Pretend Sports '08 - This Time, Its Personal!

[jaydub]

Somehow, the idea of Fantasy Cricket seems insanely amusing to me at the moment.  I'm not really sure that this variety of fandom translates between cultures.

[melack]

The idea of Fantasy NASCAR (which Yahoo has) seems even more hilarious to me and they do that shit in my own country.

[littlefallsmets]

The idea of Fantasy Soccer was hilarious because... how do you aggregate stats for fantasy competition for a sport where almost nothing measurable happens for the entire game?

And then I realized.

Pong IS Fantasy Soccer... and everything made sense.

[jaydub]

The idea of Fantasy Soccer was hilarious because... how do you aggregate stats for fantasy competition for a sport where almost nothing measurable happens for the entire game?

Keep it up and you'll be ahead of Keith in the only stat we keep on TOUAMB

[Arachno-capitalist]

Keep it up and you'll be ahead of Keith in the only stat we keep on TOUAMB

we keep other stats. like time spent online. Day for Day, i have spent the most time here, but on the whole I am currently battling LFM for 5th place.

[Drygioni]

AHEM.

There is nothing wrong with Fantasy Football or 'Soccer'. Admittedly, it is very simple compared to this 'baseball' lark. Basically, like so:

                 Goalkeeper 
                         
Defender Defender Defender Defender    =   These five players get points for a 'clean sheet', or basically a match where they concede no goals

Midfielder Midfielder Midfielder Midfielder    =   They get points for assists (I'm sure you know what they are), goals and bonus points (if they dominate the game etc.)

              Striker      Striker                     =   Mostly goals and assists, obviously get lots of goals so a good choice for your 'captain' (double points awarded if they are)

You don't 'draft' or 'trade' them, neither. You are allotted a transfer budget, say £50,000,000, and buy who you think will be good value (each player is priced on how well they performed last season).

That is, as they say, it. I'm sure we had a pretty good discussion here once about the statliness of American sports and the British lack of them. Here we go: http://touamb.com/index.php/topic,2829.msg67241.html#msg67241. Er, turns out it's just LFM making an excellent post and me replying with a slightly less excellent one. Nevermind.

[CortJstr]

For a while WWE ran fantasy pro-wrestling. That's really meta if you think about it.

[littlefallsmets]

Okay, I can see a goalie collecting positive or negative points for giving up or not giving up goals... and I can see offensive players getting points for goals and/or assists.

But we're talking about a sport with a lot of two-one games, a lotta one-nothing games, a lotta zip-zip ties.

How do you... delineate... the value of a defensive guy other than the goalie? How do you assign a value to the 99% of the game where it is just people noodling the ball between each other around the middle of the field?

I think this is ultimately why baseball and football are the best fantasy sports... there are so many intermediate statistics to follow, between the baseline and scoring.

Hits, stolen bases, batting averages, on-base averages, slugging averages, extra base hits... if you scored the run yourself, if you drove in the run, if you got the run with a home run.

Yards, passes, runs, throws, catches, etc.

Soccer, there's basically... did you or did you not get the ball in the net once or twice that game?

"Is you or is you ain't my baby?" y'know.

To shape a way of following soccer on a fantasy level, it seems like you really gotta... mine the numbers to find stuff to turn into intermediate statistics for your pretend league.

[melack]

One could also argue that's why fantasy baseball sucks, is because of all the damned confusing intermediate statistics. A dude has got to pick his poison: simplicity or esoterrorism.

[Asherdan]

esoterrorism

That sound is a can being terrorized in your honour

[Drygioni]

LFM, without meaning to get eggy here, I feel you're taking things a bit seriously. Me and millions of other people play fantasy soccer because it's simple fun. No-one cares that each player can't be spliced and analysed to death, we're not playing it to prove beyond all doubt we're better than others.

That 99% of noodling around the ball in the middle of the field has hundreds of stats you can associate with each individual player. Pass completion rates, successful tackles made, distance ran, shots on target, through ball success rate, headers won, corners won, fouls performed/suffered etc. All of these are massively important to the eventual result, and easy to record.

They are not included because they sap the life out of the game. Football is meant to be entertainment. Over-analysis kills it. Obviously, it's a big part of baseball/American football etc., and is a large part of why people enjoy it. But not all fantasy games have to be so (relative use of the word) anal.

[melack]

But not all fantasy games have to be so (relative use of the word) anal.

Unless your fantasy team has the word 'sodomy' in their name, in which case you've already guaranteed your destiny.

[CortJstr]

batting averages, [...] slugging averages,

How are these two different things?

[littlefallsmets]

Oh, I'm not actually taking it that seriously... I just like riffing on soccer. haha.

ALSO:

Batting average is all your hits divided by all your at-bats.

Slugging is every BASE of your hits over your at-bats. Singles count for one, doubles for two, triples for three and homeruns for four.

If you got 30 hits in 100 at-bats, you'd have an average of .300...

But if those hits broke down to... 20 singles, 5 doubles and 5 home runs... that'd be 50 total bases and a slugging average of .500 and... that's really good.

ALSO ALSO:

More people should sign up for pretend baseball! It is awesome to pretend we are playing baseball.

[Drygioni]

Oh, I'm not actually taking it that seriously... I just like riffing on soccer. haha.

In which case I apologise! I was in Sunday morning grouch mood.

I will now stop spamming the thread until I get some players to mould into model professionals.