Welcome back to the newest installment in our series of
interviews aimed at giving readers insight into the minds and backgrounds of
those fantasy writers and pundits who have reached the level of
"expert." It seems there has been an explosion in the number of
people claiming the title in the last few years, but no one seems to know where
they come from. These interviews aim to change all that, while also giving
aspiring "experts" (such as myself) some advice on both how to break
into the industry and ways to improve your fantasy skills.
Our guest this week is Geoff Stein, the operations manager
for Mock Draft Central.
In
your opinion, what makes you a fantasy expert? (basically the polite way of
asking - why should people listen to you?)
I don't think people should listen to me. I like to point things out and
allow people to make their own choices/decisions. I'm not a "do this"/"don't
do that" type of writer; instead I
focus on producing an original, entertaining piece that makes people
think/informs.
This past weekend, I traveled to Arkansas for a
wedding.It was a great one.You know how you go to a ballgame or stay out
too late one night and when you wake up the next day you've lost your
voice?It almost always means you had a
good time the day before.Well I took
that to the next level.When I woke up on
Monday, I had lost my hearing.Couldn't
hear out of my left ear.Spent most of
the recap lunch staring at my plate wishing the food would disappear without me
actually having to eat it and pretending to follow the conversation around
me.Guess that means I had an awesome
time on Sunday.
Because of the weekend events, I didn't follow my expert
league match-up at all.Even forgot to
set my lineup for the weekend before I left on Friday.You know what?Didn't matter.The results didn't change a bit.I won 5-4-1, the exact same result that would
have occurred had I scoured the wire for last second free agent fill-ins and stared at
the scoreboard all weekend.
Like many fantasy players, I can get caught up in the
obsession and pay too much attention to every at-bat, pitch, and play.It's too bad "time spent hoping" isn't a
fantasy category, as I would clean up.While I usually enjoy following my players extremely closely, it's still
nice to see that you can step away for a few days without consequence.Fantasy baseball isn't like the Hatch in "Lost."You don't have to push the button every 108
minutes to prevent the end of the world, even though it often feels that way.
Someday I might forget to put a pitcher in and it will cost
me a few categories.But today I take
comfort in knowing that even in an intense expert league, it's possible to step
back for a few days without changing a thing.Gives me time to focus on other matters.Like getting my hearing back.
I'll be back tomorrow with an interview featuring Mock Draft
Central's Geoff Stein.Until then.
Dear Internet Man Who
Lives in My Computer,
I have a question. This is the time in the fantasy baseball season when I have
trouble staying motivated. I start going away on weekends to go to weddings or
bachelor parties or the beach or, more likely, the office, and fantasy baseball
isn't always the top item on my list of things to catch up on during the week.
Plus, especially in my points league, the status quo seems to be sorting stuff
out so I feel like I'm destined to finish in 4th to 7th place no matter what I
do. Nobody good is available on waivers, at least anybody who will make a real
difference in my performance, and I'm too lazy to trade with anybody but the
guy who low-balls me four times a day. Any advice about how to keep my interest
up and make a move?
Sincerely,
metsfankrod
PS - okay, maybe more like 6th to 9th place.
Hey, good to hear from you again Krod Mandoon.How is your epic quest to ruin television
going?From what I hear, you are almost
there.Congrats.
Losing interest as the season goes on is a common problem,
though one not always caused by "my life is too awesome to care" syndrome,
which you seem to possess.If I was
traveling every weekend to hang out with my friends or go to the beach, I'd
probably lose interest too.Sounds pretty
nice.Your office is probably on a
boat.Jerk.
If you are still fielding trade offers and checking the
waiver wire, it sounds like you are not quite a lost cause yet, which is
terrific.There is nothing worse than
being in a league where guys completely check out in May (Ok, maybe a couple
things are worse - plague, famine, Coldplay).I hope no matter how much you stop caring, you always log-in at least
once a week for 30 seconds to set your lineup.If you can't do that, you should give up fantasy baseball as a hobby
because such behavior can ruin it for everyone.Now please put your hands up everyone, the only way I exit my soap box
is through crowd-surfing.
But since you seem to care a little about fantasy
baseball (you are reading this blog after all), here are four suggestions on
how to jumpstart your interest.
Welcome back to another week of Marry, Bury, Date -- the
childhood game I've hijacked to provide the framework for my initial foray into
providing expert fantasy baseball advice.
The premise of the game is simple.Three names are thrown out and the participants
must pick which one they would Marry (ie commit to long-term), Bury (get rid of
forever), or Date (could be fun in the short-term).When considering trade offers or waiver wire
pick-ups, fantasy players are faced with these same three decisions all the
time, so in an effort to help aid these choices, I'll name one player who I
like for the rest of the season, one player who I think could help in the
short-term, and one guy I wouldn't touch in this space each week.
After I'm done, if you want to whisper to the player that I
"like 'em, like 'em" that's up to you.If you do, I look forward to the awkwardness that ensues all the way
through the Junior High Prom.Maybe I'll
get my courage up and ask them to dance during Oasis's "Wonderwall."
Welcome
back to the newest installment in our series of interviews aimed at giving
readers insight into the minds and backgrounds of those fantasy writers and
pundits who have reached the level of "expert." It seems there
has been an explosion in the number of people claiming the title in the last
few years, but no one seems to know where they come from. These interviews
aim to change all that, while also giving aspiring "experts" (such as
myself) some advice on both how to break into the industry and ways to improve
your fantasy skills.
Our guest this week is Todd Farino, the founder of Fantasy
Baseball Search and the creator of our Expert League.
In your opinion, what makes you a fantasy expert?
(basically the polite way of asking - why should people listen to you?)
I don't really like to call
myself an expert. I'll leave that to the readers. I love to analyze
baseball from a strategy POV. I think the reason why I have success and
hopefully why people should listen to me is I don't beat around the bush.
I tell it like it is. Some analysts won't risk their reputation on tough
calls, but I will. I have a history of winning, playing tough
competitors, and backing up everything I say. If people want to take
advantage of skills that I have built over the past 18+ years the more to
them. I still feel I have alot of growth left to do and I'm constantly
revising my strategies every season. The key to winning is to stay
ahead of everyone else. I do that the pretty well so far and I don't
succumb to the pressures of the industry. I'm very raw in that sense.
Any suggestions for
how to replace Rickie Weeks? It's a 12 team league with an MI spot, so needless
to say, the 2B and SS options on the wire are pretty Weeks.
I see what you did there at the end.It's funny because his name is descriptive of
the situation.I get jokes.
Losing Weeks is a tough blow, but you should be able to
survive it, especially since it sounds like you had him slotted into your
middle infielder slot.Playing in a
league that uses a MI position is a mixed blessing in these situations.It does thin out the overall player pool, but
it also gives you much more flexibility when targeting a replacement.
I'm assuming you are exploring all your trade options and
like all owners who lose a guy for the year, you're hairline deep in low-ball offers.If it's clear you have excess in another
category, you should move it to balance to fill your new hole, but only after
you negotiate past all the insulting Scutaro-for-Santana type proposed deals
and you check-in with Alexei Ramirez's owner to find out just how disgusted he
is with the White Sox alleged budding star (you never know, it's possible you
could get him with a low-ball offer of your own).You might even have a power surplus, since
you got a surprising number of bombs out of Weeks before his injury (though
there was no chance he was going to keep it up and hit 30 plus on the
season.And since there is absolutely no
way we'll ever know if that's true, I stand by it 100%).
Assuming you can't make a trade, I'd look at the following
guys who are available in many 12-team leagues.
Akinori Iwamura -
He's a career .282 hitter and is batting over .300 so far this year.He's also stole 8 bases this year as the Rays
continue to be extremely aggressive on the basepaths.He replaces Weeks speed in your lineup and
doesn't hurt you anywhere but in homers.He also has a sweet name which makes him sound like a villain in "Heroes."You could do worse.
Christian Guzman -
How a guy hitting .377 at the top of the lineup for a team that scores over
five runs a game can be owned in fewer than half of all leagues is a mystery to
me.He won't contribute much to your
power numbers, but he'll give you A+++ production in batting average and runs.At MI, I'd rather have a guy who puts up huge
numbers in two categories than a player who puts up slightly better than
mediocre numbers in all five.
Alberto Callaspo -
Another guy who isn't getting enough pub.He's been trending upwards over the last several seasons and is now
batting .338 with 16 ribbies and runs scored.He's batting second in the Royals lineup, and while his RBI pace may
slow down a little, he's still going to provide similar overall value to a
dozen guys who have much higher ownership numbers.
If all those players are owned, send me an email and we can
try to come up with another approach.Thanks for reading.
Once again real life is interfering with my fantasy life, so the Mailbag will not run until tomorrow. But to hold you over, here is the roundtable discussion from this week where myself and eight guys who actually know what they are doing give advice on this season's unlikely power hitters.
Welcome back to another week of Marry, Bury, Date -- the
childhood game I've hijacked to provide the framework for my initial foray into
providing expert fantasy baseball advice.
The premise of the game is simple.Three names are thrown out and the participants
must pick which one they would Marry (ie commit to long-term), Bury (get rid of
forever), or Date (could be fun in the short-term).When considering trade offers or waiver wire
pick-ups, fantasy players are faced with these same three decisions all the
time, so in an effort to help aid these choices, I'll name one player who I
like for the rest of the season, one player who I think could help in the
short-term, and one guy I wouldn't touch in this space each week.
After I'm done, if you want to whisper to the player that I
"like 'em, like 'em" that's up to you.If you do, I look forward to the awkwardness that ensues all the way
through the Junior High Prom.Maybe I'll
get my courage up and ask them to dance during All-4-One's "I Swear."
Another week, another win for my merry band of miscreants in
the Fantasy Baseball Search Expert League.This time, I caught starting pitching guru Evan Dickens on an off week
and swept all five pitching categories on my way to a 7-3 victory.The win puts me back in first place in my
division as we reach the quarter point of the season, thus setting me up for a
devastating collapse later on.Pride
cometh before the fall indeed.
But my stellar performance in the league isn't what I want
to talk about today (and it's almost certainly not what you want to read).Instead, let's discuss the most annoying
things that can occur during a head-to-head matchup.
The H2H format magnifies every little event during the
course of the baseball season.A play
that's barely noteworthy or ignored completely under a roto format can cause a
fantasy manager to have a Kiefer Sutherland level meltdown in a H2H league (the
recent head-butt story is just further proof that there is a Vonnegutesque
blending of fact and fiction going on here.Jack Bauer is coming to life.Christmas trees and terrorists, beware).
It's because the impact of a misstep is felt immediately and
can't be made up for over the course of the full schedule.It's also because players who prefer the H2H
format tend to be action junkies and far less rational than their roto-playing
counterparts (I have absolutely no proof of this, but like any good lawyer,
I'll stick to it til I die).
So here is one H2H player's countdown of the five most annoying
things that can happen during the course of a week.I find that the more unlikely the event, the
angrier I get, so the list is ordered accordingly.I'm sure I'm missing something, so a more
expansive version may be coming in the future, but here is what I've got for now.
Welcome
back to the newest installment in our series of interviews aimed at giving
readers insight into the minds and backgrounds of those fantasy writers and
pundits who have reached the level of "expert." It seems there
has been an explosion in the number of people claiming the title in the last
few years, but no one seems to know where they come from. These interviews
aim to change all that, while also giving aspiring "experts" (such as
myself) some advice on both how to break into the industry and ways to improve
your fantasy skills.
In
your opinion, what makes you a fantasy expert? (basically the polite way of
asking - why should people listen to you?)
I suppose a lot of people think that winning championships qualify you but I
would disagree. People should listen to me because I make decisions and endorse
players based on the evidence rather than hunches and following the crowd. In
fact I love when the crowd disagrees with me.
Toby, it seems like every year some girlfriend
of a friend ends up in the money in my March Madness Pool when she picked her
teams solely by how attractive their players are. How do you think I would do
in fantasy baseball if I simply drafted the best looking guy for each available
roster slot? I'm fairly confident you have not put together a player hotness
ranking, but some enterprising young girl has here. Thoughts?
Excellent question.Let's begin with the list you provided.That enterprising young girl is now a middle-aged woman, as this list is
from at least 10 years ago.The domain
was a dead giveaway, as Geocities is like the slap bracelets of the internet
world -- All the rage back in the day but irrelevant now (PS - I definitely had
a slap bracelet in elementary school.Bendable magnets wrapped in neon fabric?Who could resist?).And if you
couldn't figure it out from the web address, J.T. Snow is the first baseman and
Manny is listed as playing for the Indians.So it's a bit dated.
Luckily for you, I'm very secure in my masculinity.So after making absolutely, positively
certain no one could see what I was doing, I hit up Google to try to find
current ballplayers that are swoonie.If
any of you out there go back to check my work, I implore you to make sure safe
search is turned on.I cannot stress
this enough.Some things you can't
unsee.
After about an hour of running searches that are certain to
lead to some interesting email offers, I was able to compile a pretty decent
list.To my surprise, there are plenty
of message board posts dedicated to this very subject and the hard-hitting
journalists over at Cosmo filed an excellent expose blowing the lid off the
whole topic.
Now that I've gathered the player pool, I can consider your
question.The whole notion that some
secretary can win an office pool based on crazy criteria such as hotness of
players, cuddliness of mascot, or closeness of the school to Mecca is a bit
misguided.What really happens is they
end up picking favorites early and then maybe an upset or two later for
some wacky reason that happens to work out.When asked why they picked it, they end up spouting off some crazy talk
and everyone thinks she was nuts all along.The truth is they mixed a lot of chalk with a little luck.
So, to answer your question, I think you could draft
a very competitive team filled with nothing but attractive players as long as
you picked them at their proper value.To illustrate, I went back and cross-referenced the list of attractive
players I compiled with their average draft positions (I know, I know, I'm a
loser, I get it) and came up with the following core team that would cause both
hardcore fantasy players and teenage girls hearts to flutter.
Sorry everyone, some real world matters have come up and interfered with this here fantasy world, so no mailbag today. I'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the link below where eight guys who know what they are talking about and yours truly discuss what to do with Manny.
Welcome back to another week of Marry, Bury, Date -- the
childhood game I've hijacked to provide the framework for my initial foray into
providing expert fantasy baseball advice.
The premise of the game is simple.Three names are thrown out and the
participants must pick which one they would Marry (ie commit to long-term),
Bury (get rid of forever), or Date (could be fun in the short-term).When considering trade offers or waiver wire
pick-ups, fantasy players are faced with these same three decisions all the
time, so in an effort to help aid these choices, I'll name one player who I
like for the rest of the season, one player who I think could help in the
short-term, and one guy I wouldn't touch in this space each week.
After I'm done, if you want to whisper to the player that I
"like 'em, like 'em" that's up to you.If you do, I look forward to the awkwardness that ensues all the way
through the Junior High Prom.Maybe I'll
get my courage up and ask them to dance during James Blunt's "You're Beautiful."
When I interviewed The Fantasy Man last week, he described
our match-up as "on like Donkey Kong."His prediction turned out to be entirely true.Unfortunately for me, he was the 800 pound
gorilla and I was nothing but the barrels.
After a month long stretch of dominance, I received my first
true whooping in an expert league.The
Fantasy Man beat me 7-2-1, vaulting over my team into first place in the
process.I've got no excuses.My team put up decent numbers, but in a
league this competitive "decent" doesn't get it done.It's like seeing a prospect that has a
"decent" fastball tear through the minors, but when he receives his call up to
the show, his first heater inevitably disappears into the night faster than
Rorschach.Big league hitters make their
living off of "decent."
It's a healthy reality check as I was starting to get a
little pompous.My initial success led
me to believe that the rest of the season would be easy and that my powerful sharkelephant
offense would just continue to trample and eat everything in its path.I'm sure it's how EMF felt in 1990 when "Unbelievable"
hit number one on the charts and they felt they'd dominate the music scene
for the next decade.That didn't, as
they say, "work out" for them.Hopefully, I won't due something as dumb as featuring Mark David Chapman
(the guy who shot Lennon) on an album released by a British band and I'll right
the ship this week.
(By the way, this actually happened.Even Homer's barbershop quartet declaring
they were bigger than Jesus wasn't as big a musical misstep.It would be like Soulja Boy following up "Crank
Dat" with a new track featuring James Earl Ray and then wondering why his
career disappeared. I have to assume the thought of including Chapman on the record is what inspired them to write "Unbelievable". And yes, this is the most ink ever spilled on EMF by a fantasy baseball writer. And yes, that is a challenge).
Welcome
back to the newest installment in our series of interviews aimed at giving
readers insight into the minds and backgrounds of those fantasy writers and
pundits who have reached the level of "expert." It seems there
has been an explosion in the number of people claiming the title in the last
few years, but no one seems to know where they come from. These interviews
aim to change all that, while also giving aspiring "experts" (such as
myself) some advice on both how to break into the industry and ways to improve
your fantasy skills.
In your opinion, what
makes you a fantasy expert?
I believe in, as Cory Schwartz would say, "showing my work." I will
(almost) never give a fantasy opinion unless I can provide some statistical
support for my position. At the same time, I believe in actually watching
baseball as the best way to evaluate the starting pitchers I recommend.
A few days ago, I foolishly wrote that I was looking forward
to when my team cooled down so I could stop worrying about when it would
happen.The fantasy gods, who always
ignore my pleas to stop injuring my players or to keep my closers from
appearing in "non-save" situations where their success rate is lower than your
average comic book villain's, were suddenly all too eager to grant my request.
For weeks now, my lineup has been fully raking, putting up
massive numbers.They've been like a
shark riding an elephant, trouncing and eating everything they saw.Then I had to open my big mouth and all of a
sudden I'm getting swept in all hitting categories at the halfway point of this
week's match up.
If I was to rank who was to blame, I'd go with:
1.me
2. - 73.Adrian
Beltre
74.The Seattle
batboy for continuing to hand Beltre a whiffle ball bat each time he's heading
to the plate
75.The Seattle
police department for not realizing Beltre disappeared weeks ago under
mysterious circumstances
76.All Major League pitchers from 2004 who allowed Beltre to think he could hit every pitch out of
the park thus causing him to swing so hard, you'd think he was auditioning for
a Bugs Bunny cartoon
77.me again, for
drafting Adrian Beltre
At least I get my wish now and can watch the games this
weekend without worrying about the imminent arrival of my team's inevitable
decline.They've come back to earth and
now I get to root for them to pull it together and make a last second comeback,
which is actually more fun than being on the other side.I'm looking forward to it.
I missed the trade
article, but you're right on the money with the insulting initial offer. I've
now been offered multiple poopoo platters: JJ Putz for VMart (holds is a need
of mine) and Juan Cruz+Rickie Weeks for Pedroia. I've countered the second guy with
what I think is a pretty reasonable offer: Pedroia+Wandy Rodriquez for
Santana+Marmol. Think it has a chance? He also has Ted Lilly, so if he counters
with Lilly instead of Santana do I take it?
It would probably
help to note that I have Alexei Ramirez ready to fill in at 2B, and it's a 6x6
league that counts Holds. I'm extremely deficient in Holds thus far (5, count
em), and Marmol is obvi a stud in that category + will sneak in some Saves along
the way.
All right, I'm already halfway to my word count!Thanks guy.I'm just kidding, this is actually the level of detail needed for an "expert"
such as myself to have any chance of accuracy when answering a question (and
even then, I'm throwing proverbial darts at a proverbial board that has a
proverbial picture of Julian Tavarez as its proverbial bullseye).Context is king when evaluating trades and
quirks in league rules can make deals that seem even on their face lopsided in
their results.
Speaking of quirks, holds is a ridiculous category.In most leagues you are given a hold as long
as the lead still remains when you exit the game.So you can enter a game with a one run lead,
walk the bases full, get booed lustily by a home crowd and still pick up a
hold.This is like the guy who orders
the first round of drinks, thus earning him "great guy" status among the group
but then proceeds to order two lobsters and a condor egg omelet for dinner
because he knows someone else is picking up the bill.Still a great guy?No sir.
I understand the argument to make middle relievers a factor
in fantasy baseball since they are so important to real-life teams (if you have
any doubt, please look at this list of ERA's for the Nats bullpen and then look
at their record), but counting holds is fitting a round peg in a triangular
hole and it can make a left-handed relief specialist more valuable than guys
who hit .300 or 30 bombs.It's as if "pancake
blocks" became a category in fantasy football and linemen became more
important than wide receivers.Sure, it
may be a more accurate reflection of their relative value in real football, but
doesn't it take a lot of the fun out of fantasy?
Anyways, sorry for the tangent, but to be fair, it's what I
do.My writing is not very focused.If it was a weapon in "Contra" it would be
the Spread, not the Laser.
Let's finally get to your question.In my experience, guys who make insulting
first offers don't ever accept your counter-proposal no matter how reasonable
it is. They typically only want to make
a deal if it's completely one-sided.If
he doesn't back off entirely, he's likely going to give you a new offer that is
only slightly less insulting (instead of flipping you the bird, this time he'll
just grab his crotch).So based on that,
I don't think he'll accept your offer.
As for the offer itself, I think it's very fair and I would
do it if I had your specific need at holds.Both Pedroia for Santana and Wandy for Marmol offer roughly
equivalent value and seemingly would fill needs for both teams.If he switches to Lilly, I probably would pass.Then you are talking about it being Pedroia
for Lilly and I've got to think you could do better than that if you are
shopping the reigning AL MVP.Also, I
think Wandy and Lilly end up with similar value at the end of the year, in
which case, you'd be trading Pedroia for Marmol.Yikes.
Another course of action might be to just shop Wandy for a
guy who gets holds in a straight-up trade.You should send feelers to the owners of guys like Okajima, Wheeler,
Putz (see if he'll be more reasonable than VMart), McClellan, and Madson to see
what it would take to get them before you accept anything resembling a desperation
trade.Or try to buy-low on Scot
Shields, who has started slow after leading the league in holds last year.After Holiday went yard on him last night,
you might find a fed up owner who is willing to deal.
Hope this helps.If
you have any follow-up questions or want more advice as your negotiations carry
on, let me know and I'll be happy to help.
Welcome back to another week of Marry, Bury, Date -- the
childhood game I've hijacked to provide the framework for my initial foray into
providing expert fantasy baseball advice.
The premise of the game is simple.Three names are thrown out and the
participants must pick which one they would Marry (ie commit to long-term),
Bury (get rid of forever), or Date (could be fun in the short-term).When considering trade offers or waiver wire
pick-ups, fantasy players are faced with these same three decisions all the
time, so in an effort to help aid these choices, I'll name one player who I
like for the rest of the season, one player who I think could help in the
short-term, and one guy I wouldn't touch in this space each week.
After I'm done, if you want to whisper to the player that I
"like 'em, like 'em" that's up to you.If you do, I look forward to the awkwardness that ensues all the way
through the Junior High Prom.Maybe I'll
get my courage up and ask them to dance during Boyz II Men's "Hard To Say
Goodbye."
After the final pitch was thrown last night and I had secured
a 7-2-1 victory for the week, I noticed something peculiar -- I have the best
record in the league.
It's officially the latest in a season I've held first place
in a fantasy baseball league, beating the old record by infinity.At no point last season was my name at the
top of the standings and I didn't expect to break that streak in my first
expert league this season.Given the
quality of my opponents, I figured to spend most of my season in front of my TV
in the Willem Dafoe in "Platoon" position:On my knees, arms lifted to the sky, sucking wind and left for dead, wondering
how everything went so wrong.
Instead, I'm stumbling around with the same look Jerry had in
the Even Steven episode of "Seinfeld."No
matter what I do, things seem to work out for me in the end, so I'm just
sitting back and enjoying the ride.The
question is how long will it last?
My guess is another month or so, but not much longer than
that.There is no way my guys can keep
up with their preposterously hot starts.When I drafted Carlos Pena and Adrian Gonzalez, I was hoping to get 70
bombs between them.At their current
pace, they are going to be in that neighborhood by the All-Star break.Raul Ibanez is putting up huge numbers, turning
back the clock at the age of 36 (and it's not even his clock, he looks more
like Ted Williams right now than himself).And Ian Kinsler has played well enough that my girlfriend is starting to
get (rightfully) jeolous over how much I swoon for him.
Eventually these guys have to cool down and my team will
level off accordingly.I actually look
forward to it in a weird way, as I'll be able to enjoy the game more when I'm
not constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.I mean, I don't want to end up like Randy Quaid
in "Major League 2", rooting against my own team and saying things like "so
what, they'll blow it in the playoffs" when I should be celebrating, but that's
kind of how I feel right now.Or maybe I'm
just saying that so the Fantasy gods won't smote me (not the worst idea).But either way, all writers are more fun to
read when they have something to complain about, so if my team continues to
boom, look for me to start making up fake feuds and starting nonsense arguments
soon (WHIP: Friend or Foe?Tune in next
to find out.)Should be fun.
Welcome
back to the newest installment in our series of interviews aimed at giving
readers insight into the minds and backgrounds of those fantasy writers and
pundits who have reached the level of "expert." It seems there
has been an explosion in the number of people claiming the title in the last
few years, but no one seems to know where they come from. These interviews
aim to change all that, while also giving aspiring "experts" (such as
myself) some advice on both how to break into the industry and ways to improve
your fantasy skills.
Our guest this week is Mike Kuchera, podcast pioneer and
founder of The Fantasy Man.
In
your opinion, what makes you a fantasy expert? (basically the polite way of
asking - why should people listen to you?)
I'm just a guy that loves fantasy sports. Its not like I have a Bachelor's
degree in Fantasy Sports or a minor in Stat-o-nomics. No such thing. I was one
of the first to put myself out there on the Internet as someone who was
knowledgeable and someone who could help beginners and even some
experienced players win their leagues. From that, people started to recognize
me as an expert. I did not give myself that title. When I started, I just
wanted to be the first guy to offer free advice and talk about fantasy sports,
and it just grew from there.
