Fantasy Freestyle: How We Got Here

Long before this hobby became an industry, there were Alex Patton and Peter Kreutzer.

They aren’t quite the founders of fantasy baseball, but both men have made a lasting stamp on the game of fantasy baseball and the way we play it. Below, they both talk about how they got their start in fantasy baseball, and where they see the game going in the next few years. Patton’s website (Pattonandco.com) offers player bids as well as a comprehensive database of player statistics and values, while Kreutzer’s site (AskRotoman.com) provides answers to fantasy players’ burning questions and dives deeply into fantasy topics of the day.

How long have you been playing fantasy baseball? Were you one of the original/first people to play fantasy baseball?

Alex: My first year was 1982. The Founding Fathers (of Rotisserie Baseball) didn't get through the first year without a civil war. Apparently the people playing in the AL league couldn't agree how to split the pot after 1981 was severed in half by the players’ strike. A breakaway league called the American Dreams League was formed and I filled one of the openings.

Peter: I started playing in the Stardust League, which formed at Inside Sports in 1981, the year after Dan Okrent published the first story about the Rotisserie League in the magazine. When I read Okrent's story I was totally excited about playing fantasy baseball, but it took another year to find the league, which came about coincidentally due to other business with the magazine's editor. Stardust has very odd rules (four hitting and three pitching categories, you auctioned with names called out by position and by team, so all the shortstops on the Phillies came out in order, then another team's shortstops, and on and on, it was (and is still) crazy and I jumped over to the American Dreams League, which was the first AL Rotisserie League (formed in 1981), when I was invited by another Starduster, Bruce Buschel, in the early 1990s.

The ADL started out with the original Rotisserie League Baseball rules and altered some of those rules fairly quickly. What were some of the biggest deficiencies you saw in the game how it was constructed and how did the ADL improve the game.

Alex: The biggest problem was first-come-first-serve for free agents. No Internet back then. People with access to AP wire reports had a definite advantage. They would pick up something called a telephone, call something called an answering machine and shout, "I claim Salome Barojas!"

Ugly. Much blood shed. I'm surprised we survived the second year.

The solution, of course, was FAAB.

Peter: Untethering DL guys from their replacements was a good change from the original rules, but the game has mutated in so many different directions that changes have come throughout the years from all sorts of places. It's hard to keep them straight. I'm a big fan of FAAB with a $0 bid option, so you're never completely shut out of finding replacements. A lot of change, like 5×5 instead of 4×4, is really a matter of taste. They're similar but different games. I started playing with on base percentage instead of batting average as a category 12 years ago in the XFL. We finally switched over in Tout Wars last year, and I'm comfortable saying that in the not so distant future AVG leagues will be as rare as 4×4 leagues are today.

As a follow up, what are some of the worst rules you have seen implemented (including the original rules as designed by the founders)?

Peter: The DL tethering was a bad solution to a problem that didn't really exist. One rule the original Rotisserie League had was that you could not replace players because of their bad performances. That's a bad rule, but it points to the dual nature of Roto. You prepare endlessly for your draft, but then have countless ways during the season to rearrange things. I'm not saying that's bad, but I'm not sure it is inevitable that that's the best way to organize the game. I think the popularity of games with shorter time frames suggest that it's not.

Alex, you have a reputation as a strategic innovator. What were some of the loopholes in the original rules, and how did you circumvent those in the early going?

Alex: The first thing I realized was that you should never under any circumstances spend $17 for Larry Gura. I poured all my money into hitting and then traded for pitching.

In my third season, I realized that you could win even if your team was last in wins. I went with an all-reliever pitching staff consisting of Willie Hernandez and eight $1 set-up guys.

The solution to that was a minimum-innings requirement, which I was all in favor of.

I don't think anyone called me anything as nice as an innovator.

Peter, how did you get started as Rotoman? Were you the first "advice column" out there for fantasy, or were there others at the time?

Peter: I sold my projections to ESPN.com the first week they went on line, in April of 1995. This was ESPN's first Roto content, and we (my editor David Schoenfeld and I) started talking about providing a Roto baseball service the next year. David asked me to put together a menu of things I thought the service should have and I suggested the advice column. I pitched it as Ms. Lonelyhearts for Roto players, but it was inspired by John Benson's 900 number, where his customers could call in and talk to him about their teams and it would be charged to their phone. It was also inspired by a friend, (Steve Asche) who called me so often to talk fantasy baseball that when the phone rang at our group beach house, my friends there would say, “It's Asche!” It often was. David suggest the column be called Ask Roto Man. I insisted on Ask Rotoman, which he reluctantly agreed to.

If you had invented Rotisserie or fantasy baseball, do you think you would have started with mixed leagues instead of mono leagues? What are the best and worst parts of each format, in your opinion?

Alex: No! Mixed leagues are a terrible idea.

Just kidding. Mixed leagues are great fun and half the work.

If you're lazy, the advantages (of mixed leagues) couldn't be more obvious.

Okay, I'll admit this much. Mixed are in fact a better test of your feel for baseball. Which well-known players are going to have great years and which ones aren't?

It's extremely satisfying to win one of these leagues. But it's even more satisfying to win when hard work and clever strategies come into play.

Peter: If I had invented the game I would have gone to great lengths to try to simulate the job of General Manager, and the game would have been too complicated and fussy to be real fun for a lot of people. I did try and invent a game in those first years, and spent a lot of time debating whether you kept the stats of a traded player, or trade the player and all his stats to other team. I still think that would be an intriguing challenge, and easier to bookkeep (which was the motivation in those pre computer days). The thing to remember about those ancient days, AL and NL teams only mixed in the preseason and World Series. The idea of a mixed league was kind of beyond the imagination. One league had the DH, the other didn't. One league had a lot of crafty breaking ball pitchers, the other had heat. Plus the umpires had different strike zone. Maybe Isaac Asimov could have imagined mixed leagues in 1981.

Are you familiar at all with DFS (Daily Fantasy Sports)? Do you think that DFS will eventually crowd out Rotisserie-style leagues?

Alex: Yes, I am familiar with them. I'm sure they are a lot of fun. And I'm sure they are something I should stay away from.

Peter: I played one week of DFS last September as a promotional matter for a small site that is trying to get a foothold, because they asked and I was curious. If I were a gambler I would definitely be attracted to the idea that you're making money off of players who are less talented (and committing less time to the games) than I would be. In that way they're like online poker.

But what I really enjoy about playing fantasy baseball is the relationships that develop when you're in a league, and the league's history. Real Roto is like a weekly poker game, where not only are the shingles tossed and someone wins and someone loses, but there are friendships and events that enrich the quality of our lives. I have nothing against gambling, I've done plenty in my time, but I like the deeper richness of my long term fantasy baseball leagues. And long term poker games, too.

Generally speaking, from the time you started playing in 1981 until now, what are some of the biggest changes you have seen in real baseball in terms of how the fantasy game has been impacted?

Alex: Baseball is still baseball. But obviously it is being sliced and diced in ways we couldn't even imagine back in 1981.

I love the new metrics. And I still think the wins category is the most important. It's laughable to me that very smart people like Ron Shandler propose that it not even BE a category.

I feel a little bit guilty that I once won a league with an all-reliever strategy. But only a little.

Peter: The biggest change has been in the composition in the major league roster. Major league teams used to carry eight or nine or sometimes 10 pitchers, but now they usually carry 12 or 13. That has had a big impact. The other significant change is the related fluidity of players on and off the various lists that allow a team to replace them. The process is far more fluid than it used to be and there is much more news to manage.

To follow up on that, you used to play in the pre-Internet age, when people read newspapers and networked with friends in other cities for relevant fantasy information? Do you still enjoy the game with all of the information just there for anyone to get in a matter of minutes?

Alex: I miss the networking. But I still read newspapers! Better enjoy that while I can, I guess.

Peter: Information increase is inevitable, but it's hard not to miss the days when you might gain an edge by catching a team's beat reporter in the newsroom and glean some injury or usage information by vocal. Today that same info is tweeted by that same guy, to everyone savvy enough to listen. That's a lot less romantic, but I'm not inclined to say the older days were better. Hard work is still a big part of getting an edge.

Are you familiar with dynasty leagues? Do you like the idea of keeping players "forever" or do you think this dilutes the game?

Alex: Forever? Twenty years a slave? That's what dynasty leagues do?

I wouldn't like that. Two years—three years at the max—but forever? Terrible idea.

Peter: I play in the XFL, which is a hybrid dynasty/keeper league. We've been going for 12 years now, and there are certainly different challenges to managing a roster that doesn't turn over every few years. But there are also scouting rewards and the deep personal satisfaction of having Mike Trout for his whole career at a good price, which my partner and I do. The bottom line is, there is room for all kinds of formats of play. What I think gets challenging, as a fantasy baseball information provider, is presenting information that doesn't constantly have to be qualified for each of the many different sorts of players that are out there. It would definitely be easier if there were just a few major formats, as in fantasy football. On the other hand, not being able to focus on the specifics of individual game formats, means more value in being able to talk/write lucidly about player skills and talent evaluation, which is in many ways more baseball-y.

Do you think that fantasy football will ever crowd out/eliminate fantasy baseball? Is there a point where you believe the simplification of the game (shallow mixed leagues, for example) takes something away from it?

Alex: I would think people who start out playing Fantasy Lite would soon
want to move up to the hard stuff. But I could be wrong.

Peter: There's no way football crowds out baseball, ever. They play at different times of the year, there is plenty of room for both. And there are many of us who like the beauty of baseball and will take it every day over the spectacle of football. As for diluting, I know people who play all kinds of incredibly simple formats built off of baseball stats, picking the year's big home run hitters or power-speed guys. Nothing could be simpler, nor easier to enjoy when you win. Football doesn't contain any of baseball's culture of the prop bet, and Roto and other fantasy baseball formats are just more convoluted forms of that simple challenge. Any format is good, in the end, if you can find enough similar souls to join you and stick with it.