I've learned this year that fantasy football involves a lot more luck than fantasy baseball. Don't get me wrong, you have to do your research for both of them, but baseball is so much more consistent. When you draft a guy in baseball, you are drafting that guy. When you draft a guy in football, that guy depends so much on other guys that it can hurt his production so much more than a change in baseball. If you draft Pujols or A-rod, you draft them. They're alone in the batters box. Every game, they're production is based off if they can perform. In football, when a RB loses guys in his offensive line, his production can decrease a ton. Look at Shaun Alexander. Other than the injury, when he's played, he's not been the Alexander of last year. Not saying he needs to repeat, but the loss of Hutchinson really, really hurt him.
Ways that football players can have their performance hurt by their teammates:
QB:
Dropped passes
OL letting in too many sacks/hurried/knock downs
RB:
OL not blocking
Injury to lineman
Defense so poor giving up points that their team must pass and play catch up most of the time
WR/TE:
QB bad can't get the ball to the receiver
Kicker:
Lack of opportunities can overshadow skill/value
Defense:
Offense can give up turnovers returned for TD's
In fantasy football, everything seems to rely on the other 10 guys on the field.
In fantasy baseball for your hitter, every situation in every game, he's got to hit a ball going across the plate. It doesn't matter if his other teammates got injured. Nobody has ever had a drop off in production because a teammate got hurt (I'm not talking about loss of protection for a batter). It's the pitcher going against that batter.
There is variation for pitchers with ERA, wins, WHIP based off their teammates and how they play defense. This is why I like K/9, BB/9 categories which depend on how the pitcher does and not how his defense backed him.
I'm throwing this out for discussion to see what others think about the differences and if they agree with the points I've made here.
7/26 - Cafe goes down:
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I scored the most points in two out my four leagues; second most in another, and I only have one team in the championship game. The other two teams got knocked out by an LT-owned team and this week I play another one. One player will never dominate a baseball league like LT has a fantasy football league.
Those aspects come into play for sure; but I don't feel that they have as much impact as simply basing a whole week's matchup on one game (per player.) In baseball, you get a whole week to accumulate stats; football is one game so it's make or break. You could have the highest scoring team in the league, but if you face teams that have players go off and score an uncharacteristic number of TDs against you, you'll still lose games. I think in only one of my four leagues, the team that finished in 1st place had the highest point total.
Those factors that you listed contribute to the luck factor, but not as much as simply playing one game a week. For instance, if a manager realized SA was losing a pro-bowl guard, he should know not to pick him over LT or LJ. You can somewhat take the team into perspective when doing predraft rankings.
Havok1517 wrote:Fantasy Football is a sprint while Fantays Baseball is a marathon.
Fantasy Football is more like tripping on the crack in a sidewalk, sometimes you're lucky enough not to fall, sometimes you're unlucky and fall, but it all depends on luck.
well all of what you said is not true. fantasy baseball certainly does rely on a few things. sure your hitter is in the batter's box alone, but what if he hits a double? you need someone to drive him in, dont you? if your pitcher is on the royals or rockies, their teams also hurt their win totals. And a whole other department is the ballpark adjustment factors..but i so see what you're sayin
Well I agree you're right there's a lot more luck involved in fantasy football, but disagree on the reasoning. Lots of the factors you called 'luck' (like offensive line performance/matchups v. defence/other players on the offence/weather) are actually the kind of thing you can analyze, and there is skill involved in that. Better FFL players I've seen usually put a LOT of research into these kinds of factors.
The biggest difference that accounts for a lot of the luck though is the head-to-head factor. Quite simply, if you are the 2nd highest scorer in your league in any given week, there is a chance you could lose and receive negative credit (an 'L') for your performance; similarly you could be the second-worst performer any given week and somehow still luck out with a W. Your points scored do not always correlate to your standings. Fantasy baseball, on the other hand, your team's own performance will always be reflected in your roto standings, and over the long haul well-researched teams should usually do better. Fantasy football there's often no way to predict who will win the league.
You've got a diamond, You've got nine men You've got a hat and a bat, And that's not all..
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by chadlincoln » Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:52 pm 
but luckily I found the likes of Marques Colston on the WW and now I am in the championship game. 
