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Juggling Chainsaws and Fantasy Teams
By John Huss | July 7, 2008
Fantasy owners come in many shapes and sizes, from homers to statheads. However, I have yet to come across an owner who plays in only one league. It is pretty much like that potato chip slogan about how you can’t have just one. Some enthusiast gets so involved that they make fantasy games almost a second job. My attempt here is to discuss a strategy so that this hobby is never a job. I never want owners to feel like managing multiple teams is like juggling chainsaws…difficult and potentially harmful. Better yet, I would prefer the outcome to be one where it is a hobby with positive cash flow. In order for that to happen, there needs to be a clear strategy around how you manage your teams.
Going into any sports season, every owner will spend countless hours reading magazines and hitting the Internet to research players. They will pay for premium content from established experts. They will have pre-printed cheat sheets that they trust or they will formulate their own. Regardless of how you research, there will be a base of knowledge that goes with you into the draft. You’ll use this information to fill each teams roster.
Now in the real world, the old saying is "don’t put all your eggs in one basket". In that reality, it is true that diversification is a great means to reduce risk whether in business or investing. However, for fantasy sports, it has many pitfalls. It is via diversification that you may actually ruin your chances to win a league title. I bring this up now because many owners fall into the trap of drafting completely different teams for their many leagues.
Here are the reasons why that is problematic:
- You have more player names to follow
- You didn’t follow your research
- You find yourself torn on what player to cheer as your pitcher faces your hitter or your defense must stop your QB.
I know this is a piece for a fantasy college football site. However, since baseball season is in full swing, I will reference "America’s Game" often to outline this strategy. Also, to set expectations, I use sabremetrics to develop my baseball teams. I’m a big fan of Baseball Prospectus and the information they provide to readers. They are not a pure fantasy site, yet their information can be utilized for fantasy. In looking at their stats, you can use PECOTA to identify how players project for the upcoming season. If the numbers say that Alex Rodriguez is the best player in baseball, why would you not want the best player on your team? Also, I should set context that every league I’m in, regardless of sport, is an auction style league. Snake drafts do offer some hurdles to this strategy, although nothing that can’t be overcome by a good owner.
With that background, let’s tackle issue one. Time is a premium asset for all of us. We can’t make more time in the day than the 24 hours given to us. Many of us need to burn a number of those hours working at our respective jobs. Then there is family time or if you are single, finding that special someone that will embrace your fantasy habit (many, many definitions there). Speaking of that special someone, Sleep is another mistress that won’t stop visiting you every night. So when you boil it down, you have maybe an hour a day of effective time to devote to your fantasy rosters.
That time is maximized if you have consistent player names across your teams. In-season research can be cut drastically as you sort through information that applies across all your teams. As they say, work smarter, not harder. Otherwise, you set yourself up to miss important facts that have an impact to your players. Or how about injuries? Would you rather spend time finding a replacement for Albert Pujols on one team, Big Papi on another and Carlos Pena on a third? These are all players that play a similar position in baseball and all went down with injuries this year. Wouldn’t it be easier to find one replacement for Ortiz across all teams, especially since the FA pool likely will have similar names to it? Of course, if you drafted similar rosters, you may already have his replacement on your bench…in all three leagues. It is this type of time management that will give you the edge on your competition.
Now with issue two, this is a little more vague. Many fantasy experts will preach having players broken down into Tiers. Tier One are your uber-fantasy guys, Tier Two are the guys you’d be happy to have, Tier Three are guys that won’t hurt you and Tier Four means you should pack it up and look forward to next season. However, quantitative data assigns a "points" value to every player, creating a clear numerical difference between player 1 and player 2, let alone tier one and tier two. Combining those numbers with your roster construction, with how your competition operates and with the rules of the league can increase the odds of winning.
An example of this is Albert Pujols. My research and his quant numbers suggested he was one of the best players to target. However, he went into the season with injury concerns. I fully expected his salary to be below his talent. Across all my teams, I picked him up for about 20% less than normal. If it makes sense to have him on one team, why would I not want him on every team? Plus, with the money saved on salary, I was able to put together teams that could take the blow of losing him at some time in the season.
If your research identifies a specific sleeper for the season, why would you not want him on every team? This season, Edison Volquez was the guy I wanted. Most experts stated that he likely would get destroyed in Cinergy Field, a hitters paradise. Well, last I checked he was one of the league leaders in ERA with 10 wins. If the bet on this sleeper failed, then I would have moved on to find something else. One guy off the waiver wire to replace one bad guy. Better that then having 3 different sleepers, from 3 different positions and needing to replace 2 of them. Again, time is an understated resource to owners.
Lastly, we find ourselves on issue three. It is every fantasy owners nemesis - What do you do when you actually have to cheer against yourself? In one league, you need Tim Tebow to go all Heisman yet in the other league, you have the Seminoles D. While having the same players on all your teams doesn’t eliminate this, it will at least reduce the potential occurrences. Instead of having a different event like this each week (or possibly each day in baseball!), you will limit things which can be distracting to your championship run. Now you don’t have to admit which child is your favorite…you can love each one equally. Besides, let’s face it…at the end of the day, fantasy games are supposed to enhance your enjoyment of the real thing.
To wrap it up, I give you two words of wisdom. One team. Instead of three or four teams to manage, you have one because they are all very similar. You can better manage one team to put yourself in a position to win. It’s all about increasing your chances of success. Based on my 15 years in doing this, if you win in one league the odds are you are finishing well in all of them. If you lose in all leagues, so be it. You used your best ideas, relied on your best research and gave it your best shot. I know this strategy is radical. Unlike the real world, it’s my opinion that diversifying your fantasy teams increases your chances to fail.
Topics: College Football, John Huss, Owner's Playbook |
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