Yes, We Want to Hear About Your Teams

This is the first of a series of articles about managing my various fantasy baseball teams, but I don’t want this to be all about me. I’d like for it to evolve into a place where your leagues are discussed too. (By “yours” I mean not only general readers, but industry professionals and personalities. Hell, maybe even ball players. I’m not exactly sure how that will work, yet, but I am confident that if the interest is there, we will figure it out.)

So, how will the specifics of my leagues help you win yours? We’ll discuss them in a way that yields generalities transcending all leagues.

When I pitched this idea to the powers that be, I was trying to stand out from what I thought might be quite a few writers wanting to get their foot in the door by doing straight analysis. I was more than a little pleased (and surprised) to hear from Todd Zola that he liked the idea and was willing to give it a shot. It sounds like we both believe that this could be entertaining, and, in the process, we might also stumble upon a different kind of analysis.

The impetus came from fantasy baseball podcasts. I listen to a lot of them. If you’re talking about fantasy baseball, I’m listening. There’s a familiar refrain once the season starts: When a host or a guest mentions something relevant to the current discussion but specific to one of his or her teams or leagues, it always seems to be cut short by a self-conscious laugh and an abrupt transition with something like, “But no one wants to hear about my team.”

Every time I hear that, I think, “Yeah, I do.” I looked online for articles by industry professionals about their teams, leagues and the moves made within them as they try to navigate the season and win their leagues. There are a ton of articles about what the industry is thinking and doing right now in terms of valuation, ranking, and drafting, but nothing like “I traded ($1) Mitch Haniger for ($9) Joey Gallo and ($1) Mike Moustakas in my keeper auction league. I finished in the middle of the pack in home runs last year and I have Alex Bregman, Christian Yelich, Nick Castellanos and Corey Seager to help absorb the batting average hit I’m going to take.”

When we add some more context to an anecdote like that readers (or listeners) can extrapolate something from it relevant to their teams. In order to add that context, we can’t just dismiss it with “But no one wants to hear about my league.”

Guys like me (man, I hope I’m not the only one) listen to and read industry professionals in the winter months to hear how they plan to build their teams: what they value and what they fade. We listen to them build teams in real and mock drafts. We follow along as they live tweet NFBC, Tout Wars and TGFBI picks (again, please let there be others).

We ask questions about our specific teams (most of the time we don’t give nearly enough information to answer them). We look for help with analysis and strategy… and, yes, entertainment. Why wouldn’t we want to hear about the moves made in season to try to win those leagues? If we can glean something from live tweeting picks in industry leagues to help us in our own drafts, how can we not do the same when we’re told what they’re doing to improve each week?

I’ve thought about possible reasons we don’t hear more of this kind of discussion, and I’ve come up with two. One is maybe talking about this stuff might come off as arrogance, like people will think they’re bragging. They don’t want to come across as gloating about a trade that it seems they “won” or how they were in on Juan Soto last year before anyone else and got him for a $1 FAAB bid. I can understand how that might be an issue. But, and I might be wrong here, none of those guys are fleecing other players in those leagues in any trades. Sometimes there’s a reason for letting someone go for less than market value when doing so fulfills a need and doesn’t hurt elsewhere (which is precisely the kind of thing guys like me want to hear).

The other possibility is, I think, probably less of a problem, but I’ll throw it out there anyway: Let’s face it — there is a lot of money on the line in these leagues. If other players in these league(s) are listening, for example, to discussions about who they’re thinking of offering in a trade to which league mate and why, they might gain an advantage. I can also understand how that might be an issue. But if you’re an industry professional and you’ve read this far, I’m confident we can figure out a way to make it less of an issue.

So, let me tell you about my home league. It’s the league I’ve been in the longest, and it’s also the most fun. The league was started by 12 teachers in the school system in which I used to teach high school English. Someone left the league, and they asked me if I’d be interested in taking the team. I jumped at the chance.

It’s a 12-team auction keeper league (7×7) with a $260 budget ($100 buy-in). The categories are Average, Runs, RBI, Home Runs, Stolen Bases, Total Bases, and OBP on the hitting side. For pitching, we use ERA, WHIP, Saves, Holds, Strikeouts, Wins and Quality Starts.

We only added OBP and Quality Starts last year. They were supposed to replace Average and Wins, but at the last minute there was a motion to keep them and go 7×7, and it passed. I wasn’t happy at the time, but I soon realized more categories meant I could get away with punting a category or two, which is how I ended up winning the league last year.

When I joined about 13 years ago, it was AL-only with a twist: you could draft one NL hitter. A couple years after that we voted to add an NL pitcher. Then about five years ago we voted to go full mixed league. There are no contracts and there is no salary escalation. If you draft a player for a buck, he’s a buck for as long as you own him. Teams are 23 players — two catcher, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, five OF, U, and nine P (we don’t differentiate between SP and RP). Pitching staff has to have a minimum of 1,000 innings.

I love the fact that the league is competitive and there always seems to be five or six teams in September that have a shot to win it. I believe the best part of any league that a player stays in for a long time is the camaraderie among the league mates and the friendships built with them. Throw in a fair amount of trash talking and that’s my league.

No league is perfect, though. There are some things I’ve been trying for years to change. We can keep up to 18 players. Personally, I think that’s too many. We’ve had some turnover through the years, and keeping so many players makes it difficult for a new player who inherited a bad team to become competitive quickly.

I don’t like the fact that we don’t draft any reserves or bench spots. Every team gets 26 players and that’s it. We can only go to the waiver wire if one of our players lands in the IL or is sent to the minors, and when that player returns we have to dump him or the player who replaced him. For example, let’s say I had Kris Bryant (OF/3B) and Todd Frazier (3B) last year. I had Bryant in an OF spot when he went on the IL. I picked up Juan Soto to replace him. While Bryant is out, Soto is playing out of his mind and Frazier is, well, Todd Frazier. When Bryant returns, I have to drop him or Soto. I can’t keep Soto, drop Frazier, and move Bryant to 3B.

Finally, my least favorite thing about the league is our rule about in-season trades. They have to be position for position. I can’t trade Max Scherzer for Mookie Betts. It has to be Scherzer and an outfielder for Betts and a pitcher. The old heads in the league believe allowing trades where the positions don’t match up would deplete the “talent” on the waiver wire too much. I’ve tried to get the rule changed for years and always get voted down.

I’ll wrap things up by showing you the teams I started and ended with along with their auction values. Then we will see what the response to this piece is and where next week takes us.

I wasn’t very happy coming out of the draft, but after some in season wheeling and dealing and some luck on the waiver wire, things turned out pretty well.

Left the draft with (drafted):                          

Finished the year with: