Otherish Content: Blurring The Line Between Selfish and Selfless
Nearly every article I write, I do it because I find the content useful. It’s an article I wish others would write but don’t. Because no one was writing about lineups is why I started writing one. Last year I tried writing both the AL and NL versions rotating weeks but the two-week gap between leagues was too long. Too many changes happened. This year Al Melchior took NL teams and I went with the AL ones. Because of the extra research, I’ve noticed my mixed-league teams lean AL.
My pickups are all AL leaning probably from writing the AL lineup analysis. I have to trust others for what is going on in the NL.
— Jeff Zimmerman (@jeffwzimmerman) July 22, 2019
It’s not just my lineup article providing self-centered content. My closers rankings and FAAB projections help me make decisions and I hope they help others.
These articles have a selfish feel to them. Am I writing them for the readers or for myself? I know the answer and initially didn’t come to grips with it. That stance has changed.
I’ve come to learn there is a term when anything (e.g. article, volunteering, emotional sharing) is both selfish and selfless: Otherish. Adam Grant coined the term in his book, Give and Take. Valeria Maltoni has a nice short otherish writeup on her blog, Conversation Agent, and here is a graphic depicting different interest foci.
I got thinking about this concept yesterday while writing my waiver wire drop article. When I initially decided on the concept, I thought it would be useful to get a pulse on who might be a trade target because a disgruntled owner was getting tired of the player’s poor production. The moves I have been featuring are too obvious. They are the moves that happen in 25% or more leagues. These are the “no shit” drops. I haven’t found the drops article at all useful. I’m worried others haven’t either and the article is falling into the Apathetic region, useless for everyone.
The idea behind the article’s uselessness has been rattling around in my mind for a few weeks. Some weeks I find my lineup article worthless and other weeks I find it essential. I know articles will waver between useful and useless but every single waiver wire drop article seemed nonessential. I’m not getting what I hoped from it and by the lack of comments, probably the few readers weren’t either.
If I do find a move interesting, it’s those players dropped in just 10 to 12 leagues. Maybe the magic number is between 15% to 30% of leagues (6 to 11 leagues in the NFBC Main Event), enough to be an overall trend but not obvious. I am not sure if there is some perfect range. I found it more interesting that Andrew Casher was dropped in eight leagues than Evan Longoria in 27. In the future, I’ll probably start working with different thresholds to see what works the best.
An otherish writing focus is nothing new. It has been happening for years. I’ve observed selfish tendencies infiltrate rankings articles. The top dozen or more players will be universally owned in the writer’s leagues. The bottom half is unrosterable. There is a sweet spot of a half dozen players in play in the author’s leagues. These players are meticulously ranked while the rest of the rankings seem thrown together. The player pool is just too large to know something on everybody so most writers are usually going to focus on what matter most for them. Fantasy content consumers also need to find that sweet spot.
Those in shallow 10-team redraft leagues don’t need to worry about dynasty rankings. Owners with daily lineup moves can ignore two-start articles. Not every piece of information needs to be consumed. People must pick and choose the content that’s best for them.
What’s all this rambling mean? (Good question Jeff.) Most content providers are in some way providing selfish content. They got into writing fantasy baseball because they like playing fantasy baseball and attempt to find an edge. If they publicly provide every advantage is a completely different discussion. As for myself, otherish content will continue to be the norm as long as my editors allow it. If I find the information helpful, hopefully, someone else does. I think that is all I can ask.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
You do you Jeff: I always find reading about your process useful.
It’s gotta be brutal trying to continually generate fantasy baseball “sharp” style content for the masses while maintaining any kind of competitive edge.
I have a couple idea’s hidden back. If some source wants to pay me to publish the information, I will
Hi Jeff,
First, you do great work. I think that more than half the fun with these types of articles is that someone else found them interesting enough to analyze the issues or observations with such thoroughness and thoughtfulness.
Second, although you feel some of your articles might have “uselessness” to you, sometimes the amazing authors of these fantasy websites and the industry forget they are so in tune with the current climate of the daily changes to the game that sometimes a roster changes article might seem less valuable to you than others because they do not have the ability to be so on top of the changes.
Third, it is your curiosity that allows you to sometimes stumble into “uselessness” type of data but at the same time allows you to generate great analysis and thoughtful insight. Basically, keep doing you.
Selfish and selfless can co-exist, perhaps its “otherness” perhaps its some other fancy term, either way it makes sense.
That was way too many words. Thanks again.
Thanks for reading.
Good article.
Most of the high-number drops are very clear-cut, hardly worth discussing. I like looking at the guys being dropped in just a handful (5-10) leagues, who are highly owned. So if you could add a column for Ownership %?
That would give a quick & dirty look at guys who are highly owned, but owners are getting fed up. These guys would either be 1) on their way to being dropped in more leagues, or 2) buy-low trade targets.
The ownership column is included.
All I’m seeing is two columns: Name, and Drops (38 Leagues). Am I missing something?
Combining ownership % + drops provides the context. Really, the end info I’d be interested in is % of drops. Someone who is being cut in 50-100% of leagues where they are owned, there’s probably a good reason (injury, demotion, loss of role). Those cut in a smaller % (but still highly owned) would constitute the pool of actionable players IMO.
I was thinking about the most-dropped column a bit after reading this last night. I agree with you that many of the drops are for obvious reasons, and analysis of them bears little fruit. I wonder if perhaps the cause can be found in the sample? Perhaps NFBC Main Event owners are more knowledgeable than the average bear, and they tend not to make many questionable moves? It occured to me that examining drops from a larger sample of the public (Yahoo, Fantrax, CBS, etc…) might be more interesting. Or better yet, looking at the discrepancies between ham & egger league drops and educated league drops? That might sort out more players that fit in the “You should grab this guy who was dropped prematurely” or “Seriously, drop this guy yesterday” camps
I’ve thought about that and I run into other “issues” like moves from daily lineup leagues. Since I do no daily leagues, I feel I’d be out of the loop on them.
But you did give me a great idea. A link-up of the various leagues to see which is fast/slow to react. Link the same drops on the same days and see how they compare. I know what I’ll be doing next Monday.