Roto Robbery

"Don't kiss and tell." "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." I typically heed these sorts of creeds, but when it comes to fantasy baseball, the drama can be juicier than a fondue party with Heidi and Spencer. July is quite the interesting time for fantasy baseball owners. With the trade deadline about a month away, the Fourth of July weekend is a chance for owners in the Top 3 of the standings to pat themselves on the back and for the rest of the owners to take stock of their teams and get a bit motivated to turn the tables during the dog days of summer. Sometimes motivation is coupled by a bit of agitation, and that's a recipe for some fireworks even the Washington Monument hasn't seen.

Case in point, consider a little charade that went down in my league this past week. Any fantasy veteran is familiar with the strategy of "streaming" pitchers. Sometimes in a head-to-head league, when a few points are on the line, it is in an owner's best interest to snag a pitcher off waivers to help secure a few categories, like IP, W, K, etc. This can lead even the proud owner of a CC, Lincecum or Haren to stoop a bit and grab a Bred Penny or a Bronson Arroyo for a day, only to drop him like day old sashimi the next morning. It is risky, as these pitchers have a strong propensity for getting bombed, but presumably an owner has vetted the situation carefully beforehand.

Last season, streaming got a little out of hand in my league. More than a few all-stars were dropped for the likes of Joe Blanton and Ian Snell during the playoffs, creating quite the headache for the commissioner, your truly, by season's end as I assigned owner's desired keepers and noticed that Ian Kinsler was dropped by an owner who was not returning the following season and then claimed by another owner as a keeper. To simplify the situation, I instituted several rules going into the 2009 season whereby owners participating in the playoffs would not be allowed to keep any players dropped after September 1st and any adds or drops made on or after September 1st would cost $2 apiece. This way, I thought, nobody would be on their way out of the league and cavalierly drop an All-Star to waivers, and by the same token, the playoffs would be a matter of who can best manage the best team to the promised land, rather than who can assemble the greatest waiver wire battalion this side of the Mariners' infield. The Red Sox, for example, did not win 2 World Series in the past 5 years by dropping 2/3 of their roster after being down in the Series and neither should a fantasy league operate in such a way.

Well, back to the situation at hand. As we enter the Fourth of July weekend, my league's bulletin board is littered with the remnants of a massive blow-up between two owners each high in the standings but with very differing opinions about streaming. The setting: one owner had made a 142 roster moves as of June 30, with the next highest totalls belowing to owners with 55 and 51 moves, respectively, and then 18 after that. "Owner Alpha", maker of 11 moves, waged that owner Beta, maker of 142 moves, was manipulating the system to guarantee an advantage in the pitching categories. Owner Beta retorted that streaming is a "time-tested and acceptable strategy in EVERY head-to-head league in the country." Hmm ... Time-tested ... Makes me think of that Kix slogan, "kid-tested, mother-approved." Anyway, what resulted was a war of words that saw me having to post up a reminder of the league rules with a promise that the rules would be reevaluated at season's end.

At the end of the day, owner Alpha made a strong point about what the spirit of fantasy baseball competition ought to be regardless of the actual letter of the law. Regardless of the rules, a fantasy league thrown to this much chance and scheming does begin to ring hollow if the quality of one's roster becomes irrelevant to winning. It begs the question of just how one not tied to a computer 24/7 but with a superior team could find him/herself at a disadvantage all of a sudden. Owner Beta, however, is right to point out that with injuries to stars galore, what is an owner to do but fight and claw their way to a victory in a strategically effective manner, particularly if the rules do not stipulate such a strategy as illicit in any way? All owners, after all, are permitted to make moves to their heart's content, at least free of charge prior to September 1st.

What do you think? What advice would you have for tweaking this system for next season so that the "letter" and "spirit" of the law better coincide? Perhaps I will start by putting up some padded walls next time... if this is the dynamic now, then just wait until the John Lackeys and Roy Oswalts of the league inevitably get dropped for Jose Contreras in the final weeks of September.