If you are reading this article, it probably means you are at least fairly passionate about dynasty baseball. This isn’t the type of article a casual player seeks out – it’s for the diehards. It’s possible, if not likely, that you may even be in more than one league.
It’s also possible, if not likely, that you have been part of a league with inconsistent engagement. How frustrating! You love to set your roster, make waiver claims, and propose trades. But you have some folks in your leagues that take days, if not weeks, to respond to trade requests – or even worse, you have managers in your leagues whom you have to pester about setting their lineups. Nobody wants that – it’s less fun for the managers in the league who are engaged, and in bad scenarios, it causes a competitive imbalance. In worst-case scenarios, it causes huge turnover in your league or the risk of it shutting it down completely.
So how can we keep engagement up in leagues? There are no surefire ways to make it happen – every league and manager is made up of different personalities and commitment levels – but here are some ideas that could help keep engagement high.
*For all ideas listed below, we will assume a standard 12-teams league.
Divisions or Conferences
For head-to-head leagues, having teams separated by divisions or conferences can be a great way to keep managers invested in their league. If we are talking about a 12-team league, in most standard settings, the top six teams record-wise will advance to the playoffs. Objectively, that is the most “fair” way to do it. The six best records move on. It makes sense. But is it the most fun? Does it keep more managers engaged in the season longer? Probably not!
Splitting up your league into divisions or conferences can make things interesting. If you split your league into two conferences, you can allot byes to the winners of each conference, with four wild card spots up for grabs. This will likely end up with a somewhat similar endgame to a standard setting, but using divisions is where things can really get interesting. Dividing your league into three divisions of four teams, or four divisions of three teams, with division winners guaranteed playoff spots, creates multiple avenues for teams to make the playoffs, which, in theory, can allow for teams to remain in the playoff hunt longer into the season. The easiest path to managers tuning out is getting off to a rocky start and not seeing a path to the postseason. Similar to the way MLB has expanded its number of Wild Card teams in recent years, this breakdown can allow for more teams to be in contention.
But the real fun from having divisions can come from the rivalries that it can create, especially in a dynasty setting. The best recommendation is to have your commissioner create the schedule so that each team is facing its division mates multiple times throughout the season. In real-life sports, the best rivalries come when teams are forced to face off regularly. You start to get annoyed by your opponent, and a rivalry blossoms. Throw in the added fuel that a division title and playoff berth are on the line, and all of a sudden, managers are not only interested in seeing their team win but also passionate about certain other teams coming up short.
Financial Incentives or Long-Term Contracts
This is the least creative of the ideas in this article. It may also be the most obvious one, and it may also be the most effective one. It’s no secret that many leagues are for cash prizes. Many people love playing dynasty baseball, and there are a ton of free leagues out there, but many also need a financial incentive to play. Something as simple as upping the buy-in can have managers literally keeping their eyes on the prize. When there is something to lose or something to win, it’s less likely that a manager is going to tune out midway through the season.
Additionally, a very common usage of this is for leagues to have multi-year contracts for their managers. The idea is that if managers are financially committed beyond one season, it reduces the risk of manager turnover in the league and keeps managers constantly having a long-term plan in addition to a short-term plan.
Weekly Recaps or Trade Reviews
The tough part about this idea is that it could require some light work from a league commissioner or scribe but it’s something that I’ve seen work to great success in multiple dynasty leagues.
Fantasy baseball, and fantasy sports in general, are a unique experience where unless you are co-managing a team, your roster is completely yours. For the most part, nobody outside of yourself is really going to care about it. It’s a wholly individualistic experience, even if you have league mates – nobody except you is really going to care about how your draft goes, the trades you make, or what place you finish in.
But having someone in your league who posts recaps of how matchups go or gives detailed thoughts on trades that get executed can change that mindset for managers. Suddenly, you are reading someone else’s opinions on a decision you made or how your team fared in its big matchup. Yes, some fantasy sites provide their own automated recap if you won or lost or that assign you a draft grade, but it has a much bigger impact if it is coming from someone within the league. It’s much easier to be invested in a league when you see others showing the same passion.
In-Season or Weekly Awards
I’ve personally been in a few leagues that have implemented some sort of in-season or weekly awards and the results have been somewhat mixed. But it is something that you can absolutely get creative with and it can help to keep managers checking their lineups and rosters more frequently.
One way to do it is to dish out weekly award winners for random categories each matchup period. It can be something that is more traditional (most home runs, most strikeouts, etc.), or it can be something that is random, tougher to strategize for, and not necessarily the “best” (ex: average closest to .250). In my experience with these types of awards, it actually works best if it’s biweekly or monthly. There is some truth to “too much of a good thing,” and it’s easy for the fire to flame out quickly on this idea if there is a new winner every week. But once or twice a month? That can make it an event of sorts and something for managers to check in on.
Additionally, having players race to milestones is another way to offer some in-season awards. A league I was in last year offered small financial bonuses if your team rostered the player that was the first to reach 20 home runs, 10o strikeouts, 25 saves, or 30 steals. Obviously, this is another situation where you can get as creative as you want. The optimal way to assign milestones is to try and stagger them so that the anticipated hit dates are at various times throughout the season, rather than having them all hit around the same time. If managers roster a player that has a chance to win one of these races, they are more likely to check in on how they are doing.
Winter Meetings
One of the best ways to keep engagement up in your dynasty league is to make it a year-round experience. If it’s just a six-month league that takes place during the baseball season, there’s a chance that by the time that the next season rolls around, one or two of your league’s managers might have lost interest and be looking to drop out. Having something take place in the off-season, in addition to your First-Year Player Draft, can be effective. A “Winter Meetings” on the schedule can be a great way to approach doing just that.
Depending on the commitment of your league members, this could be done in a few different ways. Maybe it’s a video session with all league mates, maybe it’s an in-person event for everybody to attend, or maybe it’s just an agreed-upon time for everybody to be available on your league-hosted site. These Winter Meetings can be a way for everyone to discuss current rules and settings, or maybe notify teams on what types of trades they are looking to make prior to Opening Day.
Conclusion
In summary, the easiest way for managers to become disengaged from their leagues is if their team isn’t performing well. It’s natural – people just become less interested if their rooting interests aren’t paying off. The best way to keep as many managers in your league engaged is to make the league more than just about winning the championship.
The mileage may vary on the ideas above – a lot of it will be determined by the personalities in your league. It’s important to be conscientious of just how much time and effort your league managers want to put into the league. It’s possible that some of the ideas above may actually backfire because not all managers want to dedicate any more time than they need to in their leagues.