Fantasy Sports - Misunderstood Concepts #1

This series was written in early 2008, but is certainly applicable to today and also to other forms of gamblings....enjoy

Decisions > Results

I play fantasy sports with an ever increasingly intelligent group...........most of my leagues consist of half sharp players and the other half dead money..........this makes the leagues both profitable and fun, because it is fun to match wits with the smart group and take money from the dead money half...........but regardless of how sharp the better players get, they focus more on the result, than on the decision.............this is a critical error especially in fantasy sports.........now, I understand that winning (the result) in the long run is most important, but most of the people who play fantasy leagues aren't looking at the long run, they are looking at this round, this draft, this season...........not, the decisions in tow, and learning from the mistakes and the non-mistakes................I consider a non-mistake, a decision that didn't work out, but was still the best decision at the time..............this is harder to determine than the decisions that you struck gold on. I just completed a draft in which I made a bunch of questionable decisions..............and by questionable, I chose to gobble up the following risky pitchers (I exclude Cole Hamels as he is of risk, but much less than the following).............Liriano, Lincecum, P Martinez, O Perez, BJ Ryan and Rafael Soriano..............now, in hindsight, or, sometime August, I will be commended for the ones that strike gold, but someone else will look at my draft and say, why did you pick BJ Ryan there, he only pitched part time and got 15 Saves............or why did you take Pedro, you knew he'd get hurt (after he goes down in late May and stays out the rest of the year)..................the bottom line is the strategy/method/decisions are what is right, the results don't mean much.....................the strategy is to take a pass on the high pick pitchers and stock up on hitters, especially in an 8 team league, you need lots of hitting to compete, and in a league where you can split relievers and starters 4/4 and where out of 5 categories, 3 are ratios, you only want those volatile/risky pitchers that either provide those ridiculous ratios, or get hurt/well underproduce and are easily cut and replaced with (another closer, a middler reliever or another starter that you didn't draft, but remained a free agent).

In 2007, my models told me to pick the following players.................Gary Sheffield and Julio Lugo..............both were drastically undervalued based on the market.............but most people look at our team last year and say, Sheff was a great pick in the 10th round.........and...........Lugo was such a bad pick in the 11th round, he had a terrible year................Lugo's projected line was something like 95/15/50 35SB's .275 that kind of season would get most middle infielders drafted in the top 5 rounds (Brian Roberts comes to mind).............but, Lugo's season tanked, while Sheff's season exceeded expectations (until he got injured near the end of the season). Both were quality decisions, but I have no problem proliferating that Lugo was a bad pick, if nothing else, for fun and to keep my opponents on their toes.