Can soccer influence the future of fantasy baseball?

I thought I came up with a fantastic new idea for a fantasy baseball league and pitched it to my brother-in-law. He listened, nodded, and said, “Yeah, that’s how the soccer leagues do it over in Europe.” So much for my originality.

But here’s the pitch anyway: what if we could if we could structure a fantasy baseball league where there were greater consequences for winning and losing, and every year felt fresh, yet familiar?

The idea is that we create tiered leagues. In soccer these are called “Premiere” leagues I think (would it kill me to look it up?!?!). It makes more sense in fantasy baseball for it to be tiered as:

• Major League
• Triple A
• Double A

You could take it as low as you wish, but the idea is that each tier would contain 12 teams each. If you think you can only rally 20 owners, then you have two tiers with 10 teams each. Specific numbers don’t matter, the point is that it can scale to fit your needs.

At the end of the season the teams who finish at the bottom drop down and tier while the teams that finish at the top advance up a tier. Talk about having owners engaged until the very end of the season!

Let’s return to our original example and say there are 3 tiers, each with 12 teams. The most movement is in Triple A. The 4 teams that finish at the top move up to the Majors and replace the 4 teams in that league that finish at the bottom. The four teams who finish at the bottom of the pack in Triple A drop down and are replaced by the top four finishers in Double A, who move up. The bottom finishers in Double A just sit there and wallow in their misery, but they’ll get a shot the next season to climb up the ladder.

Again, scale this how you’d like, but the point is that there are real consequences for finishing well. Owners would play to the end. Plus, every year would have a little different flavor while still keeping the basic owners. Every year, guys would be playing together in an individual league, but connected to a larger whole that ups the ante on their finish.

Can I use you for free therapy and share some of my pain with you? NO?  OK, here I go anyway.

My least favorite thing about fantasy baseball is being a league manager. There is a lot of complaining to deal with and it’s impossible for all 12 guys in any league to be happy at the same time.

Why did I share this? Well, I’ve shared this idea – that I’ve come to realize was an idea I’ve apparently stolen from soccer – with several of the guys I play with and each and every one of them said they liked it. Eight guys out of eight – including my borther-in-law – said, “Hmmm. I like that. Sounds like it would be fun.”

Sure, there have been some questions asked like ‘So how would you do keepers?’,  and ‘Is there a way that all guys could communicate across leagues?

Some quick thoughts:

• Consider creating a group for all the guys to communicate in. Fantasy baseball is social so if a buddy is climbs or drops into a tier where he doesn’t know as many guys, it gives him an opportunity to make new friends, but having a larger group promotes overall camaraderie.
• League settings would need to be similar across tiers, or else it should be communicated very clearly that to change a tier means that you need to do the research to play by the new rules. That would be fun for some owners, but frustrating for others who don’t handle change well.
• You could say no keepers and start afresh each year, or you could say that when you drop or climb that you simply adopt that team as your own. Fantasy baseball is a competitive, after all, so this could create a fresh challenge.
• Some guys aren’t competitive. They’ll be happy as a clam checking their team just once a month, simply floating along in Double A. Most will work like a dog to climb into the Majors and will fight to stay there.
• First year is tricky: in which league do guys begin? If you’ve played a while, reward previous winners with a seed in the Majors and work down from there. If it’s brand new you can simply draw out of a hat.

Others come to mind, but I’d love to hear your thoughts. This is an opportunity for us to use the comments as a place to ask question, suggest ideas, and tweak through this to see if it could really work. Comment below!