Return of SDMB Fantasy Baseball

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yahoo has opened up their Fantasy Baseball registration for this year, which means it’s time to start putting together this year’s SDMB leagues. I’ve taken the liberty of creating one already, and I’d love for fifteen others of you to join me. I’m going about this a little differently than some of the previous years’ leagues have done, so bear with me for a minute.

First off, I’m not going to just publish the league number and password and issue a “come-all-ye”, for a couple of reasons. One, we’ve had problems in the past where people have signed up for a league, found out the draft is at a time when they can’t make it, and have basically punted, taking up a slot in the league but not participating at all. Two, as the creator and “commissioner” of the league, I was able to pick the rules, and my ideas of what will make for an interesting season may not be to everyone’s tastes. Here are the league settings I’ve created:

Maximum_Number_of_Teams: 16
Maximum_Players_on_a_Team: 23
Player_Universe: All baseball
Maximum_Moves: No maximum
Maximum_Trades: No maximum
Scoring_Type: Rotisserie League
Waiver_Time: 2 days
Last_Trade_Date: Sunday, August 24
Trade_Reject_Time: 2 days
Maximum_Games: 162
Maximum_Innings: 1300
Retroactive_Stats: No
Roster Changes: Daily
Starting_Positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS,** LF, CF, RF, OF**, Util, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P, P, DL, DL
Statistical Categories (Batters):
[ul]
[li]Runs[/li][li]Home Runs[/li][li]Stolen Bases[/li][li]Fielding Percentage[/li][li]On-base Percentage[/li][li]Slugging Percentage[/li][/ul]
Statistical Categories (Pitchers): [ul]
[li]Wins[/li][li]Saves[/li][li]Strikeouts[/li][li]Total Bases Allowed[/li][li]Earned Run Average[/li][li](Walks + Hits)/ Innings Pitched[/li][/ul]

Those of you who’ve played Yahoo! leagues before will quickly realize that these are not default settings. The most obvious difference is in the statistical categories: there are six each for batters and pitchers, instead of five each, and they’re not necessarily the typical ones. For batters, I’m using on-base percentage and slugging percentage, instead of batting average and RBI, and I’m throwing fielding percentage into the mix, despite the fact that it’s a lousy stat, because I like there to be some element of defense in the game. For pitchers, the categories are the standard 5x5 rotisserie categories, plus total bases allowed (I’m not married to that last one, by the way, so if someone wants to make a strong case for a different stat as the sixth pitching category, I’ll listen).

Another difference is that I’ve specified that outfielders have to be qualified for the specific outfield position at which you place them (i.e., LF, CF, RF), instead of simply throwing three all-hit no-field LF guys in your lineup. There’s also a fourth OF position in the starting lineup that’s not position-specific (i.e., any outfielder can play there) and an overall utility slot, for a total of 10 position players. For pitchers, there are three SP slots, 2 RP slots, and 3 slots for either. That’s 18 players in the starting lineup, with another five bench slots, for a total of 23 players on the roster. I’ve also specified two DL slots; it frustrates the hell out of me to have to release a valuable guy who’s out for two weeks when my one DL slot is full with a guy who’s even more valuable.

I’ve also bumped up the total innings pitched available slightly to 1300 (from 1250), since in every Yahoo league I’ve ever been in half or more of the managers exceed the maximum (usually a lot more than half, and I’m usually one of them – there’s gotta be some perks to being commish).

As you may have figured out, 16 teams with up to 25 players each (including the DL slots) is going to mean we’ll be dipping pretty far down into the talent pool. Almost no one’s going to be able to walk away with a team full of superstars, and you’re likely to have a few guys you’re not happy about in your starting lineup on any given day. But to me, there’s a lot more challenge in getting the most from limited resources than in four guys each drafting from among the top 10 players at each position and then sitting back to watch them slug it out.

My hope is that this format, with the larger rosters, different statistical categories, strict OF position requirements, etc. will reward careful attention to team balance and composition, player performance, managerial decisions making, etc., and not just whoever has the best draft.

Speaking of drafts, this one is currently set as a live draft on Monday evening, March 10, at 10:30 EST (7:30 PST). That’s purely a nominal date at this point; Yahoo requires you to specify a draft date/time to create the league; I expect that the date/time will change based on input from interested parties.

So, if you’re interested after slogging through all that, drop me an email at rackensackscott@netscape.net. Let me know what days/times/specific dates between now and Opening Day are particularly good or bad for you (previous SDMB Yahoo league drafts have run between 45 mins and an hour and a half). I’ll try to identify the best available time from that and let everyone know what I come up with. This way, if the draft time doesn’t work for you and you’re not comfortable with autopick, you can join one of the other leagues that’ll no doubt be forming (there were at least 3, I think, last year).

Please don’t think I’m trying to scare anyone away or make this an elitist thing; I just recall a fair amount of grief and confusion about what league to join, when the draft would be, etc. in past years, and I’m hoping to make that somewhat easier by polling interested parties for an appropriate draft date/time before having them join.

2

I’m probably interested. I played in the baseball fantasy leagues 2 and 3 years ago and took last year off. I might keep my options open to see what any other leagues that form are like in case I have an issue. I’m a little concerned that you’ve left RBIs off the offensive stats. While I like the idea of using either slugging percentage or onbase percentage instead of batting average and walks, I don’t really see where RBIs would be accounted for. And using both seems quite redundant. There seems to be way too many stats favoring the home run king here, with HRs, OBP and Slugging being big stats. Lots of redundancy. I’m not exactly the best guy to ask about baseball stuff (football is my game) but it seems there’s alot of good players who may get left out in this type of system.

One extra thing, it seems like it might be more balanced to make that utility position a Infielder position only. Since there’s already a wildcard position in the outfield, perhaps that’d help avoid a player starting 3 LFs.

Just a little feedback to mull over, I’d be curious to hear your rationale for the choices and how its improves on the defaults.

3

Omniscient:

I understand your concern about using both slugging percentage and home runs; I share that concern and considered the point before selecting the categories. I’d be fine with leaving off HRs completely, but I wondered if doing so might cause some people to lose interest. I’m also concerned with having a mix of counter and rate stats – too few counter stats, where the total number of some event is the statistic, and you end up with guys who keep their rate stats (like BA, OBP, SLG) artificially high by starting players who went four-for-six with 2 HRs and a double before going down with an injury for the rest of the year. I’d consider using OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) instead of the two stats individually, but there are a couple of objections to that: one is that OPS overemphasizes the SLG component, and the other is that I really want OBP in there individually so that guys who draw lots of walks have some value.

What I won’t do, short of being the victim of a brain transplant, is stick RBI back in there. Most of the people who’re likely to wander into this thread are likely to have heard my spiel on the subject before, but RBIs are my bête noir; they’re the most overrated stat in the record books. Strictly from a fantasy baseball perspective, what you have to figure out with RBIs is not what the player himself is likely to do so much as what the on-base percentages of the guys in front of him in the batting order are. Most major league hitters are going to convert a certain percentage of those opportunities into RBI, and the range of that percentage is smaller than most people think.

Anyway, I’m stilll open to suggestions (as long as they’re not to make RBI one of the offensive stats), and I’m inclined to agree with your suggestion that the utility position become strictly a utility infielder position.

4

I’m also probably interested. The lack of RBIs doesn’t bother me, because they are so dependent on the entire team and not just one player.

5

YESSSSS.

I’ve been thinking about starting this thread too; it’s about time that this came up. I didn’t realize Yahoo had opened registration already.

I’m definitely interested.

I don’t like fielding percentage. I hate it, actually. Your objections regarding RBIs make sense, but I don’t really see the connection to leaving them out (sure, they depend a lot on the OBP of the guys batting ahead of the hitter. But why keep Runs, then? They depend on the ability of the guys batting behind the hitter). My personal druthers would be to eliminate fielding or combine OPS and put RBIs back in, but I can live with it otherwise.

I’m not familiar with the TBA stat. I’d suggest using walks allowed instead, but I don’t really mind either way.
Here’s my main concern. This year for fantasy football Yahoo introduced something they called StatTracker. In past seasons the Yahoo system let you view the stats of your team’s players as they accumulated throughout the day. This past football season they made you PAY for that privilege, and if you didn’t you had to wait until 3am the following day to be able to see how your guys did on your team screen.

If this is going to be the case for this baseball season as well, I find that intolerable and suggest that we find another venue for our league.

I also think some people that have played in past leagues should be emailed to give them the chance to play in this one. Like Munch, who won last year. I wouldn’t want to miss the chance to get revenge.

rackensack, thank you for putting some thought into the way the league is put together. 16x25 is a decent size, and with SDMB players it should provide a little bit better challenge than your typical Yahoo “winners’ league.”
Oh, and I see nothing wrong with it being elitist.
Email sent.

6

I don’t know how much time I can devote to it. But I might be interested.

Though if I were to choose the categories I’d go with:

Hitters:
BA
H-GIDP
SB-CS
OPS

Pitchers:
ERA
WHIP
W
SV+Holds

I hate emphasizing closers at the expense of the other relievers.

7

Shoot, yeah, in the leagues I run I always use Holds as a seperate category. I like the idea of SV+H as a category. I’m voting for that.

Although my little secret for fantasy staffs has always been to draft the top couple of setup guys in the late rounds. Their K/9 is always high and they hold down your ERA/WHIP. Counting holds means other people want to draft those guys too. You’re blowin’ up my spot here JC!

JC, you’d count BA and hits both?

8

BTW, I just started up a league, too (started it for consideration elsewhere, before I knew about this). Draft times suck, though - I’m hoping they add more, as all late afternoon/evening/weekend times are full.

My league is 25 players (10 position, 9 pitcher, 6 “bench”). Right now, it’s AL Only, but, if I get more than six teams, I’ll open up the NL, too.

As rackensack mentioned, I’m not putting the number or password here, because I want committed owners. So e-mail me if you’re interested.

Right now the draft is set for the 3/20 at 3:30 EST - I’m hoping to change that if they add some more draft times. The way it’s going, they’ll run out of times in the next day or so.

That said, I have the time, and the inclination…I may join rackensack’s league as well.

9

rackensack. if you’ll consider a fairly new and non-prolific member but a long time lurker, I would be thrilled to join. Email has been sent with time preferences.
(I would certainly not want to take a spot from a returning player, however. That I can understand.)

I really like the idea of using OBP and SLG.

Like White Lightning, I have a problem with fielding percentage, for two reasons. One, I’m not terribly familiar with how it is calculated and weighted among positions. Don’t first basement get a whole lot more chances (and higher fielding percentages) than other positions? If (and if I’m wrong tell me) all the counting stats like Assists, Putouts, etc are just added up it seems to me that it would just be another incentive to get a slugging first baseman as your utility infielder. But hey, if you’ve used it before, I’m game to try.
The other objection is that because you are using fielding percentage, you’ve got three counting stats for hitters and four counting stats for pitchers. For some reason, that imbalance bugs me. It always bothered me that in the default Yahoo leagues, which I’ve played for years, there were four counting stats for hitters and three for pitchers. But based on your objection to RBIs, I don’t know that I have another, better idea.

10

I actually like fielding percentage. However, I’m not using it this year, because its importance, when weighed against other stats, is negligible. Nobody wins a league on its fielding. And, Wilson, the idea behind using fielding percentage instead of errors is that FP is the number of successes per chance, versus straight errors. Whether a 1B gets more chances or not, the percentage will always be the same. FP does not apply to pitchers.

11

As much as some of JC’s suggestions have merit, we’re limited to the stat categories that Yahoo! offers, which are:

Batters [ul]
[li]Batter Games (GP) [/li][li]Games Started (GS) [/li][li]Batting Average (AVG) [/li][li]On-base Percentage (OBP) [/li][li]Slugging Percentage (SLG) [/li][li]At Bats (AB) [/li][li]Runs ® [/li][li]Hits (H) [/li][li]Singles (1B) [/li][li]Doubles (2B) [/li][li]Triples (3B) [/li][li]Home Runs (HR) [/li][li]Runs Batted In (RBI) [/li][li]Sacrifice Hits (SH) [/li][li]Sacrifice Flys (SF) [/li][li]Stolen Bases (SB) [/li][li]Caught Stealing (CS) [/li][li]Walks (BB) [/li][li]Intentional Walks (IBB) [/li][li]Hit By Pitch (HBP) [/li][li]Strikeouts (K) [/li][li]Ground Into Double Play (GIDP) [/li][li]Total Bases (TB) [/li][li]Putouts (PO) [/li][li]Assists (A) [/li][li]Errors (E) [/li][li]Fielding Percentage (FPCT) [/li][li]On-base + Slugging Percentage (OPS) [/li][/ul]

Pitchers[ul]
[li]Pitching Appearances (APP) [/li][li]Games Started (GS) [/li][li]Earned Run Average (ERA) [/li][li]WHIP Ratio (WHIP) [/li][li]Wins (W) [/li][li]Losses (L) [/li][li]Completed Games (CG) [/li][li]Shutouts (SHO) [/li][li]Saves (SV) [/li][li]Outs (OUT) [/li][li]Hits (H) [/li][li]Total Batters Faced (TBF) [/li][li]Runs ® [/li][li]Earned Runs (ER) [/li][li]Home Runs (HR) [/li][li]Walks (BB) [/li][li]Intentional Walks (IBB) [/li][li]Hit Batters (HBP) [/li][li]Strikeouts (K) [/li][li]Wild Pitches (WP) [/li][li]Balks (BLK) [/li][li]Stolen Bases Allowed (SB) [/li][li]Batters Grounded Into Double Plays (GIDP) [/li][li]Save Chances (SVOP) [/li][li]Holds (HLD) [/li][li]Total Bases Allowed (TB) [/li][li]Innings Pitched (IP) [/li][li]Strikeout to Walk Ratio (K/BB) [/li][li]Strikeouts per Nine Innings (K/9) [/li][/ul]

Most of the ones I’m not planning to use are obvious non-starters. The only batting stats I could conceivably be induced to consider (other than the current ones) are OPS and Total Bases. In the pitching stats, I could perhaps be persuaded to replace Ks with K/9 or K/BB (which would even the balance between rate and counter stats for batters and pitchers), but having both Saves and Holds in a 6x6 league seems to put too much emphasis on the bullpen.

I don’t disagree with White Lightning that Runs are almost as bad as RBI, I just don’t happen to hate it as much (it’s nowhere near as overrated among fans and journalists and even lots of people who should know better). Since I knew I wanted to use OBP and SLG as individual categories, and since I was throwing FP into the mix for pure cussedness, I figured I need to leave a couple of batter categories that people were accustomed to, and HR and Runs won out over the other possibilities. I’m still open to debating the issue and possibly changing my mind (though pushing for RBI is gonna be a tough road, if that’s what you’re thinking). Winnowill’s point that teams don’t generally win on fielding is true enough, but real teams don’t win by utterly ignoring fielding either, as fantasy teams generally do, and that’s what I was trying to avoid. There still isn’t a good fielding stat, but FP’s what we’ve got to work with here. And as 1/12 of a team’s overall score, it doesn’t seem that much out of proportion.

12

My motivation in having people email me for access really wasn’t to “hold” slots for people who’ve played before; I’d certainly welcome them, but I don’t consider them to have any priority. I just wanted to have the chance to poll people on draft times, and have an opportunity for the kind of debate we’re having on format, before people commit.

13

I complained to Yahoo! about the lack of available draft times. They say they are planning to add more.

Last year, as commish, I used OBPS. I didn’t like it so much, and, immediately before my draft (when it was too late to change it) I would have. But it was too late. In addition to my own league (which, again, I will supply the rules for if you want them, but please, apply for rackensack’s league first) I have asked to join this one. I have some different stats - for starters, I’m not using FB. But I have the highest respect for its use (it got me Omar Vizquel last year, one of my all-time fave players, and he turned out to be a damn good hitter last year), though I’m not using it. Again, if you want info, e-mail me. I’d love to have two-leaguers… Including rackensack, if he wants to go in…

14

Oy. I would have changed it to two different stats, I meant.

15

Check the stats. Starting 1B universally have FP’s in the .990’s. IIRC a PO is a chance, so every time a guy grounds out the 1B gets a ‘chance’ added to his FP. I don’t know that this has a huge effect, since everybody in the league will be starting a 1B. I guess it would make a case for making your UTIL a 1B as frequently as possible.

rackensack, do you know anything about the stat tracking issue? If not, I’ll be happy to write to Yahoo myself.

Also: I officially request that we add more roster spots. I’d dearly like to see CI and MI added to the mix. Maybe another P to even things out, and another bench spot. In other words I’m stumping for 27-man rosters. 432 spots in the league is pretty solid; I usually like it around 400 or so, and with 32 DL spots to be had we’ll be at around that level.

16

A percentage is a percentage.

If a shortstop makes ninety-five out of 100 chances, his FP is 95%. If a 1B makes 90 out of 200 during the same time period, his FP is 95%. It doesn’t matter how many chances there are, just how many of them he makes. While 1Bs make a lot of POs because of the nature of their position, they also seem to make a fair amount of fielding and throwing errors. I see more 1B errors than any other position, simply because they DO have more chances. When was the last time you saw a 1B make a significant string of error-free games?

17

If anyone wants to make a traditional 4x4 roto league, which is

AVG, HR, SB, RBI
ERA, SV, W, WHIP

or a 5x5 with R and K added to batters and pitchers respectively, lemme know, post it and send me an email, or I’ll post it myself.

I don’t really like the idea of having both SLG and OBP as categories. Yeah, OPS is the sum of those two, and OPS is the BIG THING right now, the stat everyone cites to…but that’s just because of the hype around Barry Bonds. AVG is still the yardstick as far as I’m concerned.

18

I don’t know about this year, and looking around at Yahoo! didn’t yield any enlightenment. I know that they offered StatTracker (essentially) for free two years ago in Baseball and made it a premium add-on last year. But it wasn’t required to get more-or-less up-to-the-minute stats – the team pages were updated with new stats every minute or so. StatTracker just made it more “real-time”, IIRC. In any event , I didn’t see any indication that they’ve made the standard team pages any less functional than they were last year (doesn’t mean that they haven’t, just that they aren’t saying so).

I could see adding another pitcher’s spot – indeed, I had it that way at one time. The reason I got rid of it was I was too lazy to figure out what the increase in maximum IP should become. Increasing it linearly from the default (i.e., dividing the 1250 IP default limit by the eight default pitcher slots) suggests that around 150 extra IP would be about right, but something I haven’t identified yet is bothering me about that answer.

I’m not sure I can go as far as adding two more batter slots to the starting lineup, however. I like for the game to bear some resemblance to the real thing, and while I don’t have any stats to back this up, my sense is that having two utility slots in addition to the standard starting eight is about right – that on average, ten position players from each side have a bearing on the outcome of each game. With only ten slots, some owners are going to have to make tough decisions about who to put in their lineup each day – decisions they might not have to make with two more starting slots – and you might have noticed that I like owners to have to think to succeed.

19

Not to turn this into Great Debates, but Barry Bonds has got nothing to do with it. People cite OPS because it’s a simple-to-calculate metric that correlates significantly better with with runs scored (and hence with games won) than does BA.

OBP times SLG is actually the gold standard, correlating stunningly well with runs scored, but most people don’t find it easy to multply two three-digit numbers in their heads, particularly when they’re decimal fractions.

20

While a percentage is a percentage, when trying to figure out the total percentage for two (or three or thirteen) players, it makes a big differance what the denominators of the percentages are. Take AVG. If you’ve got a player hitting .400 in 100 AB, and another hitting .200 in 400 AB, what’s your team AVG? it’s not .300, it’s .240. Unless I’m wrong and Yahoo averages the percentages.
That’s the only point I’m trying to make - using FP will make 1B (and OF) more valuable because they get more chances and have higher FPs.
But I agree there isn’t a better choice for fielding stats at Yahoo. In a perfect world, I’d suggest infield assists plus outfield putouts.