(Note, this thread is for both fantasy junkies and rookies alike. I encourage all to participate, and ask questions as needed.)
It’s free agent season, and Scott Boras hasn’t even begun showing people the money yet. But it’s getting me all a-titter for fantasy baseball. Last season I was in three leagues, a points league, a rotisserie league, and a head to head league. I won two of them, placed second in the other - all of which means absolutely nothing other than that this is a past-time which I greatly enjoy, for a great many reasons (it keeps me involved in the world of baseball outside of my pathetic Kansas City Royals; it adds a level of competition among many of my friends, both reality-life and SDMB-based; etc.). The only other thing this offers to me is a pretty good knowledge of the inner workings of each type of league, little authority over the mastery of such, and a large amount of curiosity to seek out similar inquisitive minds. That’s what this thread is intended to do.
For several reasons, I found the head-to-head league to be severely flawed to the point of being broken. It just doesn’t translate as well as fantasy football. It was a great experiment, and the competition was good, but once you figured out the formula, there wasn’t much challenge. I could probably spice it up a bit, and tweak a few rules to hammer it down, and I’ll probably join another one this year, but it’s just not as interesting to me as the others. Therefore, I’m taking it out of the discussion.
Anyway, on to the debate.
BACKGROUND
Rotisserie Leagues
The flagship of fantasy. The Princeton v. Rutgers of fantasy sports. The original KFC crispy. Pre-new-Coke recipe. The young Elvis, the fat Al Roker. Typically, rotisserie baseball leagues come in two varieties, 5x5 and 4x4, which refer to the number of categories in offense and pitching - 5x5 being five offensive and pitching categories (usually Runs, Homeruns, RBIs, Stolen Bases and Batting Average (offense) and Wins, Saves, Strikeouts, ERA and WHIP (pitching); 4x4 being four categories (same as above, but excluding one category per section).
The league begins with picking which starting positions are used (typically a catcher, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, shortstop, 3 outfielders, a utility offensive player, 4 starting pitchers, 3 relievers and 2 generic pitching positions), drafting those players (plus a sizeable bench for substitutions and speculation), teams can drop up and pick up players that are available, trade amongst themselves and update their daily rosters whenever they like.
Scorings and rankings are based upon your players’ performance in each category. For a 10-team league, each teams’ Homeruns (or Runs, or RBIs, or Batting Average, or ERA, etc.) are totalled (or averaged in the case of AVG, ERA, WHIP, etc.), and ranked, and giving a score between 10 and 1 based on their rank (10 being the best, 1 being the worst).
Example:
NAME HOMERUNS SCORE
TEAM D 200 10
TEAM E 190 9
TEAM C 180 8
TEAM I 175 6.5
TEAM G 175 6.5
TEAM J 160 5
TEAM A 150 4
TEAM F 140 3
TEAM B 130 2
TEAM H 100 1
This is done for each category, the scores are added up, and the highest wins the league.
Points Leagues
The new kid on the block. The XFL of fantasy. Netscape’s answer to Mosaic. The opposite of the almost-humorous things I mentioned above. Like Rotisserie, Points leagues utilize stat categories, but don’t necessarily need to use the same number per side (pitching and offense). The difference is that each statistic generates a particular point value. I’ve discovered that some differences in starting roster are needed, particularly with pitching (less opportunity to stack your starting roster with relievers). For instance, my league used the following categories and point values:
R (1), 1B (1), 2B (2), 3B (3), HR (4), RBI (1), SH (1), SF (1), SB (2), CS (-2), BB (1), IBB (1), K (-1), E (-1), W (10), L (-5), CG (5), SHO (10), SV (10), OUT (1), H (-1), ER (-1), BB (-1), IBB (-1), HBP (-1), K (1), WP (-1)
(A flaw was discovered surrounding an over-inflated save value, but other than that, it’s pretty good. Attention to the minimum innings pitched is very necessary, though.)
Which would result in something like the following (offense):
NAME R 1B 2B 3B HR RBI SH SF SB CS BB IBB K E **TOTAL**
Abreu 12 10 6 0 5 14 0 0 0 0 16 1 18 0 **67**
At the end of the season the points are added up, and the highest score wins.
THE DEBATE
I submit that a carefully created Points league is inherently better than any Rotisserie league. Particularly:
[ul]
[li]They encourage season-long involvement as you cannot camp on a comfortable lead in any particular category before the end of the season.[/li]
[li]Are less susceptible to luck (like idle teams dominating categories through sheer uninvolvement - starting 3 relievers and only 3 relievers shouldn’t wrap up the Saves, ERA and WHIP categories while you stack your bench with offensive players).[/li]
[li]Can be tailored to value particular player roles (like on-base specialists who steal bases, but little else - but still provide an incredibly important role to their real teams, but are all but ignored in fantasy).[/li]
[li]Accurately reflect the dominance of the truly awesome MLB seasons (for instance, Barry Bonds 2004 - in rotisserie he’s underrated due to all those walks and intentional walks that don’t register anywhere, and can actually devalue his AVG in a Rotisserie league).[/li]
[li]Accurately reflect the uselessness of the truly pathetic MLB seasons (again, you could start Kevin Appier for one good game, and purge your roster of all pitchers and corner the market on second basemen in Rot. leagues).[/li][/ul]
Counterpoints
[ul]
[li]Trades are boring. You know exactly what you’re getting and what you’re giving (provided you can do the simple math involved).[/li][li]Camping on a lead may not be a bad thing. Late season trades between teams that have needs in different categories that ordinarily would look lopsided and unfair can be very interesting and league-shaking.[/li][li]Baseball is not a “what have you done for me lately?” sport. It is a season-long effort that culminates in a final result, it is not an incrementally-reliant series of events.[/ul][/li]
Any and all thoughts are encouraged. Anyone?
) used 6 categories each in pitching and hitting - OBP and SLG instead of batting average, and Total Bases Allowed added in pitching. Using OBP and Slugging definitely gives a fantasy league more of a sabermetric feel to it.