Fantasy Focus: Where the heck have I been?

This one’s a little bit different

This is going to ultimately be about Fantasy MLS, but I would like to tell a story first to explain why I’ve been absent for the last month.

At the beginning of August, movers packed up all of our stuff and started the process to send it halfway around the world. My family spent the following weeks traveling around the mid-Atlantic visiting family and friends, living out of suitcases, bidding farewell (for now) to our loved ones because we were moving to a new country. On August 30th, our flight took off, and on August 31st it landed in Seoul, South Korea.

I don’t often talk about myself in this space, but for those who do not know me personally, I was born in South Korea, adopted by Americans who were living in Seoul at the time, and then moved with them back to the US where I grew up. I’m half-Korean, and I have spent the last 15-ish years of my life absorbing as much Korean culture as I could – food, music, TV, language (only recently), you name it. I was lucky enough to come to Seoul for a week in 2019, but that ultimately would serve to be an appetizer for this, a three-year stay in the country of my birth. Now I get to live here with my family, and show our daughter where I came from, while learning quite a bit myself.

Watching MLS is going to actually be one of the easy things associated with this move, as long as the match starts after 5pm ET. I got to watch DCU’s draw with Colorado while having coffee and wishing I had done something else for two hours. Now the hiatus is over, and we’re back to regularly scheduled programming starting next week, though that programming has been amended to me writing Fantasy Focus on Tuesday morning in Seoul so you can read it on Tuesday morning in the US. Speaking of that, here’s a quick update on the league as it stands:

BL4CKnRED is still leading this thing by 159 points. With just five rounds left, 159 points not insurmountable, but it will be very hard to catch them. You see here that the second and third place teams shaved 20 and 36 points off the lead respectively. They’ll need a few consecutive weeks like that or better to reel in the leader.

Looking Ahead

NYC and Cincinnati play twice this round, and everyone else plays once. NYC is in a freefall, with one win from their last six games, so I would caution against loading up on too many of their players for the double-game week. Cincinnati midfielder Luciano Acosta ($12.8) and forward Brandon Vazquez ($10.5) are @ NYC and vs. San Jose, so they look good. Otherwise, look at Aljaz Ivacic (POR, $7.0) in goal vs. Minnesota, especially if Emmanuel Reynoso is out for the Loons, and David Romney (NSH, $8.9) in defense vs. the Galaxy. In the midfield, Adalberto Carrasquilla (HOU, $5.6) is a nice budget play vs. SKC, with two consecutive games with an assist, and at forward go with Julian Carranza (PHI, $10.7) vs. Orlando.