Fantasy Baseball

Originally posted by ratioci nation:
from bad experiences, I dont play in cash leagues, so thats cool if you do that, but just let me know if you are and I'll back my team out

Exactly, teams out of contention tend to stack a buddy of theirs so they get some kind of small cut.

Sorry I'm not going to be able to join fella's, but I'm in two leagues already that take up too much of my time as it is.

Just for argument sake though, all of you are arguing traditional vs. modern and OPS/OBP/AVG, yet nobody has brought up the over-glorification of the home run?

HR hitters help you in every offensive category in a traditional 5X5 or 4X4 league, yet it will take a random mix of pitching players (starters, setup, and closers) to win the myriad of pitching categories, but the best HR hitters at each position will get you Runs, AVG, OBP/OPS, HRs and RBI everytime they hit a HR. Odd.

So wouldn't that mean wins are over glorified for a pitcher? Most of your winningist pitchers will have the most strikeouts and best ERA's and WHIP's. Not saying all of them, but then again alot of over 20 home run hitters have a below .300 batting average. Beltran for example, horrible batting average last year, but decent in most other catagories, and somehow the bastard is making well over $100 million. He shoulda stayed in Houston so he could help my boy Clemens out on my other fantasy team. :(

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
So wouldn't that mean wins are over glorified for a pitcher?

No because you can't get a hold, a save and a win with one guy at one time. And you're not guaranteed that your WHIP or your ERA will be better after the win - he could have given up 15 hits and 6 runs but his team scored 14 for him. And you're certainly not guaranteed K's. The pitching categories are that diversified.

But with a single swing for a HR, your AVG, R, RBI, OPS, OBP, are all increased. the only thing he didn't do was steal a base. That's all I'm saying.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Just for argument sake though, all of you are arguing traditional vs. modern and OPS/OBP/AVG, yet nobody has brought up the over-glorification of the home run?

HR hitters help you in every offensive category in a traditional 5X5 or 4X4 league, yet it will take a random mix of pitching players (starters, setup, and closers) to win the myriad of pitching categories, but the best HR hitters at each position will get you Runs, AVG, OBP/OPS, HRs and RBI everytime they hit a HR. Odd.

I agree … i'm including doubles and triples in the other leagues i'm running to try to offset the emphasis placed on HRs by fantasy … and while it can be a rally killer to hit an HR, someone who hits 40 a year is pretty damn valuable to a team … you should try not to "double-count" stats, and by including SLG and HRs (and not doubles/triples) as stat cats, you are making HR hitters more valuable than doubles/triples hitters … but you also need to make fantasy accessible to people playing, and it's real easy to track a players HR totals …

i'm also including defensive assists in my other leagues … i tried using fielding pct last year , but it's just such a horrible indicator of fielding aptitutde … i'd really love it if yahoo could somehow include the Baseball Workshop & Project Scoresheet's "Defensive Average" or STATS, Inc.'s "Zone Rating" into the stat cats, guess it's too much of a pipe dream …

Defensive Average or [DA]

The Baseball Workshop & Project Scoresheet has been methodically placing the location of EVERY hit ball for EVERY game during the last several years. A Defensive Average, or DA, is the rate at which fielders in their respective "zone" turn hit balls into an out. The zone, or area of responsibility, spans the entire field and no section of the playable field is considered beyond the reach of a fielder. The Defensive Average statistics is nice because it is analogous to a fielder's Batting Average Against in that it specifically measures times reached per opportunity.

Zone Rating [ZR]

STATS, Inc. developed their own defensive rating system to also track locations of EVERY hit ball for EVERY game played - similar to the above Defensive Average statistic. The Zone Rating system is different because the area of responsibility, or zone, for each fielder is considered a "playable" area and does not account for balls hit into "Bermuda Triangles", "No Mans Land" or other impossible to field balls. A fielder that turns a double play is credited with 2 outs in the ZR system as their play on the ball actually resulted in both outs versus Defensive Average which only credits the 1 out. STATS, Inc. books area available at every bookstore and their work is updated on a yearly basis for player comparisons.

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
So wouldn't that mean wins are over glorified for a pitcher?

No because you can't get a hold, a save and a win with one guy at one time. And you're not guaranteed that your WHIP or your ERA will be better after the win - he could have given up 15 hits and 6 runs but his team scored 14 for him. And you're certainly not guaranteed K's. The pitching categories are that diversified.

But with a single swing for a HR, your AVG, R, RBI, OPS, OBP, are all increased. the only thing he didn't do was steal a base. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, it's "doublecounting" to have an HR as a stat, but not to count any other kind of hit … the way around this would be to also "double count" doubles and triples (maybe even singles)

Originally posted by vansmack:
No because you can't get a hold, a save and a win with one guy at one time. And you're not guaranteed that your WHIP or your ERA will be better after the win - he could have given up 15 hits and 6 runs but his team scored 14 for him. And you're certainly not guaranteed K's. The pitching categories are that diversified.

But with a single swing for a HR, your AVG, R, RBI, OPS, OBP, are all increased. the only thing he didn't do was steal a base. That's all I'm saying. [/QB]

Well put, I can't argue with that response. Guess I'm just used to seeing certain catagories.

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
Guess I'm just used to seeing certain catagories.

And it's all SportsCenter shows too.

For every league I've had this conversation, the only solution was to add more hit categories. Then the balance shifts to a more hitting emphasis and it becomes a nightmare. I guess nothings perfect. Last season, in one league we had 7 or 8 categories for both hitting and pitching. I've steered clear of defense entirely.

I've done a few Sabermetric leagues, but if you think 5X5 takes a lot of time…..

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
Guess I'm just used to seeing certain catagories.

Believe me, I'm far into baseball then just Sportscenter. Like I've stated earlier, I'm more a fantasy player than a roto player. We get points for singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, stolen bases, walks and negative points for caught stealings, strikeouts and errors. Pitchers we get points for wins, strikeouts, shut outs, complete games, saves and negative points for loses, walks, earned runs and blown saves. So I can understand some what the catagories that you guys want cause technically, my league has many catagories, we just score them differently.

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
Believe me, I'm far into baseball then just Sportscenter. Like I've stated earlier, I'm more a fantasy player than a roto player. We get points for singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, stolen bases, walks and negative points for caught stealings, strikeouts and errors. Pitchers we get points for wins, strikeouts, shut outs, complete games, saves and negative points for loses, walks, earned runs and blown saves. So I can understand some what the catagories that you guys want cause technically, my league has many catagories, we just score them differently.

I've always been interested in doing this, but I would think it would take a LOT of time to get the right point system down so that it accurately reflects value … i mean with one thing wrong ichiro could easily be worth way more than he should, etc, etc … how did you come up with yours?

HoyaSaxa03 + Rob_Gee's fantasy :

<img src="http://pages.prodigy.net/indianahawkeye/newpage11/10.gif" alt=" - " />

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
I've always been interested in doing this, but I would think it would take a LOT of time to get the right point system down so that it accurately reflects value … i mean with one thing wrong ichiro could easily be worth way more than he should, etc, etc … how did you come up with yours? [/QB]

This will be the tenth year I've been in this league. I fly up to Maine for a weekend every year, my parents don't seem the visit either. I believe at the time that these were just the standard catagories, so that's the best I can explain how they came about. I know most leagues, like your roto one, let's you decide which catagories you want and which one's you don't want. We have winter meetings every January to decide what we wanna add or take away. But no catagory has been added or taken away in the ten years yet. The only issue this year, which you would like, is taking away a closer and having holds as catagory. It got shot down though.

update: we now have 12 teams … 2 more spots open …

if the voting stands as is, we're going to go to an OBP/SLG or OPS stat instead of AVG …

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
Like I've stated earlier, I'm more a fantasy player than a roto player. We get points for singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, stolen bases, walks and negative points for caught stealings, strikeouts and errors. Pitchers we get points for wins, strikeouts, shut outs, complete games, saves and negative points for loses, walks, earned runs and blown saves. So I can understand some what the catagories that you guys want cause technically, my league has many catagories, we just score them differently.

That sounds brutal. Last season we added Complete Games and Shut Outs to our pitching categories. Nightmare.

OFFENSIVE: 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, SB, R, RBI, AVG, OBP (we've changed to OPS this year)
PITCHING: W, SV, HD, ERA, WHIP, K, CG, ShO

And that's an open draft every year.

I can't even begin to explain the 2 year contract player league, with a one year option for for an extra amount. It takes weeks just to set rosters for opening day.

Originally posted by vansmack:
That sounds brutal. Last season we added Complete Games and Shut Outs to our pitching categories. Nightmare.

OFFENSIVE: 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, SB, R, RBI, AVG, OBP (we've changed to OPS this year)
PITCHING: W, SV, HD, ERA, WHIP, K, CG, ShO

if you just add those two pitching cat's, you're suddenly adding a ton of value to workhorse aces, which i guess is good …

and with 9 batting cat's vs. 8 pitching cat's, hitters are intrinsicly worth more in your league than a pitcher, is that by design? why not cut AVG if you have OPS?

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
if you just add those two pitching cat's, you're suddenly adding a ton of value to workhorse aces, which i guess is good …

That was my exact argument that went by the wayside. I thought it was a terrible idea. And as it turned out, only one stat accurately predicted the final standings - Shutouts. Every other stat had varying degrees of how each team finished. The stats for shutouts were exaclty the same as the final standings for the overall league. Complete games were only 3 teams off. I should point out that I don't run this league, I'm merely a participant.

Originally posted by HoyaSaxa03:
and with 9 batting cat's vs. 8 pitching cat's, hitters are intrinsicly worth more in your league than a pitcher, is that by design? why not cut AVG if you have OPS?

It's keeping the balance that led us to adding CG and ShO, otherwise the categories were heavily in favor of offense. The argument was that you have 9 position players and a DH playing every day, and maybe 2 starters and 3 relievers at most in any given day, so the categories are already tilted towards putting a premium on offensive players. By adding CG and ShO, it altered the balance in favor of pitchers in an attempt to counter the offensive balance, probably too far however as you've correctly noticed the extreme importance of Workhorse pitchers.

You have to remember, mine is a fantasy league and goes by points. It's not Roto which are catagories. In our league usually good pitching wins over good hitting.

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
You have to remember, mine is a fantasy league and goes by points. It's not Roto which are catagories. In our league usually good pitching wins over good hitting.

What do you mean? I thought there was fantasy/roto vs. head 2 head?

In one 12 team league, we use 8 categories on each side, total points in each category get you the corresponding number of points relative to other teams (12 for first place, 1 for last place). Highest total points for all categories wins.

My keeper league is weekly H2H.

Yours is different?

Originally posted by vansmack:

Originally posted by Rob_Gee:
You have to remember, mine is a fantasy league and goes by points. It's not Roto which are catagories. In our league usually good pitching wins over good hitting.

What do you mean? I thought there was fantasy/roto vs. head 2 head?

In one 12 team league, we use 8 categories on each side, total points in each category get you the corresponding number of points relative to other teams (12 for first place, 1 for last place). Highest total points for all categories wins.

My keeper league is weekly H2H.

Yours is different?

yours is a roto league, his is fantasy points … you get or lose points for EVERYTHING that a player does, and you dont rank the teams, you just have standings where you total everyone's points … kind of like a fantasy football league where you get 6 points for a TD

i'd love to do this sometime because you could really assign a "value" to everything a player does, whether it be an iBB or a hit-by-pitch, it's amazingly comprehensive, even with a free service like yahoo … BUT it would take such a long time to figure out the values of each statistic so as to make their full value in-line with what it should be … like i noted above, one little problem could throw the whole thing off and make a singles hitter really valuable, or something similar…

Ours is a weekly league. We have four divisions of four teams. So you always go head to head with the three teams in your division plus four teams from another division. So weekly the best you can be is 7-0 if you have more points then everyone else. We prefer the division v. division as opposed to playing the WHOLE league every week. Just to let you guys know, pitcher get 15 pts for a win and -5 pts for a loss. Relievers get 10 pts for a save and -5 for the blown save. Plus the added and minuses for strikeouts, walks and earned runs.