Top 5 Daily Fantasy Frustrations
You can’t stand it when it happens to you…but it’s even more painful to hear others complaining about these misfortunes. So we all bite our tongues and move on; Well, most of us… If you log onto the FanDuel or DraftStreet chat boxes at any point in time you’re likely to hear a combination of one, two or all of these topics being sounded off on. So without further adieu, here is my list of the top 5 Daily Fantasy Frustrations, felt throughout the industry – especially by myself:
h3. #5) Bullpen Implosion
With your pitching selection seemingly well on his way to reward your astute decision, you realize a contest victory and top 3 finish in a multi-team contest is all but guaranteed since J.C. Romero has tossed six strong frames staked to a 5-0 lead and showing no signs of slowing down. The only thing separating your lineup from a first-place payout is the two teams ahead of you by a mere six points, collectively, with no more innings remaining or to be played on their roster. Sweet! You are a mean, lean daily fantasy sports money-making machine. Add the upcoming seven points for Romero’s impending win and first place is yours.
That is, until Toronto’s bullpen and the six-run implosion which followed in the ninth inning proves otherwise and crushes any hope of placing in one of the paid.
#4) Paralysis by Analysis
Thrilled that those hours upon hours of research, or let’s be honest, what our disillusioned minds term “scouting”, not to mention the fifty bucks you dropped on that six-month subscription to Baseball America, is about to pay off as you learn some unheralded middle infielder will join the parent club starting tonight to fill in for two weeks as the regular starter recovers from a minor procedure.
You rush to revise your daily fantasy lineup giddily playing out scenarios in your mind and giggling to yourself at how stacked the lineup will be once you add Wally Prospecto, adding about $2k to your salary in the process –all the more to swap out the “Justin Smoak(player-profile)”:/players/Justin_Smoak-10351’s and Alexei Gonzalez’s of the daily fantasy world for ballers like Ryan Howard and Jose Reyes.
One small problem: when you anxiously use the daily fantasy baseball service provider’s name search option in the roster setting mode, Wally Prospecto is nowhere to be seen!
#3) Blackberry Blunders
So, you’re channel surfing as the birthday celebration at Grandpa Joe’s is winding down, when you click over to ESPN and read the ticker that Ichiro Suzuki is: Out. It’s the exact same feeling when you shimmy over to catch the score of the Alabama-Florida game near the bar area of the wedding of your girlfriend’s/wife’s friend you never met. Already annoyed at the $200 you had to drop on those shenanigans, you see that same trusty ticker stream the starting lineups for the Red Sox-Yankees and notice it’s missing Kevin Youkilis. With 10 minutes to spare, you feel panic set it in but spring to action by bumming a smoke to calm your nerves as, blackberry in hand, hurriedly do a walk-run outside (so as not to draw too much attention) and find a semi-concealed spot to try and login and quickly swap out Youkilis for Alex Rodriguez. You fat-finger a key or two and the next thing you know you’re out of time and stuck with a zero for the night allocated to a good chunk of your salary cap.
#2 – Evening Interventions
You are a prepared Grinder; Religiously entering and setting your lineups the night before to get a head-start on the competition…only to be preoccupied during the most critical two-hour window before the contests actually begin. Those undervalued players you spent time trying to identify with dogged determination during your research of PvB histories, weather reports, and more? You find out the skipper decided today, of all days, was the day to rest them!
#1 – You Got Sniped!
Having your contest picked off in a matter of seconds by the same wily, daily fantasy veteran. Better yet, when you sign up for multiple head-to-head contests and to your chagrin it’s against the same person.
Note: To any newbie’s out there, don’t let this get you too down, many of us have been through this before. Consider it a rite of passage, if you will, into your journey of daily fantasy sports! Also, there are a couple ways to combat this, but all in all, rest assured. At least one of the more established providers out there are has to be preparing to integrate their own internal system to level the playing field…right?
Honorable Mention
Perhaps this one deserves a spot within the top five considering how relevant it is to daily fantasy baseball in particular:
Going on a hunch, you decide to roll with the normally sweet-swinging, but power inept, Billy Butler at first base. Through the first three innings the big fella, aka Bam Bam Butler, has left the yard twice! Your greedy, fantasy-laden mind can’t help but to think ahead and begin to add up your daily winnings. Mother Nature had other ideas and despite the short-lived hope you held out as the game was temporarily suspended with the Delayed tag. So you’re saying there’s a chance….not so fast Mr. Jinx-a-Lot as the game is called with the dreaded Postponed label. Since the game failed to reach the obligatory five innings, Bam Bam’s stats revert back to a big fat zero. For what it’s worth, I would be a big proponent of seeing some of the fantasy sites abandon this rule and count these statistics—no matter what.