You Can't Win If You Don't Play (Many, Many Times)

[DOUGHBOYS]

I supervise our local softball program. One phenomena that has occurred over the years in our program is the elimination of the one team concept.
Years ago, players could play on one men's team. This made for great rivalries and an 'our guys are better than your guys' attitude.
Since then, with other activities and kids hooked by technology, the numbers in our program dwindled.
So, we let players play on any team they want.
This increased teams and put more money in our city's pockets.
Now, players hang around waiting to play on a team that is short of players.
In a sense, there are more teams, but the quality has nearly vanished.

The same has essentially happened to fantasy baseball.
Eric Heberlig enters several teams in 12 teamers and cashes in most of them.
Joe Berg and Chad Schroeder do the same.
In Main's this year, it is KC Cha.

All these players are wondeful fantasy players. Fantasy baseball is about being more right than wrong with baseball players.
These fellas were right and right on several teams.
They had splendid teams for a year.
Still, the barrage of teams bothers me. It shouldn't. But it does.
These players are playing well within the rules of entering every team they can.
Still, it is hard to give them as much credit as I would back in the older days when we could only enter one team in an Overall competition.
I can't help it, I'm old school.

Maybe it's jealousy.
It very well could be. I've never had a lot of teams at the top like these players and that must be a pretty cool feeling.
Maybe it's the money.
I sure as hell can't enter the events that these folks do. (But that's jealousy again )
Or maybe I'm missing the past.
I liked that we only had one team in an event.
It made for rivalries (my team finished higher than yours!)
It made everything even.
We all had one lotto ticket.
Now, if a fella is right in his players, he is right five, ten, fifteen times over.
Wonderful for the owner.
And while I'm impressed by the many top finishing teams , I find it hard to root for them as well.
Shame om me for that reckoning.
And it's really a shame that the softball program and fantasy baseball can only survive by accepting many from the few instead of one by the many.

[Bronx Yankees]

Dan - I understand the general sentiment, but don't we do the exact same thing in the Draft Champions contest? Each of us owns lots of teams - not as many as some to be sure, but certainly more than most. Consequently, we statistically have a better chance of winning the Draft Champions contest than folks who are limited to one entry. Perhaps this seems less egregious because: (a) the entry fees are much lower; (b) the prizes are much lower; (c) there are so many entries in the overall contest that owning 10-20 Draft Champions teams really guarantees you nothing in terms of winning any overall prize; and/or (d) our primary or exclusive motivation for owning many teams is our love of drafting as opposed to some strategy to maximize our chances of winning the overall prize. (Folks owning many teams in other contests may have the exact same motivations.) Thus, while I understand and actually agree to some extent with the sentiment, I think both of us are in a way guilty of the same thing, albeit on a smaller stage and scale.

Mike

[Edwards Kings]

All these players are wondeful fantasy players. Fantasy baseball is about being more right than wrong with baseball players.
These fellas were right and right on several teams.
They had splendid teams for a year.
Still, the barrage of teams bothers me. It shouldn't. But it does.
These players are playing well within the rules of entering every team they can.
Still, it is hard to give them as much credit as I would back in the older days when we could only enter one team in an Overall competition.
I can't help it, I'm old school.

I totally understand this post. And my aversion is not (nor do I think yours is) jealousy. I sucked when it was mano a mano and I suck now, so it is not jealousy. It is my problem, and in no way do I feel the players who have so many teams are doing anything wrong. It is their right under the rules and bless their old hearts for being so committed. I just do not enjoy it as much. In the old days I would look at the (large) number of guys finishing ahead of me and think "good job". Now I am thinking how much easier it is to hit a target with a shotgun than a pistol. And I know that is not fair to those guys, but I do have that feeling.

In the end, it may drive me out of the Main Event. I am not big wallet for the NFBC, but I may use the funds I do spend on individual, higher stakes league(s). Perhaps. I have not made my mind up but it is a conversation I have been having with the Boss. I would certainly miss the Main, especially the draft with all the people that I have come to enjoy seeing at least once a year, but I am not enjoying losing as much as I used to and I think it is because all the multiple entries has diminished my sense of being an unique/individual player going against other unique/individual players in a special event.

[DOUGHBOYS]

Dan - I understand the general sentiment, but don't we do the exact same thing in the Draft Champions contest? Each of us owns lots of teams - not as many as some to be sure, but certainly more than most. Consequently, we statistically have a better chance of winning the Draft Champions contest than folks who are limited to one entry. Perhaps this seems less egregious because: (a) the entry fees are much lower; (b) the prizes are much lower; (c) there are so many entries in the overall contest that owning 10-20 Draft Champions teams really guarantees you nothing in terms of winning any overall prize; and/or (d) our primary or exclusive motivation for owning many teams is our love of drafting as opposed to some strategy to maximize our chances of winning the overall prize. (Folks owning many teams in other contests may have the exact same motivations.) Thus, while I understand and actually agree to some extent with the sentiment, I think both of us are in a way guilty of the same thing, albeit on a smaller stage and scale.

Mike

Mike,
The huge difference is the way we approach the DC's and the Main Event and other large events.
I doubt that many enter DC's with their eye on winning an Overall prize.
We aspire to it, for sure. But this is not why most of us enter.
Most of the DC's I enter are for two reasons.
I'm hungry to draft or there are buddies who want to do a draft.
Equating DC's with the larger events is a fool's errand. DC's are done throughout the drafting season. Main Events and other teams are mostly done within a two week span at the end of the drafting season.
Players change little over two weeks.
During the six months of DC's, there are injuries, trades, signings, job changes, field changes, rumors, facts....everything imaginable.
Each bit of information changing and varying our opinions on many players.

If somebody finishes with three or four teams in the top 10 of DC's, I'll salute them.
Probably more than those with many Main Event teams.
As said, I'm not slapping those that enter many teams in the Main Event. It's their right.
I just thought that winning the Main Event when everybody had one entry was more special.

Edited for horrible sentence structure...more than once

[DOUGHBOYS]

All these players are wondeful fantasy players. Fantasy baseball is about being more right than wrong with baseball players.
These fellas were right and right on several teams.
They had splendid teams for a year.
Still, the barrage of teams bothers me. It shouldn't. But it does.
These players are playing well within the rules of entering every team they can.
Still, it is hard to give them as much credit as I would back in the older days when we could only enter one team in an Overall competition.
I can't help it, I'm old school.

I totally understand this post. And my aversion is not (nor do I think yours is) jealousy. I sucked when it was mano a mano and I suck now, so it is not jealousy. It is my problem, and in no way do I feel the players who have so many teams are doing anything wrong. It is their right under the rules and bless their old hearts for being so committed. I just do not enjoy it as much. In the old days I would look at the (large) number of guys finishing ahead of me and think "good job". Now I am thinking how much easier it is to hit a target with a shotgun than a pistol. And I know that is not fair to those guys, but I do have that feeling.

In the end, it may drive me out of the Main Event. I am not big wallet for the NFBC, but I may use the funds I do spend on individual, higher stakes league(s). Perhaps. I have not made my mind up but it is a conversation I have been having with the Boss. I would certainly miss the Main, especially the draft with all the people that I have come to enjoy seeing at least once a year, but I am not enjoying losing as much as I used to and I think it is because all the multiple entries has diminished my sense of being an unique/individual player going against other unique/individual players in a special event.

I'm having the same conversations with myself, Wayne.