It’s June. The lure of fantasy football is calling you, the Siren’s song floating through your ear canal whispering — PPR… Are you still all in with your fantasy baseball season, or has your mind started to drift to other topics?
SEASON LONG FANTASY BASEBALL
I return to the question that I posted recently in another article, What is Wrong With Fantasy Baseball? What can we do to return fantasy baseball to its former glory? It’s something I ask myself all the time. In this milieu, I would sum up the concern thusly; your current level of interest in your fantasy squads is almost certainly related to how your teams are performing, right? If you’re in the top quarter of the league, you’re paying a lot of attention right now. If your team is in the bottom quarter of the league, are you really playing close attention? Come on, be honest. You’re in five leagues, and in three of those leagues things just haven’t worked out so your teams are in the bottom half of the league. In your other two spots, your teams are crushing it. You only have so much time in your life, so you find yourself on a weekly basis devoting more and more of your attention to your top-2 leagues.
First off, I get it.
Secondly, it stinks. Why? Because you’re competing against the rest of the league. If you short circuit the process by stopping to give your all, you’re artificially tipping the balance of the league by giving free points to folks in your league. Whether you’re at the top of the league, or the bottom, you should be giving it your all… to the finish line.
Off my soapbox now.
THE DFS GAME
Maybe your full season squad stinks. Injuries have crushed you, and every waiver-wire move you make just doesn’t seem to be working. We’ve all been there. So, maybe you’re starting to drift to the Daily Game. You don’t want to give up on fantasy baseball, you love it too much, but you’re also a realist and it’s just not happening in the season long format. This position is one that many take, and it’s totally reasonable and acceptable. That said, have you just given up on your season long team, half assing the management of it, or are you still plugging away as your turn the majority of your attention to the DFS game?
#FightTilTheEnd
THE RANKINGS HAVE BEEN UPDATED.
FANTASY FOOTBALL
I like fantasy football.
Folks think I don’t, but I do.
I prefer fantasy baseball, but that doesn’t mean I dislike fantasy football.
That said, for me personally, there is a time and a place for it. I have two separate positions here.
- Professionally I have to start talking fantasy football in June.
- Personally, I would like to wait until August.
So, for me, I wouldn’t move on from fantasy baseball for fantasy football for a couple more months at least. I know that’s not how everyone thinks. I also know that if your fantasy baseball squads are lagging, it’s easy to start the pivot to fantasy football right now. With each passing week, it becomes even easier to drift to the gridiron. I see folks doing it daily as the questions start to dry up for fantasy baseball. There’s less action on Twitter. There’s less action in email. There’s less action on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio. Maybe everyone has no questions cause their teams are rocking? One can only hope.
SUMMER AND FAMILY
Look, I admit this one gets me too.
After putting together, the Saturday podcast Ray’s Rundown, I took the rest of Saturday off. My lady friend and I drove down the coast to Pescadero to have a wonderful dinner at Harley Farms after a light lunch at Duarte’s (their artichoke soup is legendary). I wasn’t thinking baseball at all, only getting to the scores late Saturday night as I laid my head down to rest.
Sunday morning it was more her/me time, so I didn’t get to baseball until mid-day. I had prepped my FAAB bidding Friday, but after two days of game action, I had to update everything all over again. Of course, this was after spending time catching up to the day’s game. Oh, and it was also after I went to the VIP chatroom to answer your questions, because again, my first job isn’t to win fantasy leagues, it’s to help you win your fantasy league. So, there I was, putting in my FAAB bids, missing the Warriors game, Sunday evening.
Look, I get it. If the story above doesn’t prove it, I don’t know what will show that I understand the pull, the struggle, that playing a season long baseball league brings. It’s hard. It’s not just hard to pay attention for six months, it’s hard to pay enough attention given the call of the family. I could add work in there as well, but let’s stick with family.
As the weather warms, as the kids get out of school, as the vacation’s near… life takes over. Playing a game, even if you love it, just isn’t as important as your family, is it? Even if you try to sneak it in, and let’s face it we have ALL done that, it doesn’t really work does it? Follow me here. You look at your team while getting out of the shower as you’re getting ready for dinner. After a long day playing in the surf, you’re tired and looking forward to some sort of fruity drink. You look at your team, notice no new IL marks next to any of your players, so you head to dinner. However, if you had taken the time to read over the days results, you would have noted that one of your arms was headed for an MRI on his forearm, and that one of your catchers took a ball off the facemask and he might have a concussion. But you missed it. You didn’t do a deep dive, you just took a glance at your team. Maybe you didn’t see the news that the Padres were finally calling Luis Urias, so you didn’t bother to put a bid in on him.
So, I get it.
I also get the next step.
Your team is in 9th place and you’re on vacation for a week. In this situation you certainly aren’t checking your team every day. You might glance at it Sunday, but if the family is interested in hitting up the new restaurant for dinner, you aren’t gonna tell them to wait while you look at your squad. If your team is in third place you probably would look though, right?
So, your attention at this point of the season likely comes down to your spot in the standings, does it not?
So, I return to the initial question – have you given up on your fantasy baseball teams?
I ponder the question every day.
