It’s 5:18 AM and Evan Clay wakes up in a cold sweat and frantically checks his phone. He breathes a sigh of relief, and mutters, “I got him” to himself.
What woke Evan does not wake ordinary people, he woke to ensure Robinson Chirinos was added to his Fantasy Baseball team. Yet, Evan does not rest once the baseball season ends like traditional Fantasy Baseball players. Since he’s a member of the Fantasy Gauntlet, his self-punishment remains year round.
The Fantasy Gauntlet, founded in 2018, is a radical idea which combines Fantasy Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey. Players begin with a base $1000 auction budget to allocate between 4 leagues, can trade between leagues, and compete for both individual and overall titles. Evan joined the Gauntlet in its inaugural year, and is one of its most outspoken members.
When talking with Evan, he compares himself to Kevin Durant. “We’re both best at what we do in the entire world,” Evan proudly boasts. He continues, “KD couldn’t get it done in OKC, so what did he do? He left. I couldn’t get it done last year, so I sold my team to get it done this year.”
Evan immediately sidetracks, “Did you know I came up with the nickname Durantula? They showed it on Sportcenter…..” his voice trails off as I become focused on his claim. This man, one of the best Fantasy Sports players in the world? I simply could not believe it, so I set out and interviewed other Gauntlet members.
I began with the Big Tuna, Ronak Mody, one of Evan’s closest friends in the Gauntlet. When asking Ronak about Evan comparing himself to Durant, he immediately laughs, “The only thing Evan has in common with Durant is that they’re both bitch ass, lanky ass, mother [expletive].” Emotions drove Ronak’s response, so I was unsure if I could believe it. I needed statistics to either prove or disprove Evan’s claim.
Ronak pointed me in the direction of Spencer Maddox, Gauntlet creator. Spencer explains that Evan is the Gauntlet’s most chaotic player, “A closer comparison to Evan would be Nick Young or J.R. Smith, sure they’re average players, but you just have no idea how they’ll perform on a daily basis. The inconsistency is staggering.”
In the Gauntlet’s Fantasy Baseball, an owner has 7 matchup acquisitions to use on players throughout the week. These acquisitions can cause a player to win or lose a matchup. Spencer shows me Evan’s transaction log; it depicts players yo-yoing at extraordinary proportions.
Here’s a list of players Evan has added and quickly dropped. Claimed denotes the difference between added player from waivers versus free agency. In Gauntlet Baseball, waiver order never resets, so it is important to use your claims prudently to ensure you add the best players.
- Robinson Chirinos: Added/Dropped/Claimed within 60 hours
- Zac Gallen: Added/Dropped within 4 minutes
- Scott Kingery: Added/Dropped within 40 hours
- Niko Goodrum: Dropped/Added/Dropped within 78 hours
- Zac Gallen (Again): Added/Dropped/Added/Dropped within 8 days
- Jurickson Profar: Added/Dropped within 6 minutes
- David Fletcher: Added/Dropped within 3 hours
- Alex Colome: Added/Dropped/Added/Dropped within 11 days
- Raisiel Iglesias: Added/Dropped/Claimed within 5 days
You get my point. The Zac Gallen acquisitions are especially telling since the Marlin’s top pitching prospect has not yet reached the majors. When pressed about wasting acquisitions, Evan tells me, “The most important thing in baseball is small sample sizes,” (it’s not). He continues, “A player goes 0/4 one day? Drop him. He hits a homerun the next? Claim him. It’s really not that complicated.”
He begins to ramble, “All these haters in the league are just pissed because they’re broke bitches. Spencer, Sam, and Cameron all went all in last year and are just bitching their way through this season. You need to spend money to make money, and I got money.”
To counter Evan’s smack talk, I spoke to Sam Fulkerson, Inaugural Gauntlet Champion. Sam agrees to win it all, you must be willing to spend money, but “Evan has already spent 38% of his trade allocation on baseball. We only just passed the halfway point of the baseball season. As a graduate from the Scheller College of Business, that does not seem like a sustainable business model to me. In addition, he values this year and next years money entirely differently.”
Similarly to trading future draft picks, the Gauntlet Rules allow for a $200 allocation of next years money. This cap was instituted after a $500 “emergency” cap last year in order to maintain parity. Talking to Cameron Hines, Inaugural Gauntlet Runner-Up, he states, “Evan’s putting himself in a rather precarious position similar to Spencer last year. After spending big on baseball, Spencer won the baseball title, but left himself with no margin of error. He simply did not have the money left to compete with Sam and I down the stretch. Evan could very well win baseball, but could also easily fade come March.”
When asking Evan about these concerns, Evan tells me he has something to show me. He takes me to his childhood home, and takes out an old high school economics book. He asks if I’ve ever heard of “The Time Value of Money.” I tell him, “Yes, I have,” while thinking to myself that this man really brought me to his house to explain a simple Econ 101 concept.
Evan giddily continues, “So you know these [Sam, Spencer, Cameron] morons have it all wrong. Because of inflation this year’s money is always more valuable than the next. Of course I’ll blow through my trade allocation because next year’s money is essentially worthless.”
In an open economic system, money today is more valuable than next year. In a system with a hard trade cap and less than a quarter of the way through the entire season, however, next year’s money seems equally, if not more valuable. A $358 gap exists between Evan and Ronak in both this years and next years money which is the equivalent to one fairly lavish draft. Evan has significant ground he will need to make up in both categories to compete down the stretch.
Did you know I was three true outcomes before it became mainstream? I led my league in strikeouts that year.
Before the interview ended, Evan had one final thing to show me. He digs in his closet and dusts off an old trophy. “This is where it all started,” he says, “The 2001 T-ball season. Did you know I was three true outcomes before it became mainstream? I led my league in strikeouts that year,” Evan brags.
With walks being impossible in T-Ball, and homeruns being unlikely, Evan bragged about a stat which should embarrass him. He ends our conversation smiling, looking at his trophy, reminiscing about all the times he whiffed at the tee, “No matter what happens this year, I’ll still have this [trophy] to show for it. No other Gauntlet Player can say that.”
After talking with other league members, Evan may very well only have his T-Ball participation trophy at years end. As Evan follows Icarus’s path, only time will tell to see how high he will fly and how hard he will fall.
Special thanks to Ronak, Spencer, Sam, and Cameron for contributing to this story.
The Fantasy Gauntlet 