What Makes a "Good" League?

Depending on what your Roto league is like, there is either an exciting race for first place or there is a team that is just blowing the doors off and making the last week anticlimactic. Fortunately, my primary league has seen tight, competitive races in eight of the 11 years I've been in the league, with 4.5 points or less between the first place and second place teams when the dust had settled.

Everyone loves a good pennant race. True, if you're the team with a 10 point lead going into the last week of the season, there is a great satisfaction that comes from a job well done and the almost certain knowledge that your countless hours and months of hard work is going to lead to the ultimate prize. But, if you've ever been in first or second and watching almost every category and rooting for every at-bat like there's no tomorrow, you know that it's a thrill that can't be matched: and a thrill that wants you to come back for more season after season after season.

Do you also get excited watching a race you're not involved in? Typically, I do. Obviously, it's disappointing that you're not in the race, but I like seeing two owners duking it out for the top spot, making lots of moves in the last month to get that extra win or stolen base or save. I know I'm going to have an empty feeling at the end of the year, but I also know that it's a sign that I'm in a great league.

I've been in leagues that aren't so great. You probably have too. Three or four owners know what they're doing and everyone else is a perennial also-ran. Yes, some of these also-rans get lucky every couple of years and crack into third or fourth place. But, generally speaking, these leagues get boring after a while. Yes, I want to win as much as the next guy. But beating the same jokers year in and year out gets tired pretty quickly and you wind up feeling like you need to search for a new challenge. Or, worse, one of the two or three other owners knows one of the bad owners better than you do and keeps making lopsided trade after lopsided trade. This isn't skill; it's taking advantage of a schmuck.

For different personalities, different criteria make for a good league. Some owners simply want to have fun, so the most important element is that you don't have any jerks in the league. It's one thing to have an owner in the league who doesn't know what he's doing, but if that owner rudely shoots down all of your trade offers in snide e-mails using nothing but CAPS, it isn't much fun.

The other personality type who can ruin an entire league is Mr. Stickler. Anyone who has played with this guy knows what I'm talking about. He complains about rules from the moment you show up at the auction until the last second of the regular season. If there's a tiny loophole he notices, not only does he try to exploit it, but he argues with the Commissioner if the Commish dares to rule against him. Certainly, there is always going to be room for re-interpretation and even changing the rules if necessary. But the Commissioner's rulings have to be final. And this guy never lets it go. By the end of the year, after about a dozen angry postings on the message board, you start looking forward to work, because at least there you'll be busy enough where you won't be thinking about your crappy league as much.

Putting these extreme examples aside, the people in your league go a long way toward determining whether or not you're going to have fun or not. While it might be impossible to find 11 other people who as fanatical as you are, at a minimum you do want to look for the following criteria when it comes to good owners.

They are passionate: You don't want sore losers, but you do want guys who hate losing as much as you do and who love baseball as much as you do. New owners shouldn't be expected to know all of the ins and outs of every single rule or strategy, but they should have a love of real baseball that will translate well to Roto.

They are devoted: Again, you don't need to have an owner who flips around like a maniac on his remote watching every game on DirecTv's MLB Extra Innings (though these guys are fun to have in your league). But you do want owners who keep up their rosters up to date, make free agent call-ups when necessary, and respond promptly to your trade proposals. Speaking of which...

They are thick-skinned: You don't want an owner who knows baseball but gets upset or irate the first time he gets a trade offer he doesn't like. It's going to happen: we all judge talent differently, and even the fairest owners will sometimes make an offer that just doesn't make sense. If an owner gets pissed and stops making trades, it's like having a dead spot in your league, no matter how many free agent pick-ups he makes.

They pay attention even when they are losing: In a carry-over league, this is incredibly important. Obviously, an owner in 9th isn't going to show the same amount of interest as an owner in 1st place in mid-August. But you do want to see the teams in the second division making moves with an eye toward next year. A team that simply sits on a second division team and does nothing won't compete year in and year out, and that team will eventually make your entire league weaker, since the teams that are playing for next year will have stronger rosters and there will be wider margins of victory as a result. Meanwhile, the disinterested owner will continue not to dump, not to build for next year, and keep finishing somewhere between 6th and 8th every year.

A clear and fairly concise set of rules are important for a successful league, but personality matters more. You spend six months competing with the people in your league. You not only want to like them, but you want to feel like you've beaten a worthy set of opponents when the season is over. Your title should be a well-earned win, and you should have a feeling of pride at the end of the year, not the sense that you've conned a bunch of chumps.