I can’t believe how big the whole thing is now. Back in the day we would huddle in the dank basement of some New York bar. One year we drafted in Steve Moyer’s basement, which I thought was great but later heard tell of other putative Warriors who did not. Now there are at least a hundred people there either drafting or media-involved. Even girls! Maybe three! TV cameras, live radio broadcasts, no question we’re big shots.
The best thing is that the people are terrific. The very few assholes who have passed through the expert ranks of fantasy baseball over the years all disappeared quickly. I mean, I’m the biggest asshole there and I’m only an asshole sometimes. But you want to know about my team.
I won the battle but I may have lost the war. Here’s The Conundrum: in NL- or AL-only leagues the bargains are going to come on the pitchers, but you can’t get too many or you won’t have enough money to buy an offense. Everyone is spending 30 percent or less on pitching and bragging about it, which ABSOLUTELY guarantees that 1) pitchers will be undervalued, and 2) hitters will be overvalued. (A corollary is that some team or teams who don’t spend on pitching are going to score some pitching bargains, making them instant contenders.) When it works it looks great, when it doesn’t—which is usually since everyone is doing it—it looks terrible, but no one cares because odds are that’s what the winner did. To me this state of affairs calls for a contrary strategy and hence the conundrum. Continue reading “Gene McCaffrey (Tout NL): LET’S TALK ABOUT ME!”