Partners in Phantasy

Back in 2007, I recall being in an epic fantasy football league with some of my colleagues who attended Dillard University with me. Each week critical moves had to be made. I got into the playoffs and eventually won the league. During this campagin, I often talked to my boy Victor about the league, especially when it came to available players.  It was very interesting because I would pick someone up that morning and we'd talk about the same player later that evening.  The next season he played his first fantasy league and he would call me about new players before I would even begin looking for them.  Even though he hasn't won a league yet, he's usually in the top three and the reason being is he has an uncanny talent of finding good fantasy players in free agency.  It doesn't even matter if its football or baseball, he can find you a low key player who's going to produce for your team. He's not so good in basketball but between the two fantasy baseball teams I have, one of which I co-manage with Victor, he has found most of these surprise pick ups that has benefited both of my teams.

It's an interesting thought when you manage a team with another, you go check out your lineup and there's a couple of new guys on your team that your partner picked up without you knowing. Usually it's either "who the eff us this dude?" or "Why did he drop that player for this player? I logged onto the team one day I saw Lonnie Chisenhall on the squad and it was the first thought that came to mind. I knew Victor was big on batting average and at the time Chisenhall was batting around .351. As usual, I didn't refute the pick up and to my pleasant surprise Chisenhall is now batting .393 with 32 RBIs. Even though he only has 7 homers, that batting average and those RBIs have come through for my squad in a major way. I had to scoop him up in my other league because he usually gets hits on a consistent basis which helps the squad tremendously. A few days ago he went 5 for 5 with 9 RBIs and 3 homers.

This past weekend I was setting up the lineup and I noticed we had a guy named Dallas Keuchel on the bench and that he was starting. I didn't know who this dude was, but we definitely needed a W in the wins stat category, so I put him in. He wasn't sexy to me at all, but when I looked him up I realized that he only had one loss in May, which also was his last start. He got us a win and naturally I was excited then I noticed something very interesting. Keuchel and my ace Max Scherzer both have 8 wins. Scherzer has more strikeouts, but Keuchel has a better ERA, which usually kills the team when it comes to stat categories, so I can definitely appreciate him as a great pick up. Even though he plays for the Astros, he gets wins.

We got this guy named Kolten Wong who is probably one of my favorite pick ups. A couple of weeks ago I saw him on SportsCenter and about an hour later I get text from Victor saying, "I just saw Kolten Wong steal second..." Of course I was like who the eff is Kolten Wong? He replies "Kolten Wong of the Cardinals got 2 steals."  A couple of days later I went to check the lineup and Wong was on the squad. He now has 8 steals, even though he was out for a few games last week. Another stat category that has been killing us is steals, and now Wong has the second most steals on the team. Other than the steals he's not too sexy, but I think he'll get a lot better as the season progresses.

These three guys were probably available in most leagues this past weekend, but they're probably not available now because players like Victor has already scooped them up.

Football Dominates

It's the beginning of June... Well, its early-mid June... And while some of us are still deep in battle with fantasy baseball, it's almost hard not to notice that fantasy football is right around the corner. I couldn't help but to notice that Matt Berry and the crew from ESPN has already come out with fantasy football rankings and has even aired a fantasy football special. This was the last week in May and it made me think about how much love fantasy football gets while fantasy basketball and baseball are kind of left on the back burners.

I first noticed it when the fantasy football season was over and I started playing fantasy basketball. Due to my own negligence, I had drafted two fantasy basketball teams but I didn't really pay them too much attention to them until after the fantasy football season was over. Once I did turn my full attention to fantasy basketball, I noticed how there wasn't a flood of information on things like who to pick up, who's hot, and projections. If there was something about fantasy basketball, it consisted mostly of game recaps. Most of my strategy for fantasy basketball was based on stats, game results and keeping an eye on injuries. I ended up coming in second in one league and winning the other league.

Fantasy baseball wasn't too much different, but it did get a little more attention than fantasy basketball. There was a little more talk online about fantasy baseball than fantasy basketball, but not as much as fantasy football. My strategy in fantasy baseball has been similar to my strategy in fantasy basketball as far as just keeping up with stats and trends.

Even though baseball pioneered fantasy sports, football gets the most fantasy attention. I believe it has to do with the frequencies of the game. In football you have one game a week which allows fantasy experts more time to do more research and come up with projections and predictions. In baseball and basketball, they game is played everyday. There isn't much time for projections and predictions when the next game is tomorrow. This also affects the fantasy player. In football you have all week to set your lineup up. If there is something you don't like, someone gets injured, or you find out someone is not playing you have ample time to make an adjustment. If this happens in fantasy basketball or baseball, you have a minimum amount of time to tweak your lineup. In fantasy baseball and basketball, you have to be on it, consistently monitoring your team for last minute updates. You have to set your lineup everyday as opposed to every week like in fantasy football. You can't skip a day of not checking on your team without it having an impact on your team. I did myself just today by not benching Yasiel Puig. This discourages people from playing fantasy basketball and baseball because they may feel like it's too much maintenence, even though I know most of these players over manage their fantasy football teams. What I mean is they check their team about four times a day. Therefore, with less people playing fantasy basketball and baseball, there isn't a need of an influx of resources for these games.

Over the next few weeks, fantasy football is going to get bigger and bigger. They'll talk about it on social media, there will be draft parties, you'll get advertisements in your e-mail inbox, they'll even talk about it on SportsCenter. Even though fantasy baseball is still in season, you'll notice how much more attention fantasy football gets over fantasy baseball. When it all boils down to it, it's easier to watch 17 football games than it is to watch 82 basketball games or 162 baseball games.