Out of the Grind: DFS is Pain
Did you see that ganondorf recently won a FanDuel World Fantasy Baseball Championship (WFBC) seat with a zero from his starting pitcher?
As if that weren’t crazy enough, five days later mirage8888 won a $20,000 first place prize despite a NEGATIVE TWO from Marco Estrada.
Unsurprisingly, winning a GPP with a lowball pitching performance started trending on DFS Twitter. Not wanting to be left behind by the newest “how to be contrarian without being stupid” movement, a few days after Estrada’s tournament-winning performance, I rostered Joe Biagini on nearly all of my DK lineups. Biagini quickly imploded, racking up a jaw-dropping -15.15 points in just 33 pitches and one inning of work, and DraftKings sent me this cool participation trophy to add to my collection:
DFS is pain.
It’s late June and the baseball grind is becoming more cumbersome by the day. I’m supposed to be doing MLB research right now, but that typically only pays $0.04 an hour*, some days more, some days less, so I’m not very motivated at the moment. Instead, with the Biagini wound still fresh (and newly reopened by Lance Lynn and Michael Pineda sub-zero scores on consecutive days), I thought it would be therapeutic for me to make fun of the game we all play within the game. Every now and then, it’s a good idea to burst the DFS bubble we live in and evaluate our relationship with fantasy sports from the macro level. My goal for “Out of the Grind” is to provide DFS players with entertaining stories that are relatable and very different from the slate-specific content we’re used to. Without further ado, let’s explore the pain that DFS brings us. Yippee!
What’s the single worst DFS team you’ve ever built? I’ve created many horrible lineups, but I can’t recall exactly which was my W.O.A.T squad. I also don’t remember how many points it scored, or exactly what place it finished in. I do, however, remember the individual pitchers responsible for my phone-throwing temper tantrums, from Anibal Sanchez to Gio Gonzalez to Francisco Liriano (repeat offender) to Biagini.
DFS is pain. Multiple studies have concluded that we, as humans, tend to remember the details of negative events more vividly than positive events. In the realm of DFS, it seems that the main explanation behind this is financial. Losing money evokes stronger feelings, and thus, has a greater impact on us than winning money.
For every glorious night where the DFS Gods are smiling down on you, there are plenty of others in which you get unlucky. Many of us remember the water main break that forced a Coors Field game to be cancelled, and oh yeah, it occurred on the night of a live final. The 2014 FanDuel WFBC winner CheeseIsGood (ButWaterIsDivine) sure won’t forget it. CheeseIsGood’s victory vaulted him into DFS superstardom.
As I learned from DraftKings’ once-ubiquitous advertisements, one big win can be life-changing #TheMoreYouKnow. The margins are razor-thin and the “currently winning” cliff falls are devastating, but the victories make the pain all worth it.
If you have considered rostering a pitcher on the DL for the guaranteed zero as I have, don’t worry, we’ll catch our break too, just gotta keep our eyes open.
*future results are not guaranteed, and your individual rates may vary