After nearly two weeks of Hunter S. Thompson post-Super Bowl depression, the news of pitchers and catchers reporting fills my heart with a warm glow. Amid the sudden influx of information regarding who is in the best shape of his life, who added twenty pounds of muscle, and who has six fingers on each hand, I thought I'd focus on something a little more mundane -- the task of choosing a league to play in this year.
The number of game formats available to fantasy players has increased exponentially over the last twenty years. I'm not going to go into which leagues are best. Instead, I want to center in on something that often gets ignored -- the importance of league makeup.
Most baseball formats (as well as football and basketball) result in a few teams losing interest in the league by the end of August. That's true even in highly competitive leagues, where the participants often have multiple teams and begin to focus their limited resources on the winnable ones as the season goes on.
However, we've all been in leagues where the same teams are perenially at the bottom of the standings. This isn't good for anyone. Obviously the teams at the back of the standings aren't enjoying it, because in most instances they stop playing. But what they do when they are playing can be even more problematic. The teams with less interest often become something of a loose cannon that can impact the competitive teams in the league, either by laying down late in head-to-head leagues or by making silly trades just for the sake of doing something.
My solution is fairly simple: try to find a league where your competitors are very similar to you in terms of baseball knowledge and interest in the fantasy league. Think of it kind of like a salary cap. In most formats, effort and knowledge will get you a long way. You don't want to be in a league where a few teams are at a huge competitive advantage or disadvantage in this regard. There's nothing wrong with a league where the idea is to keep in touch with old buddies who aren't even big baseball fans -- just try to make sure that's how everyone views the league.
Once you've got your group together, then think about what format or rules you want to play under. Make sure those rules fit the knowledge and interest level of the group. Waiver periods can be a sticky issue. I've had a couple of leagues where waivers periods beginning in the middle night have presented problems when one team owner lives, for example, in Brussels and gets to his computer before everyone else. Try to head these issues off at the pass so everyone really does have an even playing field.
The other thing I want to stress is the importance of a villain. You might not realize it while you're pulling out your hair, but having a bad guy in your league does wonders for creating a competitive atmosphere (if that's what you want). I had one league where the winner maintains possession of a trophy every offseason. Our league champion called me up at work one day and said, "You write for a fantasy website, right?" I knew this was going nowhere good, but I answered that I did. "Look out the window," he said. I looked out the window of my office, into the next building. There, sitting on the window sill of a woman I'd never met in my life, was our league trophy. Click.
Among villains in my leagues, though, that's fairly mundane. I've dealt with various schemes to cheat that I've detailed in past articles, including the great Rotisserie cartel of 1985 and an outright effort to alter scores after the fact in order to take everyone's money. I've dealt with the annoying guy in a deep league who saw that my starting catcher got hurt, immediately picked up his backup, and then offered him to me in a trade a few minutes later. And the guy who has a better idea of what's good for your team than you do. All great villains.
So when you're thinking about the makeup of your league, try to come up with a villain who will spice things up. If you can't think of one, shoot me a response to this article. Maybe I can join your league. I'll annoy the heck out of you.