The man, the myth…the elusive.
Over the last few years, many of the world’s most successful and profitable high-stakes fantasy baseball players have taken to Twitter to join the daily conversation about our beloved hobby. There are very few folks at the top of their game who don’t have an online presence (on Twitter) and are front and center of the discussions about draft strategy, player pool and the ADP…and probably the most recognizable name without a Twitter account is KC Cha. Hence, the mystique.
Many of us know KC from years of drafting against him, and collectively cursing under our breath as he snipes draft targets from us at-will. Some might say he’s a quiet and private guy, but truth be told, he is anything but that once you get to talk to him. KC very clearly has a quiet confidence about him. Most impressively, he is that guy who rolls into a high-stakes draft with a single sheet of paper after an all-nighter of playing poker and drafts ever-so-effortlessly. It is truly a sight to behold. And since his annual results in high-stakes fantasy baseball speaks for itself, it makes the legend of KC Cha…all the more legendary.
This March in Las Vegas during the Main Event drafts, KC will be the seventh person to be inducted into the NFBC Hall of Fame. Here is a quick breakdown of his success (from NFBC proprietor, Greg Ambrosius):
In the last 7 seasons, KC Cha has won 35 NFBC league
titles. Let’s say that again: 35 NFBC League Titles!!
Last year alone, KC Cha won 14 NFBC 15-team
league titles, which is an insanely good number. Included in that number
was the Platinum League title, which was worth $120,000. He entered
three Main Event leagues in 2019 and won ALL THREE MAIN EVENT LEAGUE TITLES.
He finished 7th, 25th and 98th overall in the Main Event last year. He also won
7 NFBC $150 Draft Champions league titles last year and 3 NFBC $400
Draft Champions league titles!! All 10 of those Draft Champions title teams
finished in the Top 100 of the overall standings in a competition that featured
3,450 teams. Think about that for a second!! He had 10 percent of the Top
100 teams in the Draft Champions National Championship as those teams
finished 21st, 29th, 37th, 49th, 53rd, 62nd, 71st, 76th, 86th and 93rd overall.
Well done, sir, well done.
KC is currently 4th on our Career Money
Winnings list with $487,248. He won the NFBC Platinum League title
last year, but he also won the Diamond League title in 2018. He’s also finished
second in the Diamond League in 2015, second in the Ultimate League in 2015 and
2018, second in the Super league in 2013, third in the Diamond league in 2016,
third in the Ultimate league in 2016 and fourth in the Platinum league in 2016.
He’s also won 24 NFBC Draft Champions
league titles, including the 10 he won last year. He’s finished as high as
3rd overall in the DC format (2015) and has 15 Top-100 finishes in the last two
years.
In December, I asked KC if he would grant me an exclusive interview and he quickly obliged. What I found most interesting was how many similarities he and I had growing up in immigrant families where we discovered and fell in love with baseball and the fantasy game via our own path.
KC is a successful import/export businessman and in addition to his fantasy baseball prowess, he has a strong history playing poker professionally, including the World Series of Poker.
Without further ado, the exclusive KC Cha interview.
Vlad: At what age did you get into baseball (the game) and what drew you into it?
KC Cha: I used to play a lot of baseball when I was a kid but what really got me into the game were the stats and numbers; specifically, baseball cards. Ever since junior high school, I could remember spending after-school hours and weekends in baseball card shops. I’d buy and sell and trade hundreds of the same baseball cards for investments. Geez, in fact I still have 200+ Albert (Joey) Belle Donruss rookie cards stocked away somewhere!
Vlad: At what age did you get into fantasy baseball? How did you get started? Did you play in home leagues with friends or Yahoo/CBS/ESPN? Or did you jump straight into NFBC?
It was 2001. Pujols and Ichiro were rookies that year. After reading some articles and doing some research online, I jumped into an ESPN league targeting Ichiro and Pujols as my last 2 picks. I won that league and got into fantasy games ever since. I think I was in my early 20’s. Up until last year, I played them all – home leagues, baseball, football, basketball, Yahoo!, private, dynasty – whether for money or for just for bragging rights. Last year I quit everything else and just focused on NFBC baseball – about 40 leagues (but only six of those FAAB leagues). This year I think I’ll be looking at 60 NFBC leagues. I try my best to catch Heberlig… 🙂
(Author’s note: Heberlig is ‘that guy’ who enters just about every NFBC league available and there’s a mystique with him as well, particularly about how he manages all his leagues and FAAB with a full-time job)
Vlad: I’m always interested in stories about those who love baseball but whose family is not American (like mine who came from Russia) – was there anyone in your family who liked baseball or did you discover it on your own?
KC Cha: Not really. My parents both worked and were super busy. I actually learned about the statistics of baseball from old baseball card shop owners. They would give me a few packs of baseball cards in exchange for looking over their shops for couple hours. Funny thing is that these guys remind of every other guy at the Main Event in Las Vegas ?.
Vlad: I know you are an accomplished businessman as well as poker player. Can you tell us about your experience in the World Poker Tour two years ago where you came in 42nd place? Follow up: do you find any similarities with poker to fantasy baseball? Like for me, I sometimes like to play the players and not the ‘cards’ like say if I’m drafting out of the 14th spot overall and try to guess who the drafter at 15 is going to take.
KC Cha: Yeah, it may sound cliché, but I paid my way through college with poker. I used to be an online poker pro for about three years before Black Friday. I don’t play in tournaments, but I started playing WSOP Main Event several years ago. A few years ago, I finished 50-something place overall at the Main Event and that paid out $152,000. WPT two years ago was the first time I played in the WPT events and I finished 42nd but that was out of 600 – 700 players and it only paid double the buy-in.
Regarding poker and fantasy baseball, I may need a few pages for this one!
It’s just gotten a lot harder to win because the field has caught up with the “sharks”. Statcast, Xstats, spin rate, launch angle, dERA, podcasts, and on and on… They got all this sh*t in poker too. So much information, analysis, and advice everywhere where everyone’s pretty much become an expert these days. There used to be so many “fish” out there… not anymore.
Yeah, with the 14th spot, it is a lot of common sense and just paying attention, especially late in the draft. You play cards with someone for a couple hours and you know a range of hands he or she might have if you pay attention and use common sense. You know what I mean. Guy picking at 15 has two shortstops already, so you save the SS for your next pick after his turn.
Vlad: When do you start prepping for the fantasy baseball season? Do you do all your own research? Do you listen to any podcasts or read articles?
KC Cha: I start prepping sometime in mid-January after the NFBC ADP start to form. As you know, this stuff takes a ton of work so basically ‘cheat’ with some sort of base of knowledge and resources to get started. I don’t do rankings or projections, but I do my own evaluations. I first work with NFBC ADP, then go on to depth charts of all teams. I probably do deep dives on 700 players then 20 seconds on about 300 or so fringe guys.
I used to go to Baseball Reference but now it’s Fangraphs (Rotographs) for most of my statistical research. I break ties with Baseball Savant (Statcast), if you know what I mean. CBS SportsLine used come up with these “hidden gems” of news about once a week but now it’s kind of obsolete now with all these podcasts around giving everyone insights.
So, I do listen to a lot of podcasts and read all sort of articles online. I try my best to listen and read as time allows but the thing I’m looking for is not really advice or player evaluations. I’m listening and reading for information (maybe a GM said this guy is starting/closing) and some sort of changes in players approach and any sort of info I can get my hands on. Of course, I like to listen to podcasts for entertainment since I’m a baseball junkie.
Vlad: How do you feel about the NFBC DC Draft and Hold format? Do you consider those prep to figure out how ADP looks?
KC Cha: I’m 100 percent sure I’m the second-best customer for this format for the NFBC as you probably know who first is (Author’s note: Heberlig, duh!). I got into about 30 DC’s last year and I’m planning for about 50 this year. I migrated all my Yahoo! leagues over to the NFBC last year and it’s not something I’d go back to. With my late-night poker schedule, I do not miss the daily roster formats.
After participating in 30 or so DC’s last year, I seriously thought I did not need a cheat sheet or a laptop to draft a live draft team in late March. The advantage is that you know where everyone is going in a certain draft. You know what I mean – I can draft with my eyes closed… although, of course I can’t guarantee I’ll end up with a competitive team.
Vlad: How do you feel about ADP in general? Do you do any of your own projections or do you use projection systems? Or do you just eyeball?
KC Cha: Early on I use ADP as a tool to find inefficiencies on certain players. I don’t do my own projections, but I do evaluations of all players in the pool. I try my best to identify those mid-to-late guys that are UTR (Author’s note: “under the radar”) or players I believe can take big leaps in production.
When it comes to actual drafting, it’s pretty much standard. I use it to map out some sort of a plan.
One thing I like to do is drafting backwards. For example – there are two shortstops that I like late, I can easily fade lukewarm shortstops earlier on.
The other is having multiple players for one pick and multiple for 2-4 picks: pretty obvious.
Another example is something like this: Let’s say I want three guys going back-to-back-to-back in ADP. I actually don’t mind jumping ADP three to four rounds earlier to get all three instead of settling for one or two.
Vlad: Some people call you one of the best high-stakes fantasy baseball players in the world. It also seems to come very natural to you. Sometimes when I draft with you, it seems very effortless for you – just a piece of paper and your brain. So, we don’t want you to give up your secret sauce, but is there any specific thing you are comfortable sharing with the FantasyGuru readers about why you are consistently so successful and what you think you do differently?
KC Cha: It is drafting season, so I’ll share my drafting process.
There used to be a guy who’d draft a standard 30-player / 15-teamer just off a single 5×3 Q-Card. Pretty crazy, but the thing is that I knew what he was doing because it comes from the same philosophy I have. It may even stem from the great Lindy theory. I’m sure you heard of it -“Take the guys you want”. (Author’s note: Lindy Hinkleman is a fan-favorite and all-around great guy – Lindy had the greatest fantasy baseball season of record in 2011, winning the two largest prizes in one season – otherwise known as ‘The Lindy’)
So, after I do my evaluation of almost a thousand players I then attempt to eliminate over 80 percent of those players. It’s not just the guys at the bottom of the pool; it applies to the top of the pool as well. I simply cross them off as if they are already off the board. Then I identify the players I want and highlight them yellow; the player I really like – orange. After all the news, spring training, job battles, injuries, etc., I tweak my cheat sheet a bit and go into drafts. If I had a perfect draft, I’d have a team with all yellow and orange players and probably need one 8×11 sheet of paper. I take it three sheets just in case I get ‘sniped’ with all of my picks and need a plan D (which happens a lot).
It happens all the time in poker – even the best players say: “why did I call that”? Everyone nowadays go into a draft all prepped up, armed with a plan, but most people seem to make bad decisions. One thing I do is this: got three players in mind for the next pick with three in front and you get sniped all three…what to do? I take the next guy down (not the fallen player perceived as a ‘value’) or settle for a lukewarm player around that range. Hope that makes sense…
Vlad: Last year, you had arguably the best season of any one player outside of Lindy. Did you have a lot of the common breakout players on all your teams? (Devers, Soler, Kepler, K.Marte, Soroka, Giolito)? Were there any of those guys who were available past 300 ADP who you just knew would be a big breakout star this year? And if so, what did you see in them?
KC Cha: I don’t really have an answer for this because it’s something everyone’s got access to. We all like sleepers and breakouts; some you really like, some you don’t. You just play the odds. You take 10 of these guys and four, pan out, that’s hell of a year! Maybe all the guys you listed were a bit discounted and what’s the common denominator? You guessed it – post-hype players coming off cold years.
Vlad: You are going to be inducted into the NFBC Hall of Fame in Vegas. I know you are not someone who loves the spotlight and are very humble, but tell me how you feel about being inducted?
KC Cha: I honestly don’t think I have the credentials for such an honor. I seriously think your wingman in the Platinum, Rob (Silver), deserves it more than I do. (Author’s note: Rob was not offended when I told him KC called him my wingman!) There are actually a handful of players that deserve it more – look at all the guys at the Platinum league we play in! Well, it’s a great honor and I guess I’ll have to prove I’m worthy to Greg, Tom, and Darik by winning the overall this year!
Vlad: I’m sure you’re not ‘scared’ of drafting against anyone, but are there any guys in the NFBC that when you see their name in your draft, you say “oh damn, this guy again”?
KC Cha: He’s become my nemesis – Eric Heberlig. So far, I’m about 30 DC’s in and he’s in 28 of them!
I hate it because we like a lot of the same players and I have to maneuver out of my way to get my guys. I have cursed at him behind my Macbook many times. All this talk on him but you gotta admit he’s really good at this.
Vlad: Final question: Any last thoughts or any other ‘looks behind the curtain of a successful fantasy baseball player’ that you can share?
I put in my time. I stare at my laptop or phone for good 12 hours a day during baseball season. And it’s because I like the game and grew up loving the game; not because of the $$$. Well…$$$ is very essential since it gets my wife off my ass during baseball season!
As you can see, KC Cha shares something in common with many of us. He eats, breathes and sleeps fantasy baseball, as well as the game itself. It is his hard work and grinding mentality meshed with strong instincts, confidence and experience that makes him the success he is today. Something we all strive to achieve in this game we are so passionate about. Hope you enjoyed the interview and let’s congratulate KC on his induction into the NFBC Hall of Fame on March 21!
