I’ve never felt comfortable giving advice. This is largely because I’m not very good at it.
“Forget VHS. Soon all VCRs will be Beta.”
“The Internet? Trust me, it’s just a fad, man. It has a niche audience at best.”
“Are you kidding? Nobody in their right mind would willingly pay $4 for a fancy cup of coffee. Get real.”
That’s why it was a little surprising when I received a phone call a few years ago from a guy who was asking for my help in an upcoming fantasy baseball draft.
“So you want me to be your paid consultant?” I asked the guy, who introduced himself as Andy. I figured he’d soon be asking for my credit card number as part of this special, limited-time offer. But this turned out to be the real deal.
Andy was from Georgia and had the Southern drawl to match. He was coming to Las Vegas and said he needed someone to assist him, and offered to pay me to attend the draft, monitor what players had been selected, and make suggestions on what player to pick when it was his turn. He even offered to buy dinner first to talk about the draft, so it was obvious he had the scouting report on me: When in doubt, throw a meal in there.
Andy got my number through the people that run an online contest I’d won in 1998. I outscored more than 10,000 teams and won the grand prize of $15,000. I’ve lived in the Las Vegas Valley for 15 years and my biggest jackpot was won using the Internet. Good thing I don’t listen to my own advice.
If I was suited to give consultation about anything, fantasy baseball was it. I’ve been an avid player for about two decades, participating in points leagues, traditional “rotisserie”-style leagues, keeper leagues -- you name it. This year I even launched a fantasy baseball blog -- http://www.thepicktoclick.com.
It quickly became apparent why Andy wanted help -- this was no mom-and-pop league. This was the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. To reach this championship, however, you didn’t need to win anything. The only credentials you needed contained Ben Franklin’s picture. And you needed a lot of them.
The drafts were well-organized and have several different kinds of leagues -- some only using National League players, some where you bid on players auction style, and some where you have a traditional draft order and you pick in “serpentine” fashion, where the even-numbered rounds go in inverse order.
We learned a lot in that initial draft. For starters, the moderators don’t mess around. In a serpentine draft, you get 60 seconds to make your pick. If not, you pass and the person behind you gets to choose a player and then you get another shot. Considering the money at stake, there’s discernable pressure when you’re on the clock. Unless, of course, you’re a paid consultant and it’s not your money that’s at stake. In fact, that’s the very reason Andy recruited me in the first place. With such a short window to make a selection, every entrant in the 15-team draft had two representatives at their draft station. This way, one person can focus on the players they’re considering when it’s that team’s turn to go, and the other can keep track of who’s available at what position and what spots still need to be filled.
We encountered rough waters only once. In the eighth round, we were crippled by every fantasy player’s nightmare: the player that we were committed to taking was selected by the team just in front of us. I quickly pulled out Plan B -- our list of available outfielders, since that was the position we most needed to fill at that point in the proceedings. As the consultant, I suggested two players from the available pool.
Andy, still miffed that his preferred choice had just been ripped from his clutches, asked me which of the alternatives I liked better. I circled Vernon Wells of Toronto, whom I thought was on the cusp of a breakout season.
I could tell Andy wasn’t sold. “Thirty seconds!” came the call from the draft moderator. When Andy grabbed a magazine and started rifling through it, I knew we were in trouble. If this were a poker hand, we’d have mucked the cards.
Per the ground rules we had established beforehand, this was his team (not to mention his money invested in it), so he would make the picks and my role was merely to point him in the right direction. But at this moment, I felt the need to flat-out turn him around.
“I’m telling you, Andy, I think Wells is a great pick here. But if you want to play safe, go with Steve Finley. He’s pretty solid,” I said. The truth was I really liked Wells’ potential as a budding star, but Finley had put up consistent home run and RBI numbers for years and I figured perhaps that stability was the comfort zone Andy was searching for here.
“Twenty seconds!”
I could sense he still wasn’t sold on either player, so I tried to improvise, suggesting some pitchers. But he insisted on an outfielder, saying, “We’re not strong enough at that position.” For the first time, I wish I had a consultant to tell me how to consult him.
“Ten seconds!” the moderator blurted out, like we were in a TV studio about to come out of commercial. Andy pored over the names of all the outfielders I had listed as quickly as he could.
“Five seconds, team seven!”
If Andy was a car, he’d be red-lining. I don’t know whether it was the pressure of the moment or the culmination of weeks of mental overload from preparation, but Andy collapsed like the ’78 Red Sox.
“We’ll take Brian Jordan.”
Now we were flat-lining. Brian Jordan had a fine major-league career, but he was at the tail end of it and wasn’t even assured of having a starting job in spring training. He likely would have been available 10 rounds later, maybe more. It just didn’t make sense to take him there, and Andy knew it immediately.
I remember once when my son was learning to swim, and while I was watching him I could tell he was doing something in the water – and I don’t mean the dog paddle. I imagine Andy was having a similar feeling at that moment, where all you can do is just look around and hope nobody noticed.
Unfortunately, in a fantasy baseball draft with a huge board displaying every selection, that’s really not possible. The moderator didn’t exactly help the cause, either.
“Team seven selects Brian Jordan, outfielder. That’s Brian Jordan, to team seven.”
What, no megaphone? As the hired hand, I wasn’t sure how to react. I felt bad for Andy, and I knew he was from Georgia and Jordan had played with the Braves, so that’s probably why his name jumped into Andy’s head at that crucial moment. He was sulking.
“I just froze. Time was running out and I couldn’t make up my mind and I just froze,” he said, explaining it to me as if I had missed the entire debacle.
The rest of the draft went smoothly, but I don’t think there was anything I could do to prevent him from lamenting that pick. So I did what came naturally to me -- rubbed it in a little more.
“Oh, come on, Andy, what’s the most that could have cost you … forty grand? At least you didn’t say Michael Jordan. Anyway, it was a great experience. Nice meeting you, Mr. Buckner. Keep that glove down next time.”
It was a test of sorts. Once Andy laughed, it told me two things: He’d be OK, and this “consultant” job with him had a future. So long as he promised never to draft Brian Jordan again, anyway.
We’ve drafted teams together every year since. We were even in a league once against singer Meat Loaf, who comes out here frequently to compete, just like the rest of these die-hard fantasy baseball fans. This is their World Series. The company that holds the drafts has expanded and also has drafts in Tampa, Chicago and New York. But Vegas is where it started and it’s still the hub -- the majority of the big-money drafts are still here. As a local, I often consider the irony as I sit through these drafts: The valley has tried unsuccessfully for years to attract a pro sports franchise, but stick the word “fantasy” in front and Vegas is a magnet. That seems to be true with everything in Glitter Gulch.
This year was no exception, and, like clockwork, Andy touched base with me in early March to make sure I could help him out. The drafts were at the Flamingo, and I helped him in two of his three drafts, including the Ultimate Auction League. In fantasy speak, “ultimate” means “cough up five grand to enter.”
We’re an amazingly well-oiled machine now. We plan well before drafts. I know what he expects from me and he knows what I will contribute. Over the years, it has been much less nerve wracking -- especially since Brian Jordan retired.
Sal DeFilippo is a Web Content Editor at Greenspun Media Group and an avid fantasy baseball player. Share your own FB experiences with him. He can be reached at (702) 990-8932 or [email protected] and at http://www.thepicktoclick.com