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I want to start this post by saying I am not disparaging DFS and obviously the following points are simply my personal opinions based on what I have seen. I certainly am open to other opinions or having mine changed. Though I intend to support my opinions with logic or my observations. I have played season long roto baseball for a long time, starting in about 1991 and after quitting that league in around 2007ish, I got back into it with the NFBC last year and got reminded why I loved it so much.

I also dabble in DFS and have been profitable in it so my points are not going to be sour grapes from a frustrated DFS owner who is losing money. I guess my first point of frustration with DFS is not with DFS itself as much as the marketing strategy used by the major companies. "Why wait 4 months to win at fantasy baseball in boring, blah, agonizing season long leagues when you can play daily games and win money each day!" The way DFS disparages season long in their marketing efforts bothers me. It is just a pet peeve and in my opinion low level and unnecessary.

My broader point is about the nature of the game. Baseball is (in my opinion) the greatest sport we have. I know it is fading in popularity as our culture and society change. The attention span of the average American shrinks a little every day and it is hard for people who need constant and immediate stimulation to stay engaged with a baseball game. Baseball plays a 162 game season for a reason. There are so many baseball specific skills (getting ahead in count, hitting behind runner, hitting cut off man, etc) aside from pure talent that separate the teams that many games are required to truly identify the best. A single A minor league team could beat a top level MLB team on any given day or even in a short series. There are ebbs and flows, hot streaks and cold, injuries and emerging players that define the baseball season for every team. The very nature of the sport of baseball lends itself perfectly for season long fantasy. I am not saying there is no place for DFS. I am not even saying DFS isn't fun, because it can be. I just think season long fantasy is a better product when it comes to baseball. I do think DFS Is better suited for NFL where there are so few games and player performance is so connected to individual matchups.

My biggest pet peeve with DFS is how some people can enter a contest with a massive number of lineup variations almost guaranteeing that a number of their entries will be winners/chashers. That, to me, isn't sporting. There isn't much skill or strategy involved in that unless there is something I am missing (which I may be). The point of playing is putting together a team where you have to decide among players to fit under the salary cap. The nature of DFS is having to make those tough choices isn't it? If you play some variation of all the best value plays it kind of goes against the nature of the came where a player is challenged with making a tough decision between Trout and Harper or Alvarez or Lind. If you enter teams with numerous combinations of the best players where is the skill/challenge in that? For this reason I generally limit my DFS plays to single entry contests.

Just some random thoughts...

Wonder what the agenda is on this article out of the blue..........lol.

wow, I am surprised. No agenda. Just thoughts I had/have about DFS. I enjoy DFS. I actually doubled my money in three 50/50 games last night (thanks Buster Posey). This isn't sour grapes. This isn't an agenda based or fueled post. I just think season long roto matches up with the nature of MLB given the ebbs and flows of a baseball season and how players go through hot/cold streaks.

I also feel the essence of the DFS game is to make the difficult decisions as to which guys to invest in on your team among many attractive options. But when owners can flood the system with tons of entries with combinations of all the best obvious plays, are tough decisions really being made? To me (and I could be wrong and would be open to different perspectives) that removes the sporting nature of the game.

It is kind of like how i got turned off to MLB in the early/mid 90s when free agency exploded and the rich teams picked the rotting carcasses of smaller market teams en route to having a massive competitive advantage. To me, there isn't anything "sporting" about being able to assemble a dominant team when someone has more resources that have nothing to do with competition. Most/all good or great sporting competitions have rules in place to create a level playing field. My main turn off to DFS is that. I still enjoy it and play it. I am on a good run now of cashing 5 days in a row so I assure you there is no agenda!

I'm with you in enjoying the year-long games over the daily games. I've just dabbled in the daily games, and they have a certain rush, especially when you are on a win streak... But to me the many nuances of a yearlong game much more interesting and challenging. It makes the singular draft/auction in the year-long game more exhilarating because it happens just once and it's so important. It requires team mangemrnt skills, scouting skills and money mangemrnt skills throughout the year. And if you are into all those things like I am, the daily games don't really hold your interest all that long.

But to each his own. I'm glad there is something for everybody. And I believe DFG, with their surge in popularity, will spur some new interest in baseball in general. And there is certainly no harm in that.

Driver Love wrote:wow, I am surprised. No agenda. Just thoughts I had/have about DFS. I enjoy DFS. I actually doubled my money in three 50/50 games last night (thanks Buster Posey). This isn't sour grapes. This isn't an agenda based or fueled post. I just think season long roto matches up with the nature of MLB given the ebbs and flows of a baseball season and how players go through hot/cold streaks.

I also feel the essence of the DFS game is to make the difficult decisions as to which guys to invest in on your team among many attractive options. But when owners can flood the system with tons of entries with combinations of all the best obvious plays, are tough decisions really being made? To me (and I could be wrong and would be open to different perspectives) that removes the sporting nature of the game.

It is kind of like how i got turned off to MLB in the early/mid 90s when free agency exploded and the rich teams picked the rotting carcasses of smaller market teams en route to having a massive competitive advantage. To me, there isn't anything "sporting" about being able to assemble a dominant team when someone has more resources that have nothing to do with competition. Most/all good or great sporting competitions have rules in place to create a level playing field. My main turn off to DFS is that. I still enjoy it and play it. I am on a good run now of cashing 5 days in a row so I assure you there is no agenda!

I've been on a roll too. Started with the 50 bucks and built my account up pretty good so far. What's your username I'll play you?
The goal is winning with any contest. If I'm winning in DFS, and annually losing or not "placing" top 3 out of 15 teams in SLFS (season-long.....)...........how could I possibly like SLFS better? Perhaps, you win your SLFS league every year or place every year. I don't. Even though in SLFS I've done very well on FAAB pickups the last several years, done better in the draft; yet the injuries pile up year after year after year. More injuries than to most other teams I assure you.
I'm profiting in DFS and not in SLFS. Perhaps, it's just about finding what your good at. It doesn't mean DFS is better than SLFS. It doesn't mean SLFS is better than DFS. It's about winning.
For example, my goal with DFS right now......is to at the minimum win the amount I'm likely to lose in SLFS Main Event this year.
Perhaps, you win at both and therefore enjoy SLFS better?

There is certainly a place for both DFS and season long, and both require a lot of time to be good at them. In season long you obviously have draft preparation and FAAB amongst other things, but for daily, it can take as much time, day in and day out, just trying to come up with the perfect scenario in the way of proper match-ups. As was brought up in a previous post, if someone is doing well in 1 or the other, they will obviously want to focus their efforts more in that direction.

I have not had any success in season long in the NFBC and it seems to be for the same reasons year in and year out, which is a ridiculous amount of injuries. While its true than an injury can happen in DFS, it generally affects one contest, and you really have to be snake bit there, to be impacted by that injury. I mean you are only impacted if the injury happens during the game. Those injuries that are known pregame, clearly those players aren't being used in DFS.

I have had tremendous success in DFS and more and more am gravitating towards it. and while its true, that if you are doing well at something, its natural to want to do more of that or focus solely on that, the thing that gravitated me most towards DFS, is the drafting. For years, I always felt season long leagues, that the draft was the best part. It was our individual strategies, and hopefully some luck with draft position, or other owners bypassing players we wanted during that draft, but most everyone loves their team when they leave the draft, and then a few days later in to the season, reality sets in. In season long leagues, yes there is strategy, week after week, with setting your perfect line-up, and FAAB, but essentially its downhill after the draft. With DFS, you get to draft every day of the year if you choose to play. I don't see how that can be beat. That is the real thrill of DFS to me.

As for the thought that started this thread, I see numerous owners as well, with multiple teams, but although those owners have sporadic success, and I'm sure some more than others, I really don't care how many teams those people enter. I choose to only worry about the team I enter.

Right or wrong, I enter 1 line-up every time I play. No more, and no less, and enter that line-up in numerous contests, and sometimes numerous times within the same contest. If I win, I win, and generally big as a result, and if I lose I lose, and go back to the drawing board the next day.

Back when I first started DFS 3 years ago, I entered as many as 5 line-ups and generally found 1 would do well and 4 would lose, and as a result, I would end up with a net loss for the day which defeated the purpose. I really believe that most people with multiple line-ups, are in this same position, although I have no proof to back this up.

Still a little skeptical of DFS, however.... I had set up an account with fanduel after the Super Bowl and played a little NBA between the end of football and the beginning of baseball (the sports wasteland). Didn't do well, but not surprising because I don't know the NBA well. OK - so baseball starts. One of my two teams is finished already for the year. 3 of my top 4 pitchers are done. Wainwright, Ryu, Cain.

So.... I figure, let's give DFS baseball a shot. I go back to fanduel a few days back, set a lineup, and win. Same thing the next night. I lose yesterday. 2 wins out of 3 is profitable. If this continues maybe I'm on to something. Maybe not. Time will tell.

GetALife wrote:

Driver Love wrote:wow, I am surprised. No agenda. Just thoughts I had/have about DFS. I enjoy DFS. I actually doubled my money in three 50/50 games last night (thanks Buster Posey). This isn't sour grapes. This isn't an agenda based or fueled post. I just think season long roto matches up with the nature of MLB given the ebbs and flows of a baseball season and how players go through hot/cold streaks.

I also feel the essence of the DFS game is to make the difficult decisions as to which guys to invest in on your team among many attractive options. But when owners can flood the system with tons of entries with combinations of all the best obvious plays, are tough decisions really being made? To me (and I could be wrong and would be open to different perspectives) that removes the sporting nature of the game.

It is kind of like how i got turned off to MLB in the early/mid 90s when free agency exploded and the rich teams picked the rotting carcasses of smaller market teams en route to having a massive competitive advantage. To me, there isn't anything "sporting" about being able to assemble a dominant team when someone has more resources that have nothing to do with competition. Most/all good or great sporting competitions have rules in place to create a level playing field. My main turn off to DFS is that. I still enjoy it and play it. I am on a good run now of cashing 5 days in a row so I assure you there is no agenda!

I've been on a roll too. Started with the 50 bucks and built my account up pretty good so far. What's your username I'll play you?
The goal is winning with any contest. If I'm winning in DFS, and annually losing or not "placing" top 3 out of 15 teams in SLFS (season-long.....)...........how could I possibly like SLFS better? Perhaps, you win your SLFS league every year or place every year. I don't. Even though in SLFS I've done very well on FAAB pickups the last several years, done better in the draft; yet the injuries pile up year after year after year. More injuries than to most other teams I assure you.
I'm profiting in DFS and not in SLFS. Perhaps, it's just about finding what your good at. It doesn't mean DFS is better than SLFS. It doesn't mean SLFS is better than DFS. It's about winning.
For example, my goal with DFS right now......is to at the minimum win the amount I'm likely to lose in SLFS Main Event this year.
Perhaps, you win at both and therefore enjoy SLFS better?

I just saw this. Sorry I did not reply sooner. I am talking more about the nature of the contests and less about winning and losing. Obviously we all want to win our contests whether DFS or SLFS. I have had success in both. I have had failure in both. I was making a broader point about how the very nature of baseball requires 162 games to let the cream rise to the top. IT is a sport of ebbs and flows, hot streaks and cold streaks and thus makes it hard to predict in a day to day way. My bigger/biggest problem with DFS is how participants and avoid the very nature of the game (making the tough decisions to choose the right lineup after evaluating the player pool, salaries, match up, etc) and enter 50,150, 500, 700 entries ore more into the same contest and have countless lineup variations with the best player matchups and thus avoid the "making the tough decisions" part of what DFS (to me) should be. That is what turns me off to it. I assure you this topic will start to come up more and more as people start getting frustrated and start becoming enlightened to what they are up against in the major tournaments.

gsjanoff wrote:There is certainly a place for both DFS and season long, and both require a lot of time to be good at them. In season long you obviously have draft preparation and FAAB amongst other things, but for daily, it can take as much time, day in and day out, just trying to come up with the perfect scenario in the way of proper match-ups. As was brought up in a previous post, if someone is doing well in 1 or the other, they will obviously want to focus their efforts more in that direction.

I have not had any success in season long in the NFBC and it seems to be for the same reasons year in and year out, which is a ridiculous amount of injuries. While its true than an injury can happen in DFS, it generally affects one contest, and you really have to be snake bit there, to be impacted by that injury. I mean you are only impacted if the injury happens during the game. Those injuries that are known pregame, clearly those players aren't being used in DFS.

I have had tremendous success in DFS and more and more am gravitating towards it. and while its true, that if you are doing well at something, its natural to want to do more of that or focus solely on that, the thing that gravitated me most towards DFS, is the drafting. For years, I always felt season long leagues, that the draft was the best part. It was our individual strategies, and hopefully some luck with draft position, or other owners bypassing players we wanted during that draft, but most everyone loves their team when they leave the draft, and then a few days later in to the season, reality sets in. In season long leagues, yes there is strategy, week after week, with setting your perfect line-up, and FAAB, but essentially its downhill after the draft. With DFS, you get to draft every day of the year if you choose to play. I don't see how that can be beat. That is the real thrill of DFS to me.

As for the thought that started this thread, I see numerous owners as well, with multiple teams, but although those owners have sporadic success, and I'm sure some more than others, I really don't care how many teams those people enter. I choose to only worry about the team I enter.

Right or wrong, I enter 1 line-up every time I play. No more, and no less, and enter that line-up in numerous contests, and sometimes numerous times within the same contest. If I win, I win, and generally big as a result, and if I lose I lose, and go back to the drawing board the next day.

Back when I first started DFS 3 years ago, I entered as many as 5 line-ups and generally found 1 would do well and 4 would lose, and as a result, I would end up with a net loss for the day which defeated the purpose. I really believe that most people with multiple line-ups, are in this same position, although I have no proof to back this up.

You make lots of good points here. Especially the point about how the draft is the most fun you can have in a fantasy sports experience. Thus with DFS, you get to repeat it over and over. I get your point. I have no problem with someone who has 5 entires in a contest with 1000's of entries. It that some have 700 entries... and there are guys who work together pooling their entries to cover all the best matchup variations. It is tough for the average joe guy (that their advertising campaigns specifically speak to) to ever compete with that.. and most important to me is that it isn't sporting in any way.

I certainly get the frustration with multiple entries and I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way as that isn't my intent at all, but I think there are key things with multiple entries, which are not taken in to consideration.

Before I mention those, I should reiterate that I am against multiple entries and when I refer to multiple entries I am referring specifically to multiple line-ups, which I personally have done once in the past 3 years, and that was 2 weeks ago in the $25 NFBC contest when I simply couldn't decide on my pitcher. Beyond that, I am a single line-up guy. Originally way back when I started DFS, I did feel that multiple line-ups was a good idea, but most often, 1 did well and 4 others (never played more than 5) did poorly, and as a result, I ended up breaking even or with a net loss for the day.

Getting back to the multiple line-up people, I think that most of these people are like lottery players. I'm sure some are better than others, and without question I'm sure there are people that are gaming the system in some way, but I believe that these people with a ridiculous number of line-ups are really trying to get that 1 big score, more so by getting lucky with the right combination, than by true skill, and frankly, at least me as a player, would rather play against someone who knows little and is trying to get lucky, than someone who is skilled, as I do think that all fantasy baseball has an element of luck, but is mostly skill, and skilled players have much more success over the long haul.

I mean how many of us playing season long leagues, dominated our friends and family leagues for years before trying this tougher level of competition in the NFBC, and have successfully continued to dominate. I imagine there aren't many. I know I fall in to the group that had previously won all sorts of private leagues and have basically had my head handed to me on a silver platter in the NFBC.

As for DFS though, if you concern yourself with what you enter, and don't even worry about what other people are doing, and simply try to get your best line-up out there in whatever contest you are playing, I think you have as good a shot as anyone else. Maybe the math doesn't support that, but frankly each tournament only has 1 actual winner each night, and thus it only takes 1 line-up constructed the right way, using skill, and maybe a little bit of luck.

To say this can’t be done is simply false in my opinion. I can personally say I have won at least 10 of these contests using 1 line-up and placed well in many others over the past 3 seasons. Now I am avoiding those that are million dollar contests, as I think there are way too many entries in those, or the entry price is out of my desired range, so maybe that plays a factor in what you have brought up, but winning these tournament type contests can be done with 1 line-up.

And with multiple line-ups, you should also remember that getting the correct line-up and or combination for the day, can be a time consuming thing, and those with multiple line-ups can't possibly be using their time wisely in my opinion. I mean they are stretched way to thin coming up with all these combinations, which brings me back again more to the luck factor for those individuals.

I mean honestly speaking, if someone wins a bunch of money in a tournament by using Colby Lewis, Jeremy Hellickson, Wade Miley, Jeremy Guthrie, or any # of other pitchers one might consider weak, or any pitcher at Coors on a given day, so be it. I have no issue getting beat by that whatsoever, as in my opinion that is solely luck and I want to compete against that person as often as possible, and in as many contests as possible. Unless that individual happens to be the luckiest person on the planet, skill will win more often than not, again in my opinion.