Ten Ways Fantasy Baseball and Real Baseball Differ
by David Luciani
Published December 18, 2001

A reader wrote me an interesting note this week, in which he argued that he would make a better General Manager than most of the guys who are filling the role in the majors right now.  Now I'm not one to argue with this reader for a number of reasons.  Firstly, there are a few "real" GMs, who shall remain nameless, who are not the best at what they do, either because they burn bridges or because they think one-dimensionally.

Having said that, the basis for this reader's claim was that he had "won his fantasy league seven years in a row" and that "evidence such as this is all he needs."  The self-admitted arrogant reader went on to identify several real-life trades he would never have made and thus used these, among other items, as ammunition to support his claim.

I am in no position to say that this reader is wrong but it did cause me to step back and consider a few differences between the real sport and the fantasy game so many baseball fans now play.  Though many readers are already aware of some differences, the reader's email inspired me to identify ten key differences between real baseball and the fantasy leagues.  I am certain there are many others but perhaps there are a few here you may not have considered:

1. Real Baseball Actually Plays the Games:  I list this first because without question, it is the single most significant difference between the fantasy leagues and the big leagues.  Real baseball is not about having the best statistical team, though often the most successful team will also have great numbers.  Everything else fantasy baseball attempts to do, sometimes successfully, is to emulate real baseball.  The real game weighs everything perfectly because everything is played on the field under the real rules of baseball, nothing else.

2. Chemistry Matters: The Yankees and Diamondbacks were excellent examples of great teams that probably would have done well as fantasy rosters but also possessed something extra.  Whatever that "thing" is that we can't exactly put a name to with these two teams, and you may call it what you will, it's something that doesn't exist in fantasy baseball.

3. Owners Influence the GMs:  Anyone who thinks they would be a great GM should look to the recent example in Anaheim where the trade of Darin Erstad to the White Sox was vetoed by the top brass.  Peter Angelos kept a heavy reign on one of the best GMs in the game, Pat Gillick, in his tenure in Baltimore.  George Steinbrenner for years was a huge influence on the success (and lack of it) in New York.  If you want to simulate this in fantasy baseball, try not actually owning the fantasy baseball team and giving the right of veto, to your spouse perhaps, as the phone rings at 3 AM with a trade proposal.

4. Balance Matters: Many a fantasy team has won its league without a single great reliever and indeed, I found in some online leagues in 2000 and 2001, that some participants were willing to forego the grand prize and the saves category only to win their individual league.  Put a team on the field that doesn't have a closer in real baseball and you will not win your division.

5. The Competition is Better:  Really.  Many people have written me to tell me that they've consistently won their fantasy league and my first question is: Who are you playing against that they can't get a single win in there one of these years?  It's not to say that the competition is weak but fantasy leaguers should at least consider it possible that there's not a Pat Gillick, for example, in their league.

6. The Manager Matters:  I've not been an advocate that the manager matters as much as the GM does but it does make a difference when a manager knows how to squeak that extra little bit out of their team.  That's not to refer only to the individual game and strategy but to also recognize that a manager can actually change the performance of his players.  Jim Leyland and Whitey Herzog are two great examples of managers who always managed to get a little bit extra out of their players.

7. Trades Are Harder to Make: In real baseball, there is an incredible amount of negotiation that goes into a potential trade, including how it will affect a player and how salaries impact a team.  Typically, fantasy leaguers only consider salary before the start of the season and they never have to worry about whether a player moving his home 3,000 miles means anything to anyone.  Beyond that, real GMs are much more careful and there are far too many fantasy GMs that freely take risks on players, often reacquiring the same players within six months of a deal.  Those are the ones that often involuntarily help someone else win their league.

8. Player Development is Part of Real Baseball:  At least for the first five to six years of a player's career, the real GM has to oversee a huge scouting and development team that is responsible for taking a raw product straight off of a high school or college field and developing them into a player capable of playing at the highest level.  This element is non-existent in fantasy baseball, even in games that emulate real life by simulating games.  The player and their skill is ultimately based on how well the "real life" team developed the fantasy player.

9. The Minor Leagues:  Distantly related to the above point, most fantasy leagues do not have a farm system and this means that a "fantasy" GM is only required to know about 800-1000 players of importance.  A real GM will take interest in at least several thousand players, scattered around both the minor leagues and in other organized and semi-organized baseball leagues, not to mention the teenagers they have to know about as the amateur draft approaches.  Real GMs pluck the occasional diamond in the rough.  It's worth considering that though Ichiro Suzuki was a great player in Japan, one can only speculate how many fantasy GMs would have known enough to go over to Japan and bring him to the US, as opposed to others.

10. Success is Cyclical:  In real baseball, if your team doesn't win, the fans stop coming and eventually attendance declines enough that it severely impacts the bottom line.  That in turn leads to a lower payroll and you get a team such as what the Toronto Blue Jays were in the early 1990s or the Minnesota Twins of the late 1980s becoming exactly what they are now.  The vicious cycle that is baseball heavily rewards and penalizes the good and bad teams and in fantasy baseball, a bad team can easily turn around and start with a fresh and equal budget in a subsequent year.  That's just not reality in real baseball.

Having identified all these points, let me clarify that none of this is a criticism of fantasy baseball.  Most readers know that I am a great fan of the hobby.  It just seemed from a few comments I received recently that some distinguishing characteristics of the two sports, real and fantasy, were worth examining.