Flow Fantasy releases point system for 2020 PLL Fantasy Lacrosse

Since launching the first automated, online fantasy lacrosse platform, Flow Fantasy Inc. has been working hard to create a comprehensive points system for its upcoming PLL fantasy lacrosse challenge. While the process has taken a lot of time an energy, the team is confident in the scoring metrics they’ve established.

“Grant and I have run more than 100 simulations using box scores from the 2019 PLL season. By inputting different fantasy point values into the simulation, we were able to test numerous different point systems,” Chief Marketing Officer Spencer Meyers said. “In the early stages of working with the simulations, we consistently found that offensive players were outscoring defensive players. Solving that issue became the priority moving forward.”

With very little data to consider from past fantasy lacrosse challenges, the duo considered the point values of other fantasy sports platforms when developing their own fantasy lacrosse scoring system. However, they also recognized the various nuances that are specific to the sport of lacrosse.

“Through the process of creating the scoring system, we mostly looked at fantasy football and fantasy basketball. However, lacrosse is unique in the sense that lacrosse has the goalie and faceoff position, so most of our efforts did not concern these point systems,” Meyers said.

For the Flow Fantasy team, their biggest challenge was developing a scoring system that weighted the various positions evenly. Their first series of simulations resulted in offensive players being vastly more valuable than defensive players, so they adjusted the point value of the certain statistics like caused turnovers.

“Our main priority in creating this scoring system was ensuring the parity in scoring among all positions, Meyers explained. “In other words, we wanted to make certain that certain positions wouldn’t be able to consistently outscore others, which is a common occurrence in most fantasy platforms for other sports.”

The other challenge was deciding how many teams a league could have, considering there are only seven PLL teams and theoretically one starter at goalie and faceoff for each team. So Schwartz and Meyers came up with the idea to provide two league options: one for seven teams or less and one for more than seven. To do this, they based the scoring for goalies and faceoff specialists on save percentage and faceoff percentage, then utilized the same scoring metrics for both. As a result, leagues with eight or more teams can now have the option to play a faceoff player or goalie in their flex slot. One minor difference between faceoffs and other positions however is that groundballs earned immediately following a faceoff will not earn a point.

The team is confident that their fantasy lacrosse points system levels the playing field between positions and allows participants more autonomy when deciding whether to draft an offensive, defensive or specialized position first in their draft. Yet, when asked if they value a certain position more than others, they did offer some advice.

“I think that the FOGO position will be key for managers of fantasy lacrosse teams,” Meyers said. “Since FOGOs have the ability to gain points not only through winning faceoffs, but also by scoring goals, assists, etc., drafting a good FOGO will be crucial.”

What do you think of Flow Fantasy’s scoring system? Who do you plan to draft first in your league based on the point values? Let us know and be sure to sign up and invite your friends to play at flowfantasy.com.

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