Real good. If the rate of acquisition in previous years is any indication, this league is looking to easily shatter 20 teams. I, for one, have no problem with that. Also, I think we owe it to Petelin to try to get him involved after the brutal spanking he administered last year. Although maybe we owe it to ourselves not to, come to think of it. I don’t think he’s registered here anymore, in any case.
As far as holds, Wilson’s correct across the board. Here’s a previous thread where we talked about why and how we use holds in this league (posts 8-18ish).
Although it is hard to cite, holds are far more common in toto than saves (he did mean holds instead of saves). Roughly speaking, the distribution is something close to 2:1, total holds to total saves. But, as Wilson said, the distribution of holds among pitchers is very different than with saves. There are dozens of players who register just a handful of holds and very few who rack up a lot, so every (fantasy) team has a chance to nickel & dime its way to respectability in that category, while trying to avoid the situation where you have to field a pitcher with a 6 ERA just because he racks up a bunch of holds. As a result of the parity, it only takes, historically, 40 holds or so to be competitive in that stat and 70-90 to have a shot at the top spot, whereas you’d need like 75 saves to be middle of the pack and 100+ to win that category. If anybody’s still with me.
All of which is to say holds are very much bullshit in the real world, but useful in fantasy. Just like school uniforms. Wait.
We should definitely make sure that Petelin gets the opportunity to defend his championship, assuming he wants to. Of course, I have no idea how to contact him if he isn’t registered here anymore…
re: the draft spot, Yahoo! registration opens later this week (the 15th, I believe), and we will know what sort of spot we have once we register. It would behoove us to pick someone to commish before then, so they can register the league ASAP, so that we can get a draft spot we like. Our draft spots have been all over the place in the various SDMB leagues that I’ve played in; anything that was at a semi-reasonable time for both coasts and has taken obvious RL stuff into account has done pretty well for attendance, as long as things were set far enough in advance.
Well yeah, I did mean holds there, as you’ve figure out…
I’ll send a note to Petelin and a couple of the other former members who have played in the past (already heard from one)…
As I said, I’m willing to commish, and will be available to try to grab a good slot on the 15th when they open up. My opinion is something after 9PM eastern / 6PM pacific works best…
If rackensack or Omni want another crack at commishing, or someone else wants to try, that’s fine by me.
9PM eastern is probably the ideal start time if it’s a weeknight, since this particular draft usually takes a couple of hours. Any later than that, and you’re looking at “I have to wake up for work in six hours” by the time we get to the 20th round or so for some of us on the correct coast.
And what’s wrong with that? Where’s your dedication???
OK, I appear to have woke Petey up, and I’ve heard from both Winnowill and Munch, who are both interested. Munch votes for upping the IP limit to 1350…
Nothing yet from the defending champ.
Although, for the purposes of full disclosure and all that, it’s probably best that everybody be aware that by “a couple of hours,” The Old Man Formerly Known as Kiros means something like 3 and a half hours, if I recall correctly. And since this league’s looking bigger than any we’ve ever had, you can bump the duration up accordingly.
The way it’s going now, it looks like it’s going to be two SDMB leagues. I think that’s pretty good, though. We should have a winners’ bracket and a losers’ bracket. People that played last year should be in the winners’ bracket. Riff-raff goes into the losers’ bracket. A few more entries and this becomes a valid suggestion.
We’re at 20 by my unofficial count… 10 members who played last year who have posted in this thread, 7 others who have expressed interest, and 3 former members who have played for years that I’ve heard from. Course we’ll have to see if all 20 end up joining, but we’re doing incredibly well.
I vote to keeping it one league if we’re at 20. If we get to 22 or 24, maybe I’d rethink that…
If only there were a way to create divisions. I don’t mind having to dig deep on the waiver wire.
Maybe we should split it up (if we have to) that way: who minds digging for waiver replacements and who doesn’t?
Does this require more than a love of baseball and some math skill?
The idea of joining a fantasy league has always intrigued me, but I’ve never followed stats closely before. Is this the sort of thing where a beginner would be welcomed, or should I play elsewhere and learn the ropes before trying to join you guys?
I’m also a little concerned about the time involved on Thursday, but I could try to make it work if you were bringing me in. My wife already considers herself a baseball widow during the season, and she’s going to be out of town for an entire month during the summer, so I figure I’d have a lot of time to dedicate to this.
Well, Thursday’s just the registration date for the league and it’s where the draft time will be set. I imagine that the draft won’t be for another month.
OK, in the interest in extreme geekiness and blowing my own horn, I thought I’d share something I put together, sort of a very unofficial all time standings of the SDMB Fantasy Baseball leagues. I took the standings of the four years of leagues that preceded this one, noted each owner’s standings, and compiled a master list. For purposes of awarding points, I awarded 18 points for first, 17 for second, down to 1 for last in the 18 team leagues we had in 2004 and 2006 (this does mean that last place was worth more than one point in 2003, when we had 13 teams, and 2005, when we had 17).
I have an excel spreadsheet with the full yearly records, and a full chart of every owner that’s participated, and their SDMB name when I could reconstruct it, if anyone is interested. However, I thought I’d share the standings of all owners that have been in the league at least three years…
Damn I’m good…
Although I must admit that Kiros and brianjedi have almost as good an average finish as I do.
If anyone wants the full data, let me know. Also, if there was a league in 2002, and anyone can find the standings in their Yahoo Fantasy Profile, please send the stats to me and I’ll add them in.
And to respond to Asimovian and others… as Kid_A pointed out, Thursday is just when the commissioner would register the league and sign up for a (later) draft spot. Usually I think we shoot for a week or less before the start of the regular season. Last year’s draft took 2 hours 35 minutes, which I think was a LOT faster than the previous year’s.
And enjoying fantasy baseball in my opinion you just need a very strong love of baseball, and at least a passing familiarity with the stats being discussed… we’re not using extremely obscure stats, but if you’ve never heard of On Base Percentage, Holds or Slugging Percentage, this may not be the league for you.
If you’ve got an opinion on who will be better next year, Jeff Weaver or Jeff Suppan; if you feel certain in your heart who is more likely to fall to earth between Bill Hall, Brian McCann or Dan Uggla; and if you can name at least three candidates for the Red Sox closer’s spot, than fantasy baseball is for you.
What Jon Lester? Is he even in the majors yet? Do I win a prize? What about that kid whose last name is Hansen? We counting Foulke, Schilling, and Papelbon? Didn’t they sign Scot Schowenweis?
I’m a Tigers fan, so no, it’s not common knowledge for me to know that crap.
