The death of a trade
I mentioned earlier a few of the suggestions for good trading practices. One of the main reasons I wrote that is because I've been burned and frustrated countless times by other owners who don't keep the same rules in mind. And while it's one thing to say "well, that just didn't work out", if it happens too often then that person in your league becomes one less person you can approach for a deal. And if he does it to too many people, he becomes a pariah in the league, and essentially useless the day after the draft.
Watch carefully as a deal that seemed to work for both parties dies a horrible death, and think about what could have happened if the other party had followed the guidelines I talked about earlier.
The trading game
Trading is one of the most fun but also one of the most challenging aspects of fantasy baseball. I've been meaning to write a post addressing the finer points of trading (along with a few hints) but I haven't gotten around to it (something I can say for a lot of my writing). This season I've done a handful of trades - most minor, but a few blockbusters - and I've had many more fall through despite gaining steam at one time. The fanalytic (Ron Shandler uses this word - I like it a lot more than "fantasy") trader is going to run into that all the time, and sometimes you have to recognize when something just isn't going to happen. It's like every other episode of ER when someone's on the table and they've got the defib and they're doing chest compressions despite the fact that they know that the moment they stop, the guy's getting pronounced. As long as your doing compressions, there's still a "chance" that it could come back to life, but everyone in the room knows it's a lost cause.
Fantasy Baseball – Auction Drafts
The OTFBL draft was held yesterday afternoon/evening, and while a good time was had by all, it went in semi-typical auction draft fashion. Despite being a veteran of this type of thing1 , this was the first true roto auction I had participated in. I did however have auction draft experience (having done my Scoresheet league's auction draft for six years now, plus another one before that), so I kind of knew what to expect, as should every other person who has ever done an auction draft, since they all seem to go the same way.
For those who haven't done an auction draft, they generally go in stages:
Fancy Baseball
Trying to explain "fantasy baseball" to some people can be difficult. Hell, it's difficult to explain to most people. Explaining a fantasy baseball draft to people is just downright impossible.
I try to avoid these situations whenever possible, but since I'm at work on a Monday (which isn't usually my schedule), that brings up the question of why my schedule was different. Now, if I were a thinking man, I would have said something like "I was having warts removed with a laser" or "there was a plane crash and I was called to identify a body", which would have eliminated any followup questions. But no - I say things like "I had a fantasy baseball draft."
"What? What's fancy baseball?"
Sigh. The weekend was good though - I always enjoy the drafts, despite how annoying some of the people can be or how crappy I do in them. The Scoresheet draft is always fun, just because it's an auction draft and causes mass havoc. Granted, it's a lot of the same jokes every year (which some members of the league drill down our throats), but it's still good times. I drafted like crap this year, but it seems like a lot of us did. I'm thinking we'll see a decent amount of trades before the season starts, which'll be cool, because we never have that.
Anyway, just wanted to get that out of the queue. More stuff later.