Fantasy snobbery and league legitimacy
by Derek AmbrosinoOctober 19, 2009
Derek Ambrosino aspires to one day, like Dan Quisenberry, find a delivery in his flaw, you can send him questions, comments, or suggestions at digglahhh AT yahoo DOT com.
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Fantasy snobbery and league legitimacyby Derek AmbrosinoOctober 19, 2009 Derek Ambrosino aspires to one day, like Dan Quisenberry, find a delivery in his flaw, you can send him questions, comments, or suggestions at digglahhh AT yahoo DOT com. Comments
Andrew said...
Good post, Derek. One thing I would like to mention regarding my comment to which you refer is that I don’t think FAAB is a much better way to acquire free agents just for the simple fact that it’s more ADVANCED than plain add/drops; rather, I think it’s a much better method because it’s more FAIR. After all, it doesn’t seem fair to me that owners should get punished because they can’t get on the Internet due to busier lifestyles. I think fairness should be of upmost importance in constructing the rules of a league. Any league that takes away any element of fairness in effect takes away a tad of credibility, at least to me. Hence, my comment. Posted 10/19 at 11:15 PM
Derek Carty said...
I have to agree with you, Derek, that the quality of the league members makes a league more competitive than setup. An intelligent owner *can* find the best way to build a team within the context of the rules, but a league with complex rules but without competent owners is not a competitive league, in my opinion. My home league adopted very complex rules last season with an auction, FAAB, a contract system for keepers, minor league system (with it’s own contract system), and all kinds of other little quirks. Terrific league in theory, but most of the owners didn’t seem to either be able to handle of the little rules or didn’t care enough to. Either way, it was doomed to fail. Posted 10/19 at 11:57 PM
ACB said...
I play in two leagues every year: a shallow mixed league with daily transactions and a quick snake draft, and a deep NL-only slow-auction keeper with FAAB. I really do think both have strengths and weaknesses and there are elements in both that I really enjoy. The shallow league is fun because it keeps me engaged (have to make quick transactions every day) and I truly get to build a “fantasy” team where the guys in every roster spot are pretty darn good players. The deep league (which I have had absoluely NO success in) forces me to consider things like budgeting and is way more conducive to creative trades. But I agree with Derek’s point that something like an injury can absolutely decimate the most well thought-out team in a deep league whereas there is always a chance for damage control in a shallow league. Posted 10/20 at 01:01 PM
KY said...
One thing on injuries. It must be noted that injuries happen to all teams. Only the higher degree or non degree non Chipper injuries happen above an average team counts towards the point swing. A lot of injury results balance out across teams. On the ideal league, I’ve always felt a good purpose was to emulate what you would like MLB to be like. Fantasy involves drafting yearly so its not very fun to do the long term contract thing for most people, but most leagues seeks to get rid of the inequity that makes MLB frustrating for small markets. And they have to address the fact that a firesale is not punished for years and years as it is in MLB. It only punished for the second half of a season you already won. There are no lost ticket sales and what cheap players you did give away can often be replenished quickly, where as MLB teams often wait years to replenish compromised farm systems. Posted 10/20 at 01:44 PM
Derek Ambrosino said...
Andrew, Granted, I did not think you preferred free agent budget systems simply because they are more advanced. I think it can also be argued that first come, first serve is not necessarily “unfair.” One could view the waiver wire situation as a market, and the market activity as a trend that one can analyze and find inequalities in. Being quick to react may not be a “skill” per se, but it is a characteristic that is valuable in many contexts outside fantasy baseball. And, we’re all busy, but at the end of the day, it comes down to how badly you want to win the race to the wire. I recall one closely contested season, down the season of which three of us got into a competitive battle of setting our alarm clocks to get first crack at spot starters. Oh, Joe’s getting up a 5:45 now, huh. We’ll, I’ma set my alarm for 5:30. I remember other stories about wanting to sleep at a friends house after a long night of drinking, but forcing myself to go home because I knew he’d lock his computer and I didn’t have his log in info, so there’d be no way I could beat him to the wire in the morning if I didn’t go home. These are fond memories for me; maybe that’s a bit disturbing. Brian, My home, oldest league, is run by a friend of mine who happens to be a lawyer, so everything is pretty smooth. We operate on keeper cycles, in which we up the keepers yearly to a crescendo, and wipe the slate clean, and re-start a new cycle beginning from a fresh re-draft. We also up the ante every year. We’re all friends and the league is an institution of our group (and the bane of our significant others’ existences - but it’s a bonding opportunity for them, I say). The problem is that over the years, though everybody is competent, there has developed a pretty clear A and B division, so while all the league owners are always down (and committed by written contract to play out each cycle - if one wants to leave, he has to find an owner who will take his team as currently constructed, like a transfer), we have begun to have minor issues about entry fees. The historically better performers always want the stakes to be higher, and the others want the stakes to be lower. Posted 10/22 at 08:25 PM
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One thing that I like about leagues with different categories to the standard 5x5 scoring is that it requires players to actually go out and do some actual research, as opposed to stashing a few websites in their favourites tab come draft day and going off that.
A friend and I designed a 7x7 league in an attempt to more accurately represent real life value with the following categories.
OBP, R, RBI, HR, XBH, Net SB, K/BB
QS, Net SV, K, K/BB, HLD, ERA, WHIP
These aren’t perfect but they represent real life value better then 5x5 in our opinion