20) Veterans Who Don’t Produce
I had Justin Verlander in a key spot this year. Held him too long. Impossible to trade him. Finally cut him in part because a commenter helped with a nudge. Verlander’s 2024 is a worst-case scenario, but some variation of it is happening on just about every dynasty team just about every season.
19) Veterans Who Produce
They’re always a stretch away from being veterans who don’t produce. Also, you see them get dealt to contenders for less than they’re worth in the standings, which is just part of the dance but can be tough to watch from the sidelines.
18) Good Players In Their Prime Playing Badly
Tough to trade ‘em. Don’t have room to bench ‘em. Hurts to play ‘em. Soon as you cut ‘em, they’ll start hitting again.
17) Long Slumps
Connected to #18 as we navigate the difference between an empty stretch and a new baseline for an aging player losing some twitch or a young player struggling to react to the league’s shifting approach to their game. Some guys that come to mind are Vladito before this season, Bo Bichette this season, Cody Bellinger any season since the big one, Corbin Carroll this season. Most of the time, the play is to hold (Carroll) unless you can sell moderately high at the first signs of distress (Bichette). Camilo Doval comes to mind here, too, but I’m not sure closers should be included in this category because the role is so volatile to begin with.
16) Disappearing Closers
Camilo Doval comes to mind here. He’d fit pretty well in the previous two categories as well. Scary dude to see on your dynasty roster this Halloween season.
15) Restrictive Designation Requirements
If you’re decent at “developing” prospects in your system or finding value in free agency, you’ll quickly run out of roster spots on your major league side. Then you’ll need to trade two or three for one or maybe a major leaguer for a minor leaguer or a pick and on and on it goes forever. I play in a couple leagues with no designated minor league spots, and it does really help to alleviate the need for never ending churn.
14) Bad Trades With A Long Tail
Nobody loves seeing their awful decisions in the highlights over and over again as they watch, say, Corbin Carroll dominate as a rookie while, just as a random example, Sandy Alcantara pitches poorly then loses a season to surgery.
13) Teams Who Become Dead-Ends On The Trade Market
Leagues seem to shrink across time as players get frozen on rosters that never make trades. There’s just less game to play when teams stop making moves.
12) Everyday Shohei
A fully realized two-way Shohei as an ace-level arm and MVP-level bat could break the game, but it’ll be worth it.
11) Head-To-Head Finals
Baseball is too long to put all the money on the last week in September. Course I play in two leagues that do exactly this.
10) Perpetual Rebuilding
I’ve undertaken a few rebuilds. I got into my first few leagues by jumping in for guys with mediocre teams who were jumping out. The fear of a forever rebuild is such a motivating factor for me that I’ve never gone through this particular nightmare, preferring instead a maximum runway of 1.5 years per rebuild.
9) Extensive Trade Talks Outside The League Site
Bit of a personal thing here, but I get quickly exhausted by verbal games that amount to people asking about a trade in a safe, hypothetical space where nothing is official. It’s all on background. Just information gathering. Well, okay, but what happens when I like a trade, you find out I like it, so you move the goal line seeing how much further than fair we can walk? So much time goes into the chat apps for dynasty leagues, and it’s not all bad by any means, but they’re best paired with offers on the site when trades are involved.
8) Trophies That Travel Via Mail
Just get a new one for the winner every year or don’t do anything like that. This ain’t little league. Just pay the full amount out to the winners on time every year. Full disclosure, I’m digging through my house today in search of a trophy that’s due to be mailed.
7) Rip-off Trades
Fairness is in the eye of the beholder, and trades tend toward looking lopsided to the people not involved, I think, but we all know the feeling of a trade that’s threatening the collective sanity of the league, and it’s no fun no matter whether you’re involved in the trade or not.
6) Someone Takes Their Ball And Goes Home
Some dudes just love to quit leagues mid-season. Sometimes even mid-draft.
5) Tommy John Surgery
Lotta elbow involved with running a successful dynasty squad. Have to go under the knife sometimes. Tough to get back in rhythm.
And then all your pitchers get hurt. One TJ is survivable. In one of my 15-team leagues, I had Sandy Alcantara, Shohei Ohtani, Jacob deGrom, Jeffrey Springs, Walker Buehler and Alek Manoah. I ran out of IL spots pretty quickly. I built that staff myself and knew it was fraught, and I’d like to think I learned a lesson in doing so.
4) FYPD Attendance Check
Good for a few moments of fear every year. I’ve been in a couple leagues with eight-hour draft clocks. Tough stuff to watch the Discord waiting eight hours for the number two pick to happen only to learn at the ten-hour mark that we need a new owner for that team.
3) Heavy Turnover
This is a percentage thing more than a countable. We lose a crab or two every year in the Razz 30, but that’s a 30-team league, and the partings are typically on good terms, another key aspect of this one.
2) Clock Cloggers
A NFL team has ten minutes these days for good reason. I understand why a First-Year-Player Draft among people playing a game for fun needs to have different rules. Certainly more than ten minutes. They’re called “slow drafts” for a reason. I’ve also been in drafts with four-hour clocks where people used most of the time every time to suss out possible trade offers. I’ve been in drafts where someone traded back three spots after four hours on the clock and then traded back again after another few hours on the clock. A catch-all solution doesn’t exist for these kinds of problems, but holy cow a clock clogger can torpedo what’s supposed to be among the best days of the year for any dynasty league.
1) Total Collapse of the League
A fear great enough to keep people from joining dynasty leagues in the first place.
Thanks for reading!
Chime in with a fear or two of yours?
And Happy Halloween!
