Playing fantasy baseball is like watching "The English Patient." It's long, tedious and in the end you aren't sure if it was worth all the trouble. It's the little brother of fantasy football; nerdy and viewed with all the same skepticism of "Dungeons and Dragons." Sure there aren't 20-sided dice, but fantasy baseball isn't exactly first date conversation material. The season drags on from March through September, or roughly the gestation period of an American black bear. Unlike football, where you have to check your roster about once a week, fantasy baseball requires that you look at your roster every day for seven months to avoid the embarrassment of leaving Ty Wigginton in your lineup even though every else in the league knew that he was out with a pulled hamstring (the humanity!). I mean you could go on a three-day vacation and by the time you come back, your whole season could be shot! Kaput! Gone in the blink of an eye.
There are also a number of other traps that first time players can fall into. Wanting to get as many starts as possible, a player may pick up pitchers everyday and plug them into their rotation. This seems like a good idea until you realize that there’s a maximum number of innings allotted to a team's pitchers and once you cross this threshold you no longer accumulate stats. You then wrap your mind around the horrific truth that you have banked your playoff hopes on pitchers like Jeff Weaver and Livan Hernandez and burst into bitter tears. Also, stats like steals mean just as much as homeruns in most leagues, leaving baseball fans turned fantasy players wondering if Willy Taveras is really as valuable as Ryan Howard (not quite).
With all that said, why would anyone in their right mind want to commit to a season of fantasy baseball? Well, the reasons are as endless as the hairs on David Hasselhoff's chest.
First and foremost, baseball has always been the most stat-driven of all sports. Even most casual fans can identify the significance of such numbers as 61 (Roger Maris' single season HR record), .406 (Ted Williams BA in 1941) or 56 (Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak). Fantasy baseball gives fans a chance to see these numbers or records as they are actually happening; certainly any fantasy baseball owner won't forget Lance "the Big Puma" Berkman setting a career high with 18 stolen bases last year, but just about everyone else outside of Houston will. Fantasy baseball also allows fans to understand the importance of such complex statistics as WHIP (walks + hits/number of innings pitched, a great way to gauge the efficiency of a pitcher) or BABIP (batting average on balls in play, the league average is around .300). For example, a player with a low BABIP, say .280, is probably suffering from bad luck and is due for a breakout, which is something most fans would overlook.
Moreover, fantasy baseball allows you to discover players that are often neglected. For instance, Hanley Ramirez and Ian Kinsler are two of the top 10 players in fantasy baseball but they normally get lost in the shuffle of higher paid players. Think of Ramirez and Kinsler as the indie music of baseball: they're so great because no one else knows about them (but thankfully, they don't wear flannel, slackline or drink out of mason jars). Playing fantasy also allows you to discover the next crop of young players. Names like Max Scherzer and Andrew McCutchen might not mean much to you unless you play fantasy baseball; it’s a great way to learn about the future all-stars of the game before anyone else does.
The MLB season is a long one; no one will contend that point. So why not add a little spice to a 162-game season by having a little something riding on each game? Of course Pete Rose thought the same thing and look where that got him, but I digress. No longer will a July series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Diego Padres be as pointless as another installment of "The Land Before Time" series. Owners of Nate McLouth and Adrian Gonzalez will have no choice but to pay attention to the games and chart their players' performances. It's not quite turning water into wine, but the ability to turn something meaningless into something meaningful - now that's fantasy baseball's true gift to mankind.
So the next time your friend mentions an upcoming fantasy baseball draft, don't call him a pale worthless excuse for a human being. Instead, ask him if you can join and tell him you know all about WHIP and BABIP. After all, you do get a shiny little (albeit digital) trophy if you win; isn't that worth seven months of your life?
Contact Bud Bareither at bud.bareither@whitworthian.com.
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