We're now a few weeks into the season and I'm already a bit aggravated with a few of my leagues. Not because of who I drafted or who did/didn't get off of waivers... no. I'm aggravated because of something I have much less control over: the settings, rules and construct of my leagues. A few weeks ago on a number of forums, I posed a question searching for a site where my 'ideal leagues settings' might be available.
Now, I very much understand that 'ideal leagues settings' is my own opinion, however understanding my audience and the various types of fantasy baseball players in existence, I'm talking about ideal league settings for the diehard fantasy baseball player. What do I mean by diehard?
If you don't fit into this mold, the remainder of this article may not necessarily apply to you. Though, if you'd like to become this type of diehard (totally worth it), I suggest you give this article a chance. Circling back to my take on 'ideal league settings', I feel there are some settings that are mandatory for a diehard fantasy baseball league.
Now, it doesn't seem that unfathomable that this specific set of settings would be tough to find in a league, but it simply doesn't exist. I've searched far and wide and I've only come across a few platforms that feature some of these settings, but not all. I've had to settle and play on sites where the best available settings are, however it's a compromise for sure. Here are the best sites I play on that feature some of the settings that I believe are ideal: Yahoo Pro Leagues: Yahoo offers fantasy baseball "Pro Leagues" which are pay to play leagues that return cash prizes. They have been around for a while but took a brief hiatus last year while yahoo was seemingly performing maintenance on its platform. They don't offer everything, but they are fairly close to a complete list. The Good:
The Bad:
Overall: Yahoo Pro Leagues are good but not great. I've played in them for a number of years now and won a few times, however it's tougher than it should be. If the rosters were deeper and people were forced to know a larger segment of the player pool, the more knowledgeable fantasy owner would have a greater advantage, as they should. NFBC Online Championships: The National Fantasy Baseball Championship (NFBC) is arguably the most competitive season long fantasy baseball league in existence. They offer a number of league formats, but I would consider all of them high-stakes with their lowest entry fee starting at $125, while its highest starts at an amazing $15,000. They also offer a number of various formats and just about any fantasy baseball diehard that is willing to make a reasonable investment can find a league here. The Good:
The Bad:
Overall: NFBC leagues right now are the best high stakes leagues out there. The best players play there and you really can't find better competition anywhere. All of "the bad" points above however are pretty big drawbacks for me. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen a pitcher on my bench put up a good outing, but I just couldn't have him in my lineup because of the weekly move lock. I’d say overall NFBC leagues are very good, but I’m still in search of something great. Alternatives - Custom leagues: While Yahoo and NFBC leagues are both good options, they don't meet all of my "must haves" to be a perfect platform. One other option is to create your own league. I'm the commissioner of a league that's been around for about 10 years and it meet's just about all of the requirements I mention at the beginning of this article. We have very little turnover and even less complaints. It's essentially a well-oiled machine. Even with everything configured exactly how the league feels it should be, there are still a few drawbacks. Because it's a friendly "home" league, the entry fee is modest and winning the league doesn't pay a ton, nor are there real industry accolades. While it is fun, winning just doesn't feel the same as if someone was to win on a larger more competitive platform. I love my home league, but I’d love a similar large scale industry hosted league more. Is there still hope? I do believe there is hope. There is one platform out there that I believe can come to the plate, put something together and have overwhelming success. ESPN does a very good job with its fantasy leagues. They are easily customized and the user interface and mobile app are close to, if not best in class. They don't have a huge market in the pay-to-play world however. Previously they offerd not so good prize eligible leagues, but these were discontinued. If they were to put a solid effort into mirroring something similar to Yahoo Pro leagues with expanded rosters, a FAAB system and a few other tweaks, I believe they could lead the industry in prize eligible season long fantasy baseball. They already have a tremendous following and with a little bit of smart marketing, this could be huge. If a project like this could be proposed now and worked on for the start of next season, it could really succeed. Maybe I'm wrong in assuming this is a type of league that most diehard fantasy baseball players would want; however this is an overwhelming consensus of feedback I've received through my site and social media outlets. Now I ask you: what set of rules would make your perfect league?
11 Comments
Brian W .
4/23/2016 08:34:32 pm
I agree for the most part. Yahoo Pro lgs are to shallow for me. I struggle with Yahoos shallow lgs. I have 25+ years playing fantasy sports and I decided to start my own my High Stakes fantasy leagues about 8 yrs ago. I run 10 leagues all from $150-$750 per entry fee . Payouts are 100% ! My rosters are 30 deep ( C 1B 2B SS 3B - CI -MI - 5 OF - 9 P -2 UTIL - 7 Bench - 5 DL - 3 NA -so as much as 38 players on a team. YAHOO DAILY / TODAY transactions . I have over 100 guys who play in my leagues BUT the only thing is all my leagues are H2H . I feel H2H keeps all teams into it all season. 12 man H2H 6 playoff teams at least 8-9 teams have striking distance of the last playoff spot with 2 weeks to go were in Roto 7 teams will stop trying By June.
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Jason
4/23/2016 08:50:03 pm
Thanks for the reply Brian. Sounds like you have a good thing going. You had me up until H2H, but i understand why you and many like that format. There are benefits, there's no doubt... but at the end of the day, the guaranteed winning for the best team in roto will always win out for me.
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Gary
4/24/2016 06:55:23 am
I couldn't disagree more when it comes to the H2H vs Roto. H2H represents the grind of baseball just as well as roto. That it ends with a painfully small sample size matchup to determine the champ is actually more like real baseball, not less. The idea that roto guarantees that the best team won is also flawed. The best team can always succumb to the randomness of injuries, or the randomness of who they start in their season. You can play your matchups perfectly all year and still get screwed. Pocket aces get busted on the poker table everyday. To highlight this point, all of the roto leagues I have played have gone right to the last day, some have been decided by the outcome of one final at bat on the last day of the season. I saw a team win because he started Curtis Granderson instead of Carlos Gonzales on the last day of the season. He won because of 180 or so days of decisions that led to a final choice and a bit of luck. But he also had the best luck over that180 days of the season. You cannot remove the luck from baseball and because of that you will never remove it from fantasy. Anyone who complains that H2H is lesser because the eventual winners somehow haven't earned it are spewing nothing more than sour grapes and misunderstanding. H2H is a system, just like Roto, and both have positives and negatives, but neither one is inherently superior.
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Jason
4/24/2016 07:41:08 am
Gary, first I want to say thanks for the reply. It is very well thought out and you make a ton of great points.
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Ignatius
4/24/2016 07:13:21 am
100% agree with the author in regards to H2H < Roto. H2H is fine for 'play' leagues, less serious types born out of Fantasy Football. No sour grapes or misunderstanding, but roto rewards a full season of work and H2H just adds randomness for no reason.
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Jason
4/24/2016 07:45:07 am
Thanks for the comment Ignatius,
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Michael Robinson
4/24/2016 07:50:09 am
Excellent article. Rather new at fantasy (since 2011), so this is good info.
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Jason
4/24/2016 07:53:27 am
Sounds good. Couldn't hurt to at least have the conversation. Send me a direct message on twitter @y2trips
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BRIAN W
4/24/2016 10:33:25 am
Great write up by Gary !
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Great Bambino
4/7/2017 09:09:05 pm
I agree for most part. had an especially hard time finding a league this season. NFBC is just too expensive & yahoo standard settings inevitably turn into a streaming fest. even if you wanted to chance playing randoms in private cash league most of those use the standard settings or worse.
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Great Bambino
4/7/2017 09:15:00 pm
I recently posted a similar list of gripes on reddit/findaleague
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