Don't Let "Never Again" Into Your DFS Vocabulary
I promise – I’ve had some good experiences at Globe Life Park in Arlington. Really, I have.
Throughout high school, I lived in Tulsa – about five hours north of Arlington – so there were a lot of days of skipping school and driving down for a Red Sox game (buying the cheapest possible tickets and moving down to the third or fourth row of the left field bleachers a couple innings into the game, when the park was still two-thirds empty). There were also trips down there after high school.
There were the years when my best friend’s father-in-law had one of those offices out in center field, and we would sit on the patio with carryout pizza and watch the games for free.
There was the time the game endured a rain delay and then went into extra innings; by the time we were deep into extra innings, the park had emptied out to a point where we were able to move down to the seats on the first row along the third base line. Alex Rodriguez was manning shortstop for the Rangers in those days, and my buddy yelled as loudly as he could: “A-Rod! More like A-small-Rod!” A-Rod casually turned in our direction and grabbed his man parts. In the bottom of that inning, he smashed a walkoff grand slam, and as he rounded third base he looked into the stands at us with a huge smirk on his face (I’ve always disliked A-Rod, but I have never respected him more than I did at that moment).
There was also the time I went down there for a Cubs-Rangers game with a friend of mine who is a Cubs fan and had been to a number of Red Sox-Rangers games with me. Alfonso Soriano was playing left field for the Cubs, and after every few pitches he would turn around and joke with us where we sat in those not-actually-paid-for bleacher seats.
And, of course – through all these trips – there have been far too many testy encounters with Rangers fans. If you’ve been to a game in Arlington as a fan of the opposing team, you probably know what I mean.
If you’re a Rangers fan, I apologize. But I have to say: I have yet to encounter baseball fans who are more aggressive toward an opposing team – and toward the fans of an opposing team – than Rangers fans.
I’ve been picked on by the Rangers’ mascot. I’ve had an older woman stick her butt in my face and slap it repeatedly and tell me to kiss it after the Rangers won a game against the Sox. I’ve had curses flung at me, and I’ve had personal insults hurled my way.
Honestly, none of this ever bothered me much. I took it in good spirits; heck, it’s sports – in a fundamental, core-of-the-world sense, sports don’t really even matter. “All in good fun,” I thought.
For a while, I figured it was just an inferiority thing (and yes, I see the irony in speaking of “fan-related inferiority complexes” when the Red Sox went 86 years without winning a World Series), but this theory was smashed to bits when I went to the second game of the season the year after the Rangers reached their first World Series. That was…what, four years ago? Five years ago? That was the last time I went to a game at Globe Life Park.
Now, if you are from Texas or are a Rangers fan yourself, I’d like to offer a few disclaimers before you tar and feather me. Firstly, I’d like to mention that I have nothing against Texas, as a state (in fact, in high school, I rooted for Texas football simply because everyone in Tulsa gave me such a hard time about not being an OU fan; it was like, “Um, I’m sorry, I grew up in Boston – why would I give a crap about this Robert Stoops guy and his undefeated season?” – so I started rooting for Texas and Oklahoma State just to be contrarian). My wife and I recently had a great trip to Austin, Marfa, and Big Bend. When I was a kid, I was a “Cowboys and Patriots fan” because I loved Emmitt Smith (I still have over 100 Emmitt Smith football cards saved somewhere – including a rookie card that’s worth a good six or seven dollars). In fact, I was a Rangers fan the first year I started paying attention to baseball as a kid, because I thought Nolan Ryan was the greatest athlete alive; the first baseball game I ever went to was a Rangers-Red Sox tilt at Fenway. I brought a posterboard to the game with “Go Rangers” written on it. (Nolan Ryan was supposed to be pitching that game…but he was scratched at the last minute.)
So, yeah. It’s nothing against Texas as a state, Texas sports as a whole, or people from Texas. Instead… well, instead, it’s just the truth about the experiences I have had. Fair enough?
Oh, you’re wondering what was this experience that pushed me over the edge? What was this experience that led to me deciding I was never going to a game in Arlington again? What made me suddenly drop my trips to Texas when I had been going for years? – when, previously, the aggressiveness of Rangers fans had seemed harmless and even somewhat comical?
I’ll show you. Let’s go back to that second game of the season after the Rangers’ first World Series appearance…
We were heckled walking into the stadium – no big deal. We were heckled inside the stadium – whatever. But then, the game started. And this guy behind us started getting more and more aggressive in the things he was saying about the Red Sox, about Boston as a city, and about Boston sports fans – leaning, literally, right behind my head, and saying things like:
“I went to Massachusetts once. It sucked! You know what the sign says when you drive into Massachusetts? It says ‘No Guns Allowed.’ You know what the sign says when you drive into Texas? It says ‘Welcome to Texas’!”
(Side note: I’ve been to 41 states – most of them by car – and I’m pretty sure every state’s sign has some variation of “Welcome to [name of state here].” But, you know – whatever.)
He also had this gem (right into my ear): “You know what I can’t stand? F****** traitors! If you’re from Texas, you should be a Texas fan!”
I turned around. “I grew up in Boston.”
“Well, I grew up in Texas!”
“Yeah. That’s why you’re a Texas fan.”
“That’s right!”
And, finally, there was this one – to his four-year-old son, regarding the peanuts the boy was eating…and regarding my wife, who was sitting in front of the boy. “Son, you’re getting your nuts in her hair. Women don’t like it when you get your nuts in their hair!”
Now, if you’re reading this and wondering why I wasn’t more aggressive with the guy – maybe telling him to shut up, or maybe being a bit more forceful than that – I’ll keep my explanation streamlined: I was at the game with my wife, my best friend, and my best friend’s wife. My best friend is a former Marine who was in the service from 2003 to 2007. Have you seen ‘American Sniper’? My buddy was in Fallujah at the same time as the dude from American Sniper, during what was considered the bloodiest American battle since Vietnam. He saw some crazy stuff down there, and… let’s say he maybe still had a tendency to snap at times. Let’s say he’d gotten us kicked out of a game at Kauffman Stadium a year earlier (hey, not ALL Red Sox fans are polite, respectful, and friendly, okay?), and let’s say my main role around him at that time in our lives was to keep the peace with others as best I could. Let’s say the guy behind me that night was probably fortunate that I brought as little attention as possible to the stuff he was saying all night behind me, as my buddy wasn’t paying attention, and I figured it was in the best interests of everyone that we keep it that way.
That’s not to say things didn’t come to a head by the end of the game. And that’s not to say we didn’t come close to brawling with another group of Rangers fans who followed us out of the ballpark yelling obscenities at us simply because of the jerseys we were wearing.
It is to say, however, that you can probably understand by this point why I have not been back to Arlington for a baseball game.
I’m writing this article in a car (um… in the passenger seat – not while driving) – on my way to Chicago (where we’ll be meeting up with friends and flying to Costa Rica; hooray!). I handled the first leg of driving, and while thinking about what I wanted to write about today, that story came to mind. You know what that story made me think of? It made me think of all the times we make firm resolutions based off a single experience.
How many times, after all, have you heard someone in the DFS world say, “I’m never using this guy again.” Wait… what? You’re never using them again because they had a bad game in a good matchup on the day you rostered them? You do realize that “not using them ever again” does not teach that player a lesson, right? All it does is hurt you in the future.
But honestly, if you’re reading this article, I’m hoping that particular mistake is not one you still make.
Why did I write this entire article, then? Because that’s not the only “personal bias from personal experience” mistake we, as DFS players, are prone to making.
One particular area in which I have noticed, lately, that I tend to make this mistake is that I have a really hard time using a player the day after he has a big game at low ownership – especially if I owned the player myself.
During basketball season, I had a conversation with one of my friends about how “the desire to not look like a noob” can often drive us toward poor roster decisions (the context of that conversation – for you NBA DFSers out there – was that stretch in the spring when Jeremy Lin was on fire; each day, my friend and I were tempted to play him, but each day, we didn’t, as we were terrified of being the idiots who rostered Lin on the day the magic wore off and he had a bad game). But this last year was my first year playing NBA DFS; I was learning on the fly, and mistakes like that are part of the process. You wouldn’t think I’d still be making that mistake in MLB, though – where I have such a firm handle on the game, would you? And yet, it’s still a mistake I realized I have made.
My tendency to avoid players the day after a big game surely started because that was a mistake I made a number of times when first getting started in DFS: a guy has a big game, so you jump on board the next day because you missed out the day before. Then, the guy is a huge disappointment that day when you use him. Eventually, you get to a point where you never want to use a guy the day after he’s had a big game, as you’re so darn scared of using a guy when he bombs and feeling like an absolute noob for using that guy the day after a big game!
But…see? Some days, a guy has a big game…and is then in perfect position to have a big game again the next day. Sure, that guy’s ownership might rise. And sure, some people might be jumping on board without even realizing the guy in question is in good shape to put up a big game once more. But who cares? The guy is in good shape for a good game! – that should be good enough for you.
You see, maybe I was simply unlucky to be sitting in front of a real (drunken) jerk of a human being that one night in Arlington. Maybe the fans following us and heckling us in the parking lot that same night were just a couple more rotten apples, and it was just rotten luck that I encountered them the same night I dealt with that other guy for nine innings. Maybe I should still be taking trips down to Arlington; maybe I am missing out on good experiences and memories and Red Sox games by having decided to never go down there again. Sure, the fans down there have always been more aggressive than fans elsewhere, but it was never an issue before – never to a point where I never wanted to go down there again. Instead, it was simply because of that one rough night that I have not been back.
And probably every single one of us has things along those lines we do in DFS: decisions we are resolute in our determination to “never make again,” simply because that decision burned us one time.
I don’t know what your “personal biases from one or two bad experiences” are. But here’s my recommendation to you:
Figure out what they are. Then let them go!
If it’s “not using a particular player because he wrecked your night one night,” let go of this. Move on. Put yourself in position to make the best decision each night – unencumbered by personal biases.
If it’s “not using a guy the day after he had a big game,” let go of this! If that player is in a good position to have a big game again the next day, go ahead and roster him.
If it’s “not going to Texas anymore for baseball games,” let go of this! Chances are, you won’t run into that same guy again. He’s probably behind bars by now anyway.
What are the personal biases you have in DFS based on a few bad experiences? How are these affecting your ability to maximize your DFS teams?
Identify your biases. Get rid of them! And get better at DFS as a result. After all, Globe Life Park is a nice place to catch a game; there’s really no reason why you should never go there again.