Ask Nash: The secret to managing multiple teams.

"Nash,Was I crazy to take on 3 teams this year?  I went from being a top 3 guy in 1 league to struggling in 3.  You guys all run multiple teams right?  How do you do it?Diamondback Fan"

Ah, the first year of multiple teams…seems like forever ago for me.

It is certainly not impossible to run multiple teams for fantasy baseball. Dixon and I are in 4 together and Clave is in 3 with us.  I am not sure how the other guys approach it, but here are some quick thoughts for the multi-team owners:

1. It is best if all your teams are hosted on the same site.  As we have no affiliation with anyone I am not going to say which one to choose. They are have pros and cons, but find the one you like best and only join league through them, if possible. I find it is MUCH easier to just have to login to one site, rather than to have juggle multiple logins with various sites.  This makes it a one stop shop for your teams and the less time you spend on login screens drops the bar on frustration, meaning you are more likely to give attention to your teams.
2. Find a co-owner for at least 1 league.  I have my brother as a co-owner in one league and although he doesn’t check our team much and never adjusts anything unless I ask him to I find it invaluable that he is there.  I have the option to at least shoot him a text if I cannot get to a computer right away.  Also, he is much better at finding starting pitchers on the wire than I am so he just shoots me a text of guys he is looking at and I make the final decision.
3. When figuring out players I like to try to have as many of the same players as possible because it:
   • Helps me to know how my teams are doing with only really checking one roster at a time and
   • keeps my goals and such consistent, even though sometimes league require different focuses.

This brings me to another problem with owning multiple teams.  When you have 3-4-5 teams you might be in leagues that are VERY different.  That can be troublesome for us as owners because you are constantly having to remember which league you are strategizing for.

Luckily, my leagues aren’t too different from each other.  The one odd duck is a head-to-head fantasy baseball league because it is just a horse of a different color compared to Roto style fantasy baseball leagues.  Additionally, I play in two 7×7 Roto leagues that are pretty similar and have mostly matching categories as our head-to-head.  Granted, part of the fun of playing in multiple leagues is the opportunity to play in different styles of fantasy baseball leagues. Just go in knowing that this adds a degree of difficulty in terms of management.

What I do is approach leagues like you approach raising dogs.  For those of you who have raised multiple dogs at one time, you know that you must have an order of dogs, alpha on down.  This is just how they operate and to not do so would create turmoil.  I have my primary league – Tunacorn – as my Alpha league for a couple reasons, mainly because it was my first league and it is the most unique with BBI (walks issued) and Ks (against hitters).  These categories make it a little more difficult to field guys like Mark Reynolds or Carlos Marmol types.

Second is our new Dynasty League because it is a league that is probably overall the most competitive. Then my focus turns to my head-to-head league and, finally, our Crackerjack reader league (sorry readers). This means is that I focus on Tunacorn and work my way down, giving my attention in order. You only have so much time, so prioritize on the league that jazzes you the most, and work down from there.

Another thing I do when I manage multiple fantasy baseball leagues is to draft my favorite hitters because they are pretty universal. Dustin Pedroia, Albert Pujols, Shin Soo Choo, Jose Reyes and Brian McCann are some guys I have on 3 or 4 teams and they are pretty much no brainers to anyone.  I have even taken the hit in K’s against to have Yoenis Cespedes on ALL my squads since he has instantly catapulted himself to mine and my brother’s favorite player! If you have your favorite guys on multiple squads then managing them becomes less a chore, and more an opportunity to root for your guys.

You are still gonna have to make different choices for different leagues at times, but you really can minimize them by following these steps above.  However, even though I have McCann in all four leagues, if someone offers me Buster Posey in one of those leagues I am going to pull the trigger in a heartbeat! After all, you play to win.

Hope these tips help. Have fun with all your leagues!