When I started playing fantasy baseball, it was way back in the dark ages when commissioners had to wait until USA Today's weekly printing of baseball stats to come out before going line by line, column by column to painstakingly add everything up by hand in order to figure out which owner's team was currently in first place. Then you'd either take those standings to a fax machine or mail them out to your fellow owners -- and yes, trudging to the post office required that you walk uphill ... both ways.
In short, fantasy baseball was a grind. A lovable grind, but a grind nevertheless. Even after technological advances and websites like ESPN.com came into play and took the need for doing the math out of the mix, for a long time, there was still only one flavor of fantasy baseball to be found -- that of season-long rotisserie, in which you drafted players, earned stats in specific categories and then added it all up at the end of the season to see which owner emerged victorious.
Now we're in 2016, and there's a new game in town that has been taking the fantasy world by storm: DFS. Yes, we're talking about daily fantasy games in which you draft a team of players and have their performance for the day wrapped up in a nice, neat bow in the form of a single number that gets added to your team's total. Highest score wins. Lather, rinse, repeat.
The popularity of this style of play is unquestionable, and it has been embraced by many people who perhaps have never previously considered playing "rotisserie baseball." However, to dismiss the entire concept of playing in a fantasy baseball league seems foolish to me when there are points leagues here on ESPN.com just waiting for you to dive in and take those DFS skills to the next level.
If you're currently playing DFS, you already have a great feel for how players earn points in this format. Hitters earn points for total bases, runs, RBIs and steals, while losing a point for each strikeout. Pitchers will earn points for each batter they retire, an extra point for strikeouts and a small bonus for a win or a save. They'll get docked points for allowing hits, walks or earned runs, as well as getting tagged with a loss.
The major difference between DFS and ESPN points leagues is roster construction. There's no daily selection of players and only one owner can have a given player in his lineup at any given time. But you can still choose to play in a league in which daily lineup moves are allowed, opening the door for you to analyze matchups in order to maximize your chances at a high score.
This is not a case of "set it and forget it," in which you draft a team, leave it alone, check back in a few months, see you're in last place and then abandon your pitiful squad. Points leagues, due in large part to the fact that your team's performance can be summed up in a single score, lends itself to head-to-head play, in which you take on another owner each week to see who can better maneuver their roster and the waiver wire to earn bragging rights and another notch in the win column.
In fact, I would argue that playing in a points league can be, in many ways, a truer test of fantasy baseball skill than DFS. In DFS, it's a rather easy decision to avoid, say, selecting pitchers who are visiting Coors Field, or to steer clear of hitters mired in the lower-third of their major league team's everyday lineup. However, if players like that are all you've got to choose from on your roster on a particular day, you've got to make some calls you've probably not had to previously consider.
Plus, in order to avoid having to make those same tough calls next week, and the week after, you're either going to have to pull off some trades or do a deep dive into the player pool to reverse your fate before it's too late. Also, if one of your lineup mainstays gets injured, you aren't just going to be able to shake it off and simply opt for a similarly-priced stud tomorrow. That's the easy out DFS offers. In points leagues, you're going have to work a little bit to compensate for the loss -- but at the same time, you can indeed overcome injuries because, unlike in DFS, your fate isn't tied to just a single-day performance.
Points leagues still provide fantasy owners with a daily rush, because baseball is a daily sport. With every at-bat, every pitch, the playing field changes and the scoreboard tells the tale in an instant. But if DFS is a sprint, points leagues -- while still remaining at a pace faster than a leisurely stroll -- can allow for a missed step or two along the way and still have you reach that finish line ahead of your fellow competitors.
On your mark ... get set ... go!