Here in my final column of the 2018 baseball season, I am coming back around to our base, which is fantasy league rules.
I will begin with the same general piece of advice I offer every fall, something which seems so basic, but in our busy lives – which in the fantasy world we now share with football – the best of intentions often do not translate into action.
This is the ideal time to document any rules-related issues that arose in your leagues during the season. Related emails can still easily be found and memories are not quite as foggy as they will be next spring.
Even if you do not plan to have league discussion and voting on potential rules changes until just prior to next season (why wait, though?), this is still the time to frame the problem, including gathering information on the relevant situations that help remind/illustrate to everyone why change is needed.
You can do this whether or not you are in charge of your leagues.
On many an occasion, I have approached my league commissioner with documentation on a potential problem area. When I do this, I also offer at least one, or ideally, a number of feasible solutions to the problem.
Further, I try to identify any possible objections to the change, even if I personally believe they lack merit. Once I have them, I do my best to counter them up front, before they are actually presented. Sometimes, I informally run my ideas by trusted friends to try to expose weaknesses I may not have considered.
In fact, one needs to remain open minded throughout the process. More than once, a seemingly-great idea of mine had a hidden fatal flaw exposed by a reviewer. If that happens and the issue is truly a show-stopper, one needs to be balanced and humble enough to accept that and back off, if that is the best course to take. Or at a minimum, develop a new or alternate route to the end objective.
To bring it all together, in many cases, I even provide to the commissioner the recommended wording changes to be voted upon by the league and later entered into the league constitution – if my recommendation is ultimately accepted.
My intent in doing this is two-fold.
One is that laying the situation out in as much detail as possible cuts down the possibility of misunderstandings or confusion about the problem and/or the potential solutions. This clarity, of course, increases the likelihood of passage by the voters.
My other objective is to make it as easy as possible for the league commissioners to take action on my request. I am not saying they are lazy, but they are busy like us, and perhaps they do not feel as passionate about this issue as I do.
I have found that the best way to get the ball rolling is to do as much of the work for the commissioner as I possibly can. Even if he wants to take credit for the suggestion, I am fine with that.
My primary objective – which should also be yours – is to get the rules change in place via the least painful and most direct route possible. If I feel passionately about the matter, then I should be willing to invest my time to ease its implementation.
With that, I sign off for the 2018 season, hoping you were successful in your leagues. Even if not, I encourage you to step back and analyze why not, then file that information away for use next year.
See you again in 2019 (or sooner if warranted)!
Brian Walton was the 2009 National League Tout Wars champion, scoring the most points in the league’s 19-year history. He also holds the all-time NL Tout single-season records for wins and saves. His work can also be found daily at TheCardinalNation.com. Follow Brian on Twitter.
