Apparently, the fountain of youth can be found on British golf courses. Last year a then-53-year-old Greg Norman nearly pulled off a miraculous victory at the British Open, before fading in the final round. On today’s opening round of the British Open, 59-year old Tom Watson’s face has been all over the television for firing a 5-under 65 that gave him a share of the lead, until 45-year old Miguel Angel Jimenez shot a 6-under 64. I cannot even fathom the kind of odds that you could have received in Vegas by predicting those two golfers would be on the top of the leaderboard.
While Watson and Jimenez may fade, for fantasy golfers, performances like this just create all sorts of issues, because very few fantasy players, if any, will have selected these guys. Then, if the elder overachievers continue to perform well, fantasy golfers are faced with the question of hopping on the bandwagon and substituting them into their lineups.
Aside from the fact you are behind the curve if you do not have Tiger on your squad, the high level of week-to-week unpredictability is a big issue for fantasy golf. When you see performances like this, it makes you feel like you are just grasping at straws. Feeling like you have no particular insight into a sport tends to make you not want to keep playing it.
Update (6:10pm EDT): I just received this rebuttal from John Hohlen of Pro Tour Fantasy Golf (PTFG), and honestly, he raises some good points. In my own defense, I did not mean to imply that fantasy golf is pure luck. In fact, I am currently in the hunt in a league at PTFG, and maybe this article reflected more of my own current frustration with my picks (That’s right, I am looking right at you Tiger, Sergio, and Furyk. What do you think?
Your latest post about the British Open is based on one round out of four. By Sunday, do you think both of the elder statesmen will still be a top the leaderboard, I don’t. There are plenty of “popular” picks within just a few strokes.
Your article makes it sound like all fantasy golf games suck! Some do, especially the ones which force you to play the same lineup for 4 rounds. Being able to sub is one of the unique selling features PTFG that many other games don’t offer.
Having the old-timers lead after a round or two is great for the game of golf — and fantasy, I believe. Last year, there was a tournament where Greg Norman had a nice lead after 2 rounds (it may have been a major, I can’t remember), but it was still a hard decision on whether to put him in your lineup. A lot of people did, but unfortuantely Norman eventually lost his lead. Fantasy participants had a tough choice to make – go with your heart or play the odds. Either it way, it was great for fantasy and the game of golf. More viewers than usual tuned in because Norman was in the hunt.
If everyone won who was supposed to win, everyone finished in the position they were predicted — that’s what would make me want to quit following or playing a fantasy sport.
I don’t think fantasy golf is as unpredictable as you make it sound. Take a look at the leaders in League 3. Take a look at the Stats page and see how many winners they have picked. Most have picked over 10. That’s out of 23 weeks to date (over 50% of the time). So each week your picking 3 golfers out of 144 on average and you’ve been able to a pick a winner half the time. That’s not random luck or grasping at straws — that’s skill!
Using a few high-tech cameras, some very sophisticated software, Major League Baseball (MLB) is getting ready to revolutionize the world of baseball statistics. A player’s intangibles are becoming a little bit more tangible as its newDigital Eyes Will Chart Baseball’s Unseen Skills.
It looks like after losing its court case to have boxscores and player statistics to be taken out of the public domain (see: Fantasy Sports Win Right to Player Names, Statistics), MLB Advanced Media has found a way to create new statistics that it will own and will license as it sees fit. MLBAM will now have some statistics it can call its very own. MLBAM has not announced how it plans to distribute the data, and how much of the data will be made available to the public, and how much will stay private for use by the teams.
Currently in testing in San Francisco, four high-resolution cameras capture everything on the field in three dimensions. Then, the information is transmitted to a control room where very sophisticated software is able to differentiate a baseball from a runner. Each game produces over two million meaningful location points. These points are then used to determine how much ground an outfield covered, how long it took for a ball to land, how efficiently someone runs the bases, or numerous yet-to-be-thought of statistics. At a cost of $5M, MLBAM plans to have the system rolled out to every major league park by 2010.
From a fantasy perspective, this is just more information to determine if a player is good, or just lucky. More importantly, it might create stats that can be used in fantasy leagues. For the stat heads in the world of fantasy baseball, it may just be information overload.
Now, if we can just use that technology to see if a ball was actually fair or foul…
Bleacher Report, which bills itself as the “Open Source Sports Network,” deleted an article “CBSSports.com Burns Bleacher Report Applicants for NFL Correspondents.” I was able to find the article on the author’s blog, “CBSSports.com Burns Bleacher Report Colts Writers.” The article mainly blasts CBSSports.com for changing the rules on a promotion it recently ran to find NFL beat writers. Since CBSSports.com syndicates Bleacher Report content, it looks the article was pulled by Bleacher Report (screenshot below) to not anger its customer.
The article cites an email from Bleacher Report CEO Dan Kelley detailing the selections that CBSSports.com made and indicated that only 16 Bleacher Report writers were selected for positions instead of the originally promised 32.
I checked the Bleacher Report Community Guidelines, and in my opinion, this article did not seem to violate any of those terms. I have requested comment from Bleacher Report as to the specific as to why the article was deleted, and I will update this article appropriately.
If Bleacher Report want to be the “Open” sports site, censoring its writers is probably not the best tactic.
It is official–fantasy football is edgy and pop culture enough for its own situational comedy. FX has green lighted the production of a new buddy sitcom entitled “the League,” which will be centered some thirty-somethings in a fantasy football league. This is definitely an indication that fantasy football has become so wide spread that is now considered something to which the typical viewer can relate.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “The project, which Schaffer co-created with his wife, Jackie Marcus Schaffer, centers on a fantasy football league and tackles issues of marriage, friendship, parenting and love in suburbia.” In other words, it will mainly be a sitcom that uses fantasy football to create awkward and controversial, yet funny situations. With FX producing the show, it will be interesting to see how edgy the writers can make the show. In addition, the possibilities for NFL guest stars are endless.
One thing the show is sure to have are tons of moments that fantasy players can relate too. Now, FX just has to figure out a way to get fantasy football players to watch something other scores and highlights.
If you watched last night’s All Star Game, you probably saw a few commercials for Fox Sports’ new Fantasy Football game, which will offer fantasy players the opportunity to make substitutions during the week’s games. Prior to the game, Fox Sports announced that Open Sports will build and operate the Fox Sports’ fantasy offerings. The new live fantasy football game, is billed as Fox Fantasy Live, and will be built by Open Sports.
Here is the problem with Fox Fantasy Live–it really only appeals to the niche fantasy super-user. It is an intriguing concept, since every fantasy player has wanted to make a change after the deadline. However, to really get the benefit of this new feature, fantasy players are going to have to watch all of Sunday’s action and be on top of any developing action. If you choose to do something other than watch football on Sunday, your fantasy team will lose out to someone who is on top of it. Sort of takes the fun out of for the casual player.
If Fox wants to be known as the place that hardcore fantasy football players play, then this a great product. But, if Fox truly wants to be a Top Three fantasy site in a year, this is not going to do it. In fact, I think it might alienate some players, since not every player is going to want to play in leagues that need to be involved. Part of fantasy football’s success has been its simplicity, and this goes completely away from that. If you want to beat Yahoo!, ESPN, and CBS Sports in fantasy sports, you cannot do it with a product that has just a few newer bells and whistles. That is not going to be enough to get fantasy players to jump ship. To beat the Top Three, you need to change the game.
Actually, I amazed by this development because Fox Sports is sitting on a potentially huge fantasy game changer with Fox-ownedMySpace. Fantasy leagues are small social networks. MySpace is a ridiculously large social network. Why not build fantasy leagues around the places that they are already social? Yahoo! success can be partly attributed to the fact that most people have Yahoo! accounts, making sign-up really easy. Most people have MySpace accounts. Just a thought…
For Open Sports, this is a very big deal. Having a major media company partner and take an equity stake lends a large amount of credibility to Open Sports, and its mission to create the leading sports social network. Plus, Open Sports is able to continue developing its fantasy offerings while someone else (Fox Sports) is footing the bill. Update: Now that I have seen that Fox put about $4M into OPEN Sports as part of the deal, it is more than likely that OPEN Sports is providing fantasy to Fox Sports as part of its deal. Regardless, this is still a good deal for OPEN Sports because it gives them that major media partner that it needs.
At this point in the fantasy baseball season, one of my favorite things is to see how many of the major league All Stars are on my fantasy team. Why? Because generally, the more guys I have in the All-Star Game, the more likely my team is having a good season. That simple.
For example, this year, my National League-only team’s pitching staff is proud to have All Star starting pitcher Tim Lincecum on its roster, along with Chad Billingsley. As a direct of result of those two guys on my staff, I am first in four different pitching categories (pesky saves!). Unfortunately, my only offensive All Star is Justin Upton. The lack of offensive firepower is a consistent problem and explains why I am struggling to place better than sixth in any single offensive category, and why I am still trying to get out of the cellar in one category.
Remember, this is just the All Star game, so it does not really mean anything for fantasy baseball (aside from the Home Run Derby curse–my condolences to Prince Fielder’s owners). It is just a good barometer of how much top notch talent your team has. Alright, the game is about to start, let’s go check it out.
The Fantasy Tech Group is now up and running with goal of facilitating communication among the technofiles in the industry. Founded by Randy Burgess, Don Van Demark, and Kevin Goodfellow, the goal is to get the technology experts behind the scenes talking and collaborating, much the same way that guys running the fantasy sites have been doing for years.
After watching the companies take turns making the same mistakes year-after-year, I think this something that is long over due in the industry, and eventually lead to better products and innovations.
Below is the introductory email and invitation from the Fantasy Tech Group. If you are interested, head over to Fantasy Tech, and join.
At the recent FSTA Chicago Conference, a small group of “fantasy sports tech” folk had lunch and discussed forming a user group related to the “techies” of the industry. Thus, a few of us have started the Fantasy Tech Group to bring together the segment of developers that work in the industry on the tech side of things.
We don’t want to make this a complicated social network that tries to rival your Facebook friends list or flood your Twitter stream with statements like “I just ate a sandwich and fixed the waiver system code.” We do want to make this a site that allows for some talk across the wire regarding fantasy sports technology and the folks that work on it.
Here is what you DON’T need to do:
* Pay any fees
* Be a member of any association
* Consider yourself to be a tech guru
Here is what we HOPE you will do:
* Create a profile at http://www.fantasytech.org
* Introduce yourself on the forum
* Send us suggestions to make the group better or get involved
* Pass this email along to other fantasy tech developers you know
If there’s one thing we noticed at the conference, the fantasy sports business folks know each other pretty well, but the fantasy sports tech folks are a disconnected bunch. Hopefully, this group can create some better dialogue.
Randy Burgess, Don Van Demark, Kevin Goodfellow
info@fantasytech.org
Six years ago, with the release of Moneyball, Michael Lewis opened our eyes to the world of Billy Beane and how he managed to continuously produce Oakland Athletics teams that overachieved despite a budget so tight that it would make Ebenezer Scrooge look like a spendthrift.
In part of Moneyball, Lewis chronicles Beane’s approach to the MLB Draft. “Moneyball was so revolutionary because it captured a new way of thinking about the draft. Billy Beane and his staff were willing to think differently and creatively about the draft,” according to Ben Hyman of MLB draft site Real Baseball Intelligence. Beane liked the guys that other people would not think twice about. Personally, Beane’s philosophy changed how I look and rate fantasy baseball players. With that in mind, I decided to take a look to see how the players on Beane’s 2002 draft wishlist have faired as major leaguers and as fantasy players.
Grading System: Out: A bust–never made it to majors, cup of coffee in the majors, or just flopped if he did make it. Single: At least one servicable year, but minimal impact Double: A couple of solid years, with some being significant impact Triple: Solid major leaguer. Home Run: A bonafide starter and star.
Pitchers (Team, Round, Overall)
Jeremy Guthrie (Indians, 1st, 16th) After struggling in AAA for three years, something finally clicked for Guthrie in his fourth AAA season. Guthrie eventually produced very solid numbers for the Orioles in 2007 and 2008, and should be a fixture in the majors for the next few years. Grade: Double Joe Blanton (Athletics, 1st, 24th) Blanton is the middle of his fifth season of being a solid major league starter, first with the A’s and now the Phillies. While his hit totals are always high, his ability to throw strikes has kept him in the majors, even enjoying a couple of very stellar seasons. Grade:Triple Jeff Francis (Rockies, 1st, 9th) One of the first pitchers to benefit from Colorado’s humidor, Jeff Francis posted very respectable 4.12 and 4.22 ERAs, and made fantasy owners not embarrassed to have a Rockies’ starter on their staff. Grade: Triple Luke Hagerty (Cubs, 1st, 32nd) Hagerty never made it higher than A-ball, and was last seen playing in the Northern League. Grade: Struck looking on three pitchers Ben Fritz (Athletics, 1st, 30th) Fritz got off to a rocky start in his career having to undergo Tommy John surgery early in his career. Unfortunately, the surgery did not help him do much better than half of a season at AAA. Grade: Flyball Out, warning track power. Robert Brownlie (Cubs, 1st, 21st) Brownlie is still toiling around in the minor leagues, having only made it as high as AAA, and is currently toiling around in the Braves’ system. Grade: Ground Out. Stephen Obenchain (Athletics, 1st, 37th) It became clear by 2006 that things were not going to work out for Obenchain who spent 2005 in AA and then was actually demoted down to A ball for the 2006 season. After a stint in independent league baseball, he hung up his spikes after the 2007 season. Grade: Casey at the Bat-sized Strikeout. Bill Murphy (Athletics, 3rd, 98th) Has had two cups of coffees in the majors, with the most recent this season with the Blue Jays, and produced some respectable numbers. He has struggled with his control a bit, but might eventually turn into a useful left-handed specialist. Grade: Strike out, but the catcher dropped the ball, so he may still make it on base.
Position Players
Nick Swisher (Athletics, 1st, 16th) Now in his fifth season as a major league regular, Swisher has been the most productive of all of the players on Beane’s list. The biggest issue for Swisher has been his inability to hit for average, but he does own a very respectable .356 major league on-base percentage. Grade: Home Run. Russ Adams (Blue Jays, 1st, 14th) After getting to the majors relatively quickly, and even having a stellar 2005 season for the Jays, Adams has struggled to consistently stay in the majors. Grade: Single. Khalil Greene (Padres, 1st, 13th) I will always remeber Greene as the guy who put Rey Ordoñez into retirement. Greene has been a solid major leaguer since 2004, even belting out 27 homers in 2007. Greene has since struggled, but figures to be in the majors for a few more years. Grade: Triple. John McCurdy (Athletics, 1st, 26th) An offensive star at the University of Maryland, McCurdy struggled with the switch to wood bats, and never managed to get higher than AA. Grade: Struck out looking. Mark Teahen (Athletics, 1st, 39th) Teahen argurably has been the most consistent player on this list. Teahen is a fixture in the Royals’ lineup, and can be found as a starting thirdbaseman in most fantasy leagues. Grade: Home Run. Jeremy Brown (Athletics, 1st, 35th) Unfortunately, Brown will always be known as the “fat catcher” from Moneyball. Brown poked his head in the majors for 10 at-bats in 2006, but never made it back. While he probably could have at least been a career AAA player, Brown announced his retirement before spring training in 2008. Grade: Struck out swinging. Steve Stanley (Athletics, 2nd, 67th) Althought he was a career .295 hitter in the minors, Stanley just did not have it in him to power down the long road through the minor leagues. Stanley announced his retirement in 2008. Grade: Can of corn (Out). John Baker (Athletics, 4th, 128th) Baker’s story is one of the most compelling. He did not crack a major league roster until just last season, but has already established himself as the Marlins’ starting catcher. In all likelihood, Bakey will be around the majors for at least a few more years. Grade: Single, might be able to stretch it into a double. Brian Stavisky (Athletics, 6th, 188th) Stavisky’s most significant achievement is two cups of coffee in AAA for the Athletics. But, you have to love a guy like Stavisky who actually has found his way back into the minors after a stint in the independent leagues, and is currently producing for the Phillies in AA. Grade: Ground ball out. Hopefully, he might be be able to beat that grounder out for an infield hit. Shaun Larkin (Indians, 9th, 272th) Larkin never really got his career going, struggling in A ball, before finally making it to AA, and hitting a wall there. At least he was only a 9th round pick. Grade: Struck out looking. Brant Colamarino (Athletics, 7th, 218th) Proclaimed as the “best hitter in the country” by Billy Beane, Colamarino quickly moved through the Athletics system, hitting AAA in 2005, where he stalled. Sent back to AA for two more seasons, the Athletics and Colamarino parted ways after the 2007 season. He was last seen playing for the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic in 2009. Grade: Strike Out.
Overall, Beane’s wish list had eight hits out of twenty, which is a solid number. However, a lot of first round picks make it to the majors, and 14 players on that list were first round. Of the six players on the list not taken in the first round, only John Baker eventually turned out to be a major leaguer. Does this mean Beane’s system is any better than conventional systems? Maybe, but it is probably just as good as any other system. It is just one season’s data, but there are some interesting results.
Of course, the most famous player in Moneyball was a minor leaguer by the name of Kevin Youkilis, who is now one of the premier hitters in all of baseball, and a fixture in the Red Sox’s lineup.
For your own amusement, you might want to look at these other Moneyball retrospectives from previous years:
With college football fans gearing up for another season, so is CBSSports.com. Last year, CBSSports.com’s fantasy college football made waves when it announced that it would use real player names for its fantasy college football game, which had previously been taboo for the major fantasy site. In doing so, CBSSports.com became the first among the leading fantasy sites to take the bold step, and incurred the wrath of the NCAA at the same time.
In this year’s version, CBSSports.com fantasy college football big improvement is offering live scoring for its game. Live scoring is limited to Top 25, BCS conferences, and Conference USA teams, which means you are out of luck if you are using a gunslinger from the WAC. Once again, the game will be free, and CBSSports.com is even offering a free download of its fantasy college football draft kit.
The fantasy college football market is still very young, and it remains to be seen what site will emerge as the market leader. Athlon Sports made a move in this market by purchasing USports in the off-season. USports is a long-time provider of fantasy college football games, and has been using real player names for years, and what many consider to be the benchmark for fantasy college football. Although the fantasy college football market is young, there are plenty of quality content offerings, such as College Fantasy Football Insider and Fantasy College Blitz.
What are your thoughts on fantasy college football and/or CBSSports.com’s seasonal relaunch?
You have to hand it to Major League Baseball Advanced Media–it keeps finding more and more ways to make its core offering MLB.TV accessible. MLB.TV has become a great way for fantasy baseball players to track and watch their players, and now, there are a number of new ways that MLB.TV has made it possible for players to obsess over every last pitch.
With MLB At Bat 2009 for the iPhone, users are actually able to watch games lives on their iPhone. Last year, MLBAM scored rave reviews for its MLB At Bat iPhone application, which had live scoring, play-by-play updates, and almost-as-it-happens video highlights. However, this year’s version has put it to shame. For just $10, MLB At Bat features one or two games per day, but that is expected to grow to the full-slate of games eventually. Further, users can listen to every game through MLB Gameday Audio. In addition, there is a now a free MLB At Bat Lite, which features all of the live scoring and stats.
For the early technology adapters, MLBAM has made MLB.TV available for users of Boxee. Boxee is open source media center software that has integrated all of the web’s video into it. Boxee is the software that you would run on a computer that you have hooked up to your television. Users still have to subscribe to MLB.TV in order to access it through Boxee, but this turns MLB.TV into a poor-man’s version of MLB Extra Innings.
For those on a budget, you can now get a free month of MLB.TV through a deal with Sports Illustrated. If you sign up for a free three-month trial of Sports Illustrated, receive either a free month of MLB.TV, or free MLB Gameday Audio for the season. Not a bad way to get some free baseball coverage
Even if you have a great product, your distribution channels are almost as important as the product. The more avenues and options you have distributing your product, the more people that will touch your product.
From fantasy sports business to its unique culture, from industry news to some lighthearted fantasy humor, and even fantasy sports jobs and videos, Fantasy Ethos covers the world of fantasy sports for fantasy players and the fantasy professional.
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Apparently, the fountain of youth can be found on British golf courses. Last year a then-53-year-old Greg Norman nearly pulled off a miraculous victory at the British Open, before fading in the final round. On today’s opening round of the British Open, 59-year old Tom Watson’s face has been all over the television for firing a 5-under 65 that gave him a share of the lead, until 45-year old Miguel Angel Jimenez shot a 6-under 64. I cannot even fathom the kind of odds that you could have received in Vegas by predicting those two golfers would be on the top of the leaderboard.
