Today's Fantasy Rx

We received a couple of e-mails yesterday after posting the BBWDC review, and the following provided the most articulate critique of my review:

I just read your article about the Diamond Challenge from CDM.

I think you have done your readers a disservice in a couple of regards. First, you failed to mention the most valuable source of information with regards to the DC game, the BBS. A novice player can learn how to play the game by simply reading the BBS that CDM provides. No other sources are really necessary. People that have played the game for years are on the BBS and are constantly discussing different strategies and players.

You article overemphasized the costs of the game as anyone with half a brain would read about the costs before playing.

Also, for some reason, you seem to think that it is easy to win your league and/or finish in the top 100. I can assure that is not the case. There have been occasions where people have finished in the top 5 overall and have NOT won their league.

Seems to me that more research should have been done about the game and what CDM has to offer.

Chip Thompson

1. We don't really like Message Boards or using a BBS; that's why we don't have one on this site. They're difficult to administrate with regards to potential censorship issues. Most of the more popular services like ESPN are filled with absolute morons WhO eNjOy DoInG fUnNy ThInGs To ThEiR tExT. So we tend to dismiss most any BBS outright, as we don't have time to sort through the chaff for the wheat.

On Chip's advice, we headed over the Baseball Weekly Challenge BBS, whereupon we found a short string of posts about yesterday's article. We see no need to repeat the content here, but I will address the issues raised on the BBS.

I'd also like to mention that the overall quality of commentary on the BBS is far superior to boards like ESPN, but its still nowhere near the quality of a site with a specific readership like the board at Mastersball.com.

While there's a tremendous amount of information available at the CDM BBS for free, I suspect many people just don't have the time necessary to lurk on the board until they find all the different strategies. Wise Guy Baseball presents what we believe are many of the most important tactics for winning, and practically all of the text is written in an informative and interesting manner.

Sure you have to pay a few bucks for the guide, but spending three hours reading the Wise Guys seems a much better use of my time than daily visits to the BBS. Since we're already spending a couple hundred bucks on even one team, spending less than a fifth of that on Gene's book seems like a wise investment. Plus, unlike the unarchived BBS, you'll have the book available on your bookshelf theoretically forever.

To briefly address the main points in the BBS string about yesterday's article before returning to Chip's e-mail, our main interest in the Challenge games is in winning money. As mentioned several times on the BBS, newcomers often only discover the need to make $10-$15/transactions a week after they're already a month into the game, and as this was a review mainly for those not currently playing BBWDC, a brief cost-benefit analysis was certainly warranted.

As for why I so heavily promoted Wise Guy Baseball, we believe we finished just outside of the top 100 last year because we applied the theories of Wise Guy Baseball to our existing baseball acumen. Although we did institute a handful of practices not specifically mentioned in the book and didn't follow the manuscript to the letter, we found it very useful as a guide and felt that others would also benefit from it. While we could have spent a considerable amount of time testing our own theories and likely could have come up with many of the things listed in the book independently, there's simply no need to reinvent the wheel.

As relative newcomers ourselves to the BBWDC in 2001, we did find it fairly easy to win several hundred dollars. There's no reason to join a strong league because the goal of the Challenge format involving these high costs is to win an even greater sum at the end of the season. Unlike ESPN, CDM Challenges do not take into account the strength of your league when determining the top overall teams. Can you have fun while playing? Of course you can, but BBWDC likely costs more for you to compete for the top prizes than almost any other on-line fantasy game.

Returning to Chip's e-mail:
2. As just discussed, I don't believe its possible to over-emphasize the costs involved in BBWDC. While we're aware of roto leagues with a $10,000 ante per team, we also know many players who can barely afford a single ESPN team. BBWDC participants need to be aware of the financial commitment involved with fielding a winning team, as many of the taxiing strategies are not completely obvious to casual fans.

3. Do we think it's relatively easy to win the league and/or finish the top 100? We had little difficulty accomplishing the former last year as we won our league by 18.5 points as we finished first in HR, RBI, R, ERA, WHIP, and K, third in BA, and then ran into troubles in SB and Saves, where we finished 7th and 8th respectively.

Was there luck involved in our finish? Of course we benefited from luck in owning career years from players like Richie Sexson, Lance Berkman, Juan Pierre, and Javier Vazquez, but in looking over everyone we owned, I don't see many great seasons. We had our share of Ben Davis and Damian Jackson in the second half, Carlos Febles for a few weeks at the beginning, a horrible run at closer with Kohlmeier, Crabtree, Yan, and then Strickland as Urbina almost went to New York and later Rocker right before his trade. Now that we have a better idea of how and when to use our purchases, there's little reason why can't improve by following the same strategies as last season.

While you certainly can fail to win your league while finishing fifth overall, the goal of any fantasy advice site is to help you minimize risk. It doesn't matter whether that occurs by helping you learn more about players, comparing different projections, or even by posting simple fantasy magazine reviews that might help you decided which to purchase. Our BBWDC strategies, largely learned from Wise Guy Baseball, appear to be effective in increasing our team's position in the standings, and therefore we recommend that publication to our readers.

4. Lastly, we don't believe CDM itself has relatively anything to offer in terms of strategy advice for the game. We sent away for their "2002 Fantasy Baseball Statistical Report" to see if they presented a different perspective. Far from containing any analysis, their official BBWDC publication was limited to information already available in the Stats Red Book, an essential purchase for any serious fantasy competitor, and an extended look at the last few years of stats with their Precise Ranking Method.

PRM appears to have been developed by a bored eighth grader randomly pushing buttons on his TI. They use completely arbitrary figure to determine their rankings. There's no reason to analyze what percentage of all MLB home runs were hit by a certain batter; that number won't tell me his relative work compared to his salary, which is the only calculation worthy of analysis. While PRM correctly lists Ichiro as the most valuable 5x5 hitter in 2001, their pitching calculation places Willie Banks, he of the 10.2 IP with 0 wins, 0 saves, 10 strikeouts, 9 base runners, and 1 earned run, as the fifty-first most valuable pitcher. Pitchers listed immediately below Banks include John Burkett, Wade Miller, Darryl Kile, and Russ Ortiz, all pitchers that dominate Banks under any sane rating system.

We checked over their calculations several times, and they didn't err in computation. Their system makes no distinction between a WHIP of 1.00 and a WHIP below 1.00, and their ERA calculation is even more ridiculous. Despite scoring no points in wins or saves and only 30.8 in strikeouts, Banks amasses nearly the same WHIP score, a rounded 72, as Jose Jimenez, who really hurt most owners with his 1.42 WHIP.

More astonishing, a full 95% of Banks' total points come from his ERA. If he'd allowed one more earned run, his ERA points would have dropped in half. To illustrate the effectiveness of this method, we'll add Banks' stats to our total stat line from last season.

Shadow of the Umpire ERA without Willie Banks: 3.091 in 1846.0 IP.
Shadow of the Umpire ERA with Willie Banks: 3.078 in 1856.2 IP.

We finished with 7924 ERA points. A team with a 3.0752 ERA scored 7984 ERA points. 95% of Willie Banks' effectiveness to our team would have enabled us to gain 3 points in our Division, finished tied for 6th instead of 7th, and also allowed us to move from 102nd overall to, big surprise, 102nd overall.

There's simply no logical math that can explain the PRM system, and we find this to be very representative of the overall quality of the analysis and help proved by CDM itself.

While I could certainly continue discuss the pros and cons of BBWDC, CDM, and even yesterday's review, I believe I've adequately responded to the primary concerns expressed. I was hoping to finish the other three challenges today, but I'll suffice for a brief comparison of the BBWDC to the Internet Challenge.

Internet Fantasy Baseball Contest Review of:

Baseball Weekly Internet Challenge

Although this will be our first year playing Internet Challenge, the rules are quite similar to the Diamond Challenge.

The league structure also includes 25 teams but there's no over-arching Division structure. They keep the same 5x5 categories, the roster size is the same, and all the player salaries are also exactly the same. For the most part, you can even use the same exact roster as Diamond Challenge only you must take the one important chance into consideration.

In Internet Challenge, you can make moves twice each week, with rosters due 12pm Central every Monday and Friday. This degree of micro-management allows you to insure you have up to six starts for each deadline and that no injures player ever needs to spend more than four days on your roster. Obviously the time commitment is far more intensive, and the noon deadline can also restrict the moves based on morning developments, where the evening deadline gives more people extra time to complete their rosters. You can also only start the Rockies' offense for home games instead of worrying about split weeks.

Unlike the $419.95 DC expected minimum, the Internet Challenge costs substantially less. The cost structure breaks down as follows:

$49.95/entry
$.50/taxi squad switch
$5/new player purchase, and you'll use all 12
$.25/DH shift
$2/August taxi squad expansion, and you'll use both

You'll likely use more moves in the IC because of the need to keep rotating pitchers twice a week, so let's figure on four taxi moves, twice a week.
$49.95
+ $50 ($.50 * 4 * 50 half weeks)
+ $60 ($5 * 12)
+ $4 ($2 *2)
Minimum Cost = $163.95 to have a chance at competing with the top players.

With lower costs, the prize structure also shrinks. The Grand Prize is now only $10,000 without a 2003 LABR invite, there are no Divisions and therefore no Division prizes, and league winners only get $500/each.

You might want to check out the BBS for IC-specific strategies as Wise Guys only covers the BBWDC, although for the most part, the only change is that you need to adapt the same tactics for two sets of moves each week.

For further information, please check out the CDM site at internetchallenge.com.

Feel free to e-mail me with any thoughts on either game and their differences and similarities; I'll likely spend tomorrow discussing the other two CDM games: Baseball Weekly Fantasy Baseball and Lumber Company Budget Baseball.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Spring Training games begin today at 1:05pm Eastern as the Reds visit the Twins. Remember to check the daily box scores to monitor lineups and pitcher usage patterns.