Planning on cutting one of your closers? Maybe another potential impact player? If so, you are not alone. The phenomenon that is the National Fantasy Baseball League (NFBC) causes team owners to behave a bit differently than the same owner might do in a “normal” league.
The NFBC is really two contests in one. Each team is competing in their respective fifteen-team league, but is also competing against the other 389 teams in a massive, global 390-team league. As a result, some teams concentrate on their own individual leagues, others concentrate on the global league, and others try to serve two masters and do their best to compete in both leagues simultaneously.
Sometimes, due to circumstances, teams find themselves with an abundance of a certain statistic. Last week, one owner found himself with over 100 saves, with second place more than 40 saves behind. That owner then cut Brian Wilson. While this wouldn’t mean an awful lot in a “normal” league, it does have potential ramifications in the NFBC. As the other fourteen owners in that league are not only competing in that league, but also in the global 390 team league, having the availability of an extra closer in July (while the other 375 teams don’t have a shot at that extra closer in July), can potentially lead to an inequitable situation.
The founders of the NFBC (who don’t compete in the leagues) ultimately decide if any player transaction doesn’t lead to the best interests of the overall competition. It’s a fluid standard, and rightfully so. A player cut one week might appear to be not in the best interests of the overall competition, whereas the same player, just a week later, might not affect the overall competition.
Thus far this season, in May, Troy Tulowitzki was cut and removed from the player pool for his respective league. In mid-June, Victor Martinez was also removed from the player pool in the league that he was cut in, again in the best interests of the overall competition. Some other notable players that have been cut but not removed include Wilson, Ryan Zimmerman, Travis Hafner, Takashi Saito, and most recently, Huston Street.
Remarkably, one owner campaigned ad nauseum when Ryan Church was cut mid-June, claiming that Church was a “star”. Fortunately, the powers in charge of the NFBC realized that Church wouldn’t even be an impact player in a slow pitch softball league (OK, they didn’t actually say that), and kept Church in the player pool. A postscript on that cut: since being cut on June 8, Church has 25 at-bats, five runs, zero home runs, one run batted in, and zero steals.
More cuts are coming, and more potential impact players are going to be cut. Fortunately, for the NFBC players, we have an honest, hard working crew overseeing the leagues, virtually guaranteeing that the competition will be played out fairly.