I play in some pretty deep leagues, some of which are keeper contests where the number of players frozen makes for some interesting machinations.
The Dynasty football league in which I play allows for a 40-man roster, whereby at the end of each season we can drop five or more players and then draft among the throwaways and NFL draft picks with hopes of rebuilding.
What becomes interesting in such a league, despite weekly waivers, is how much dreck can accumulate on one’s bench with so many spots open. Names like Joe Williams and Carlos Henderson benignly sit on my team roster, waiting for an opening of a player so they can be dropped.
In baseball, I play I the very tight XFL, which is mixed but allows up to 15 freezes. And any American or National League only setup — keeper or not — is tough because of the tight player pool.
But the Mid West Strat-O-Matic league, which allows for 27 keepers in addition to five uncarded names (a player who missed the previous season due to injury or returns to the minors for a year, as examples) is the toughest. A sim league that plays out as head-to-head, though utilizing the previous season’s statistic, the Mid West League also has very strict usage rules allowing for the previous season’s innings or at-bats plus 20 percent.
That means rookie pitcher Jordan Montgomery is available in this coming February’s draft as a rookie, and the team selecting the Yankees hurler, who tossed 155 innings last year for the Pinstripes, gets 31 extra frames for a total of 186 innings to the drafting team.
Now, in the Mid West League, which includes 30-teams playing out the Major League schedule, there is an annual cry for balance, noting the teams at the bottom of the standings tend to stay there, while the top teams remain among the cream.
Much of this disparity is blamed upon the number of keepers we are allowed, while some point to the usage rules which are separate issues but somehow inexorably linked in the minds of the league members.
The league, which was set up specifically as a long-term keeper set-up (there are no salaries, and one can retain a player in perpetuity) as a result always has cries to reduce the number of freezes from 27, allowing for a greater spectrum of players, experience, and skill sets open when we draft in anticipation of spring training.
Additionally, there is not only the usual coveting of the top five draft selections each year, with owners seeming to forget or dismiss the value of the draft pool once the top 20 or so picks have been selected.
As a result, teams trade (to or from) star players hoping for a top draft selection trying it seems as a rule to rebuild — a necessary process in such a league every few years — via trade, growing impatient with the less glossy picks after Cody Bellinger and Rafael Devers.
Finally, compounding the whole process, if a team needs, say, a starting pitcher like Jordan Montgomery and has a high draft pick, rather than facing reality and drafting Montgomery and quietly building with steady everyday at-bats and innings, players will draft a Bellinger even when they have Jose Abreu, somehow hoping the confluence depth and maybe a little good fortune will turn either first sacker into Zack Greinke.
But in such a league, after a year like last, no self-respecting Greinke owner would swap unless he either had a major surplus, which is unlikely. Or there was a replacement arm as part of the deal and related fallout.
As it is, this year, after a couple of years of that rebuilding, I have a deep and perhaps the most potentially competitive team ever. In addition, I have a pair of first-round draft picks, thanks to some 2017 trades, so I have been offering my pair (#19 and #28) of first rounders for another owners high selection and #2 pick, at least as a starting point.
Additionally, I have tried to sweeten the deal a bit, offering up Luis Perdomo and his 163 innings (which translate to 195 for MidWest League purposes), and it is worse than no one is interested, but rather teams seem insulted.
So, for example, the team with the #3 pick, who has a great team of hitters but needs at least two hurlers with the number of innings Perdomo has. But, instead of thinking of Perdomo as a potentially valuable contributor in such a deep league, along with recognizing that there are then a pair of first-round picks meaning the one #3 selection suddenly turns into three spots that could be used to fill out and compete, probably not in 2018, but probably in 2019.
And, if you are shaking your head regarding the skills of Perdomo, remember that with strict usage rules, as players are benched and replaced with bench fodder as the season progresses, guys like Perdomo suddenly become aces.
But, somehow dealing with adjusting to the shallow league and roster depth turns into cries of inequality when the end results show the teams who get the depth rules being among the leaders, and the rest of the league trailing, wondering, and often whining about things like usage and roster depth.
I guess the moral is to remember that in a deep league, as I have said, if I can start nine Eduardo Escobars against your five Buster Poseys and four variations of Jordan Pacheco, I will beat you almost every time.
It is just reality.
Remember to tune into the Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY network, hosted by me, with Justin Mason and featuring Lord Z every Thursday night at 9 PM ET.
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