The Six Losing Sins
published December 1, 2004
by David Luciani 

It goes without saying the majority of fantasy baseball players lose. Indeed, you can't have a league with more than one winner yet some think the word 'loser' is too harsh a word so I'll simply say 'non-winners' from here on. Whether you were a winner in 2004, the most important move you can take toward 2005 success is to consider the following now rather than waiting until 2004 is a long-lost, vague memory.

Even winners are often guilty of making incorrect decisions. Regardless of where you finished, you need to identify what went wrong and what went right if you're to start 2005 with an edge, some improvement over this year. There are really six primary reasons teams fail to win. If you are guilty of one or more of these and you recognize that, then you've already taken your first step toward success next year:

Owner Inactivity: This is the most common reason teams lose and I can't emphasize it enough. If you had even a single week where you didn't revisit your roster to replace injured players or take advantage of the variations in weekly schedules, you didn't deserve to win. In one league I played in several years ago, one home run and four RBI made the difference in winning. Baseball Notebook writer Mark Haverty told me of an expert's league a couple of years ago where literally one stolen base made the difference.  That underscores the importance of not only staying on top of your roster but doing everything you can to get an edge over your opponents.

Being Too Quick to React: How many owners dealt Ichiro Suzuki at the first sign of trouble in 2004?  I remember several readers writing to ask me whether his performance was outside the margin of error (a question and response you can still find in the Best of Ask David: Volume 2). What about those who became convinced that Johan Santana really had lost something and dealt him in May? You have to recognize that though every player may really be headed for a disappointing season, you have to give yourself a chance by acquiring at least comparable players in return, preferably with a similar or even better track record.

Being Too Slow to React: Byung-Hyun Kim, Jose Contreras and Juan Gonzalez are three obvious ones. Look back on your season to see if you can identify a player or two that you stuck with that cost you. One good strategy to overcome this is to take advantage of reserve lists so that you let a player work himself back into shape in the majors while you keep him inactive. When he's proven to you that he's effective, you may have lost some good innings or at bats but you also haven't destroyed your roster while making a fair evaluation of his ability. If he never rebounds, he never makes it back to your active roster.

Having an Unbalanced Team: In leagues that rank teams within scoring categories, if you finished first by a good margin in any category then you have absolutely no excuse for not winning your league. A team that dominates a category and doesn't win hasn't used its strengths to address its weak points. If you had 50 saves more than the second place finisher, then you should have dealt a closer to shore up one of your other spots on the roster. This is so common a mistake that you will see at least one team in your league guilty of this year after year, usually in the speed categories.  Go back and look at your 2004 final standings right now - I strongly suspect you'll find two or three teams who fall into this category.

A Lack of a Plan: If you went into the year blindly picking players with no clear direction of what you needed to do to win your league, then this is where you fell short. Print your final 2004 standings now and post them somewhere as the beginnings of a plan for 2005. Look at what totals the top few teams posted in each category and use that as one piece of the puzzle in designing your 2005 roster.  If you're in a league that pays big bucks for speedsters, you may have to allocate a few extra dollars that way to keep pace with where the dollars are being spent.  In the same way that the 65/35% hitting/pitching split works for those who are in salary leagues, sometimes you even need to take it to another level and look at what categories your opponents are spending their resources to acquire.

The Wrong Players: The value of good forecasting can't be overrated but two thirds of the players, everyone agrees on before the year starts. Believe it or not, most so-called experts think similar things about most players. Sure, there are always exceptions and I don't wish to downplay the difference between a 20 home run season and a 30 home run season but if you're going to lose, this is the one way you want to lose and that is because you were just plain wrong about the players. That can be corrected. I make it an annual habit to return to my forecasts and see why I missed on certain players. If I'm even a bit better next year than I was this year, then the constant improvement puts pressure on the other fantasy owners in the league. It's also sure to get you more than your share of championships.

Begin thinking now about 2005 and how all these other losing habits could come into play. Decide now that you're going to be a serious force to be reckoned with in 2005 and that if you don't win your league, it's going to be only because you picked the wrong squad and not because you committed any of these other sins.  You'll know you're giving it your best effort when you start to feel sorry for your opponents because they don't know what hit them.  Well, maybe just a little sorry for them...