There is no shortage of disdain lately for Bobby Valentine amongst Boston Red Sox fans, but how much of this is deserved? Let’s take a look back in Red Sox history… In 2003, manager Grady Little made a controversial decision to leave Pedro Martinez in the 7th game of the ALCS, a game where a win could have sent the Red Sox to the World Series and in the process slay the mighty Yankees. Martinez was the number one pitcher in the bigs that year, with a league leading 2.22 ERA, but was showing signs of fatigue late in the game. This decision (combined with the extra inning home run by Aaron Boone) quickly became on par with the 1986 Buckner play and cemented its place in Boston sports nightmares. Continue reading
Category Archives: Opinion
Is Fantasy Baseball Fun?
Now that baseball season has completed a couple of weeks I figured I would do another fantasy sport opinion blog. In a past blog I commented on my experience in the land of fantasy basketball. If I may add, I am in the finals in my head to head league this week thanks to some key acquisitions off the waiver wire. This blog takes a look at fantasy baseball. Behind football, baseball is the second most popular fantasy sport played. It gives numbers crunchers games from morning till night, seven days a week. For hardcore fans the summer months of baseball are heaven, but what about casual fans? Is the day-to-day pressure and commitment too much? I asked my friend to help me out with this and his response is below: Continue reading
Fantasy Basketball Industry
With my new blog I have been experimenting a little on what subjects to focus on and write about for the upcoming year. As mentioned on my about page, since fantasy is centered on stats and numbers there will be many blogs dedicated to the world of fantasy sports. My day is full of fantasy sports research but I have kept the blogs to a minimum for the time being. According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) participation has grown over 60 percent the past four years and there are almost 30 million fantasy sports players in the United States alone. There are countless stats on the industry but one sport I want to focus on in this blog is basketball and my experience.
Most of my fantasy sport blogs will breakdown player stats and recommendations of players I am focused on, avoiding or trying to trade. This blog I am highlighting fantasy basketball as a whole. With the playoffs right around the corner and this season being my first time participating I had some interesting findings. According to the FSTA, fantasy basketball leagues currently sit fourth in popularity behind football, baseball and auto racing. That being said, there are still close to 6 million people participating.
The two styles of leagues I participated in were a yearlong rotisserie style scoring format on ESPN, and a head to head formatted league on Yahoo. As an avid fantasy football player I was automatically attracted to the head to head league through Yahoo. Comparing it to football where your focus is scoring the most points overall, the head to head category match-up is a great format that forces you to focus on all player attributes, strengths and weaknesses. Even though ESPN’s rotisserie league has the same format of stat categories, without the head to head match-up it was hard to stay focused without providing me any gratification of winning or losing at the end of the week. With all the daily fantasy games available online it seems to me the focus on fantasy sports is starting to push towards instant gratification. Overall I have enjoyed the basketball leagues I am participating in and look forward to its growth in the future.
Every major sports league from NBA to NASCAR understands the importance of fantasy sports and its popularity among its fans. Week in and week out it provides someone the opportunity to get involved in a sporting event that their favorite player or team is not involved in. Where do you see the fantasy sports industry going and what sports will be in the forefront in the upcoming years?
