The Fantasy Baseball Code Of Honor

How about trading of injured players? If someone offers me Carlos Lee, I might be tempted to take the trade, and maybe Rotoworld is an hour behind on reporting the injury. I think it is a code of honor issue to inform that the player may be injured, and the league should veto a trade involving injuries that only one party knows about. However, if both parties understand that the player is injured, let the rest of the league know so they do not arbitrarily veto trades of an injured player that you need to move.

I consider it to be very dishonorable when a team has maxed out on IP yet the owner insists on streaming pitchers to keep as many starting pitchers in waiver limbo until the end of the season.

One thing that I don't agree with is when I propose trades to someone and they ask another person in the league if they should do it. Why they can't manage their own teams, I'll never understand.

In public leagues this happens quite often... One person signs up for 2 or 3 teams in the same league. Then trades among them, to win the league. they also have veto power over other trades. This has happened twice to me at sportsline.com Its quite frustrating. All that just collect that stupid pennant that you get when you win.

Tim,
Great article. I'd like to respond to the streaming portion of it. Though I respect you and your FB play, I have to disagree with your analysis of streaming, doing it just because it is within the confine of the rules.

Now we all stream now and then I 'm not talking about that. I'm talking about picking up 10, 12, or even 17 pitchers in a week. You are current playing in our expert league over at fantasybaseballsearch.com. I admit when I put the rules together I kept them loose because it was a league of experts. I didn't expect this kind of play in a gentlemen's league.

In the case of streaming it hasn't been a problem in my league except for 1 of the 12 expert managers, you. Maybe Geoff did it more than expected as well to be fair.

Here's my analogy to compare your streaming actions too. Say at your job your boss walks up to you and says "Tim, you now have unlimited sick days at work with no consequences."

OK, so let's examine two possible responses. You have the good worker who prides himself on a code of conduct and still only takes 7-8 sick days over a year. Then you have the worker who takes advantage of the rules and calls in sick 4 days of each week.
You Tim have been the latter picking up 16 pitchers in a week because of the rule when the league average is around 3. The other 11 managers chose to play the game as if they would stream some if necessary, but not excessively.

In a league of experts where my intentions were to have experts play like experts you clearly took advantage of the rules.

You cannot say with that you won match ups on pure skill, strategy, or even luck. You have to say I won taking advantage of the rules and breaking the code of conduct especially one carried amongst experts. You've done it all year, and no expert has followed in our footsteps at your frequency.

You are a brilliant fantasy baseball anaylist, but the reason more and more rules have been instituted to stop streaming is because of people who manage like you. If, Sean, or RC win the championship for the league at least we can say we did it fair and one on one. We did it with strategy, decision making and our ability to match up well with our opponents. Pitcher streamers simply muscle there way to victory with free agency.

Good luck the rest of the weekend.

Todd

Guru,

I am sorry but your logic is flawed. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. If you are the commissioner and you are offended by streaming, then impose rules that do not allow it.

As for the analogy about the boss. True, one should have a strong work ethic at all times and put in their best efforts at work whenever possible. However, a manager who allows unlimited sick days with no consequence is a poor manager. Hence, a commissioner who is offended by streaming and imposes no rules against it is a poor commissioner.

To be honest, I do not stream, not because I think it is unethical, but because my leagues put a limit on the moves I can make a season. Even with these rules, I make sure to use every single move I am allowed before the end of the season. Many managers even get upset with that strategy, yet it is perfectly in the rules and I am using every competitive advantage I can get. The point is, if managers do not like me using all of my moves, then don't allow anyone to make any moves, then this 'ethical' issue would be solved.

So, riddled through my comments and sarcasm there is a point. A commissioner who does not want managers to take a certain strategy yet does nothing about it is a poor commissioner. A manager who does not use every competitive advantage given to them is a poor manager. I am sure you are a fine manager and when commissioner, your managers have little to no complaints about your ethics. Yet as far as a ‘Code of Conduct’ is concerned, if there is something I won’t accept from my girlfriend, my co-workers, my subordinates or my friends is whining and that is thing I read in Tim’s post that truly bothers me. If you do not like a rule, then do something about it and try to change it, or just play.

Nobody here must play fantasy baseball or we'd also be discussing the ethics of last inning roster changes there...

Yahoo lets you change rosters up to game time and in a daily transaction league you can swap out a catcher or other player riding the pine if your savvy enough to have purposefully stocked some West coast (later game) players to backfill at those positions. It sure does help an owner to use up all available games.

There is also the ever popular my-guy-qualifies-at-that-position-also "cheat"... typically these are catcher eligibles, but depending upon your league rules an SP eligible RP (or the reverse) can be worth its weight in gold.

My motto is that if its within the rules its legal, but if it screws another owner directly its unethical -- e.g. trading a known injured player. If you're trying to be a baseball purist don't play fantasy, play strat-o-whatever-the-hell-its-called!

In nearly all cases, if the rules allow it, it's fair game.

It blows my mind that people complain about streaming pitchers. It's not like this is a new phenomena this year. If you don't like it, change the rules to disallow it. Easiest way is to allow weekly transactions, like the way the game was originally played.

Yahoo is ruining fantasy baseball with its shallow leagues, daily transactions, and "I got there first" free agent pickups.

Todd, you are completely out of line with your comments.

In reference to adding/dropping players quickly just to keep them on the waiver wire - that just happened in one of my leagues. One owner (who I am in a very close race for 2nd with) is closer to his IP limit than I am. Within the span of 5 minutes, he picked up and subsequently dropped 7 or 8 pitchers, all of whom are starting in the next two days. And what do you know, the waiver period for the league is two days!

I know that this is within the rules, but to me it's totally dishonorable. What do you think?

My commissioner in a daily head-to-head keeper league has on a few occasions made roster changes after the day has ended and backdated them to include a player's good performance whom he had left on his bench. Once it started happening in the playoffs I had to resign. I did call him out but he has since I've found out (through communication from another owner)deleted all of those transactions from the records. Very frustrating indeed as I loved my team and had built up a minor league system that I was looking forward to enjoying for many more years. I wish there was some other sort of recourse but I could not think of any. I did let the other owners know on the message board but that message too was deleted. I've been playing for 20 years and this was my worst experience.
Who polices the commissioners?

I had forgotten about the old Yahoo add-drop to set the waiver timer! Dishonorable? Borderline. We had a transaction limit and I had purposefully planned to do it against the team behind me who was way under his IP limit who also had many available transactions. I made him pick up the crappiest SPs to stream at the end... if streaming is OK why not forcing a streamer to play the dregs?!?

Ewok,
CBS Sportline doesn't allow many rules to prevent streaming in a H2H league. I could not assign inning max or min. I could only limit the number of pick ups per season. In an expert leahue I would not do that. Plus, I expected everyone to play like experts and with a Code of Conduct in mind. Only Tim didn't. That's my point. Picking up 17 pitchers in one week? That is too much.
Todd

I must comment quickly on this STREAMING ISSUE. Regardless of how many moves you have left it is a CHEAP WAY TO WIN either way. I personally had a guy stream at least 12 pictchers a week the first two times i played him and when i still finished second and meet him in the final he did it again. If this is the only way you can beat a better roster than you are a terrible manager who cannot manager your roster throughout the year and you should reconsider your reasons for even playing fantasy baseball. I know i wouldnt be able to feel good about the victory unless i had to drop the pitcher/s due to injury, but then how many times do you lost a dozen pitchers due to injury in a week.
summed up, streaming is the lowest way to win.

Interesting debate and one that continues to go on. My two cents:

1. CBS does give you the option of limiting transactions per week. We instituted that in our league and was a great idea.
2. I don't participate in daily leagues and most people I know don't either. Tout Wars and other expert leagues set weekly lineups and that is how I set my leagues. Daily leagues play into the advantage of people who have free time and can sit in front of the computer and make numerous transactions. Most people just don't have that time.
3. This debate is a classic example of people signing up for a league and not knowing the rules. If you know going in that streaming pitchers is within the rules and there is a no limit on transactions then don't give me the "against the rules argument" or it isn't ethical. Those are the rules!
4. Baseball is a 6 month grind and I want to know what I am getting into before I start since it does take up my time.
5. Finally, on the whole expert thing. I have a radio show and offer my opinion on players. I enjoy the point-counter point of the listeners. I am not really sure who "experts" are anyway, I just like to talk fantasy baseball with knowledgeable people.

Hey guys. Long time reader of this blog and others. I never comment, but this one I must.

Pitcher Streaming is evil. In the 12 years I've played I've lost many games against guys streaming and I hated. I now refuse to play in a league that allows and that was The True Guru's fault. However Tim is considered by me and many others to be an "expert" and he shouldn't have used pitcher streaming to win. I've read his stuff for 2 years and I can tell he didn't need to do that and it probably cost him.

That's my two cents. I'll side with the unpopular guru and say that streaming is just awful and it ruins the game. Anyone who practices it is a sad sad person.

Wow, I upset BillyBobme again. I am not Cnd Raider, but nice try. He is a well known blogger though.

I am so sorry that I came onto this holy ground and spoke negatively of your great and awesome leader Tim (ZALTAR!). If people don’t already know me, I go against the grain. I point out things I don’t agree with and I don’t shy away from controversy just because I’m outnumbered, and based on some of the posts never out-classed.

Tim (ZALTAR!) came into my league and played in a manner that 85% of the managers out there would disapprove of and frankly hate. Though the rules allowed streaming, I just didn't care because I didn't think an expert or Tim (ZALTAR!) would play in such a way that only newbies and people like BillyBobme play. It’s a fundamentally wrong way to play fantasy baseball, and surgically removes much of the fun we all love. I am believer in a free fantasy baseball market. There should not be rules to prevent anything, but there should be at Tim (ZALTAR!) wrote so well a “Code of Conduct”.

Sure if you just want a WIN, go for you. Tim (ZALTAR!) you got your wins, 138 of them. However if you are looking for something a bit more challenging and cerebral, maybe a dash of thought and strategy, then steer clear of the brute force approach called pitcher streaming.

Let me ask Tim (ZALTAR!), how would you like it if you played absolutely brilliantly, but lost cause the other guy pitcher streamed?

Tim (ZALTAR!) obviously cared allot because he played harder than anyone in the league; he just played a game of numbers and points and not the game of fantasy baseball we all love.

I noticed The General spoke up, and frankly I could careless what he says only because he will always take the opposing viewpoint from me no matter what the case. Trust me.

However, I'd like Patrick to explain why if streaming was allowed by the rules and did so well for Tim (ZALTAR!), why didn't YOU stream?

As I've noted in a league where streaming was allowed, 1 guy streamed out of 12.

Also note that I allow streaming as a strategy. Streaming can be helpful now and then just like picking up extra hitters for homeruns.

Let me give you all an example and base it on what happened. In the same week Tim picked up 18 pitchers trying to win, I picked up 6. Going into the week I lost Guthrie for the season and picked up Scott Lewis to replace him (1 pickup). I then missed starting Lewis on Monday, and spotted a great match ups for Greg Smith and Jessie Listch and got both of them and did great. Of course the team I was playing didn't have much along the lines of pitching, so part of my strategy was I had to win the pitching categories. If I was to have a chance, I had to win in pitching. I knew this by playing Sean several times in the season and losing once. Of course I then looked over and noticed Tim hammering RC with pitchers. I did not want to face Tim (ZALTAR!) and his circus of streamers in the championship, so I played diplomacy and started picking up pitchers (3 more) to prevent him that was Suppan, Arias, and Parr). I never started Parr and cut him the day of his start.

End result of my full blown strategy. I barely won and Tim get beat 7-3 while throwing a world record 120 innings that week.

I'm not saying what I did was right; I'm saying Tim (ZALTAR!) forced my hand and he lost in the end.

Think what you want, I’m moving on, the league is moving on, and I will prevent streaming next year and I will call it The Tim Dierkes Rule in honor of your leader Tim (ZALTAR!).

ZALTAR!

please, if you think i am THE TRUE GURU, you can find who i am at http://fantasybaseballstarters.com/ where you can find my baseball writings and picture for the site. Please, if you think someone would come to that to prove a point your wife is probably cheating on you to in your own mind.

This guy can't be stopped. True Anus for someone who's and "EXPERT" you sure know how to stick around and you call me immature. Greco was in your league huh? Isn't that guy playing in TOUT wars the most highly regarded expert league right now? WOW, he quit huh, boy I can't image why?

I'll tell you what, it sure seems like you have a lot of "friends" in the fantasy sports world? It seems like every corner you turn you piss off another highly regarded EXPERT.

Listen poser, I saw your "websites" and frankly what use are they to anyone. No strategy, no advice, just other peoples work that you're trying to cling to.

When you can put together a rational thought that makes any sense at all, let us all know.

It's been a blast putting you down, and as far as your 1st grade comment, lets say it was done for a reason. So you could keep up with me. If you'd like me to move onto second, let me know, I'll use bigger words, but than again, I wouldn't want to confuse you.

OHHHHHHHH BILLY