By Brett Avery Forget the cute intro for this week's column. Judging by the mailbag, many of us are thinking too much like golfers and not enough like we were dealing with shortstops and offensive linemen. It's time for a little class in Rotisserie 101. Without additional delay, This Week's Brilliant Question: The scoring in the rotisserie golf league would be more competitive if the scoring would be added every week instead of the yearly total being used. Take the money category. Say Week 1 your starters finish first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. Team B only has one guy make the cut and he finishes on the bottom. You get eight points for first and Team B gets one point for last. The next week your team has only one guy make the cut and you finish last in money. But because you had such an awesome Week 1 you still lead the yearly total so you get eight points for Week 2 in the money category instead of the one point you deserve. Team B wins the money category in a close race but loses one point to you when you finished last in money for the week! I think it would be easier for teams to get back in the mix if they started slow or didn¹t get the lineup in the first few weeks instead of quitting. You could post the high team¹s scores for the week. Your team could be way behind but you could always win a week or two! --Kevin, The Bogieman The Fantasy Insider, himself a rotisserie neophyte, experienced this confusion while sitting on the sofa watching the Buick Invitational two weeks back. His lineup in the Expert League of golf writers and columnists played like gangbusters, yet the Game Center showed him wallowing in fifth place all weekend. It wasn't until Monday's peek at the period rankings that TFI realized he'd won the week!
Seems TFI's not alone. After a day or two of wading through email comments mirroring Kevin¹s thoughts, TFI posed a bunch of questions to League Championship Fantasy HQ. The short answer is that the standings reports we've been viewing in the Game Center for rotisserie leagues show only overall (or season-long) point totals because of the way the software is written for all of CBSSportsline.com's rotisserie games. That's the way a rotisserie league works: season-long is paramount over weekly results. Anyone who plays rotisserie in another sport knows that fact. (So do fans of perpetually crummy baseball teams who begin saying "Wait 'til next year" in late June.) We golfers, though, are conditioned to think on a weekly basis: one tournament at a time, win or lose, then on to the next city. We don't focus on season-long rewards -- like the top 125 on the money list or a slot in The TOUR Championship -- until way late in the year. Let's say Sunday afternoon you're tracking your teams in the CBS Sportsline games while watching the telecast. When you look up your progress in Salary Cap Cup (which we played for a few years as TOUR Fantasy) you get a real-time reflection of money: what your team earns if the tournament finished at that moment. There's only one scoring report because we're competing against tens of thousands of other team owners in one metric: that week's money. (Most of us don¹t have enough overall earnings to worry about a segment title so we obsess even more on the weekly results.) When we look at LCF, though, the default view is of year-to-date stats in real-time scoring. It shows what is most important to the veteran rotisserie player: where your team finishes if the season ended at that moment. So we week-obsessed golfers click on "period stats" and see where we stand. There's everything up-to-the-minute for the 10 stats but the total points still reflect season-long standings. So you could be having a world-beater week and if you¹re in fifth place starting the week you're probably on the fifth line in the period stats. Which causes the frustration Kevin and several other writers mentioned. HQ staff has heard your comments and is trying to write software to show year-to-date point totals in YTD standings pages and period standings on period standings pages. TFI is told it isn't as easy as it sounds (and considering he knows zip about writing software he¹s inclined to nod his head and agree). In the meantime, follow TFI's game plan: wean yourself off reliance of the weekly stats and start concentrating on the big picture. That will address one of the biggest misconceptions out there about rotisserie: The period (weekly) standings are determined in part by where you stand overall. Your team is leading in money? Good for you. If all six of your players this week miss the cut you're going to have a big, fat zero in that column and receive one measly point this week. Those successes in previous weeks won't help a whit. As the LCF staff at HQ underscored for TFI, four weeks into the season isn't too soon to begin trying to bolster your team's weak areas. Lagging badly in fairways and greens, like TFI's squad? Move to boost those categories because that's the best way to ensure you'll climb in the standings. Your league's leaders probably won't come back to you in the standings. Witness J.B. Holmes last week, running away from everyone at the end of the FBR Open. After a few weeks of reading mail, TFI can spot the writer who has competed in a rotisserie league in other sports. Here's a key sentence in an experienced player's email: "I am a little behind in BB, D300, E, M and SA but am way in first in the other categories." Address your weaknesses and you'll have a lot more fun as the season progresses. Three players TFI might waive/trade to get onto his roster this week: • Peter Lonard. TFI gives a tip of the cap on this one to Roseann (who also gave TFI a playful backhanded swipe for his periodic selection of Hank Kuehne in Salary Cap Cup). This guy's wrapping up his swing through Australia with the Johnnie Walker Classic and heading back to the U.S. for next week's Nissan Open. He hasn't missed a cut since the PGA Championship last August (this is his 14th start since). He's got big experience and solid stats. Grab him before he pops up on the radar at Riviera Country Club. • Graeme McDowell. That 76 in the first round in the FBR Open? His first competitive stab since a mid-November event on the PGA European Tour. Cut him some slack and take that Friday 67 as indicative of his play. He's 65th in the Official World Ranking so he's on the bubble for the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship. That's incentive enough to match last year's solo eighth at this week's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (and don't forget that tie for second in the Bay Hill Invitational). • The new guy. Take your pick: Q-school survivor, Nationwide Tour grad, they're all emboldened by the recent play of Holmes, Nathan Green and Camilo Villegas. "If he can do it," they're saying to themselves, "I can too." TFI's not going to tout specific players (although he has been on the Villegas bandwagon since the end of last year's TOUR Fantasy season). Green's putting numbers are phenomenal so far this season. Three players TFI might waive/trade to get off his roster this week: • Greg Owen. TFI's having trouble seeing why he's slipped only a few points in Own percentage in the past week, from 75 to 73 percent (as of TFI's writing session Monday night). He's missed the cut the last two weeks and five of his last eight (dating to last year's 84 Lumber Classic). True, he's first in overall driving but he can¹t rack up big numbers playing only 36 holes at a clip. If you have room on the roster and want to hold him, fine. But if you need to free up a spot he's a drop candidate. • Sean O'Hair. CBS has a graphic during Sunday's telecast, as J.B. Holmes was clinching his victory, showing this guy as a "last to" thanks to his win in last season's John Deere Classic. Three straight missed cuts with only one round in the 60s this season and he's an astounding 164th in the all-around stat. Yes, he played erratically during last year's West Coast Swing and then began clicking in May. So bench him until then. • Dudley Hart. He withdrew from last week's FBR Open after missing the cut the previous week. That's eight WDs in his last 29 PGA TOUR starts, back to the 2005 Chrysler Classic of Tucson. It's hard enough getting the right 10 players on a roster to have to agonize over whether someone will pull out mid-tournament. Rotisserie results for Expert League at FBR Open: 52.5 points (fourth). One-putts 137 (fifth), birdies 89 (fourth), bounce back 16 (tied first), D300+ 25 (tied second), eagles one (tied sixth), fairways 193 (fourth), greens 265 (fourth), money $486,764 (fourth), scoring 69.4 (fourth), scrambles 69 (second). Overall: 53.5 points (third). Co-leaders: Dr. A¹s Ho Train and Putting For Bogey, 69.5. Imagine how he could have done at Phoenix if TFI hadn¹t benched Ryan Palmer (T2) or Joe Ogilvie (T12). What TFI needs: is only six active players each week to avoid sitting a blockbuster. Rotisserie lineup for AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am: Daniel Chopra, Sergio Garcia, Joe Ogilvie, Ryan Palmer, Bo Van Pelt and Camilo Villegas. Garcia isn't playing so TFI has five guys, not ideal. He's wrestling with whether to make a roster move but wants to horde Brandt Jobe, Shigeki Maruyama, Geoff Ogilvy or Kenny Perry for later in the season. TFI's leaning toward cutting Maruyama because his fairways and greens stats are the worst. H2H results for Pacific Tour League at FBR Open: TFI 263, rawson brothers 135. Drivers: Jesper Parnevik 44, Chad Campbell 35. Short game: Justin Leonard 58, Kenny Perry 43. Putters: Chris DiMarco 47, Arjun Atwal 19. Record: 3-1. Atwal's totals for the week (27-16-19) could have been eclipsed if TFI hadn't benched Carlos Franco (51-38-37) or Pat Perez (33-29-27). But, hey, why pile on? H2H lineup for AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am: TFI (3-1) at culver_08 (2-2). Drivers, Chris DiMarco and Jesper Parnevik. Short game: Troy Matteson and Pat Perez. Putting: Arjun Atwal and Daniel Chopra. TFI dropped Carlos Franco and added Chopra, then dropped Craig Parry (who hasn¹t started yet this season) and added Matteson (TFI touted him last week as one of TFI's add/trade to get on the roster). Salary Cap Cup results for FBR Open: The main lineup of Sergio Garcia ($0, missed cut), Chris DiMarco ($85,800, T15), Jesper Parnevik ($26,891, T33), Arjun Atwal ($0, missed cut), Carlos Villegas ($312,000, T2) totaled $424,691 and placed 2,319th. Through Week 5 the team totals $3,278,533 and ranks 7,208th. Sure, all the experience in this lineup and they make the young guy pull the weight. The "Hey, buddy" lineup of Vijay Singh ($54,228, T20), Phil Mickelson ($162,066, T7), Geoff Ogilvy ($54,228, T20), Ryan Moore ($17,752, T40) and Paul Azinger ($11,804, T55) totaled $300,078 and placed 5,926th. Through Week 5 the team totals $3,312,064 and ranks 7,014th. Three guys in the top 20 for the week and TFI barely cracks the top 6,000. Goes to show that some weeks it isn¹t worth climbing out of bed to write a column. Week 5 winner: Spectragum $1,745,866. Segment One leader: Team Pinehurst $7,461,485. Salary Cap Cup lineup for AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am: Main lineup, Vijay Singh $300,000, Mike Weir $267,500, Arjun Atwal $163,500, Daniel Chopra $111,500, Todd Fischer $75,000. Total: $917,500. "Hey, buddy" lineup, Phil Mickelson $296,750, Jose Maria Olazabal $277,250, Ryan Palmer $235,000, Charles Warren $114,750, Paul Azinger $75,000. Total: $998,750. Have a question or comment for TFI? Send it to him at brettavery@aol.com. Please remember to include your team and league names and whether you¹re playing a rotisserie or H2H league. |
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