Internet-capable phones and fantasy sports: A love story

This applies not just to injuries, but job security as well. If you know you are traditionally slow to the wire, you many have to bump the top tier, reliable closers up your sheet on draft day. You may also want to expand your pitching bench and hold more prospective closers.

Getting to the wire quickly is something that makes a difference in fantasy baseball, like it or not. So, if you’re not willing to rejigger the types of leagues you play in on that basis, the best thing you can do is try to hedge against your own weaknesses.

Self awareness is key. I discuss this in my upcoming article as well.

Derek, your comment on closers was something I planned on discussing in a future article as well. I’m interested to see what you have to say on the subject.

Andrew, agreed, FAABs are the fairest and the most fun.

I guess my main point in this article is that if racing to add players is not your thing, you can easily set league settings so that it is not part of your league, and you don’t put yourself at a pretty significant disadvantage from the outset.

Andrew,

While I’ve certainly felt resentful on occassions when I’ve lost out on a pick-up because I wa pre-occupied at work, I think it’s a little dismissive to imply that daily pick-up leagues “lose credibility.”

I think the judgment of what leagues have “credibility” is far more of an individual and subjective one. As long as there aren’t egregious inherent biases in the way the league itself is set up, I think the credibility is largely established by the internal composition of the league.

I remember a friend of mine telling me about this incredibly advanced sounding league he joined. It seemed cool, well thought out, and I presumed it would be competitive. Then he showed me the draft results and I was like, “what a bunch of morons.” Another acquiantance of mine put together this great league with all sorts of great features and extensive minor-league roster options, pay scales, etc. and the design proved too advanced for half of the league and it led to a handfull of teams just serially exploiting the others. Meanwhile, some of my most competitive and fun fantasy baseball experiences have been in yeoman 10-12 team mixed draft leagues with daily transactions.

I also think it’s a little shortsighted to reduce daily transactions to “rewarding the owner with the most free time.” People still have to make wise decisions; more chances to do something smart also means more chances to do something dumb.

And, to be a bit trite, in the age of blackberries, VPNs, and so forth (in addition to families, second jobs, etc.) many of us find our “free time” shrinking by the day. Multitasking, or figuring out how to keep actively involved in our hobbies, actually is something of a [life] skill.

...The day I consider, “well he’s a 20-year-old single college student” as a legit reason why I lost a fantasy league is the day hike my pants above my belly button while shooing kids off my lawn!