The Unwritten Rules
I didn’t grow up a fan of baseball. I was born and raised in Washington DC; an area that was devoid of a professional team until after I moved away. However, just like many kids, I played it growing up, but because I didn’t watch much of it growing up, I didn’t know about many of baseball’s unwritten rules until later in life.
I do remember the first time I saw a pitcher intentionally hit someone. I was watching an Orioles game with my father. The pitcher threw a pitch into the side of an opposing hitter. The batter was none too happy about it as he made his trip to first.
I looked up at my father and asked, “Why did he do that?”
Justin is the co-host on The Sleeper and The Bust Podcast and writes for Rotographs covering the Roto Riteup as well as other periodic articles. In addition to his work at Rotographs, Justin is the lead fantasy writer/analyst and co-owner for FriendswithFantasyBenefits.com, and the owner of The Great Fantasy Baseball Invitational. He is also a certified addiction treatment counselor. Follow Justin on Twitter @JustinMasonFWFB.
Given your answers in this column, I am not surprised that you were not invited back to your league.
A player should absolutely not be allowed to bench players in order to improve his draft position for the upcoming year. Give me one example of a professional sports team fielding less than a full roster in order to drop in the standings. Trading veteran players for young prospects to “tank” is one thing, not fielding a team is another.
Similarly, throwing a game in order to get a better playoff matchup is definitely against the unwritten rules of the game in my opinion. If playing against the 7th seed instead of the 6th is worth losing a friend, then there are more serious issues in your life.
If a team is determined to lose, I’d much rather they bench their players than have to field a bad team. Having to field a bad team would force them to drop what good players they have in order to replace them with bad players. The #1 unwritten of fantasy is that you don’t dump your team when you’re not in it anymore. The safeguards that Justin recommends for this situation are the way to go.
“Give me one example of a professional sports team fielding less than a full roster in order to drop in the standings.”
The 76ers have been doing this for years.
They still play 5 everynight
I believe everyone should field a full lineup. However, what you do with that lineup should be lift to each owners discretion.
Not surprised either, a lot of these answers border on the preposterous. Its a game, not life and death, be a man, not a d’bag. Fantasy Baseball is a lot more fun when the league behaves in a civil manner instead of trying every trick in the book to win at all costs. That environment leads to a dead league real fast.
I think there is a misunderstanding here. I am not a propenent of fielding empty roster spots. I am a propenent of tanking if your league allows it. At the same time, I do believes leagues should set up safeguards to discourage tanking. Hopefully this clarifies this.
You’re comparing fantasy directly to managing a real team, and that’s not totally accurate. On a real team, you can field a whole roster while still tanking, since players can adjust their efforts so as to maximize their chances of losing the game without outright throwing it. In fantasy, this is impossible. I can’t phone up Trout and tell him I’m trying to tank, so he should stop trying so hard. The only option is to bench the roster. A bit shady? Sure. Wrong? Only if it’s against the rules. I think Justin’s overarching emphasis is simply everything is ok unless it’s explicitly against the rules, and things shouldn’t be against the rules if they hinder manager innovation and gameplay. If you have a problem with something you can make it against the rules, but you can’t fault someone for operating within the rules to do something that gives them an advantage, even if it may seem a little shady or arguable.