Earlier today, I was perusing Rotoworld and came across this article. Since I am always in the market for information (and which one of us is not in that market?), I clicked the link and stumbled on about the most useless, and, depending upon your league, most inaccurate guidance so far this year. Now, I do not want to pick on Rotoworld - this will be the second time this week; nonetheless, the lack of potentially accurate and useful information got me to thinking - who are the touts, the bloggers, the experts, and so on, writing for anyway?
Let us use this article as an example. Presume, if you will, that you are a neophyte owner - perhaps you have played in some Yahoo! leagues or, maybe, you are a first time player. If you are, you are searching the vast internet for information to help you in your draft. Let us again presume that you are playing in an auction draft 4x4 13 team National League. You come across this article. Awesome, you think to yourself. I can get these guys for $1, maybe $2, in my auction and come out smelling like roses.
Now, let us move forward to draft day. Greg Maddux (15W, 210IP, 4.20 ERA) goes for $15. Shane Victorino, starting right fielder for the Phillies, goes for $6 or $7. David DeJesus, another starting outfielder (career .292 hitter, potential 10-15HR and a solid 500 AB), goes for $11. The sweat begins to pour down your brow. Well, its okay - let me try Kuo. Uh-oh - there are no sleepers. Kuo goes for $5. Gomes, an established major leaguer, goes for $14 ($14 you say??? Wow - he's not a dollar derby guy); Iwamura goes for $11; you get the point. Suddenly, you are stuck at the end of the auction, having vastly underestimated the prices these players will go for, all the while scanning your sheets for the Marco Scutaro's of the baseball world. How did this happen? Why?
The answer is quite simple really. Sloppiness. Not your sloppiness, but the sloppiness of the writer providing you with this fountain of misinformation. Sloppiness in not taking the time to differentiate between a snake draft or a straight draft; a draft versus an auction; a start-up league or a keeper league; a keeper league and a non-keeper league; a Stage II league versus a Stage III league; mixed league versus AL/NL only; and so on. In the end, the writer hurts the very person he is targeting with his article. This, at least, is my assumption, because none of the information provided makes any sense to a hard-core or long-time player; we all know (not surmise, but know) that Gomes, DeJesus, Iwamura, Victorino, Maddux, Kouzmanoff, Hairston, Betemit, Murton, et al., will not be in the dollar derby.
Two lessons are learned here. First, to the bloggers, touts, experts: know your audience. Second, to the players, hardcore or neophyte - know your experts. I'll leave these two messages for a later post.
1 comment:
LOL...I read the article yesterday and thought the same thing...one of the worst fantasy articles I have ever read.
It reminded me of the old days when there would be magazines that would say things like....Mike Piazza....get him. Ya think?
Of course, they would then have a bid value of $17 next to his name.
Rotoworld is usually better, but I know some of the major outlet fantasy writers have no connection to game relative to folks like Shandler or Patton.
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