seasoned pros may learn something new. Whether you’re preparing your final drafts or starting to think about lineup and team management strategies, this has it all.
Have a System Going Into the Draft
If you’re participating in a live draft, think about your strategies beforehand. Consider crafting a spreadsheet containing data for returners as well as possible freshmen and injury returners. This can be as elaborate or bare boned as you’d like. Also consider adding conditional formatting to that spreadsheet to be able to easily spot top scorers. During the draft, be sure to keep track of your team so you can draft accordingly—you can even create a team template in advance to input your team into and have the relevant statistics populate for each event and metric you want to see.
Be Aware of the Overall Picture
Certain events are easier to fill than others. The depth of events nationally varies from year to year, and it’s important to be aware of how many options you may be able to fill your draft with. Some common trends in college gymnastics are three-event specialists that stop training bars once they get to college and vault dropping off score-wise quicker than an event like floor, meaning that there are often a plethora of good floor workers to choose from.
Create a Balanced Team
With a system to track your draft picks in place, use it to ensure your team is balanced across events. While top all-arounders are important, don’t overlook three-event specialists and other specialists as the draft progresses to create a well-rounded team with potential on every event.
Consider Consistency
As a fantasy manager, high scores are important, but it’s equally as important to have gymnasts who can consistently produce reliable scores. Great fantasy teams balance the two with ease. Having a foundation of consistent competitors who consistently score 9.850+ enables a little bit of risk taking to fill out the last couple lineup spots if the league format and team construction allows.
Don’t Tunnel Vision Your Draft
Focusing too hard on one aspect of your team will produce lopsided results. It can be easy to overload on 10.0 start value vaults to have the edge in potential scores. A 10.0 vault consistently done well is certainly an asset, but it’s easy to overlook other events in the process. Furthermore, a Chae Campbell-level Yurchenko full can be a stronger asset than a poorly executed Yurchenko one and a half. There are top all-arounders that only vault a full—don’t discount them! On the non-vault front, it’s also easy to focus too much on consistent beam workers, or go a little too hard on bars-only specialists to counter the vault/beam/floor specialists.
Know Who You Are…Or Aren’t Drafting With
If you’re drafting with a Gymlytics list in a random league, you don’t have a say in who you play with; however, you can still think about what other people may do with their list. You can’t plan for everything, but small tweaks could go a long way in a draft list. If you’re in a live draft, you may have an inkling of the tendencies of your draftmates. Furthermore, you can also pick up on if someone is drafting with a theme (like freshmen-only) and adjust your draft strategy if you want.
Don’t Forget Injury Returners
While those who competed most of last season will easily show up when perusing RoadToNationals, it can be tricky to remember those who missed time due to injury. Many of them could have been consistent contributors to their team in the past! Whether a gymnast missed the entire season to recover or has a low score because stopping a routine due to injury weighed their average down, these gymnasts could be underrated grabs, and, in some cases, even breakout stars.
Give the Smaller Programs Some Love
Everyone knows the top gymnasts are great, and the top teams produce high scores. However, at a certain point the depth catches up, and you may end up drafting someone who won’t see lineup time. Conversely, you can often find hidden gems on lower-ranked teams that will provide excellent scores and compete more consistently than Oklahoma’s No. 8 vaulter. Think gymnasts like Chloe Negrete, Karley McClain, Niya Randolph, and Noelle Adams. Freshmen on these teams often compete more too, and many put up good numbers doing so—especially rated recruits on smaller teams. A five-star recruit on one of those teams will be more valuable to her team than the same one would be on the Oklahomas of the world.
Consider the Team
What routines did the team graduate? Where are the gaps in lineups and who can fill them? This is an opportunity to think about underrated gymnasts. A smaller team with less depth may give someone who falls the week before lineup time, as smaller teams often have less top-end talent, while a top team could be more likely to pull her from the lineup after a tough week.
Be Aware of Schedules
Keep track of what teams are competing at home, as many teams will see higher scores on their home floor. Also keep an eye on which teams are on bye and which teams compete twice in a given week. Depending on your league settings, double scores will count either the highest of the two or average the two scores. Remember that Gymlytics weeks run from Friday to Thursday.
Set Lineups in Advance and Tweak Later
Gymlytics has a feature that allows users to import their previous lineups over to the following weeks. While trades may produce lineup openings, using the import lineups button will save time even if you end up tweaking your lineups, and prevents you from forgetting to at least set something before the 3 p.m. ET deadline each Friday. Set reminders for important milestones in the week if that’s your jam.
Stay Up to Date
Throughout the season, keep up with your team by following the individual team social media accounts, beat writers, and optionally the individual gymnasts to get lineup insights, team updates, and stay on top of injuries. Most teams consistently post meet preview links and meet updates on Twitter. Pay attention to which teams release information early; there’s often information hidden in teams’ meet previews and meet notes each week. If Virtius is used for the meet’s live scoring, it’s helpful to check the page before fantasy lineups close to see if any real lineups have been loaded, especially for the Friday meets! We’ll be running Fantasy Central each week for your weekly dose of fantasy-relevant news and tips, and our injury page and byes and doubles list are great fantasy resources.
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Article by Tara Graeve
