Why I love/hate fantasy sports

7 years ago, I played my first season of fantasy baseball.  I had a fairly solid draft, considering I had never played before.  Four weeks into the season, as people always do, players were dropped because of disappointing starts to the season.  One of these players was Rick Reed.  Reed, at the time considered a poor man's Greg Maddux, was a mainstay in my rotation for the entire year as he had a surprisingly effective year for the New York Mets.  The other player I picked up went on to set the major league baseball record for home runs in a single season.  This was enough for me to not only pull out the championship in my league, but I finished 10th in the world in Yahoo! Baseball.  At the time, I was 14 years old.

The point of that is not to let everyone know how awesome I was 7 years ago (though in fairness, I was pretty damn awesome).  The point of it is, fantasy sports is a crapshoot.  Yes, you can spend hours upon hours reading up on sleepers to try to keep your team competitive.  But as every fantasy pundit is aware, for every Tim Lincecum there is an Alex Gordon, or worse, a Mike Hampton.  I personally thought that Curtis Granderson and Justin Verlander were the ultimate sleepers this year, and a team that drafted nothing but Tigers would run away with the league in a landslide.  I think we all know how that worked out.

How many people across the United States drafted Tom Brady in the first round?  You know that they were pissed when he went out for the season.  Fortunately for them, that ditch is recoverable from with time, though it won't be easy.  With an entire season ahead of you, there's bound to be an emergence of Kyle Orton or a resurgence by Kurt Warner that can help you squeak into the playoffs.  What can be said, however, of the owner of a player (We can use Reggie Bush 2007 for example) who is reliable all year, until week 14 where he is put on the shelf for the season.  Do you take a gamble on the third string New Orleans running back, as Deuce McAllister is probably hurt by this point too?  Or do you just pray that the rest of your team can pick up the slack?  Too late, the guy you're playing just picked up the starting lineup of whoever is playing the Kansas City Chiefs.  Thanks for playing; I'll collect your entrance fee now.

Apparently people consider me somewhat knowledgeable about fantasy games, and since it's now 2:45 in the morning and I have a reading quiz in 6 hours, I know that there's not going to be a good opportunity for sleep in the near future.  So instead, I think I'll share with you some of my patented "Rules for fantasy sports success"

1)  You don't know anything.  If you look through the columnists on Yahoo!, you'll see a lot of recommendations.  Brad Evans, who recommends individual players, has about a 50% success rate for boom/bust potential.  Brandon Funston continuously remarks how poorly his draft went, and laments his 8th place standing.  These are people who get paid to analyze fantasy sports.  If they're struggling despite their expertise, what makes you think that you're a savant?  Read the opinions of other people, and if it makes sense to you, follow their recommendations.  If it doesn't, then make your own decisions.  You don't know more than them, but they don't know more than you.

2)  Stay active.  Statistically, 30-40% of all people who join a fantasy league grow bored with it by the fourth week.  This number jumps to about 60% if you're playing in a league that has daily changes.  This means your opponents will be littered with bye weeks and off days.  By staying active, you maintain the ability to win counting stats by accumulating sheer numbers.  And if you can't stay active...Then why did you sign up in the first place?

3)  Fantasy championships are not determined by who you draft in the first round.  Sure, you can get a slight edge by drafting Alex Rodriguez over Miguel Cabrera, but that's not what's going to tilt the scales at the end.  Rather, it was your ability to draft Tim Lincecum in round 12 or to be the first person to roll the dice on Cliff Lee. It's all about the value.  This also ties in with week 2.

4)  There is no number 4.  You can read pages of recommendations, analyze statistics, and make decisions based on matchups.  This can certainly prepare you, but nothing in the world can tell you that Brian Westbrook is going to sit down on the 1 yard line to run down the clock, or that Lance Berkman is going to finish championship week batting 3 for 28.  So relax.  Draft the players you like.  That way, if you succeed, it's so much more satisfying.  If you win, congratulations.  Everyone can look at your profile and be awestruck by the shiny internet trophy.  If you can't win, like Adam, there are other shiny internet trophies for correctly picking football games, and who's to say which is more significant?  If you're JB, then you probably don't have any trophies, but I'd like to give you a nice shiny smilie face sticker for the "most forced puns relating to T-Pain" award.

On a mostly unrelated topic, I know the general populace is clamoring to know my reaction to the Georgia/Vanderbilt game.  So since lists are trendy right now, I'll break it down in some bullet points.

• Vanderbilt came into Athens leading the SEC in sacks, and did not touch Stafford once.  I can only think of one time where he was significantly hurried, so kudos to the offensive line for seemingly improving.  This weekend against LSU will be a huge test, so I'm interested/scared to see how LSU treats them.
• Vanderbilt also averaged only 80 yards passing a game, and Mackenzi Adams surpassed that by 40 yards.  While I fully endorse making the Tigers beat Georgia through the pass, the vulnerability of Bryan Evans was disgusting.  Hopefully this will not be an issue in the future.  I have complete faith in our rush defense, good faith in Rashad Jones's ability to knock people out, and moderate faith in Asher Allen's ability to cover people.  I think this leaves a large hole on the deep right side of the field, and Vince Vance is probably a better option than Evans at this point.
• If Georgia could ever get a week that Matthew Stafford and Knowshon Moreno were on at the same time, I don't think anybody would be requesting a statement game anymore.
• Why does nobody else think that Shaun Chapas should get some reps at tight end?  He can  block and catch short passes.  Bruce Figgins hardly had any routes this past week, and gave up on them all despite being wide open, because everyone knew that Stafford was going to A.J., who was promptly double covered.   There's nothing wrong with spreading the field.
• The game as a whole was rather lackluster, and the performance spread to everybody's favorite Vanderbilt alumni (Quick, name one without cheating), Jay Cutler, who inspired this blog post with his 9 point outing, awarding me my first loss.  Fortunately, fellow alumni David Price did not seem to have the same problem in baseball, making J.D. Drew look foolish.
• And I'll wrap this up because I'm precipitously falling off topic:  Thank you, Pete Van Weiren, for your years of service as a Braves broadcaster.  Your retirement capped a year of disappointment for Braves fans, and I can only hope that your replacement is more competent than Chip Caray, the least talented of the Caray family.  Here's to the Braves rebuilding their announcing crew around the Boog, who is a baseball geek and not a stuffed shirt.