You're bound to lose points if you forget to replace a player who's injured. Similarly, missing payments or letting credit card balances grow to out-of-control proportions can hurt your score.

Winning strategy: "The factor that has the most impact on your credit score is if you made all of your payments on time," says Sweet.

Batting second in the lineup is utilization. "Utilization is how much you owe compared to how much you could owe. The logic for that is the consumers who charge to the maximum are consistently those who show up as higher risk," says Sweet. She recommends trying to keep your accounts below 30 percent utilization. So if you have a $1,000 credit limit, stay below a $300 balance.

"One of the things to understand about scoring is that the importance of any single piece of information is going to vary according to the other information in your credit report," says Paperno. For example, the impact of a late payment can be more detrimental for someone who has a short credit history or limited credit experience as opposed to someone who has used credit for years.