11 Days of Dating (And Other Mistakes)
I broke up with her in 10th grade.
It was no big deal. I don’t remember why we broke up, really, beyond that we were in 10th grade, we had been “going out” for over two months, and that seemed like long enough at the time. We remained friends after that. Everything was cool.
During the summer before our senior year of high school, however, we had been hanging out a little bit, and I decided that I kind of liked her again. I told her (somewhat more eloquently than, “Hey, I kind of like you again”), and I fully expected her to reciprocate my feelings. Except, she didn’t.
I remember where we were when we talked about it. We were sitting in the grass on a cul-de-sac across the street from a friend’s house; the rest of our friends were inside the house, and we were outside talking. I told her I liked her; she, essentially, told me she did not like me.
End of story, right?
Oh, no. If you thought that was the end of the story, you don’t know me well enough!
Instead of believing her when she said she did not want to “go out” again, I continued to sit there in the grass talking to her, explaining all the reasons why it made sense for us to get back together – and probably detailing to her all the things I liked about her, as if this would make her see just how much I cared. After we talked for a while, I told her to think about it. I let her know I would give her a bit of time, and we could maybe hang out in a week and talk about it and figure out if we wanted to get back together.
A week later, we went to a park near my house and walked around the park and sat on a bench and talked, and she agreed that, yes, we should start going out again.
So we did.
For 11 days.
And then, she broke up with me.
“I wonder what I did wrong.” That’s what I spent a couple days thinking.
Uh, Jordan. Duh – you didn’t do anything wrong! It was just, simply, that she never wanted to go out with you again in the first place.
But it’s funny, isn’t it? We do that to ourselves sometimes. We convince ourselves that something other than “reality” is reality.
In that instance, I convinced myself that this girl and I were going out again because I really liked her, and she really liked me. But the truth was: we were going out again because I liked her, and I had convinced her that we should go out again.
We also (you saw this coming, right?) do this is daily fantasy sports. We talk ourselves into liking players we don’t really like; we imagine upside that is not really there; we convince ourselves that something other than “reality” is reality.
Probably one of the most difficult times to deal with this is when you have followed your process successfully for a number of days…and then you have a day on which you follow your process and everything goes poorly. When this happens, you might wonder what you did wrong (rather than just chalking it up to variance and moving on!), and you might then move into a place where you start overthinking everything – a place where you find yourself constantly trying to convince yourself of realities that are not there. This is a negative cycle that perpetuates itself, and that can lead to prolonged losing streaks.
I had one of those myself earlier this year. I was making excellent recommendations in my MLB Edge articles on Tuesdays and Fridays. I was receiving lots of “thank yous” from readers for the big nights I’d helped them have…and yet, I kept making the wrong decisions with my own teams. It all started with one bad night that I dwelled on too much – convincing myself that I must have done something wrong, rather than simply acknowledging that some nights just don’t go your way. After that, I spent about two weeks overthinking everything each night – moving off players I liked in favor of players no one had any right to like…players whom I nevertheless convinced myself I wanted to “go out with” (uh…so to speak).
Sometimes, the girl just doesn’t like you.
And sometimes, the player you want to use is simply not the best player to use – no matter how much you want to use them!
Stick to your process, my friends. It might not pay off every night, but trust me when I tell you: It’s a whole lot better than convincing yourself she’s going out with you because she actually likes you…only to find out you had merely talked her into it for a short, unsatisfying period of time.
Hey, guess what? That intro ties into the rest of what we are going to be talking about today. (Well done, Jordan!)
There are a lot of ways in which we do exactly what I was just talking about – convincing ourselves that something other than “reality” is reality – but there are four in particular that I have come up with for this article.
These are all mistakes I have made myself.
These are probably mistakes you have made as well.
These are mistakes that we will become far less likely to make once we recognize them, and once we purpose to avoid them.
You ready?
Let’s go!
MISTAKE 1: “IT’S TOO SCARY TO USE THIS GUY”
If you have played daily fantasy sports at all (and I’m assuming you have, because, you know, you’re reading this article and all), you have made this mistake. The numbers point you to like a certain guy. Everything seems perfect. But then…everything seems too perfect. You know no one else will be on this guy, so…what are you missing?
This is the way we tend to think. “I must be missing something here.” But listen: You can always find reasons why someone is not a good play. Heck, I faded Scherzer against the Cubs last week (short slate, trying to create some differentiation with my lineup by moving away from the single most obvious play of the day; not a bad strategy, of course, but one that backfired terribly that day), and I was able to find sound, statistical reasons that day that backed up my belief that Scherzer was an okay guy to fade. Seriously.
It’s not easy to convince yourself to fade a clear, top play such as Scherzer vs the Cubs…but it’s usually very easy to convince yourself to fade the under-the-radar guy you have found.
One example I have of this took place just this last Saturday. I was playing the afternoon slate with a full allotment of cash game entries, and with some big tournament buy-ins on my plate. Pitching was ugly that day; it was pretty much Dallas Keuchel and a whole bunch of risk. Because I was playing on a multi-SP site I needed a second pitcher, and as I looked at everything and started digging into the numbers, the pitcher who stood out to me the most was Erasmo Ramirez against the Orioles…for only $4700. I settled down with the idea of using him in my cash lineup and my GPP lineup that day…and then, I spent the entire morning trying to talk myself off of him. The numbers told me it was the right play. But my mind told me, “It’s Erasmo Ramirez!”
Thankfully, I stuck with him, and his 31.35 points helped me to an excellent day across all the tournaments I had entered. But just as often, what most of us would end up doing in that situation is eventually finding a reason to talk ourselves off that “underpriced guy we like,” only for us to then spend the night regretting our decision.
Stop doing this!
Of course, that’s easier said than done, because you’ll eventually have a day when you stick with this “underpriced, under the radar” guy, and it fails to pay off. You’ll be left asking yourself, “What the heck was I thinking!” But there is always opportunity in MLB DFS to wonder what the heck you were thinking, because that’s just the way variance in MLB plays out at times. And if you don’t acknowledge this, you might scare yourself off using the next guy you identify in this same manner. Over time, however, you will continue to experience success if you continue to trust the numbers…even when trusting those numbers scares you half to death.
MISTAKE 1A: “THAT’S A DUMB RECOMMENDATION”
This is a bonus that piggybacks off the last one. This is another one we all have probably done:
You see someone suggest or recommend a certain player you had not even thought of, and your first instinct is to dismiss this play with a, “What? – that’s dumb.”
I mention this because I said on Twitter on Saturday morning that I would be using Erasmo Ramirez. But I know what most people did when they read this, because it’s the same thing I’ve done when I’ve seen others I respect recommending a play I had not even thought of: they thought, “Wow, that’s off the wall.” And that’s about it. Most people probably did not dig into the numbers themselves to see if they agreed with this play and could maybe take advantage of it as well; instead, most people probably thought it was a pretty crazy play and left it at that.
I’ve done the same thing plenty of times before.
I’m making an effort to not do that anymore.
MISTAKE 2: “THIS IS WHAT WORKS”
I’ve never been a mass multi-entry guy in any sport, and in MLB, I’ve never been big on stacking. It’s not that I disagree with mass multi-entries, and it’s not that I disagree with stacking (both work wonderfully when done correctly; both can also work poorly when done incorrectly). It’s just, simply, that I’ve never enjoyed a large level of success with either of those approaches, and I have enjoyed a large level of success throughout my MLB DFS career with single-entry non-stacks. It’s what I’m good at – and when I’m on my game, I’m very good at it.
At the start of this year, however, I got away from that. After spending the MLB offseason studying things and reading the strategy thoughts of others, I decided to try sticking more closely to what worked for others…rather than sticking to what had worked for me.
Predictably, things did not go well. I donated plenty of money in tournaments over the first month and a half of the MLB season by trying to be a player I am not.
Two weeks ago, I got back to the approach I am most comfortable with – the approach that worked for me all year last year. Since then, I’ve probably won 5x as much in tournaments as I had lost during the first month and a half of the season.
“What works for me?” This is the question you need to ask yourself. If you don’t yet have the answer, start trying new things in low-money GPPs until you find the answer. And once you find the answer, stick with what works for you. It may be different from what works for others, but all that matters is that it works.
MISTAKE 3: ALLOWING PRICE TO AFFECT YOUR ASSESSMENT
I guess there are multiple ways in which this can happen, but the way I am thinking of is this:
You like a guy. But he’s so cheap, you end up pretty much convincing yourself he must be a bad play.
Last year, Jimmy Paredes was one of my favorite guys to use whenever he was up from the Minors, as he seemed to always put up some solid games, so when he was making his first start this year (batting near the top of the order, and priced super cheaply), I was all over him. For a couple days, this was great. But as his price continued to stay far lower than it should have been, I started to convince myself that I should be valuing him lower than I was valuing him. His price, after all, was so low! Clearly I was playing with fire by continuing to roster a guy priced so cheaply…right?
At least twice when Paredes was priced super cheaply, I faded him and paid the price.
Billy Burns is another example. (How is he so low-owned every day!)
Ben Paulsen is another example. (How is he so low-owned every day!)
If you played NFL, Odell Beckham Jr. was another example.
Look at where Paredes is priced right now, then think about how cheap he was for a while.
Billy Burns will eventually be priced like Billy Hamilton, because he’s like a good version of Billy Hamilton. But how many of us are consistently taking advantage of his low price?
If Morneau misses another couple weeks (and if Paulsen returns just fine from the migraine with which he left Sunday’s game), he will soon be priced as an above-mid-range first baseman. Won’t you wish you had been taking advantage of his depressed price while you could?
Stop valuing guys where their price values them. Start valuing guys where they should be valued!
MISTAKE 4: “I THINK I’LL CHANGE MY TEAM”
Your greatest opportunity to build an excellent team is when you are immersed in your research. But if you do your research a few hours before games begin and set your team at that time, it becomes very difficult to not make changes later.
Typically, I do all my research the night before a slate of games is set to begin, and I usually aim to build my team (or to at least narrow down my team to my final options at each position) before I go to bed.
My optimal routine would then be to wake up in the late morning, do my fiction writing and reading, relax for a bit, and then hop on Twitter for the last hour or two before games begin in order to answer questions and swap thoughts with others and hang out with everyone who is getting ready for the night of DFS.
Notice that my optimal routine does not include changes to the team I built the night before.
There are times, of course, when weather concerns or the release of lineups necessitates changes. There are other times when my team is not fully set, and I still need to make my final decisions in the evening. Those are both fine.
What’s not fine is those times when I’m away from my research, I’m no longer immersed in the numbers that led me to narrow things down to my original options…and I end up making changes. Sometimes, I make these changes because I’m terrified of “missing out on” a certain player whom I know will be highly-owned; other times, I make these changes because – once I’m away from my research – I get too scared of using one of the players my research had led me to like (see: Mistake 1). In almost all instances, this ends up being a mistake.
Remember: your greatest opportunity to build an excellent team is when you are immersed in your research.
Tempted to make changes long after your research is done? Yeah – perhaps that is a temptation you should set on fire and never look at again.
That’s all from me, my friends. Hopefully I’ll see you on Twitter this week (JMToWin is the handle; you can find the link in my RG bio below), and if you’re an Incentives member, I’ll see you on Tuesday and Friday for my regular MLB Edge article, and I’ll see you on Thursday when I will once more be filling in for SamENole with my favorite picks of the day.
And, of course, I’ll meet up with you at the top of the leaderboards.
Go forth, and profit!