The Psychology of Fantasy Baseball

In one of my Yahoo fantasy leagues, I thought and behaved in a way that, in retrospect, was very odd, and quite irrational.

I needed to pick up a catcher, as my C slot was vacant, and Geovany Soto had just become available on the waiver wire. The problem was, I didn't know who I was going to drop. Everyone else on my roster was too good. The weakest link was probably Jay Bruce. But I just couldn't bring myself to drop Bruce and pick up Soto, and I never pulled the trigger. Of course, somebody else picked up Soto, and out of sheer indecision, I played the whole week without a catcher.

Then, the guy who picked up Soto offered him to me in a trade. For Jay Bruce. Which I happily accepted.

This is head-spinningly irrational; ultimately, the outcome would have been exactly the same if I had just dropped Bruce and picked up Soto. But it would have felt like I was LOSING Bruce. Soto was free; if I didn't have Bruce on my roster at all, I could still pick up Soto, so it didn't feel like I was gaining anything in EXCHANGE for Bruce. But when Soto is on someone else's team, he's not free anymore, so it felt okay to trade Bruce, because I was getting value. It was value for value, see? That is in contrast to dropping value to pick up something completely free. Funny how that works, but it's been well established that people are more strongly motivated by losses than they are by gains of the same magnitude. Doesn't change the fact that it's exceedingly senseless and illogical, but there you go. I KNOW that and I still can't help feeling that way.

In other news (Dallas Braden notwithstanding), I think the most incredible feat of the young baseball season belongs to a certain David Eckstein, who as of this moment has struck out TWO TIMES in 119 plate appearances. I don't expect him to sustain that kind of contact, but if he did, he would surpass even the peerless Tony Gwynn, who in 1995 struck out an incredible 15 times in 577 plate appearances. Mark Reynolds, on the other hand, can barely go 40 at-bats without striking out 15 times.