Have I mentioned how much I dislike standard issue head to head points leagues. I think I rambled a bit about the topic back in April, but I’m back for a second helping. Listen I understand that luck plays a role in many aspects of life and competition. Some say a little luck never hurt anyone. Tell that to they guy that ended up losing because that little bit of luck helped his opponent win. But ok, I can accept a little bit of luck. After all, it isn’t likely to be enough to negatively influence results over the long haul.
But how about a lot of luck. What happens when luck dominates and begins to dictate. That’s when I begin to lose my cool. And considering I don’t have that much cool in the first place, I can’t afford to be losing any of it. If I lose any more cool, I’ll be pledging the Tri-Lambs in the fall. Either that or I will need my freon refilled.
My gripe with head to head leagues is the fact that I have absolutely no defense against my opponent. The fact that my opponent happened to score 450 points against me last week has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they were playing me. Don’t you just love when you score the second most points in the league and play the one team that scored more. Meanwhile there were two teams that played each other that barely scored 150 points and one of those lucky teams walks away with a win, while your 440 points earned you a loss. It’s total bullsh!t. Why couldn’t you have played one of the teams that scored 150 points. I’ll tell you why. Because of the luck of the draw of the schedule.
Some people will argue that this is exactly what happens in real baseball. My buddy tried this argument. “Let’s say the Tigers play the Royals and the Royals happen to score 12 runs and win the game 12-5. Meanwhile the Astros play the Mariners and beat them by a score of 2-1. Weren’t the Tigers just unlucky that they didn’t play either the Astros or Mariners?” My reply went something like this “you are a dumb@ss”. The Royals scored 12 runs against the Tigers pitching and defense. The Tigers offense was only able to score 5 runs against the Royals pitching. The Royals actually beat the Tigers. Or you could say that the Royals prevented the Tigers from beating them. Had the Tigers played the Mariners, no one know how many runs either team would have scored.
I can tell you exactly how many runs I would have scored had I played one of those teams that scored 150 points. I still would have scored 440 points. You know why. Because it doesn’t matter one bit who you are playing against in head to head fantasy leagues. Your opponent is nothing more that the team the schedule says your score is going to be compared against for that week. At the end of the day, the luck of the draw of the schedule is THE biggest factor in determining which teams make the playoffs.
Here’s a very telling example. In my primary personal league my team is disappointingly in second to last place with a 4-16 record. I am currently ten games out of fourth place which is the last playoff spot. Things are not looking up for me. Why do I have such a crappy record? Is my team bad? Nope. Have I made some bad managerial decisions? Nope. Have I been plagued by injuries. Again, nope. I actually have the fourth most points in the league. The kick in the nuts is the fact that I have the most points against. And it’s not even close. Now in real baseball you’d be able to blame my pitching. But not in fantasy. My pitching is actually very good. The reason I have the most points against is because I unluckily drew an unlucky schedule. That is the ONLY reason. And no, a double unlucky does not cancel itself out. It’s more like an exponential thing. You know, that little number to the upper right of another.
As an experiment I played around with the schedule, switching up the match-ups for the first ten weeks of the season. By changing which teams I played, my record is now 18-2. I actually could be 20-0, but 18-2 would be more than sufficient for first place. Oh yeah, and that team that is currently in first place with a 15-5 record is now 5-15. As much as I love playing, this glaring flaw that everyone has come to accept is practically enough of a reason to not play. Unless you enjoy allowing luck to overpower skill. It takes some luck to win a poker tournament, but there’s a reason you often see the same pros consistently making the final table.
Head-to-head is dead and no one knows it. Things have to change. It’s 2016 for pete’s sake. By the way, who is this freaking pete character that everyone is alway forsaking? If Donald Trump can make a legit run at becoming the President of the United States, we can fix head to head. Everything is constantly evolving, it’s time fantasy baseball did too. I know how to fix this, but I’m going to save the solution for another day. Besides, I don’t need one of my nine readers running off with my revolutionary ideas and becoming a millionaire.
Here are my current top players in head to head points leagues based on year to date performances:
Jose Altuve (261, 0.884)
David Ortiz (239, 0.967)
Nolan Arenado (253, 0.913)
Daniel Murphy (216, 0.830)
Anthony Rizzo (217, 0.825)
Mookie Bettts (246, 0.814)
Bryce Harper (209, 0.816)
Robinson Cano (233, 233)
Mike Trout (223, 0.785)
Ben Zobrist (207, 0.805)
Josh Donaldson (227, 0.782)
Manny Machado (215, 0.757)
Xander Bogaerts (220, 0.756)
Gregory Polanco (198, 0.744)
Jay Bruce (196, 0.800) (Jay Bruce? Are you kidding me?)
Clayton Kershaw (30)
Jake Arrieta (24)
Johnny Cueto (23.3)
Stephen Strasburg (22.4)
Chris Sale (22.1)
Madison Bumgarner (21.7)
Noah Syndergaard (21.6)
Jose Fernandez (21.3)
Max Scherzer (21)
Jon Lester (20.6)
John Lackey (20.2) (Perhaps the most valuable pitcher this season considering his ADP!)
Stephen Wright (18.5)
Two pitchers I see creeping their ways towards this list are Zack Greinke and David Price.
