Ending fantasy season a week early

[CA Dreamin]

I know it has probably been discussed before but would it be better to end the fantasy baseball season a week before the regular season ended. With all the things that can happen at the end of the season like resting top players for the playoffs or extra games played because of a tie in the regular season it seems unfortunate to lose a whole season of strategy due to one irregular week. It would be similar to football where week 16 is the last week for head to head.

I have ended up both winning or losing leagues in the last week due to these circumstances. Just wondered how everyone else felt.

[Bronx Yankees]

I prefer season-long contests. This is a marathon and I like the idea of the fantasy season being 162 games long. Some differences between baseball and football that seem relevant here:

1. Football season is 17 weeks. If you stop the fantasy season one week early, each team will have played 15 of their 16 games. In contrast, if you stop the baseball fantasy season one week early, some teams will have played 155 games, others 156 games, and maybe a few teams with a 154 games with rainouts to make-up, etc.

2. In football, if your QB or RB is rested for the last game, you're screwed. In baseball, you start 23 players, the loss of a few resting players, while potentially painful, usually is not as devastating (and most fantasy teams probably have a few resting players, so there may be more balanced impacts than in football, where only a few teams may have their QB rested).

3. In fantasy football, it does seem wrong to make a league championship dependent upon a one week matchup when there may be limited but key players being rested. In fantasy baseball, while leagues can be decided in the last week, the last week is weighted equally with every other week in the season.

There may be other or better distinctions. I'm not really into fantasy football anyway. For baseball, while I get pissed if one of my players is being rested and I need him, I don't really like the idea of ending the fantasy season early.

Mike

[Hells Satans]

I'd fully support ending the season a week earlier.

[CA Dreamin]

If you continue the season until the very end, a level of skill is removed from the game. It now feels to me more like a game of luck.

[ToddZ]

I get all the schedule machinations but if I spent a top pick on Trout I would surely want the homer and steal he got this week along with a few runs and RBI. If I drafted Miggy I'd be pissed if I didn't get the 2HR and 5RBI he has so far.

I'd be really bummed if I didn't get Corey Kluber's gem.

Or the 2-start weeks (pending today's results) from Price, Felix, Wainwright, Cueto and Hamels.

Back in the spring, we project and rank based on 162 games -- I want them all.

How many regulars lost at bats because they were benched the second game of a double header that they would have received if the game wasn't rained out? Player are pulled from -- or left out of -- games near the trade deadline if they're on the move or even on the block.

Stuff happens throughout the season. It's just not magnified as much as the last week. Is there more the last week? Maybe, but not even close to enough for me to dismiss the production I paid for from Trout, Miggy, Kluber, Price -- etc.

[KJ Duke]

If you continue the season until the very end, a level of skill is removed from the game. It now feels to me more like a game of luck.

The final week is difficult and takes the most thinking/ evaluating of scenarios of any week all season.

You could argue it involves the greatest amount of faab/lineup skill all year, not the least.

[TParsons]

If you continue the season until the very end, a level of skill is removed from the game. It now feels to me more like a game of luck.

The final week is difficult and takes the most thinking/ evaluating of scenarios of any week all season.

You could argue it involves the greatest amount of faab/lineup skill all year, not the least.

It's just more visible because it's the last week. It would be the same if the last week were moved up.
There's nothing about the last week that requires more skill. You're playing/faab'ing against less than half the field. You just hope there's somebody ahead of you in counting stats that is no longer making moves. Great skill involved there. Many mlb teams have shut it down and trotting out minor league lineups and pitchers. We might as well count spring training stats too.

[BK METS]

Disagree completely. The final week takes more skill than any other week of the entire season. Setting up your team to have players on your roster that will likely play, not starting guys that are likely to be rested, not overplaying pitching with the possibility of losing ERA/WHIP points...I can go on and on.

The NFBC does it right. This isn't head to head. This is a marathon of compiling. Ending it one week early would be silly, in my opinion.

[MadCow Sez]

Also not a fan of early stoppage...

We had 4 teams in the fight for 3 slots in the Platinum going into THE LAST DAY. The team in 1st had a gap but not an insurmountable one on THE LAST DAY. One of the 4 of us was going to walk away with jack squat. When you're watching every out of every game and seeing the impact that 1 HR or one SP exploding has on the standings, that's where the excitement truly crescendos.

Let's play 162...and in some years, 163!

[blibros]

More years ago than I care to own up to, we had a season where our league races were heavily impacted by final week irregularities. The following year we played without the final week, and while the change was overwhelmingly approved, almost everyone ended up disliking it and it was banished evermore.

[Rog]

I also say play it out. As bad as I hate the way it works out during the last week with all the days off and pitchers being rested.I was in a dogfight for first or second and lost a few starts and a few at bats and was pissed and saying the "damn this shit only happens to me". I checked out the roster and I still ended up with 333 at bats and the other team had about 250
I ended up with 65 2.93 and 3 wins with 54 k's to his 75 2.41 and4 wins with 81 k's (he had alex wood scratched on the last day and that wound up being the difference for him as he only needed 2 more k's.
On the other hand he had dropped a point in average 2613 to the team above him 2616(less at bats would of helped here).
I dropped in wins as the team in 3rd dropped 80 innings on us with 7 wins with a 2.7 era and 74 k's.
This last week was as tough as any week and for all the players resting and stating it was tough but it affected the entire league the same.
It had me watching every single at bat yesterday and checking in on every pitcher it had me screaming at the tv (get that collmenter guy out of there ).
I hope everybody enjoyed it and now for a few days off from baseball(ah shit I think I am on the clock in the premature)
Looking forward to next year
Thanks to Nfbc for giving me a place to play.

[Deadheadz]

Roto should always include all games.

H2H games you see on other sites can end the fantasy season early for good reason.