Opening Day is April 5.
Drafts take about, what, an hour and change. Longer if a bigger league, much shorter if a smaller league and/or people aren’t present (in which case the computer picks for them instantaneously when it’s their turn). If you’re in a 19-team league with really big rosters and a league full of smartasses who spend most of the time insulting each others’ picks, it takes like four hours.
For any of you who might have trouble visualizing how roto vs. fantasy points affects the experience, the real question is whether you want to make each owner responsible for earning each of the discrete categories or not. That sentence didn’t make any sense but it’s the best I can do; what I mean is that in a fantasy point setting, let’s say you have player A with the following stat line:
.308 avg, 32 HR, 110 RBI, 105 R, 22 SB
Good player, right? From an overall baseball perspective that’s a guy you really want to have. Overall production and no weakness.
Then say player B has:
.277, 8 HR, 55 RBI, 90 R, 108 SB
Impressive, but he’s only really good at one thing (which he’s phenomenal at), and he’s average to awful in the other categories.
And finally, you have player C, with this stat line:
.260, 65 HR, 140 RBI, 88 R, 0 SB
A very different player from B, but a similar conundrum.
Now consider roto vs. fantasy point scoring for each of the three. If you’re playing roto, Player A gives you a good mix in each category, so he’s valuable, but depending on the rest of your roster either Player B or Player C could maybe help you more, even though if you were starting from scratch you’d want A. If you’re in last place in the league in SBs or HRs, suddenly picking up either of the latter two seems really attractive. So that’s one effect of roto style; in the extreme, players who are one trick ponies have values that are inflated when compared to the real-world baseball person’s perspective (which is why fantasy veterans are lots more likely to be able to remind you of Scott Podsednik or Alex Sanchez’ careers). This, I think, objectively speaking, is a definite downside when considered this way, but it isn’t always so extreme and the more subtle differences between players’ contributions mirrors the calculus of a real-world player comparison, at least in theory.
The other side of the coin is this: when comparing Player A to Player C in a fantasy point league, the only thing that matters between the two of them is which aggregated more total points. So if the 30 HR and 30 RBI difference equals a bigger advantage for C than the extra steals, hits, runs, and whatever else mean for A, then C is categorically superior to A, and the owner with C wins. Ultimately, managing a team in this setting is just a matter of sitting back and watching the numbers climb, and if there’s a player available who has more total points than your guy, you probably go get him. If not, you don’t.
Like Munch says, it also makes trading a much different experience – rather than saying, hm, well, I can give up some Wins and Strikeouts because I’m pretty good there, and I really need to add some Home Runs, what you’re really doing is saying which of these two players represents a greater point total? and that’s the entire inquiry.
I vastly prefer roto because of the ambiguity of value. So, now that I’ve embarrassed us all by writing all of that, maybe you have a better idea which way you’d all like to go.
