No Baseball and No Victories Make Worm Go Crazy

Written by Worm on November 07, 2005

Aargh!
I may be a little late to the show on this one, but, as I'm starting to get my feet wet in the vast fantasy world beyond roto baseball, I’m starting to notice some disturbing trends.

First and foremost: No day games! What the fuck am I supposed to do all day during the work week? I mean, I can’t just keep changing my lineups all day long, that would be pretty dumb. I guess that’s what message boards are for, but still, a little action would be nice. It’s cool and all that all the action is going down at the same time, (cool, that is, if your StatTracker or similar device actually worked on your computer,) but seriously, can’t you throw me a bone here? If my team has a crapperific night the night before, don’t make me wait the full 24 hours before looking for redemption! What's the world coming to?

Another thing baseball does to pacify the fantasy addict: games every day. Football, once a week? NASCAR, once a week? Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, six days to get oh so amped up for my next week’s matchup. Yippee, I’m so excited I could just shit. Well, at least there’s the “busy” athletes, in hockey and basketball. Nothing like watching half a lineup hard at work. Let’s see, Sunday night… yes, I’ve got one whole baller going. Let’s see, maybe I should bench him. Whaddafuck.

Maybe I need to try out fantasy golf, or something. At least then I’d have something to work with before the sun sets. I guess the problem there is they mostly play during the baseball season anyway. And for some reason I feel like fantasy golf would be about as riveting as watching the game on TV. Not that I don’t enjoy watching a good golf tourney, mind you. But I’m the kind of guy who could derive hours of enjoyment watching a tree sway in the breeze, so that’s not saying much. But we wants game scores goddammit! And we wants them now! Gimme, gimme!

Aargh! Part Two
The problem with playing with roto experts is it’s harder to win. Before I stepped my game to the pros here, I was a pretty cocky fantasy player. I had been blowing away the leagues I played in, and I thought I had a hardcore scientific method to win it, every time.

So what happens? I start playing the Rotogods, and tell them they best beware the power of my spreadsheets. They laugh, foolishly, I believe. And then they proceed to sit on me, en masse, which is no joke when it means guys like TiVo and Ricky are on the pile. My first year featured a team which was the most well-balanced pile of shit in roto history. One thing my hitters didn’t do, though, was make errors. No one can ever take that away from me.

So I’ve tried this and that, but the lesson I’ve learned is that, when you’re playing against truly talented fantasy players, psychology and acute management play a much bigger role than debunking statistical myths and finding balanced players. You have to tailor your game to the league you’re in, or you will be left in the dust, no matter how good you are at what you do.

Anyway, here I am, still looking to finish in the top half of a Rotogods league. Well, I still have a chance in the Rotogods Racing league, I guess. (eye roll.) I suppose I’ll have to rest on my laurels with a third place finish in the head-to-head baseball league some of us play in. Hey, I even learned a good lesson from that league: even seemingly mediocre pitchers can give you Cy Young production if you play them in the right matchups. Even Pedro Astacio. Take that one to the bank, courtesy of Mister Third Place Roto Expert.

Now where are my fucking day games?

-- Written by Worm on November 07, 2005