Jeff Mans lets ’er rip like only he can... and his target is lazy fantasy baseball managers.

Get With the Program

We need to stop playing fantasy baseball week by week. It is far too simple, it takes nearly all of the strategies out of the game and doesn’t result in the best team or owners winning. I could go on and on about how archaic or pointless it is as well but I hope you get the idea. 

Back in the day we didn’t have quad core processors, high speed Internet or ultra-mobile devices to help us make roster moves, set lineups and monitor our players. Heck, when I started playing fantasy baseball, most of us didn’t have computers. But that was a different age, not just for fantasy sports, but also for baseball in general. 

Yet in fantasy baseball the industry standard is to lock in your lineups on Monday morning and deal with the results until next Sunday night. A few high stakes league formats now allow you to make lineup swaps for the weekend, but that doesn’t help you if one of your players gets injured on Tuesday. 

The Times Are A-Changing

I remember back in the mid-80’s when folks here in Chicago were beside themselves at the way then White Sox manager Tony LaRussa would use his bench and bullpen. “How can you take Harold Baines out of the lineup late in the game for Tom Paciorek?” Well, Paciorek hit .296 against lefties while a young Baines struggled at a .234 clip at that point in his career. LaRussa, of course, was well ahead of his time, as he went on to Oakland and St. Louis after Chicago ran him out of town. 

What Tony LaRussa, Bill James and many others have taught us is that you absolutely can maximize performance by paying attention to the splits. Some players just hit better off of lefties than they do righties. Some pitchers have great success getting one side of the plate out. 

Paul Goldschmidt hits .536 with six homers and 17 RBIs in his career against Tim Lincecum. Against Dan Haren, Goldschmidt struggles to the tune of .188-1-5. Now, maybe you can argue that you aren’t going to take a player of Goldschmidt’s caliber out of the lineup no matter what and that would be a fair point.

So, what about Lucas Duda? I don’t think anybody is ready to say Duda is an automatic start every day, even after a solid 2014 campaign. Let’s look at Duda’s career splits:

vs. LHP: .212/.292/.317, 9 HR, 44 RBI in 470 plate appearances
vs. RHP: .261/.362/.485, 65 HR, 201 RBI in 1,408 plate appearances

Duda is a guy I would love to get in my lineup against a RHP, especially since he qualifies at both first base & the outfield. But if the Mets are facing two lefties this week, are you going to leave him in there? What if one of those lefties then gets scratched? Aren’t these the type of moves that should prove who a better fantasy owner is?

Major league managers are now fully aware of player splits and tendencies and it is absolutely crucial to them to maximize their players’ performance to win ballgames. Fantasy owners have been aware of this for far longer than the big league clubs. So why then are we lagging behind them in terms of how to play our game?

Speaking Of Time

The chief complaint I always get from the fantasy sports industry about utilizing daily lineup moves is that it takes too much time. Of all the people in the world, those that work in the fantasy sports industry are the last ones who should be complaining about the time it takes to set a lineup. The fact of the matter is that just about every human being age 13-65 has a mobile device. About 90 percent of those folks has a data plan and is capable of downloading an app. It takes about 30 seconds to swap out a player from your lineup from a Yahoo, CBS or ESPN app on a smartphone. The fact of the matter is that those who complain about the amount of time it takes to change your lineup are the ones who are watching fantasy sports pass them by. 

Players Are Getting Soft

Gone are the days of Steve Garvey, Cal Ripken and Ichiro Suzuki, who played in every game every season. These days managers give their star players plenty of rest in hopes of keeping them fresh all season long. Catchers absolutely never play more than five games in a given week anymore. Other position players are also given a great deal of rest. But as bad as position players are, nothing beats the coddling given to starting pitchers. Whether it’s a hangnail, blister, cramps, tired arm or numerous other excuses given, starters are being skipped anytime they are less than 100 percent. It has become an epidemic across baseball with the injuries happening to starting pitchers. When you factor in weather and managers skipping starts, it has become a crapshoot to count on starting pitchers. 

No More “Vitamins”

Although most don’t like to admit it, the fact is that today’s drug policy in Major League Baseball has worked to lower the amphetamine usage across the league. Many former major league players admit that the use of “greenies” was rampant and quite commonplace just a decade ago. Today, players aren’t able to use these drugs to help them rebound from injury quicker or to provide the energy to play day after day.  

The fact is that the days of behemoth specimens in baseball uniforms are over. For a while there, major league players resembled something out of a Marvel comic book. Steroid use is declining and thus we are seeing more pitching, defense and speed dominating the game. The downside to this style of baseball and less steroid use is that players are breaking down more than ever. At one point last season 31 percent of opening day players were on the disabled list. These numbers are not going down, folks. The more injuries and days of rest players receive, the harder it becomes to have consistent fantasy production as well. Much like big league managers, we are going to have to platoon and strategize better in order to maximize fantasy production going forward. But we simply cannot do this if we are handcuffed by not allowing lineup changes on an everyday basis. 

The DFS Effect

Nobody can ignore the impact daily fantasy sports (DFS) is having on the fantasy sports industry. The ability to draft a new team each and every day is extremely provocative to fantasy players. This is especially true with those who play or are interested in playing fantasy baseball. 

The game of fantasy baseball has so many nuances that is makes it almost overwhelming for some casual fans to get into it. If and when you get stuck with players that are struggling or are constantly injured, it takes a lot of the fun out of the game. But in DFS, you can plug in fresh players each and every day as well as capitalize on the best matchups. 

For instance, if you notice that the Mariners are going up against a left handed pitcher, you might want to put that pitcher into your lineup since the Mariners had a .636 OPS last year against LHP while they went for .696 against RHP. When you see that kind of discrepancy, you should be able to take advantage of it. 

That is precisely what DFS allows you to do. We have all of this information at our fingertips and yet the default fantasy baseball league setup will not let us utilize it. I guess it should come as no surprise as to why DFS, and daily fantasy baseball specifically, is growing exponentially. If we are going to continually place shackles upon owners in seasonal leagues, then they will continue to lose ground to the massive selection of daily contests that are available. 

Final Word

Fantasy baseball will never be as popular as fantasy football, mostly because it isn’t quite as convenient as football is. Fantasy baseball is basically an everyday grind that takes much more dedication than some of the other sports. But for those of us who love the game of baseball and enjoy matching wits by playing fantasy, we need to change with the times. There is no sense in simplifying a complex game. We have the time, we have the technology and we have the access to be in tune with our teams every single day. 

No matter what you do, please don’t make the same mistakes the fantasy industry continues to do by not allowing daily lineup moves. Make the change in your home leagues and I promise you that you and your league will be far better of for it.