Standings
Posted: Thu May 14, 2015 8:52 am
Baseball fans have it easy. All they have to do is follow their team. How closely, is up to them.
They can attend one game or every game.
They can be reminded of how their team is doing by the press or friends or they can follow every move they make.
The compass for these fans are the baseball standings.
Baseball standings are easy. Wins and losses. That's it. No more, no less.
A team can win by twelve runs and lose another by one and they're still at one win, one loss.
Standings are easy.
It is just the opposite for us, the fantasy player.
We have 11 different standings going on each day.
Multiply that by 10 different teams and we are keeping track of over 100 sets of standings a day.
Our standings are not cut and dry like a baseball team.
If our hitters have a .368/12/4/14/2 for a day, but our pitchers have a 9.00/0/3/0/2.300 line for the day, do we give ourselves a win or a loss?
There is nothing concrete in our standings till the final day. Baseball 'Standings' comes from fans wanting to know how their team 'stands'.
Their standings never misleading.
Ours, are maniacal.
Last night, Kyle Lobstein laid an egg for my teams. When a pitcher lays an egg in fantasy baseball, it makes us dread looking at the standings the following day.
I looked at the standings in one league and saw that I had actually gained a point. My two Closers both saving a game, my offense played relatively well.
This may SOUND good.
It's not.
My pitching in that league was already so bad, that Lobstein's performance reminded me that there were no teams to lose points to with WHIP or ERA.
He made it tougher to climb out of E.R.A. and WHIP Hell, but the standings simply do not reflect that in gains/losses.
If I was stupid enough to feel giddy about my one point gain for the day, all I'd have to do is look at the overall standings to bring me down to earth. The overall standings are the '11th standings' in our leagues. If doing super well, they may be the first standings looked at.
Personally, I don't look at the overall's till Memorial Day.
I figure that it takes two months to build our 'base standings'.
Looking at the Overall's before then would only give false hopes or make a tough start look more daunting.
I feel that Memorial Day stats give us a glimpse in the foundation we have and what we need to do in the future to make our teams better.
Standings are a funny thing in fantasy baseball.
The optimist will stare at stolen bases. Seeing his team name on top of the heap gives him a yummy feeling inside.
The pessimist looks at the bottom of WHIP, remembering every bad pitching performance to lead him to such a grave site.
We react differently in each of these categories as well. A team leading in homers may look for even more power on faab to put more distance between his team and competitors. Another in the same position, may look to help out other categories, thinking that at least for now, power is not a problem.
Real baseball teams have it easy in this way. If a real team is not hitting, but their pitching carries them to victory almost every day, their fans are happy.
These teams don't have to get both hitting and pitching right to win.
We have to get both right to win.
Same way with Managers.
As Managers of our own teams, we go through a Hell that a real Manager never experiences.
A real Manager will set a lineup of nine players.
He will NEVER, EVER know what those bench players would have done if they were in the lineup.
They never have to face the self-scrutiny of whether he should have started one player over another.
Not us.
We can bench Josh Harrison because he is a cold hitter. Like any real Manager would.
The problem being that we KNOW Harrison hit a home run. We know he stole a base in the same game.
And, he does it on Monday, as if laughing at us, telling us that he has three more days to accumulate stats that we will never see.
It's almost unfair.
When a fan looks at baseball standings, he knows where to look. If his team is doing well, he looks at the top.
Not so well, he looks near the bottom.
Sometimes we don't know where to look.
Early in the season, our teams can zoom up and down the standings.
Grandal having eight rbi, Harper hitting three homers, or Collmentor giving up nine runs has a large effect in daily standings.
This is where I feel we have it better than real teams.
Real teams can win by a 15-0 score, and it's still just a win.
If our team scores 15 runs and has a 0 E.R.A., we can't wait to look at the standings the next day.
We know it's temporary. All standings are temporary till the last day.
But it sure feels good.
They can attend one game or every game.
They can be reminded of how their team is doing by the press or friends or they can follow every move they make.
The compass for these fans are the baseball standings.
Baseball standings are easy. Wins and losses. That's it. No more, no less.
A team can win by twelve runs and lose another by one and they're still at one win, one loss.
Standings are easy.
It is just the opposite for us, the fantasy player.
We have 11 different standings going on each day.
Multiply that by 10 different teams and we are keeping track of over 100 sets of standings a day.
Our standings are not cut and dry like a baseball team.
If our hitters have a .368/12/4/14/2 for a day, but our pitchers have a 9.00/0/3/0/2.300 line for the day, do we give ourselves a win or a loss?
There is nothing concrete in our standings till the final day. Baseball 'Standings' comes from fans wanting to know how their team 'stands'.
Their standings never misleading.
Ours, are maniacal.
Last night, Kyle Lobstein laid an egg for my teams. When a pitcher lays an egg in fantasy baseball, it makes us dread looking at the standings the following day.
I looked at the standings in one league and saw that I had actually gained a point. My two Closers both saving a game, my offense played relatively well.
This may SOUND good.
It's not.
My pitching in that league was already so bad, that Lobstein's performance reminded me that there were no teams to lose points to with WHIP or ERA.
He made it tougher to climb out of E.R.A. and WHIP Hell, but the standings simply do not reflect that in gains/losses.
If I was stupid enough to feel giddy about my one point gain for the day, all I'd have to do is look at the overall standings to bring me down to earth. The overall standings are the '11th standings' in our leagues. If doing super well, they may be the first standings looked at.
Personally, I don't look at the overall's till Memorial Day.
I figure that it takes two months to build our 'base standings'.
Looking at the Overall's before then would only give false hopes or make a tough start look more daunting.
I feel that Memorial Day stats give us a glimpse in the foundation we have and what we need to do in the future to make our teams better.
Standings are a funny thing in fantasy baseball.
The optimist will stare at stolen bases. Seeing his team name on top of the heap gives him a yummy feeling inside.
The pessimist looks at the bottom of WHIP, remembering every bad pitching performance to lead him to such a grave site.
We react differently in each of these categories as well. A team leading in homers may look for even more power on faab to put more distance between his team and competitors. Another in the same position, may look to help out other categories, thinking that at least for now, power is not a problem.
Real baseball teams have it easy in this way. If a real team is not hitting, but their pitching carries them to victory almost every day, their fans are happy.
These teams don't have to get both hitting and pitching right to win.
We have to get both right to win.
Same way with Managers.
As Managers of our own teams, we go through a Hell that a real Manager never experiences.
A real Manager will set a lineup of nine players.
He will NEVER, EVER know what those bench players would have done if they were in the lineup.
They never have to face the self-scrutiny of whether he should have started one player over another.
Not us.
We can bench Josh Harrison because he is a cold hitter. Like any real Manager would.
The problem being that we KNOW Harrison hit a home run. We know he stole a base in the same game.
And, he does it on Monday, as if laughing at us, telling us that he has three more days to accumulate stats that we will never see.
It's almost unfair.
When a fan looks at baseball standings, he knows where to look. If his team is doing well, he looks at the top.
Not so well, he looks near the bottom.
Sometimes we don't know where to look.
Early in the season, our teams can zoom up and down the standings.
Grandal having eight rbi, Harper hitting three homers, or Collmentor giving up nine runs has a large effect in daily standings.
This is where I feel we have it better than real teams.
Real teams can win by a 15-0 score, and it's still just a win.
If our team scores 15 runs and has a 0 E.R.A., we can't wait to look at the standings the next day.
We know it's temporary. All standings are temporary till the last day.
But it sure feels good.
