2006 Yahoo Fantasy Baseball (Draft Game)

Just kidding.

Well, not exactly.

It's never too early to start thinking about it, is it?

Click Here:

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/

Then

Join a League, then

Join a Custom League

League ID # is 6265 (League: Gangster BB)

Password: Corleone

Live Draft: Monday, March 20th, 9:30 PM:

As my fellow players know, my first exposure to fantasy sports was the ESPN Salary Cap baseball game in 2003, and I thought that nothing could be finer, especially after winning.

That was followed by another victorious year, along with two happily successful fantasy basketball seasons.

However, my present misadventures in basketball notwithstanding, I have come to realize, as DB I believe also has, that the daily grind of a salary cap game, coupled with its repetitiveness and the necessity to play every single day or suffer the huge penalty exacted from one who doesn't, removes a good deal of the games enjoyment.

Of course, if no alternative existed I might very well feel differently, however I find the Yahoo games in which each particpant drafts his or her own team to be vastly superior.

The excitement of the draft, the idea of having a team composed of completely different players than that of your opponents, the ability to make trades and acquire new players as the season progresses via free agency or waivers, and the management of the "maximum games played" aspect, add several elements of interest which simply do not exist in a salary cap game, while serving to make the Yahoo brand considerably more enjoyable and realistic on a day-to-day basis.

Not to mention the fact that the penalties are slight - a missed waiver pickup, perhaps - when you fail to devote some time and attention to it each and every day.

Will I continue to play Salary Cap Basketball this year and basbeall next year? Most certainly. But with the introduction of the Yahoo games, I must state that they are now first in my heart.

Now, as far as Yahoo Baseball for next season goes.....

As you know, I believe that a "Points Only" league is the purest form of scoring. Head-to-head is subject too much to the vagaries of scheduling and the luck of the draw, and, quite frankly, I think that Rotisserie style, in which a stolen base is treated with the same importance as a run batted in (another feature of HTH) is rather silly.

I would use a 162 game maximum at each position, and the ESPN scoring system for offense, adding HBPs if available, however I'd devalue pitching somewhat by including HBPs,and charging the pitcher a minus total for total bases allowed, rather than simply one point for each hit given up.

A mandatory roster of at least one player for each position in the field plus a required utility position, which would serve as the DH, altho I have no idea how Yahoo treats the DH position. For example, are there players, like a Frank Thomas, who can only be used as a DH, thus necessitating the creation of a DH position so that these players can be drafted and used?

A bench of 6 or 7 other hitters of your choice; If you wind up with Albert Pujols, you probably don't want to draft another first baseman, but if you have, say, Adam LaRoche, you're going to need someone else who plays first when LaRoche sits against lefties.

Five starting pitchers, a couple of closers, and maybe a manager to earn you three or four points for every win.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I can hardly wait.

Now, that's the spirit!!! Well, I don't play Yahoo, but baseball, in general.

I swear, Plaw, you scared me so much with this post. I was almost certain you were going to say that we shouldn't do the BBC salary cap game next year. I can see your reasoning for enjoying this style more so, but BBC is my love, and I'd just be empty if everyone decided not to play it.

(Sorry to go so off-topic, by the way.)

Just a couple of bookkeeping thoughts... I'll post more substantive thoughts later...

- A player like Frank Thomas will only have a "Utility" designation. All other position players will have their position plus Utility available. A standard Yahoo team includes all eight non-pitching positions plus two or three utility positions. You'll have three starting pitchers, two relief pitchers, and a couple of pitchers of your choice.

- There are no manager choices in Yahoo.

If you have a max game requirement of 162, how do you fill it with only 3 players besides your starters?

You need at least one extra catcher, a middle infielder, a fourth outfielder, an extra first baseman....

That's four right there.

I'd want a major league sized roster of hitters. As long as you stick to the 162 game max, the extra guys add more strategy elements 'cuz you're not simply playing the same eight guys every day. Plus, larger rosters encourage trading, as you've pointed out.

I just listed starting rosters. There is about five bench spots for non-pitchers and three or four bench spots for pitchers.

You're right plaw. You have entirely too much time on your hands. If you're really bored I have a bunch of chores around my house you can do.

The whole last page in the Yahoo Basketball thread is all me, except for a couple of quick posts by JG, and the political debates have been awfully quiet lately.

I figured if no one wants to talk about abortion, terrorism, rape, Iraq, the death penalty, or fantasy basketball, maybe we could get a fantasy baseball discussion going.

It was my first love, too.

But like most first loves, it flamed out when something better came along.

Try Yahoo, GG.

Oh, well since you put it that way.

Vinny Castilla is HOT!!! Is that enough baseball talk for you?

Or maybe we can just copy plaw's numerous type o's in his first post. :p

BBC is grueling, but a game I won't give up on. I first played it in 1997, so it's now a longterm relationship. But the Yahoo one sounds cool, too.

It was faster just to copy your typo.

It was faster just to copy your typo. [/b][/quote]That's how we say type o's in my neck of the woods. :p

Well, my love won't fizzle. :p

The first two fantasy games I ever tried were draft ones - I'm not sure if they were Yahoo, but I had a lot of trouble keeping up with them and figuring out how they worked. I don't think I fully comprehend all the trade rules and such. I guess I just enjoy the simplicity of a salary cap game.

Okay, Plaw, you just want to talk baseball, then? I'll use Bethie's technique. Willy is just so cute! Oh my gosh! And A-Rod! I wonder if the MVP has anything to do with looks, because he'd certainly get my first place vote!

Is that the same accent as noone ?

Is that the same accent as noone ? [/b][/quote]You'd have to ask Buffy that. That's her specialty now.

Only five typographical errors.

I've played Yahoo fantasy baseball for several years now. Yahoo is far superior to ESPN.com in every single imaginable way. Depending on how many teams would be in the league, I would think we would need more than 3 starting pitchers. We have 10 guys in our league every year, and we have 5 starters and 2 closers. Pitching depth is the most valuable thing to have in fantasy baseball. With only three starters, it really dilutes the value. We set our lineup weekly, which would make a difference too, I guess. If you guys were planning on setting the lineup daily, that would change things considerably.

If we play head to head in football, we might as well play head to head in baseball. Football is by far the most random fantasy sport of them all. A stacked team can get their ass kicked single-handedly by someone who picks up Sam Gado and gets 3 tds out of him. In baseball, with a week-long scoring period, the better team wins most of the time. One big game out of some stiff can't single-handedly carry a team to victory. If some stiff puts up big numbers all week long and helps defeat an alleged superior team, then that team probably deserved to lose that week anyways. Just like football, you still pay out regular season champ by most total points. I agree, total points is by far the best way to determine who has the best team, but if people have more fun playing head to head, then why prevent them from doing so. Having fun is the whole purpose of playing fantasy sports anyways. Espeically when there is no reward for winning.

I agree with you about HTH in baseball, JB.

The luck factor of scheduling in football - who you play that has a hot week, when the other guy's QB has a bye, the once a week game - is much greater than it would be in baseball.

But if you "still pay out regular season champ by most total points", and you "agree, total points is by far the best way to determine who has the best team", then what's the point of a HTH matchup every week. Just for the heck of it?

Besides, in a HTH or rotisserie game, aren't the draft strategies different? For example, let's say that during the draft I decide that I have enough power and htting to win the "Runs Scored" and/or "RBIs" category, so I pass on a home run hitter to go for a stolen bases guy.

I know that the HR hitter can be expected to get me more overall fantasy points, but to try and win another category, I go for more stolen bases, but fewer fantasy points.

And do me a favor, JB....come out of the doghouse already. :p

Damn, I don't even look at my signature ever so I completely forgot I was even in the doghouse. :p

The wording in my last post was rather ambigous. We pay out not only the regular season champ, but also the top 3 spots in the playoffs. We have a grand in the pot, so playoff winner gets $350, most total points get $350, 2nd gets $200, and third gets their money back. Most of the guys in our league like the head to head format just because we're all old college friends and it's fun to kick your buddy's ass, even though it might be your first win of the year coming in week 9. It wasn't until two years ago that two of us finally convinced everyone else that the highest regular season point total should get some money.

Regarding rotisserie vs. points, it would make a huge difference in draft strategy. I'm not proposing we do our HTH scoring rotisserie-style though. It's a lot like the Salary Cap Challenge or football scoring in a way. You get your typical points for home runs, triples, RBIs, etc. You are matched up against someone and you try to outscore them for the week. Next week, you have a new opponent and you try to outscore them. It's certainly not perfect. You set your lineup weekly, but with all of us out of school now, a daily league just isn't feasible anymore. And I don't have to tell you, our format allows for lucky wins and losses, but that's the way the guys want to do it, and if it keeps their $100 coming back every year, then it's fine with me. There are a lot more weeks of competition for the lucky wins and losses to even out, and the total points champ gets paid the same as the playoff winner anyways.

Good idea...!

And, those that serious about it (to bet $100 on it), won't just drop out halfway thru...

I've said in the past that I'd play for money.

But it's really not necessary here, I think. The glory is fine with me.

I've been giving this some more thought....

I'm inclined to set up the roster identically to a major league roster.

15 position players, 5 starting pitchers, and 5 relief pitchers.

A maximum of 162 games at each position, including starting pitcher.

No maximum number of games for relief pitchers.

You'd play 8 position players and a DH everyday, but you could use all 5 of your starting pitchers and all of your relief pitchers on a given day, since there is a chance that all 10 of them might be pitching on a single day.

So for pitching, you would just set it and forget it, listing all of your pitchers as active that day.

You would have to keep track of your starters though, because combined they'd probably go over the 162 game limit, so barring injuries, there would probably be 10-15 situation each year when you might want to pick your spot to not use a starting pitcher.

You could pick any 15 position players that you wanted to, but of course you'd want to make sure that you had at least one guy for every position on the field. Anyone would be eligible to be used as DH, just as in real life.

I'd go with the ESPN salary cap game scoring system, since it's the one that most of us are the most familiar with, so we'll have the best frame of reference for the values of the players (The Yahoo rating system is misleading, since it is based on Roto scoring, so all other things being equal, for example, if one guy has 40 homers and no stolen bases, and another guy has 40 SBs and no HRs, they'd be rated eaqually).

Since we'd only credit starting pitchers for their work, and not the subsequent work of their relievers, I think it would tend to devalue starting pitching a bit, which is something that I think we've always thought to be desirable in the ESPN game, where pitching accounts ofr a one-third of your points.

I'd also maybe eliminate the 5 point bonus for a win, or at least reduce it, which devalue pitching a bit more.

That would make a top offensive player, like Pujols, who averages maybe 4.5 points a day, a little more valuable than a pitcher like Santana, who may average about 18 points per game, but only plays once every five days, which, I think, is how it should be.

If a pitcher has a great game, you'll get enough points without the five extra, and this will eliminate the extra five points for games in which a pitcher gets bombed but gets a win anyway.

I would also add a +1 for batters being hiy by a pitch, and make that a -1 for pitchers who hit them.

Yes, it's early, but I would like to think this whole thing through as carefully as possible, so the more time we have the better.

No one is ready to start talking about this yet?

It's never too early, you know.....

Three more weeks until spring training starts....

I'll try playing this one, but I expect to have this exact kind of trouble.

I'll try playing this one, but I expect to have this exact kind of trouble. [/quote]Fear not, guys.

One advantage that the Yahoo game has over Salary Cap is that while it can be played as a daily game, you also can set your lineup for the entire season in advance - a feature you should like, TM.

As far as the trade rules, free agent pick-ups, etc. go, there will be plenty of discussion and explanation on how all of that works, as well as discussion on how we should set the league up, mostly regarding things like how many players should be on each team and how the scoring should work.

Stay tuned.

I personally like the scoring where the person with 100 rbis gets 10 points, 98 rbis gets 9, 95 gets 8 etc..

100 RBI? We scoring at the end of each day, or the end of the season? :p

I was using it as an example :p

Although does it really matter WHEN we score?

That's an example of scoring in a head-to-head game.

I'm thinking along the lines of the way we're doing the basketball.

So 1 point for a single 2 points for a homerun or something like that?

Don't tell Flame, though... :p

YAHOO !!!!

The game is open!

This thread now rates a sticky.

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

League Name:Gangster BB
Password: Corleone
League ID# 6265

Here's what i did so far. Nothing is engraved in stone, and cpmments are inviyed.

Please read; there are some questions in there also;

League ID#: 6265

League Name: Gangster BB

Password: Corleone

Season Type: Full

Draft Type: Live Draft

Draft Time: Mon Mar 20 9:30pm EST

Max Teams: 12

Scoring Type: Points Only

Player Universe: All baseball

Max Moves: No maximum

Max Trades: No maximum

Trade Reject Time: 2 days

Trade End Date: July 30, 2006

Waiver Time: 2 days

Can't Cut List Provider: None

Trade Review: Commissioner

Post Draft Players: Free Agents

Max Games Played: 162 at each position except pitcher

They don't give you the option of limiting your starting pitchers to 162 games total as I had hoped, which, since the best SPs typically start 33-35 games each season, would have added the strategy element of having to decide when not to use a SP. I set it up with 5 starting pitchers and 5 relievers, but they all play every day, since there could be days when anywhere from none to all of your pitchers could play)

Max Innings Pitched: No maximum

Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow

Start Scoring on: Sunday, Apr 2

Roster Positions:
C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, Util
SP, SP, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP, RP, RP
BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN
DL, DL, DL, DL, DL

Every day you'll have one starter at each offensive position. the "utility" spot will be your DH. Keep in mnd when drafting that the 6 bench players can play any position, so you'll probably want to compose your bench like a real MLB team. The 7 (including your utility player who can play a position also, so he doesn't necessarily have to be your DH every day) would be something like one extra infielder at each position, 2 extra outfielders, and one extra catcher.

Keep in mind, however, that with the max # of games at each position being 162, if one of your starters misses an odd game here or there when he stubs his toe, the only way to make that game up is on a day when his team is off, and then you have to hope that your bench player's team isn't also off that day. So this game will require daily attention.

Stat Categories:
Hitting: R, RBI, SB, CS, BB, HBP, TB
Pitching: W, L, SV, OUT, ER, BB, HBP, K, WP, BLK, HLD, TB

These are the same categories offered by ESPN in the daily Salary Cap Game, with a few additions: In hitting, there's "Caught Stealing" (CS), to which I assigned a value of -1, and "Hit By Pitch" (HBP), a +1.

They also give you the option of assigning a value to "Sacrifice Hits" and "Sacrifice Flys". I didn't assign the, any value, but was thinking of +1 for each, since they are positive accomplishments.

In pitching, there's "Saves" (SV), HBP, "Wild Pitches" (WP), "Balks" (BLK), and "Holds" (HLD). See values below.

The "TB" (Total Bases) category is in lieu of the "Hits" category that the ESPN Salary Cap game uses. Instead of -1 for each hit allowed, which treats a home run with the same value as a single, this category will value each total base allowed as -1.

They also give you the option of assigning a value to "Complete Games" and "Shutouts". As rare as these two events are, maybe they should have a value of, say, +2 or +3. Kinda like "bonus points".

Stat Modifiers:
Hitting:
R (1)
RBI (1)
SB (1)
CS (-1)
BB (1)
HBP (1)
TB (1)

Same as ESPN, except for +1 for HBP and -1 for CS.

Pitching: W (6)
L (-6)
SV (3)
OUT (1)
ER (-3)
BB (-1)
HBP (-1)
K (1)
WP (-1)
BLK (-1)
HLD (1)
TB (-1)

A few big differences here: +6 for a "Win" instead of +5, because remember; In the ESPN game you get points for the entire pitching staff. here, you'll only get the "Win Points" if your starter actually gets credit for the win.

Also, a BIG question: A put a -6 value on a starter getting the "Loss". Do we want that, and if so, should that be the value?

Also, I liked the symetry of the values here: + or -6 for a win or loss, +3 for a "Save", +1 for a "Hold".

DB, JG, DM.....Questions and comments, please.

And, of course, from anyone else who wants to play (*cough*MOAAFS*cough*).

I, of course, have plenty to say about this, but it's late right now... I'll give my $2 w/in the next couple days....

Crap, first post of the page. Might as well re-post that...

YAHOO !!!!

The game is open!

This thread now rates a sticky.

http://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1

League Name:Gangster BB
Password: Corleone
League ID# 6265

Here's what I did so far. Nothing is engraved in stone, and comments are invited.

Please read; there are some questions in there also;

League ID#: 6265

League Name: Gangster BB

Password: Corleone

Season Type: Full

Draft Type: Live Draft

Draft Time: Mon Mar 20 9:30pm EST

Max Teams: 12

Scoring Type: Points Only

Player Universe: All baseball

Max Moves: No maximum

Max Trades: No maximum

Trade Reject Time: 2 days

Trade End Date: July 30, 2006

Waiver Time: 2 days

Can't Cut List Provider: None

Trade Review: Commissioner

Post Draft Players: Free Agents

Max Games Played: 162 at each position except pitcher

They don't give you the option of limiting your starting pitchers to 162 games total as I had hoped, which, since the best SPs typically start 33-35 games each season, would have added the strategy element of having to decide when not to use a SP. I set it up with 5 starting pitchers and 5 relievers, but they all play every day, since there could be days when anywhere from none to all of your pitchers could play)

Max Innings Pitched: No maximum

Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow

Start Scoring on: Sunday, Apr 2

Roster Positions:

C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, Util
SP, SP, SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP, RP, RP
BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN
DL, DL, DL, DL, DL

Every day you'll have one starter at each offensive position. the "utility" spot will be your DH. Keep in mnd when drafting that the 6 bench players can play any position, so you'll probably want to compose your bench like a real MLB team. The 7 (including your utility player who can play a position also, so he doesn't necessarily have to be your DH every day) would be something like one extra infielder at each position, 2 extra outfielders, and one extra catcher.

Keep in mind, however, that with the max # of games at each position being 162, if one of your starters misses an odd game here or there when he stubs his toe, the only way to make that game up is on a day when his team is off, and then you have to hope that your bench player's team isn't also off that day. So this game will require at least some daily attention.

However, you can still "set it and forget it" for a few days at a time, anyway.

Also, up to five guys in the disabled list at any time, but I assume that they have to be on the "real life" disabled list to put them there.

Stat Categories:

Hitting: R, RBI, SB, CS, BB, HBP, TB
Pitching: W, L, SV, OUT, ER, BB, HBP, K, WP, BLK, HLD, TB

These are the same categories offered by ESPN in the daily Salary Cap Game, with a few additions: In hitting, there's "Caught Stealing" (CS), to which I assigned a value of -1, and "Hit By Pitch" (HBP), a +1.

They also give you the option of assigning a value to "Sacrifice Hits" and "Sacrifice Flys". I didn't assign them any value yet, but was thinking of +1 for each, since they are positive accomplishments.

In pitching, there's "Saves" (SV), HBP, "Wild Pitches" (WP), "Balks" (BLK), and "Holds" (HLD). See values below.

The "TB" (Total Bases) category is in lieu of the "Hits" category that the ESPN Salary Cap game uses. Instead of -1 for each hit allowed, which treats a home run with the same value as a single, this category will value each total base allowed as -1.

They also give you the option of assigning a value to "Complete Games" and "Shutouts". As rare as these two events are, maybe they should have a value of, say, +2 or +3. Kinda like "bonus points".

Stat Modifiers:

Hitting:
R (1)
RBI (1)
SB (1)
CS (-1)
BB (1)
HBP (1)
TB (1)

Same as ESPN, except for +1 for HBP and -1 for CS.

Pitching: W (6)
L (-6)
SV (3)
OUT (1)
ER (-3)
BB (-1)
HBP (-1)
K (1)
WP (-1)
BLK (-1)
HLD (1)
TB (-1)

A few big differences here: +6 for a "Win" instead of +5, because remember; In the ESPN game you get points for the entire pitching staff. Here, you'll only get the "Win Points" if your starter actually gets credit for the win.

Also, a BIG question: A put a -6 value on a starter getting the "Loss". Do we want that, and if so, should that be the value?

Also, I liked the symetry of the values here: + or -6 for a win or loss, +3 for a "Save", +1 for a "Hold".

DB, JG, DM.....Questions and comments, please.

And, of course, from anyone else who wants to play (*cough*MOAAFS*cough*).

Ooooh....I can't wait

A couple of quick early thoughts:

1) I scheduled the draft for fairly close to the start of the season, figuring the closer it is to the start, the more knowledge we'll have, but keeping in mind that it may be harder to plan your personal calender so far in advance, maybe we want to go for an earlier date.

2) Depending on how much pre-draft planning you're gonna do, bear in mind that the Yahoo player rankings are based on Rotisserie scoring (i.e, all other things being equal, a guy with 40 stolen bases rates equally with a guy with 40 homers) and may not have all that much bearing on our scoring system.

Albert Pujols and A Rod are still Pujols and A Rod, but once you get past the top guys, be careful.

plaw what is a hold?

A hold is when a relief pitcher from the winning team comes into the game and doesn't give up the lead (yet also cannot be credited with a win or save)...

Or, a hold is what you're doing right now down your pants. :p

Precisely why I said plaw

But thank you JG

Plaw, do you think you should change and then hide the password so not just anyone can join this league (if you know what I mean)?

I like having no can't cut roster, that thing annoys me. I think +1 for Sac Fly and bunts are good. +6 for wins doesnt matter to me I am ok with 5 or 6.
There is no -1 for a strikeout or anything like that? The only way for your offensive player to lose points is if he is caught stealing?

edit: for patching stats I think a shutout should be worth one more point than we make a complete game but thats just my opinion.

That's a good point, and I agree. -1 for a K. I also think that a batter should get -2 for grounding into a double play. There's no reason why only pitchers should be penalized - batters should, too.

If in a game A-Rod were to strike out 3 times and also GIDP, that trillionaire deserves -5 for the day. :p

I was gonna mention also -1 for committing errors, but that's not something that happens in a batter's box anyway, so I think we shouldn't get into fielding stats.... even for pitchers.

Too late. I'm already in. :p

Damn! :rolleyes:



I, of course, didn't mean my favorite crabcake!

I'm glad I'm somebody's favorite something.

I have to come back to make sure the basement apartment is taken care of. I understand it was trashed last season.

Just for you, at the bar tonight I ordered the crab dip. However, of course, it's NOTHING like the REAL stuff you get there in Maryland... it was like melted cream cheese that they dipped a crap (lol - a real typo I'm leaving!) into for a second. :rolleyes:

You two around for an IM chat?

Guess not.

Regarding negative values for batters strikeouts and GIDPs:

As currently setup, the offensive scoring system reflects exactly (except for the minimal impact of caught stealing) the ESPN Salary Cap Game scoring system that we're all used to.

If you login to the ESPN game, you can still get last year's FPPG for each player, so I figured that there's a perfect research resource already at our disposal.

If you want to assign a negative value to strieouts, that means, for research purposes for the draft, looking up last year's strikeout totals for each of the 90-100 or so players (assuming that there are six of us in the league) we're gonna have to draft, and adjusting each player's FPPG average accordingly.

Strikeout totals vary wildly from player to player; from maybe 40-50 a season to 150-160, so they would really need to be taken into account.

I'm happy to include that stat, as well as a negative for GIDPs, but keep in mind that out of everyone in the league I'm probably the person with the most time and greatest inclination to do what I described above.

If we do use those stats, I assure you that I will do the necessary work and research, which will give me an advantage over anyone who doesn't.

I figured on draft day, everyone could simply print out the page for each offensive position from the ESPN Salary Cap Game, and you'd a have a ready made "player rater" handy for our game.

But without strikeouts in the ESPN stats......

Word for today, kids, is: Verbose. :rolleyes:





What's the ol' saying again? Do what I say, and what I want?? Something like that..... :p

What happened to "windbag"?

Yeah, well, that was proven in basketball... :rolleyes:

I just want stats -- for once! -- to be realistic, if we're gonna do this right. Cuz if we're not gonna do this right, then, I'll stick with ESPN's game.

GIDP is a bad thing - stats should reflect that, but it never did before.

Striking out is a bad thing, and again, it never was before (in our games).

If we're gonna penalize a pitcher for fucking up, we should also penalize a batter for fucking up.

Period.

If that includes extra research (which, I, for one, wasn't even thinking of - I was just thinking day-to-day performace), then, so be it...

That's fine with me.

I was just thinking of everyone else.

But it won't be much fun if no one else wants to play because of the pre-draft research they're gonna have to do b/c that know that you and I are gonna do it.

But carrying your logic one step further, isn't any out made by a batter a negative?

We start doing that, and a guy who has a season like this:

600 ABs
35 Doubles
8 Triples
25 Homers
112 Singles (giving him a .300 batting average)
100 Runs
100 RBIs
60 Walks
420 Outs

Will finish the season with 146 FPs, less than 1 FPPG.

Even counting strikeouts only, from a typically good offensive player with power, subtracting 100 strikeouts willl bring his FPPG average down more than half a point per game.

And this, in turn, will overvalue pitching.

You want to talk about realistic......

Real life baseball only counts "outs" made by hitters as a negative in the context of those categories which are bsed on percentages: Batting Average, On Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage.

Everyting ele is what Bill James calls a "countng" stat (you guys have heard this before, I think): Homers, RBIs, Runs, Doubles, Triples, etc.

Strangely, they award the Home Run Championship based on the number of homers, not number of homers per at bat.

Yet the Batting Championship is based not on the number of hits, but the number of hiys per at bat.

So what's my point?

I dunno.

I guess what I'm saying is that for the purposes of realism, MLB only counts outs in their "percentage" categories, and our game, being, in effect, a game in which only a players daily "counting" stats count for points, it's inconsistent to subtract strikeouts - which are not necessarily any worse than any other kind of out (if Mike Piazza is up with a man on first and less than two out, I'd rather see him strike out than hit a ground ball to short, for example) anyway.

And if we subtract all of a guys outs, the offensive totals will be ridiculously low.

We could, for simplicity, leave the entire scoring system just like ESPN Salary Cap. Forget about HBP, WP, CS, Pitching Losses, Sac Flys & Bunts, Subtracting Total Bases from a pitcher's total, rather than just hits....

But over the years we've discussed all of the above, I believe, and mostly agreed that using those stats would improve the game.

I don't remember the subject of batter's strikeouts or batter's outs ever coming up for discussion.

So what are you saying, JG? If we don't count batter's strikeouts a a negative, you don't want to play?

There’s another important issue which needs to be addressed:

In my post in which I went over the scoring values, I wrote the following:

They don't give you the option of limiting your starting pitchers to 162 games total as I had hoped, which, since the best SPs typically start 33-35 games each season, would have added the strategy element of having to decide when not to use a SP. I set it up with 5 starting pitchers and 5 relievers, but they all play every day, since there could be days when anywhere from none to all of your pitchers could play)

I realized that with no limit on the number of games for starting pitchers, the following would inevitably happen:

If there are six, or even eight, of us in the league, we will draft 30-40 SPs, so there will be tons of good ones still available as free agents at the conclusion of the draft.

What I would do, and what would be perfectly sound and legal strategy, would be to drop all five of my starters every day and add 5 news ones to make sure that I had 5 SPs going every day.

What I would do is this:

Let’s say opening day is Monday.

On Sunday, I would look at Monday’s Probable Pitchers and drop any of them that were pitching on Monday, replacing them with guys who were pitching on Tuesday.

With the two-day lag in adding/dropping players, the guys I drop Sunday would still be on my Team Monday, and the new guys would become part of my team on Tueday, just in time to pitch.

Then, on Monday, I would do the same. I’d drop everyone who was scheduled to pitch Tuesday and replace them with pitchers scheduled to pitch Wednesday.

And I’d do that all season long.

So naturally, everyone else would follow the same strategy – they’d have to. I’d be getting 5 starts a day for 180 days, while anyone else who just holds on to their original 5 starters would wind up with only 165 or so.

And I would have to start doing this, because if I don’t and someone else adopts that strategy first, they immediately get 5 extra starts – worth maybe 50-75 points more or less.

Even if we have a “gentleman’s agreement” not to do this, it can’t be prevented.

Suppose I have a starter that I want to drop because he’s shit. If I drop him on Tuesday, I’m naturally gonna look for a guy pitching on Thursday or Friday so I can pick up an extra start.

This is perfectly acceptable strategy in Roto and HTH leagues, by the way.
All of the games sites, as well as Rotoworld, publish the upcoming week’s schedules, usually in spreadsheet form, so if you have, say, a hockey player whose team is scheduled for only two games in the upcoming week, you can drop him and replace him with a guy playing four times.

Anyway, this is not the way I envision our game being played. First of all, it will really become a daily game by necessity, which is something, I think, that none of us want.

And, as far as pitching goes, it will totally eliminate the realism factor and reduce the skill in drafting pitchers to nothing, while emphasizing the importance of guessing right on which 5 pitchers to select for the upcoming day.

PLUS….it gives a huge advantage to the person(s) who are able to be awake at the right time(s) of day to claim free agents first, since theoretically we’d all be going after the same guys.

Hopefully you guys get the picture b/c I’m not sure if I explained the problem very well.

Anyway, here’s the solution I came up with:

While you can’t create a maximum number of games played for each starting pitcher position, or a total max for all of them, they do allow you to make “Games Started” a stat category.

So if we agree among ourselves that the maximum number of starts allowed will be 162, and award a +1 for every start, then Yahoo will keep track of it for us.

On the bottom right of your team’s Home Page there’s a link to “Team Log” that “displays all players that have ever earned fantasy stats for this team, regardless of whether or not they are still on the team.”

So you can manage your 162 game max through that, plus I’ll include it every day in the scoring update.

Now you’re free to adopt any strategy you want. You can use up all 162 starts the first 4 or 5 weeks of the season by picking 5 new starters for every day, or try and space it out over the whole season.

And since, as I said earlier somewhere, the average #1 or #2 starter makes 33-35 starts a year, you’ll have to pick some spots during the season to bench one of your starting pitchers, or you’ll hit the 162 mark before the end of the season and may lose out on some more favorable match-ups later.

As far as the superfluous +1 point for each start (it’s necessary, otherwise the number of starts won’t appear on your Team Log, so it will be much harder to keep track of your starts and to have the number verified), well, if we all hit 162, then the net result of an additional 162 points will be zilch, because we’ll all get the 162 points.

And if you screw up somehow at the end, or if one of your starters misses a couple of turns because of a minor injury and you didn’t want to drop him, then at the very end you can go with the strategy of dropping guys whose last start may have been Thursday of the last week, and adding guys who still have a start left.

And if someone screws up so totally that they only wind up with 159 or 160 starts at the end, then they deserve to have those 2 or 3 less points than everyone else.

The only slight flaw in this idea, of course, is that if someone goes over the 162 mark, we’ll have to manually deduct the points for any start after #162.

But I don’t think that’s gonna happen, because, as I said, we’ll publish everyone’s number every day, and each of us will be able to track it ourselves through our Team Log.

Whaddaya you guys think?

What do I think? I think I was just hoping to make sure I had at least one Johnson or Woody to play with.

Poor Geoff. You gotta come to Baltimore to get your crab dip hot and spicy. Anything else is just a cheap imitation.

Summary of the Open Questions:

-- My idea about how to handle the 162 game max for starting pitchers.

I vote "Yes"

-- Assigning a negative value to GIDPs.

I vote "Yes". If a regular out counts as a "0", then a GIDP, where a guy makes two outs for the price of one, should be a -1.

-- Assignng a negative value to batter's strikeouts

I vote "No", even though I think it will give me personally an advantage because I know I will do the necessay research to adjust last year's ESPN scores (I'm not gonna bother adjusting for GIDPs and CS, since the effect of those is very minimal)

But I don't care. I'll abastain from the voting and do it the way everyone else wants to

-- Assigning a value of -6 for a starting pitcher charged with a loss.

I vote "Yes". It seems to make sense.

-- Assigning a value of +1 to Sacrifice Flys, Sac Bunts, and Hit-by-Pitch.

I vote "Yes". Altho all three will have minimal impact, they should be counted.

-- Charging a pitcher -1 for each total base allowed, rather than -1 for each hit.

I vote "Yes". Also seems to make sense, and will further devalue pitching.

-- Charging a pitcher -1 for a HBP, Wild Pitch, and Balk

I vote "Yes". All will have minimal impact, but all should be counted.

--Assigning a positive value for a pitcher's Shutout or Complete Game

I vote "yes". They are relatively rare occurances, so the impact will be minimal, but they should be rewarded. I'm thinking +2 or possibly +3 for each.

-- Here's a new one: They don't give you the option of deducting points for a "Blown Save", but you can assign a value to "Save Opportunities".

If a guy has 20 opportunites and makes 15 saves while blowing 5, he should wind up with a net of +30 (15 saves minus 5 blown saves = 10 "successes, times 3 pts for each success).

So if we assign each "Save Opportunity" a negative value of -3, and each successful save a value of +6, then we'll get a net value of +3 for Saves minus Blown Saves.

Which would be more desirable than simply awarding +3 for each save.

Example: 20 opportunities, 15 saves, 5 blown saves.

So his “net” is 10, and we’d want him to have +30 points

20 opportunities times -3 per opportunity = -60

15 saves times +6 per save + +90

Net = +30

Another example:

A guy finishes the season with 40 saves and 7 blown saves.

So his net is 33 .

At 3 points each, we would want him to finish with +99.

So, 47 opportunities times -3 per opportunity = -141

40 saves times +6 per save = +240

So his net is 99

Okay, you make some good points re: -1 for a batter's K. I was gonna then suggest -1 for a GIDP (which in a sense is 2 outs), but you beat me to it. I'm fine with that now.

Luckily you put so much thought into this that I don't have to.

As for this and the subsequent strategy you presented:
Do you really think there are that many quality SPs out there??

I think there'd be a handful of SP's we'd consider true Aces - and I suppose we'd each be able to draft one. I didn't really notice that you wanted FIVE open SP slots per day... that's a bit much, no? I think we should start ONE SP per day, with 5 on our bench. If I have 1 of each other position player, why would I have to worry about filling 5 SP slots per day?

Or did I misinterpret what you were saying?

We should have 1 SP, and say 2-3 RPs, and 1 closer, like a real team, per day.

It was hard enough in BBC to pick the best pitching matchup - I'm not about to try and pick 5 per day. We should pick 1 from our own personal pool of SPs.

Here's the problem with doing it the way you suggest, JG:

Even if only two of your pitchers are on the same schedule and pitching the same day, at the end of the seacon you'll wind up with 30 odd fewer starts than someone else in the league whose five starters are all on a different day.

To me, that unfairly penalizes you for something you have no control over - the real-life manager's pitching rotation.

Think of it this way:

If there are 6 of us in the league - I'm hoping for you, me, Crabby, DB, DM, and JL.

If that’s the case, we’ll draft 30 starting pitchers.

Yeah, there are only a handful of “aces’, but once we get past those, there is still at least a decent #1 starter on almost very team.

Opening day is Sun, April 2, when there’s only one game.

Then on Mon, April 3, there are 13 games involving 26 teams.

Here’s the schedule:

Nationals at
Mets

Pirates at
Brewers


Red Sox at
Rangers

Cubs at
Reds

Devil Rays at
Orioles

Cardinals at
Phillies

Diamondbacks at
Rockies

Tigers at
Royals

Braves at
Dodgers

Angels at
Mariners

Marlins at
Astros

Giants at
Padres

Yankees at
Athletics

Let’s say, for example, your 5 starters are Martinez (Mets), Mussina (Yankees), Sabbitha (Indians), Pettitte (Astros), and Smoltz (Atlanta).

Except for Pedro (maybe), who in that group is really one of the handful of “Aces”?

Yet all could be possibly considered their team’s #! Starter, and all could possibly pitch on opening day.

So it’s certainly possible that after the draft you could wind up with any or all of the above five.

Well, not likely that you’ll have all 5, but I bet at the end of the draft there are at least one or two of us who have two and possibly three of the pitchers that start opening day.

Remember, we’re only gonna draft 30 starting pitchers.

If I looked it up right now, I could guess who the 30 would be, and I bet I'd get 25-26 of them right, and I’d also bet that out of the 30 that we do draft, 25-26 of them wind up being their team’s opening day starter.

So let’s say you have three of those guys. So you go with Pedro on Monday, and pass on Smoltz and Mussina.

Then on Tuesday, you use Pettitte, and on Wednesday you go with Sabbitha.

Now it’s Thursday and Friday, and you have no starting pitcher.

Those two days are gone forever. If we only use one starter a day, you can’t “make up” those two days with your bench like we can at the other positions.

The point is that it is theoretically possible, due to the MLB schedule and the “luck” of pitching rotations, that at the end of the season you could have anywhere form 33-34 starts for the season, up to as many as maybe 170.

What my system does is say, “Look…you have 5 starters. The season is 162 games long. You can’t have more than 162 starts, (which is possible your way). All we’re doing is guaranteeing everyone the same chance at getting those 162 starts. Which days those 162 starts take place on doesn’t really matter.”

Plus, your way, what we don’t want to happen will start to happen: people will start to drop and add starters just because of the rotation.

Suppose there are 6 of us, and we draft 30 starters.

The you discover that two of them are pitching the seond day of the season, and you look at the schedule and days off and everything, and figure out that for their next 6 turns they’re both gonna be pitching the same day.

That means you will lose 6 starts that you can never get back.

So you drop one – let’s say he was the 24th starter selected – and pick up the 37th best starter as a free agent.

Wouldn’t you do that? Wouldn’t the drop in quality from 24th best to 37th best be worth it to pick up the 6 starts?

Meanwhile, the guy you drop helps someone out that’s in the same spot that you are, so he picks up your guy and drops someone else.

And on and on it will go.

What will happen is the entire focus of the game will become making sure that you have a decent starting pitcher on your team for every day of the season.

And if we’re only gonna pick 30 starters, there will always be someone available that’s better than not getting any starting pitching points at all on that day.

I'd much rather have the stability with our teams where you can say:

"These are my 5 starters. If there are no injuries, I know that bewteen the five of them I'll have 160-170 opportunities, so all I have to worry about is figuring out which games I may want to bench one of them because they're pitching at Coors or whatever"

Naturally, if one of them bombs for the season, or gets injured, you're gonna make a move anyway, but it will be for the same reasons that managers do in real life.

I hope I explained all of this OK.....This particular question, I think, is the most important one one out there.

If Yahoo set it up with a maximum games at each position for starting pitchers, this would not be a problem.

Look at our Yahoo Basketball League when you look at the max games played chart.

If for baseball they just showed "162" as the maximum for the "Starting Pitcher" position, just as they will for the other positions I presume, this whole thing would take care of itself.

And if they did do it that way, wouldn't you have all of your starting pitchers playing every day (except for those rare days when you wanted to bench them because they were at Coors or something, and knowing that if you left all of them in every day you would use up your 162 games before the end of the season since, barring injury, each starter will make 33-35 starts each, so you would rather pick the spots yourself when to bench them, rather than having them be benched because you used up your whole 162 games?).

My way does it exactly the way we would be playing it if Yahoo did have the 162 game max on starting pitchers as they do for the other positions, except that when you hit the 162 mark it won't automatically stop counting your points (We'll just have to do it manually, but it won't be a big deal since if anyone goes over the limit by accident, it won't be until near the very end of the season).

Once football is over I'm really gonna have to think this thru better... luckily we have plenty of time.

There's football?

Plaw, what are the other options for games played besides 162?

From 50 to 180, and also "No Maximum"

But that's just for hitters. They don't give you any options for pitchers.

Am I the only one that has a job in here? :p

9:30PM too late for you?? :rolleyes: You just posted at 10:30... :p

You could act like a man! Wha'sda matta wit you!

As I've said....the draft date and time isn't engraved in stone; I just had to pick something to proceed to the next step in setting up the league.

I will do anything and everything within my powers as commissioner to get you into the game, JL.

Post a few days or dates and times that would work better for you; I'm sure that we can come up with something that will accomodate everyone.

Yours truly,

plawrence
Commissioner-of-the-Year Nominee

Are you sure about that Plaw? I thought that I saw an option for Maximum Innings Pitched.


Don Cardi

Maximum number of innings pitched, yes.

But not maximum number of games.

Posting on here at 10:30 is one thing. Having to stay online for several hours late at night is another.

After looking at my schedule, I may actually be working until 11PM on that night. So make it around midnight.

It deosn't have to be that night. Post a few dates and times that are better for you, and we'll see what everyone else says.

Midnight is fine for me and JG, of course. JG will just have to come home from the bar early, and I'll just have to move my pee break up an hour or so

It doesn't matter to me. If I'm not around, I'll have my players ready for an auto-draft, just like I did for hockey.

Good point. Make that 2AM!

....And then when my teams sucks, I'll have an excuse.

You know, I was just gonna post "I'd prefer that you be there in person. I don't want any excuses."

Has anyone seen DB around lately?

"Busy with wedding plans"?

That phrase has always gotten me.

Like, "I didn't have time to ____________(fill in the blank) because I was "busy with the wedding plans."

:rolleyes:

What? Is planning a wedding a full-time job?

If someone says "Sorry, I didn't have a chance to call you becuse I was over in Iraq fighting the insurgents, and my platoon was holed up in Fallujah for a week, pinned down by the enemy and without food or water"......or "Gee, I meant to get in touch with you but I was in a car accident last Thursday and just came out of my coma yesterday"......

Well, that I would understand.

Come on, DB. We need to know if the draft date for baseball works for you or not, and your opinion on the open questions (*making not-so-subtle assumption that DB is gonna play*)

Come out, come out wherever you are :p

JG, JL, DM, and I REALLY want you in this game. Along with Crabby, it would make it a true "All-Star Game", with the strongest field in Gangster BB fantasy history

I mean, I'd love to have LZ and GG and The Big Wuss, and SC and MC and fathersson, and even LDV (assuming that she hasn't dropped off the face of the earth), but if I could just get you in there, my life would be complete.

Oh, and definitely you too, Don Cardi.....

Good news, players.....

Yahoo now has available (at least I think that they just became available; I'm pretty sure that they weren't there the last time I looked, but I could be wrong) last season's player stats for both hitters and pitchers in our league's format.

Click on your team, then on "Players", then use the "2005 Season Totals" filter, then click on the last column, “Fan Pts”, to put the plaeys in order based on their point totals in our scoring system as it is presently set up.

Accordingly, I'd like to settle all of our "Open Questions" ASAP.

Which brings to mind the following:

If we add a +1 for each "Game Played" for a pitcher so everyone can track their 162 game max for starters on their own, that will add another 30 points or so to the value of a closer over that of a starting pitcher.

So I'm thinking that maybe we should reduce the value of a save from +6 to +3, and the value of a save opportunity from -3 to -1.5, and maybe reduce the value of wins and loses to +4 and -4, respectively.

Here's another thought:

I set this up so that we'd each have 5 starting pitchers and 5 relief pitchers.

Then, as I describe somewhere above, makings "Games" a stat category for pitchers and giving it a value of +1, everyone could track their own 162 game max for starting pitchers, since as a stat category, that number will appear in your Team Log.

I figured if that if, barring injury, the typical starting pitcher starts 33-35 games a year, there would by several occasions during the season that you'd want to bench one of your SPs - like when they were pitching at Coors, for example - so as not to exceed the 162 game limit before the end of the season.

In other words, you would decide which starts the pitcher would miss, not Yahoo because you never benched a pitcher and hit your 162 game max couple of weeks before the season ends.

However.....

If one or more of your SPs misses an odd start here or there without ever going on the DL (which happens often), by carrying only 5 starters someone could find themselves in the position of it being an impossibility to hit the 162 game max.

Let's say, for example, it's some time in August, and the total of your SPs starts plus their projected number of starts for the remainder of th season only adds up to 158 or 159.

What are you supposed to do now? Dropping one of them doesn't help, since you can only have 5 SPs, so while you'd add someone else's future starts you'd be losing the future starts for the pitcher you drop.

So this is what I came up with to solve the problem:

I suggest that we change the roster configuration so that we have one less hitter on the bench, and carry six SPs instead of 5.

That's what most MLB teams carry anyway: 11 pitchers and 14 position players.

Plus, this will add another element of strategy to the game, because now, if you don't bench one of the 6 regularly, you'll hit the 162 game max around the time that each makes his 27th start of the season, and again, you'll be locked out of possible upcoming matchups which are more favorable than the ones you've already used.

I don't know if I explained that very well.....

5 SP and 5 RP???? I've never been in a league that carried more than 3 RP, or less than 6 or 7 SP.

Actually, I'm changing it to 6 SPs and 5 RPs.

I want it to resemble a real ML roster.

Were the other leagues you played in "Roto," "HTH," or "Points Only"?

Did they have a "Max # of Games at Each Position" factor?

Did you read the rest of the thread with my reasoning?

They were Roto, with max games. I also played on Sandbox for a few years.... If we only have a few people playing, I guess 5 relievers will be OK. But with more than a few, we'd be wasting roster spots with middle relievers instead of closers. Only speaking for myself, I'd prefer not to have to draft 5 relief pitchers. I see your reasoning for the 5 RP, but if it comes down to drafting middle relievers, it's a waste of time.

Here's another change I made (Don't worry....I'll summarize all the stat categories and their point values and my reasoning and the implications on draft strategy in the near future, so there will be one post to refer to....):

I eliminated the "Total Bases Allowed" (-1 value) category from the pitching stats and replaced it with "Hits Allowed", also with a value 0f -1.

Here's my logic:

Using TBs for -1:

If Pitcher A pitches one inning (+3), and allows five singles (-5) which lead to three earned runs (-9), he ends up with a -11 for the inning.

If Pitcher B pitches one inning (+3), and allows two solo homers (-8) which produce only two earned runs (-6), he ends up with the same -11 for the inning.

Seems to me that the guy who gave up the three runs had a worse inning than the guy who gave up only two.

If we simply charge a pitcher with -1 for each hit, then in the above example the pitcher who allowed the three runs winds up with a -11, and the pitcher who allowed only two winds up with a -5.

Also, if you look at it at a point at the beginning or the middle of the inning:

Let's say Pitcher A allows singles to the first five batters, thee runs score, and he's taken out.

Using the "Total Bases" method, his score for the game is -14.

Meanwhile, Pitcher B allows solo homers to the first two batters and then is taken out of the game.

His score for the game is also -14.

But which pitcher left his team in worse shape?

Why should they both get a -14 when Pitcher B left the game with no one on and nobody out and two runs in, while Pitcher A left the game with two men on, nobody out, and three runs in?

Using the ESPN method of -1 for each hit, in the example above Pitcher B leaves the game with a -8, and Pitcher A leaves the game with a -11 which, since he left his team worse off, makes more sense to me.

Here's my reasoning:

Again, seeking to make this resemble reality as much as possible, what real MLB team has five quality relievers?

Every team has at least one guy who's worthless.

If we have to really scrape bottom to come up with that many each, there's still strategy involved in drafting.

True, these guys will score a minimal number of points, but they should score something, and a few points at the end of the season could make the difference.

Also, picking 5 RPs give you the chance to find a "diamond in the rough" or two, so to speak.

But the bottom line is, if there are six of us playing (or even 7 or 8), there are 30 ML teams, and each one has a closer, so that's at least 30 closers, and presumably decent relievers, right there.

And, if you look at last season's stats, which are available on the game site and can be sorted in order based on our scoring system, you'll see that there are some set-up men who got pretty decent totals for the year, in some cases better totals than closers.

Another option could be to go with 6 starters, only 4 relievers, and add an extra hitter to the bench, but the reason I don't like that it is it detracts from the "reality factor."

Edit: I looked. There are plenty of valuable relievers, IMO once you get past the first 30 (based on last year's scores.

AAMOF, the difference in total points for least season between the 25th highest scoring reliever and the 50th is only about 70 points.

Since our opinions about who will do well in the upcoming season are what makes the draft, and since I'm sure no one in our league will just let Yahoo do the draft for them based on their rating system, I don't see any problem with picking 5 RPs.)

Don't panic over all the monkeying around I did this morning with the stat mofidifers.

I was just trying to see how changing certain values affected the rankings, as I try to bring them into line with what I think resembles reality in terms of one player's relative worth compared to another.

Again, though....this is all based on last year's stats.

What makes the draft fun, IMO, is being able to make correct (or incorrect) judgements about who will do better this year than last, and who will do worse.

I'll give you guys the summary of everything before the weekend is over. As I've said, I'd like to finalize all this as soon as we can.

Summary: Where We Stand

Roster Configuration

Designed to resemble a real MLB as much as possible, each roster will contain 25 players, as follows:

Offense:

1 Catcher (C)
1 First Baseman (1B)
1 Second Baseman (2B)
1 Third Baseman (3B)
1 Shortstop (SS)
1 Leftfielder (LF)
1 Centerfielder (CF)
1 Rightfielder (RF)
1 Utility (UT) – Can be any offensive position, will serve as Designated Hitter (DH)

5 Other Players, your Bench. These players can play any position, and will be the guys you use in the event you wish to play someone other than a starter because of injury, slumps, more favorable match-ups, etc.

**Actually, to be more precise, you won't be drafting a "Utility Player" as such. You'll ne drafting 8 position players, and 6 players for your bench. But every day's lineup will have an open spot for "Utility" which you should fill, as the ponits for the player you put there will count every day.

That's what I mean when I say that the Utility Spot is really your Designated Hitter.

So, what you should do in the draft is try to cover all your 8 field positions with a backup, keeping in mind that one of them (or possibly the same one) will be playing every day in the DH role).

Pitching:

6 Starting Pitchers (SP)
5 Relief Pitchers (RP)

See “Pitching” in the “Maximum Number Of Games Played Per Position” Section for an explanation on how to use the 6 starters

***************

Maximum Number Of Games Played Per Position

Offense:

162. Yahoo will track this for you with the link on the bottom right-hand corner of your team's home page.

Once you reach 162 games at an offensive position, points at this position will automatically no longer be counted by Yahoo .

This feature allows you to devote as much or as little time to the game as you wish.

You can play the same guy at a position every day with no worries, since no one player can exceed 162 games.

The only time you would want to play someone else is if your regular guy misses a game. If you don't make that game up at some time in the future, you lose that game forever, which you don't want to do since the more games you have, the more potential points you can get.

To make up the game, you would wait until a day when your regular isn't playing, and then fill the position with someone from your bench.

Also, keep in mind that if a player goes on the real-life disabled list, you can put him on your DL as well (up to 5 players can be on your DL), in which case you would also want to make up whatever games your first-stringer misses.

Or, you can take the strategy to the next level, and deliberately bench your regular in favor of someone else, because of slumps, hot streaks, or because certain hitters do especially well or poorly against certain pitchers or in certain parks.

Although I am not sure if this information will be available from the Yahoo site, it definitely is available in the ESPN Salary Cap Game, which we will presumably all be playing as well.

Pitching:

Yahoo does not allow for a “Maximum Number Of Games Played Per Position” for pitchers, which I find rather odd. A real MLB team has no maximum number of games played for relief pitchers, since a real-life MLB manager can theoretically use as many or as few as he wishes to but, as on offense, it is impossible for a pitching staff to start more than 162 games during the course of a season.

Accordingly, to impose the 162 game limit, it will have to be done “artificially”, so to speak, and this is the only part of the game which requires (albeit brief) daily attention.

This will be done as follows:

One of the Stat Categories for pitchers is Games Started (GS). Since we will have an artificially imposed maximum of 162, it will be necessary for each of us to track our number of starts ourselves, although I will post the number of starts used/available in the scoring update every day.

The number of games started by each SP is available from the “Team Log” link, at the bottom right hand corner of your team’s home page, which shows the total number of points accumulated by each player in each stat category on days in which they were in your starting lineup, whether they are still on your team or not.

Since GS is a stat category, the number of games started by each pitcher will be listed there.

Once you hit the maximum of 162 GS, I will act as Yahoo would if there were a “Maximum Number Of Games Played” feature for SPs as there is for position players, and stop adding starting pitchers score into your daily total, or subtract them from your total at the end, or whatever.

Also, to make life easier, when you hit the 162 game limit, you should simply place all of your SPs on your bench. Or, as commissioner, I can do that for anyone who happens to drop out along the way.

Now, this is where the game gets a little tricky, and the only time, really, that it does:

As stated above, each team will have 6 SPs. Since a MLB SP typically starts 33-35 games each year (barring injury), if you don’t carefully choose when to have each of your SPs in your starting lineup and when to bench them, you will hit the 162 game maximum when your 6 SPs hit their 27th start each, which should be some time in mid or late August, and at a point when each will have maybe 6-8 starts left.

If you do that, that’s fine. However…..

You will not have taken advantage of the fact that you can bench certain starting pitchers on certain days because of their past history against certain teams, or in certain parks, or because they are slumping, or whatever.

(Again, while I don’t know if this “match-up” info will be available from Yahoo, it definitely is available in the ESPN Salary Cap Game in the “Splits” section of each pitcher’s profile).

You may end up with 4 of your starters making all 34 of their starts (for a total of 136), and the other 2 making only 13 starts each. You may wind up with 5 starters making all 162 starts, and your 6th starter making none.

Or any combination at all, really. Just like a real MLB manager.

You may find at the very end of the season that all 6 of your SPs have no more scheduled starts left, and you are only at 159, so you may want to drop 3 of them and add 3 available free agent SPs that have a start left, to make sure that you maximize your points.

Even if the three that your drop are, say, Johann Santana, Chris Carpenter, and Roy Oswalt, it won't matter since they won't have any starts left among them anyway.

The way I envision it playing out – at least at the strategy level that I personally intend to take it – is that I will draft the best 6 SPs that I can (I’m not suggesting here that I’ll draft SPs first, just that, at at every position, I’ll want the best one(s) available and I’ll draft them when I think that the total number of points that one will get is more than the total number of points I can expect from another position I need to fill).

So when the draft is over I’ll have 6 SPs, but obviously some will be better than others.

So my plan would probably be to use my top 5 SPs as many times as I thought it prudent to, and fill in the rest of my starts with my 6th SP.

I know, for example – and I’m not giving away too much strategy here, because I think everyone pretty much knows this – that if I have any National league SPs on my staff, they’re gonna definitely get benched on days when they’re scheduled to pitch in Colorado, regardless of who they are.

So that’s the way to do it, I think.

Have your best 5 SPs in your starting lineup at all times, bench one of them when you think the match-up on a particular day is really bad (or if they’re slumping or whatever), replace those lost starts with starts by your 6th starter when you think that he has a favorable match-up, and be mindful at all times of the 162 game limit.

Don't get so far ahead of yourself that the 162 game limit is reached before you want it to be, and don't get so far behind in using your starters that it's so late in the season that it becomes impossible to make up all of the lost starts (like where DMC is headed in Yahoo Basketball)

***************

Offensive Categories & Values:

The following are all self-explanatory:

Runs Scored (+1)
Runs Batted In (+1)
Stolen Bases (+1)
Caught Stealing (-1)
Bases On Balls (+1)
Hit By Pitch (+1)
Singles (+1)
Doubles (+2)
Triples (+3)
Home Runs (+4)

Also,

Grounded Into Double Play (-1):
We discussed this one briefly. My thought is that since the game treats an "out" as a "neutral" occurrence, with a value of Zero, when someone hits into a double play and, in effect makes two outs with one at bat, that event should have a value of (-1).

Sacrifice Flies and Sacrifice Hits:
We talked about this one also, about the possibility of assigning a (+1) value to each of these, since they were positive occurrences, but my feeling is that although a Sac Fly, for example, drives in a run, why should a player get two points for that (one for the RBI and one for the Sac Fly) when a player who does so is using up an out as well, while a player who drives in the run with a single also gets credit for two points without using up an out?

Pitching Categories & Values

The following are all self-explanatory:

Wins (+6 for each)
Losses (-6 for each)
Complete games (+3 for each)
Shutouts (+3 for each)
Saves (+8 for each)
Outs (+1 for each out recorded)
Hits Allowed (-1 for each allowed)
Earned Runs Allowed (-3 for each allowed)
Walks (-1 for each allowed)
Hit By Pitch (-1 for each)
Strikeouts (+1 for each recorded)
Wild Pitches (-1 for each)
Save Opportunities (-4 for each opportunity)
Holds (+1 for each)

Games Started (+1 for each):
The only reason this one is in there is because by making it a stat category it will appear in your team’s Game Log, so we all can can track our own and each others progress towards the 162 Maximum Number of SP Starts. While I originally thought that it was stupid to give everyone an extra point for that, I later realized that actually it was a good idea, because those of us who manage our teams well will get all 162 points that you can from this category, while those of us who don’t will lose a few points by not hitting the 162 game max.

Balks: I had to eliminate this category, since you are only allowed 15 stat categories, and I figured Balks was the one with the most minimal impact.

Total Bases Allowed: I went back to -1 for each hit allowed, as ESPN does it, rather than a -1 for each Total Base allowed. There’s an explanation why in my third post above.

Yes, I fooled around with some of the pitching values a bit in order to assign pitchers what I felt was their proper place in the overall spectrum of both all pitchers as well as of all players, including hitters.

For example, the SP with the most points last year (Chris Carpenter) rates below the best offensive players, like A Rod, Pujols, Ramirez, etc., but above the “second tier” offensive players, like Cabrera, Tejada, etc.

And the highest rated relief pitcher (Mariano Rivera) rates below the top SPs (Buehrle and Colon are the two rated directly above him), but above the "second tier” SPs (Brett Myers and John Patterson are the two rated directly below him).

With this system, you might as well spend your first 5 picks on the best RP's.

Well, you go ahead and do that.

But since the best RPs scored about 300 points each less last year than the best hitters, I don't see why you'd want to.

Actually, I can see some possible validity to your point.

If we have 6 people in the league, and the difference in point toals between the 5th and 6th best RPs is 100 points, while the difference between the 1st and 6th best position players is only 20 points, you could be right.

But that's not the fault of the scoring system.

That's the fault of the close equality between position players and the huge gap in quality among RPs.

Any reasonable scoring system that we devised would more or less produce the same results, wouldn't it?

If there's a position where the best guy is worth, say 400 points (where an A rod or Pujols is worth, say 700) and the second thru 6th best are worth only 200-300, you'd be better off with that 400 point guy than a Pujols who may be worth 700 if the 6th best first baseman is, say, Delgado and he's worth 650.

But I guess we'll leave everyone's draft strategy to themselves.

The scoring system that I came up with values the players in their correct place on the "spectrum" (IMO), so to speak, and if you want to talk about the valisitiy of that, I'll be happy to.

The very best offensive players are worth the most, then come the best SPs, then come the best RPs.

The best SPs are more valuable then the "second tier" offensive players, the seond tier offensive guys are better than the second tier SPs, and so on.

Thanks PL, that's very helpful. Btw, your PM box is full.

I'm popular.

Either that or your last Pulcawer article got a lot of criticism too hostile for the public boards... Nah, we'll go with the former. :p

I'm popuuuuuuuuuular :p

From? So you gonna play, or what?

Sorry plaw its from a musical but they use it a lot on SportsCenter I thought you'd recognize it

I just can't get into having 5 relief pitchers on a fantasy team. In every league I've ever been in, you were never even allowed to use more than 2 on any given day, or 140 appearances in one season.

JL:

1) My goal in creating this scoring system was to make it as close to having a "reality-like" team as possible.

2) If you can give me a logical reason, other than "every other fantasy game I've ever played", I'll be happy to listen.

In reall ife, a manager is limited to the number or RPs he can use veryday only by the number of RPs on his staff. Just like here.

He is, however limited to getting 162 starts in total from his position players and SPs, just like here.

3) We're playing the basketball game pretty much the same way and it seems to be working fine.

Believe it or not, I rarely, if ever, watch SportsCenter.

We have a difference of opinion. I don't think having 5 relief pitchers on a fantasy team is realistic at all. Real teams have an average of 5 relievers. A closer, a setup man, a long reliever, a "specialist", and a "scrub" they avoid using. We're going to have to draft 5 closers in order to get "save points" which count more than wins.

A real life manager won't have the type of quallity we'll have on our team on the bench, or as their starters at every position, either.

That's more a function of the fact that we won't have 12 players in out league, but rather, only (probably - hopefully) 6.

While it's true that saves count for more points then wins, that's by far the most important category for a RP.

More important, in fact, than actual "wins" are for a SP.

Today, if a starter goes 6-7 innings and leaves the game ahead, tied, or even one run behind, he's considered to have done his job.

The actual number of SP "wins" are often a function of run support as much as anything else.

Bottom line, though, is that if you look at last year's point toals by all pitcher, I think you'll agree that, as I said, relief pitxhers fall in where they belong on the scale of how valuable they are in relation to the rest of the pitchers, and the rest of the players.

I could greatly reduce the value of relief pitchers, but relative to each other their value would still be the same, so you'd still need to draft the best 5 you could get.

All that would do is change where they would be drafted.

As it stands now, the best RPs, I think, still figure to score fewer points than just about any of the offensive players you will take.

OK, I took a quick look.

Using this scoring system

The best offensive player last year scored 737
The 84th best scored 440

The best SP scored 609
The 36th best scored 288

The best RP scored 381
The 36th best scored 156

The proportions seem about right to me, but if you want to tell me that RPs should be devalued another 10-15% or so, you could make that case.

But relative to each other, their value would still be the same, so what difference would it make?

The 84th best offensive player (yes, we will have to go deeper than 84 because the top 84 probably has a disproportionate number of outfielders and not enough catchers, but you get my point, Im sure) is still is worth more than the best relief pitcher.

So basically if we have a reliever on the same team as one of our starters, we have to hope our starter doesn't pitch a complete game, otherwise we'll get penalized for not getting to our RP.

You won't really be be "penalized", you'll be getting extra points that day from your starter.

But over the course of the season, every closer makes about 70 appearances or so, so it should even out.

If there's a team whose starters have a tendency to pitch a lot more CGs, then it might be a valid strategy decision to stay away from that team's closer, sure.

But that info is there in last year's scoring totals coupled with your opinions about what will happen this year.

And BTW, altho the value of a win is +6 and a save is +8, keep in mind that Save Opportunities are -4, and losses are -6.

So the net difference between Wins and Losses is worth +6 each, and the net difference between Saves and Blown Saves is worth only only +4 each, so "Net" Saves are not worth more points than "Net" Wins.

True, the total number of points earned by a reliever for his net saves will typically be greater than the total number of points earned by a starter for his net wins, but the two are two completely different categories.

RPs get a lot more save opportunites than SPs get starts, and convert a higher percentage of them to saves than starters convert their opportunities to wins.

That's just the way baseball is today. I can't change that.

What if our RP comes in a tie game and wins. He doesn't get any points for a win?? I wish someone else besides us had some opinions.

Sorry Just Lou it is 11:00 and some of us do have a job

I do too, but I spend more time on here than doing any work.

Sure he does. What gives you the idea that he doesn't?

Just checking, with all the talk about starters getting 6 points for winning and relievers getting 8 points for a save.

BTW, the top 36 starters last year, based on this scoring system, pitched a total of 83 complete games between the 36 of them, so I don't see that being much of a factor.

Any CG means one helluva start, and I don't think anyone is gonna complain if they have Pedro and Wagner and Pedro pitches a CG and Wagner doesn't pitch that day.

Look, we could set up this game any way we want to.

We could have 8 outfielders and no catchers or second baseman.

We could 4 SPs and 2 RPs, or all SPs or no SPs.

We could make RBIs worth 2 points each or 10 points each.

We could make RPs themost valuable players to have or the least valuable.

We could do the same for hitters or SPs.

We could make HBPs more important than home runs.

The bottom line is that the stat categories and their values are the same for all of us, so it doesn't really matter how we set it up.

I think the problem here is, with all due respect and no offense meant, is that you've played this before and have a pre-conceived idea about how it "should" be.

I haven't, and I don't think that JG or DM have either (Beth doesn't really care what we do or how we do it ), so we have a completely open mind here.

To me, the way it should be is the way we want it to be, and I don't think you've given me any logical reasons yet why it shouldn't be this way.

Net saves - and there's an important distinction here - are only worth 4, not 8.

Net wins are worth 6.

Have you looked at last years scoring totals yet?

I haven't played on Yahoo, but I've played Fantasy Baseball many different places and on different levels. You're probably right. I never played a game with so much relief pitching, so I guess it's not the way I see it should be. But if we're all forced to draft 5 relief pitchers, then we're all in the same boat.

I really don't see why that's such a big deal to you.

Every MLB team has 5 RPs. It's just that our 5 will be better than any MLB's team.

But so will out starting lineup from top to bottom. We're all gonna end up with an All-Star Team, aren't we?

And we'll have All-Stars on our bench, too.

Too bad that Homer Bush and Donnie Bush are both out of baseball.

Otherwise I'd draft one, and then every day I could write "That fucking Bush...."

All I know is I'm drafting 2 pitchers first followed by a Right fielder, after all I will need a Bigbie to compensate for my Small Johnson :p :rolleyes:

There is Dave Bush on the Brewers

It's funny....

I think that Roto scoring, especially in basketball, is the dumbest thing there is.

How can blocked shots, which you get maybe 5-6 per game per team, be as important as turnovers (maybe 20 PG), and turnovers be as important as assists (maybe 30 PG), and assists be as important as rebounds (maybe 40 PG), and rebounds as important as points (maybe 90-100 PG)?

How can a guy like, I dunno, maybe a Brevin Knight or somebody like that, with a high free throw percentage and field goal percentage, few turnovers, a lot of assists, and a lot of steals, but very few points, rebounds, or blocks, be more valuable than a guy like Jermaine O'Neal, who gets more points, rebounds and blocks, but gets outscored by Knight in 5 of the 8 categories

And in baseball, how can steals be as important as homers, or RBIs less important than walks?

But some people love Roto ganes. Me, I don't get it.

Been studying already, huh?

Here's a thought:

I can think of any number of fair and random ways to do this....

Suppose we pre-determine the order of the draft a few days or so before the actual draft takes place?

I think it would be an advantage for all of us to know what spot we were picking in, just as they know in real life.

The more planning you could do in advance, the faster the draft would move.

Also, if the majority agrees, once the season starts I plan to change the waiver order every day (or at least weekly) based on the standings, with the standings based on projected finish like I do in basketball.

The question is, if you are in last place, and pick someone up on waivers during the day (or week) should you retain your first waiver position (you still are in last place), or should the waiver priority list rotate?

Not that this will be that big a deal...rarely does anyone drop someone that's good enough that someone else will pick them up on waivers (except for JG in basketball :p ), but I'd say that as long as someone is in last place, they should always have the #1 waiver priority.

click below to see how I feel about this whole thread:

Yahoo Baseball Thread

Cute. :rolleyes:

I guess you prefer those other well-thought-out fantasy games we play here.

At least he *plays* them... :p

That's right. Can't wait for fishin' season.

At least he *plays* them... :p [/b][/quote]Oh?

I must've missed him, then, in Yahoo Football, Yahoo Basketball, The NBA Rookies Game, The NBA Pick 'Em Game, The NFL Playofs Salary Cap Game.....

Those were all within the last six months, weren't they?

He is, after all, the Master of All Fantasy Sports, for chrissakes! You expect too much from him!

I guess.

He should stick to those simple games with an auto-draft and no maximum number of games played at each position.

This game may be a bit too cerebral for him.

Fuck this. Go play with yourself. :rolleyes:

Ouch!

Gee, Lou.....I had no idea that the number of relief pitchers on each team meant that much to you.

Plaw your mailbox is full.

Im popppuuuulaaar

Like, omigod, you're like, SOOO popular! That must be like so totally cool.

Anyhoo, kids. For those of you who haven't been to the Yahoo league since yesterday, you won't know this yet, so I'll announce it... Ready?
*ahem* ...I'm in.

Now you can celebrate, or pour ashes over your head, depending on how you feel about it. Laugh, cry, smile, yell, throw things... all acceptable.

One good thing about it, even if you don't like me: now none of you will be in last place.

If we get one more chick, we can have co-ed teams.

I want Crabby as my partner.

I would like to pre-determine the draft order, at least for me it would be very useful.

I was asked for a rundown of the abbreviations for the stat categories, so.....

Two votes for that.....

Anyone else?

I'm gonna assume, as commissioner, that if no one comes out specifically against something that I suggest, that it's OK with them.

If we decide we want to do that, how far in advance of the draft would you want to know?

I'd like to keep the league open for new members to join as long as possible.....would, say, three days be enough?

well I haven't been spending much time at home lately so I figured if anyone could send me a private message when the game really was set to start. I still didn't sit to read the thread and all those crazy stats you are discussing about. please keep me aware of what's going on !

Hey Tony, how are ya?

The game we've been talking about so far is a Yahoo Game, with a live draft ,scheduled for March 20th at 9:30 PM Eastern Time in the U.S., so that's when our game starts - with the live draft - although the MLB teams don't start actually playing each other until Sunday, April 2nd.

You'll have to figure out when that is based on your time.

Have you ever played this type of game before? This is a totally different type of format than the ESPN Salary Cap Game that we've played the past few yours.

It might be a better game for you, though, since it doesn't require the same kind of daily attention that the ESPN Salary Cap Game does. :p

We will definitely be playing that one also, which will start on Sunday, April 2nd, when the teams actually start playing.

Don't forget, the rosters for that game will lock for that game at 2:59 AM Eastern Time in the U.S. on the same day, Sunday, April 2.

Let me start off by saying I'm not a huge fantasy sport player however I am very interested as some of you may know already in stastics and sports numbers of all kinds. And obviously, it goes without saying I am a huge sports fan. Baseball, Soccer, Hockey, Basketball, Football, even Tennis, Golf and a few others too. I do however have a team in the Toronto Star Fantasy Hockey League (The Family) http://www.fantasysports.ca/TheStar/hockeystar/login.asp and last I checked they're doing ok but not as well as I would like, mind you I don't really have the time to make the moves that I want on a daily basis.

I have not played the Yahoo Fantasy Baseball Game or any other Yahoo Fantasy Sports for that matter. If anyone could fill me in on the essentials and other stuff I would really be interested in playing. Thanks in advance!

Yesssss more new blood!

Don J, I don't really know what I'm doing either, but I've found all of PL's "summaries" and pointers in this thread to be very helpful. You might want to read those first, and then see if you have any questions. If you DO still have questions though, don't ask me, because I will not know the answers.

Well....

There's a live draft in which everyone picks players to fill out their roster, as described above somewhere.

Every player not drafted becomes a Free Agent.

You can add a FA at any time by dropping a player currently on your roster.

You can also make trades with other league members.

You start of Day 1 of the season with a starting lineup filling as many or as few of your positions as you wish.

There's a limit of 162 games at each position, and since the season is roughly 180 days long, there will be days when you may not, or will not want, to have every position filled.

If your starting third baseman is A Rod, for example, and the Yankees are off, you probably won't want to substiute for him, since that will replace one game of A Rod with one game of someone else, and that game will count against your 162 game limit.

If you replace A Rod with a third baseman from your bench every time the Yanks don't play, you will wind up the season with something like 144 games of A Rod and 18 games of his substitute, but if you're patient and only have a third baseman in your lineup on days when A Rod is playing, then you get to have all 162 games you are allowed at 3B used by A Rod.

Of course, if A Rod stubs his toe or something, and misses an odd game or two because of an injury, then you would want to make those games up by using your substitute third baseman on a day when the Yankees aren't playing.

So, on a daily basis, you can take players out of your starting lineup and replace them with guys from your bench before the next days games start.

If you have a starter of lesser quality than a top superstar type (let's say at a weaker position, like second base, where not all of us will get a great player, as opposed to a much stronger position, like First Base), you can also consider things like pitching matchups, slumps and hot streaks, and ballpark effects in deciding who to play ot not play on a given day,

But you can't exceed 162 games at any position.

You also draft 6 starting pitchers.

Since the typical SP makes about 33-35 starts each year, and the limit that you can have is 162 starts, you can't (or shouldn't, anyway) leave all 6 of them in your starting lineup every day or you will reach your 162 game limit after they all make about their 27th start, which would be some time in August.

Not that that is necessarily bad, but it doesn't give you the option of deciding which pitching matchups you want to take advantage of and which you don't.

Like if you have starters from the NL, you may not want them to pitch at Coors, for example.

So you have to pick and choose carefully which SPs to use on which days against which teams.

All of the statistical info that you need to make these "match-up decisions" is available online from a number of sources.

If you're interested, I suggest that you read through the thread, paying particular attention to my longer, more recent posts.

Then if you are still interested ( ) drop me a PM and we can set up a time when we can take a look at the game site together (that will be helpful if you've never played one of these Yahoo games before. If you have, it's probably not necessary) and chat thru IM while we do so.

To take the tour you'll have to register for the game, but if you decide you don't want to play, you can remove yourself from the league before the season starts.

Once ythe season starts, though, you can't remove your team, but as I have indicated above, you can "manage" your team as much or as little as you wish.

There's also a 5 man Disabled List, which you can use when a player goes on the DL in real life

I just wanted to add something about the disabled list, you can only put someone on it when they are on the DL in real life, but once they are on the DL (on your fantasy team) they stay there even if they are not injured. So in other words, even though A-rod comes back from missing 10 games you don't have to immediately put him in your lineup, he can stay on the DL until you feel he is ready to come back. But once you take him off the DL you have to drop someone from your team.

Plaw, would you like to turn all of that into proper english?

No, I thought you put that well, DM.

At least I understood it.

The only thing I might add is an example, which usually helps.

Let's say you have a guy on the DL,, so you replace him with a Free Agent.

Now the FA goes on a hot streak, and you want to keep him in your starting lineup.

So even if the player on the DL comes back in real-life, you may want to keep him - stash him, so to speak - on your DL.

That gives you control over one more player in the league who presumably has value, so you are keeping him away from the other people in the league.

Well I just joined the league and the name of my team is The Jasani Family. Hopefully all you sharks out there will go easy on a relative fantasy sport bird like myself although you should remember that I might be a newbie to fantasy baseball and fantasy sports I am by no means a newbie to baseball and sports in general so once I get the hang of things around here you guys better watch out. :rolleyes: Well, I have been an avid Baseball fan since I was 4-years-old and I'm now 230 er...I mean 23 so let's just say I know what D.H. stands for.

Welcome DJ.

I just hope you don't fall too far behind while you're getting the hang of things. :p

Anytime you want to take that tour, lemme know.

Would that be designated hitter or double header?

Yeah for sure P.L., and I don't mean to be rude or anything refusing your generous offer for the time being, but the best way for me to learn these kind of things (most things actually) is to explore them myself and then when I need help to seek assistance from the many, many people who are more experienced than myself I do so. Thanks again bro, and I look forward to an exciting, entertaining season!

Well, as long as you understand how the draft works and the relative importance of hitters, SPs, and RPs relative to each other....

And, how to manage the 162 game maximum at each position....

And, how to manage a team with 6 SPs and only 162 starts allowed among them....

You can't get into too much trouble.

Any questions, just post 'em.

As long as they don't get too specific about strategy, or into specific player evaluation, that is.

BTW, Tony Mosrite....

The same invitation is extended to you that I mentioned to Don Jasani.

If you'd like a "guided tour" of the site, drop me a PM and we'll set someting up.

I think I can speak for the veterans of this type of game - JG, DMC, and Myself - and say that we would prefer to see the scores in this game reflect our abilities to rate the players and our managing strategy, and have it affected as little as possible by mistakes that people may make at the beginning because they're not 100% sure how the mechanics of the game work, or the really obvious basic strategy stuff that you'll figure out on your own after a few days of playing anyway.

well thanks plaw I might PM you anytime soon or later. but the fact is that I finally did read this whole thread and I think I understood "what's going on". I really don't care about that statistic discussion (because I know you will come up with the most realistic, fair system), and I can attend the draft "any day of the fuckin' week". specially at night and not on the weekend. I think we should set the order of the draft a few days before the actual draft, too.

Ahh,.... Mr. DNP TM himself...!

This is the perfect game for him.

He can ignore his team for weeks a time.

I'm drafting first, called it! :p

Um....I don't think think that's exactly what we had in mind..... :rolleyes:

The way these drafts work, BTW, is what I think they call the "snake method".

If there are 8 people in the league, the person who picks 8th starts the next round, so he gets the 8th and 9th picks, and the person who picked first gets the 1st and 16th picks.

Then he starts the next round and gts the 17th pick, but doesn't pick again until the 32nd pick.

So say there are 8 people in the game, the advantage of going first would obviously be position but the advantage of going eighth would be that you get two picks before anyone else does right?

Here's a chart for the first 20 rounds, assuming 8 people in the league:

Clearer, but I guess I'll go through a bit of a baptism by fire when I actually draft...should be fun though...

Right. But then you have to wait 14 more picks before you get two more

And depending on how "spread out" - for lack of a better term - the quality may be....

For example, if the first 9 players are rated fairly close together, and then there's a significant drop-off between 9 and 10, it might be better to draft 8th than 1st.

You joined, TM? You're the "Bedroom Bombers"?

PLEASE NOTE:

I changed the stat categories for hitters.

Rather than have "Total Bases" count for 1 point for each base, I eliminated that category entirely, and created four new ones:

Singles (1B): 1 point each
Doubles (2B): 2 points each
Triples (3B): 3 points each
Homers (HR): 4 points each

This does not change the scoring system in any way, but it does give us a more detailed breakdown of how each player earned their points last year and is earning them this year.

(Finally Catching a Breather)

Hey Everybody,
Just wanted to say a big hello to everyone! I'm sorry I haven't been around, but contrary to what you might think, it hasn't been all wedding plans that's been keeping me busy. Actually, work has been keeping me busy - I mean really busy. As in, 16-hours-a-day to all-nighters busy, including weekends. On January 30th, my client announced the following settlement that I've been working on. In addition, some of you may know that I've been working on Senate asbestos legislation for the last three years. Well, it really heated up in the last two months - you may have seen some coverage in your newspapers. I've had a vacation cancelled and wedding planning delayed. I'm very exhausted.

I just wanted to say that I miss you all and I hope to be around more.

Anything I should catch up on?

DB,DB....all work and no play my friend.

Congrats on all your hard work though. There might be light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for popping in. Plaw can now cancel his APB.

Plenty.

But most importantly.....

1- Get yourself signed up in this game.
2- Make sure the draft date and time work for you.
3- Carefully read my last lengthy post in this thread - the one that goes into all the detail about the league configuration, scoring system, etc. Since I believe that you are the only one who has played this type of game before (in baseball, at least), I would appreciate any feedback you might have.

And please, no excuses about wedding plans, or being too busy with work, or any of that kind of stuff.

You are fully expected by all concerned to play, and none of us are prepared to stand for your not participating.

WOO-HOO !!

DB is in the game!!

Now if someone can just figure out a way to get that MOAAFS guy back in here, we'd have the strongest start-to-finish Gangster BB Fantasy Sports Game field in Gangster BB Fantasy Sports Game history.

OMG I think I'm gonna cry! Copy-and-pasted, mass-produced messages aside, we missed you, DB!

It's looking good, guys... I just looked at the list of everyone who's playing. It looks exciting, except for one very conspicuous absence-- Damn you GIGI where are you!!

Ah what the hell, I'll join.

The Animal House is my team.

Now that's the competitive spirit we've been looking for! :rolleyes:

Have you played this type of game before, DA?

As long as you understand how the draft works and the relative importance of hitters, SPs, and RPs relative to each other....

And, how to manage the 162 game maximum at each position....

And, how to manage a team with 6 SPs and only 162 starts allowed among them....

You can't get into too much trouble.

Any questions, just post 'em.

If you'd like a "tour" of the site, let me know.

And read over that last long post of mine Summary: Where We Stand in the middle of page 3.

Now that's the competitive spirit we've been looking for! :rolleyes: [/b][/quote]The more the merrier, I always say.

If anyone drops out in the middle, at least we will have had the advantage of the fact that the player pool was made smaller at the outset, and the game therefore required more skill for the serious players left.

And there won't be any dispersal drafts, or disbanding of teams, or putting a load of stars on waivers all at the same time or anything.

The format of this game allows someone to take part in the draft, and with the right mix of a lot of luck and skill they could set their lineup on opening day and forget it for the whole season and still conceivably win.

Not at all likely, of course, but possible.

But you want to play this like real life, don't you?

In real life, managers don't quit because they've become disinterested, or cuz they're losing, or cuz they don't have the time.... without being replaced.

:p

So someone snags A-Rod or Poohole or whomever, then just stops playing in May. You have no problem with that? That 10 other people who would've loved to have had either of them now have to spend an entire season with them not even a factor in the equation??

That if those players (and others) were taken out of our game could effect the pitching stats, makes no difference to you? If your SP got creamed by A-Rod, but who was then taken out of the game because a manager quit, and I didn't have to face him - you have no problem with?

I don't know....

I stated my opinion before about (lack of) team management....

I LOVE the draft idea and all... but I cannot stand finishing a season with less teams that we started with. So you guys who are doing this for the first time, you better really think about what your commitment is, from April 'til October. Because those who didn't finish it out last year, will not likely be invited to play next year.

Well, obviously I'd prefer that everyone play all season and manage their teams to the utmost of their ability.

But if someone picked Pujols and then stopped playing, all of us are affected by that equally.

None of us had the chance to get him in the first place, and it's like he never existed.

Someone is misunderstanding someone here. I'm just not sure who.

If Pujols manager stops playing, how is Pujols taken out of the game so that someone else's SP doesn't face him?

Pujols is still in the majors, and if he kills my SP while Don Andrew, say, is actively participating in the game, and then three months later, after DA has stopped participating and Pujols kills your SP, how has one of us had an advantage or disadvantage over the other?

Your SP still has to face Pujols, and those stats count whether DA is still participating or not.
Where did I say that would happen?

(NB: Don't be offended, DA. I just picked you because I had to pick someone, and I wanted an example of someone that hadn't played one of these games with us before)

Nit-picking.

It's not possible that Pujols gets injured and is out for a week or two, so the manager benched him, but then stops playing?

Where did i say that would happen? [/b][/quote]When someone states an opinion, it doesn't necessary have something to do with you. :p

(Man, why am I just totally in Pick On Plaw mode?? )

Oh., OK.....that could happen. Fair point.

Lemme give it some thought.

I just wanted to quote that before you deleted it.

Anyway - after all our past experiences... all I would LOVE to have is to go for a full season without some wimp asses quitting in the middle. And I know it doesn't matter in the salary cap games so much, but when it happens in a draft game, it really pisses me off.

But at least this won't be head-to-head (which I also love, but don't trust anymore) where I really would love to hurt someone for quitting.

OK...how's this:

As in Basketball, I'll be watching this game very closely.

I expect to be posting the scores every day the same way I do in B. Ball, and I'll notice right away when a manager stops participating, and when a player who was injured and benched prior to his manager's stopping playing is now playing again, because stats will now be showing up for him every day.

So what I'll do in that case is take over managing that team myself, but I'll post all the changes that I make, so if anyone disagrees they'll have the chance to voice their opinion.

So, in effect, the entire league will be managing his team, not just myself.

At worst, maybe a Pujols will be back one or two days before I realize that he's back and fail to puut him back in as a starter, but that could happen even if his manager is actively participating. Maybe he just wasn't around for a day or two.

I'm not wild about that solution - it will be areal pain managing the pitching staff - so I'll give it some more thought.

But on the other hand, a league with only 5-6 teams doesn't seem like it would be too interesting, unless we ran it like basketball, using two guys every day at each position, which would force us to dig deeper into the player pool during the draft.

I hadn't thought about the problem it would cause if a manager stopped playing in them middle of the season because while I realized that it could happen, I didn't think there would be any problem if it did

I mean, I didn't think that if a manager stopped playing it could affect anyone else's scores, until you presented your Pujols-injured scenario.

My compliments on that one.

So we need to have a way of dealing with the problem if it happens.

But whatever we decide, you can be sure that we'll decide it before the season starts.

You keep saying how you can "set it and forget it", which, to me, is the antithesis of managing a fantasy team.

Anyway - I just wish for once it didn't come down to having the commish work an inactive team, or, ignoring the entire roster of a drafted team that was given up on.

I'm sure there are legit reasons why someone cannot continue to participate, and that's not my beef. I just want to be sure that new managers know what's entailed and expected, and that they're still willing to commit to actually play.

Yeah, I know this is just "the Net" and you're just talking to your computer... but there ARE real people depending on your actions. What you do effects them, and the group as a whole.

I just wanna make the newcomers realize that. But trust me, there's nothing more that I want than to get more serious players, so, I hope this is a moot point!

All true, and I agree 100%.

But we still have to decide what to do if it happens.

As far as the SIAFI aspect goes, I figured a game like this is the best of both worlds.

You're not locked in to changing your team every single damn day of your life like in Salary Cap, to the point where it becomes a chore and you have to start making decisions about vacations based on whether or not you'll have computer access wherever you go and if you miss even one day in a game with a bunch of screwballs like us you could be done for the season.

On the other hand, with this game, if you SIAFI, you're pretty much done also. Even if none of your regulars miss a single game, you still have to manage your pitching staff to maximize your results.

Yet, I figured, you could afford to miss a day or two or a few days here and there without killing yourself.

PLUS, with Yahoo you can set your team far ahead in advance if you want to, so you can SIAFI but with day to day variations.

And, best of all, because our game isn't head-to-head or roto, your actions don't affect the other players.

Then you burst my bubble with your example about Pujols.

Well, unless I or someone else comes up with a better way of handling the situation, I'm gonna do what I wrote before if it should become necessary.

Well, you're certainly correct in that you don't have to do something every single day. And that's great, even tho I still look it over every day. (Not that I have to in B-Ball any more, being in last place since Week 2 and all.)

I really don't care how it's handled -- or really, if it's ever handled -- I just wanted newbies to this to make sure they knew what their commitment should be. Because, obviously, it's not the end of the world if someone wusses out. :p

Wait a minute.

No, it's not. What am I thinking?

If Pujols gets injured and benched by DA, and DA doesn't put him back in his lineup because DA dropped out of the game, whatever pounding or not pounding of your SP or mine Pujols subsequently does still counts against our SP whether DA has him in the lineup or not.

The real Pujols is playing, so whatever he does to a SP counts, right?

So if someone drops out in the middle, he only affects himself, like I thought in the first place.

touche!

You're right. I keep thinking, for some reason, that the league is exclusive. (or would that be inclusive?)

In any event, good one!

But still......... :p

Let me amend that comment.

I don't like finishing a season with fewer teams than we started with either.

But how, in this game, could or would that happen?

Maybe I should've said COMPLETE/ACTIVE teams then. :p

Well, sure, it's a better game when everyone is playing and competitive..

As far as "inclusive" or "exclusive" goes, I'm not sure how that applies.

But we talked about this once before, I remember:

How the Salary Cap game would be better if it were a "zero sum" game - if the positive or negative totals for pitchers in a particular game equalled those of the hitters.

But that would've meant charging pitchers for total bases, and charging hitters for outs and strikeouts.

And doing that, the pitchers would have wound up scoring, I dunno, maybe 50% or more of the points.

Any game in which a pitcher has a positive total would have meant a negative total for all the hitter in that game.

And even taking off the 5 points for the win (in ESPN) and charging the pitchers for wach TB allowed, I think there would have still been a positive total for all pitchers and a negative one for all hitters.

True, that would've been mitigated somewhat by the fact that we generally use the best hitters, but still....

yep that's me.. watch out!!

now, as much as my humble fantasy sports history can lead you guys to think the exact opposite, I guarantee I'll be playing throughout the whole season. I'm getting more excited about baseball by the day, and the MLB schedule will work for me. I always fucked up in fantasy basketball because every january I went out to summer vacation and didn't see a computer for 15-20 days.

about Pujols, just let me draft him then, since I won't quit

Plaw asked me to chime in about a week ago, and now I finally have the time to, so here goes my reponse to some of the recent posts. Now keep in mind, I won't be playing in this fantasy league, because without any monetary reward, I don't see the point in all the work and research required to participate, especially if I'm forced to make it my number one priority in life. So, again, this is your league and whatever you guys decide is up to you. I am not attacking anyone, I was simply asked for input so I'm providing it.

As far as people quitting is concerned, there is a big difference between fantasy leagues with head to head and total points. In head to head it is a gigantic pain in the ass because it can create imbalance in the schedule and unfairly affect playoff races. This has never happened in any of our leagues, but if a guy quit a head to head league, I'd be pissed. If a guy quit a points league, then I would be happy because it increases your odds of winning the pot. Fantasy sports is just another form of gambling. If you were playing poker and some guy put his money in the pot before the flop, then incorrectly folded his hand when he could have checked and stayed in, I know I would be happy. That is basically what a person does when they quit a fantasy league. Their money is already in, so if they drop out, your pot odds increase.

As far as somebody drafting Pujols and then quitting without using him the whole year goes, here's my take on the situation. (BTW, if you hate analogies, you might as well skip everything I ever write because I am obsessed with them. Actually, if you enjoy reading anything intelligent, you might want to skip this paragraph altogether. ) I'll put this in a way that I know some of you will appreciate after having read your posts the past year or so. Let's just pretend that I am sticking it in Jessica Alba's ass everynight. DMC, and I pick on him since I know he'll probably read this and who he would prefer to stick in to, is doing likewise with Trish. Then, after about a month, I decide I've had enough and end the relationship. Will my lack of pleasure in any way reduce DMC's? Absolutely not. It is the same way with a non head to head fantasy league. If somebody drafts Pujols and doesn't take advantage, they're only hurting themselves. You would still have Arod and reap the benefits every night, just as DMC would with Trish. The only thing that matters is how many points you accumulate.

If people quitting is that big a concern, just make the league private. I understand that the league is more fun when there are more teams, but if by the end of the year you're just going to have a limited number of teams active anyways, why not just limit the league to those owners who you know will participate all year. Plaw's PM made it sound like you guys were looking for more people to join the league, but after reading the past couple pages, maybe it would be best to look for less people than in the past. If anything, I think having too many people in a league is more detrimental than beneficial. When a league has a draft, as this one does, it is nice to have a larger number of people in order to dilute the talent pool, which makes the game more about skill rather than luck. Fantasy baseball especially is not a whole lot of fun or very challenging when everyone has a team of stars. At the same time, having inexperienced, incompetent owners stay active is a lot worse than having them drop out. At least when they drop out, their team is frozen, the league is rid of them, and they have no effect on the outcome. If they stay active, they can actually damage the league through lobsided trades, transactions, etc. I'm assuming this league would have veto powers for the commish, but IMO, a trade has to be blatantly one sided for a veto. If somebody really thinks this player is going to turn out better than another player for the remainder of the season, it's his/her team and he/she should be allowed to take that chance. An owner who isn't very good could theoretically fall behind early, start to make trades which aren't horribly lobsided, but in which his trade partners consistently get the best of the deal. Assuming you aren't one of the owners who made a trade with the guy, that owner just did a lot more damage to your team and your league than the guy who says, "Fuck it, I'm out." and bolts in the middle of May.

And Plaw, you are crazy if you plan on taking over abandoned teams. That seems like a lot of work to run a team for no real reason at all. Is anyone really going to take more pride in the fact that they beat 7 regular teams and 3 league controlled teams compared to simply beating 7 teams? If that is going to get somebody down off the ledge, then perhaps it's a good idea, but otherwise it seems like a lot of work for nothing.

Again, I hope I didn't offend anyone with my opinions. Good luck to you all and have a great season. Good god, I'm starting to turn into a windbad like somebody else I know. :p

Sorry, but that's the exact point where I stopped reading your post. :p

Ok thanks, Plaw.

I really haven't played this type of game before, but I'll do my best with this one. The draft time works for me too, BTW.

Sorry, but that's the exact point where I stopped reading your post. :p [/b][/quote]Well, I certainly understand your reasoning. If I were in your shoes, I would probably have the same attitude. But the same reasoning for ignoring my post is the same reason people drop out of the fantasy sports leagues on the board; both are essentially meaningless, so why bother. :p

The idea of the commissioner taking over the management of abandoned teams was in response to JG's initial faulty reasoning and my initial faulty agreement with him (before we realized that we were both faulty), so that's a mott point anyway.

You're right about the reasoning for wanting as many players as possible:

To dilute the talent pool so that everyone doesn't have a 25-man all-star team, which wouldn't be as interesting as it is when you have to dive a bit deeper into the pool for players.As fae as playing for money goes, well, i see your point, of course, and i would never, say, play poker, even with friends, "just for fun."

But for some reason I find this to be different.

Maybe because it's more like a hobby - something you can return to at anytime, like a stamp collection or something, whenever the spirit moves you.

Sure, being a gambler I'd love to play for money, buy simply playing this here for glory and bragging rights is good enough for me, and apparently for others as well. Some folks even play in public leagues, with strangers no less, with whom bragging rights mean nothing.

Anyway, JB, the whole issue of doormant teams and people dropping out had been pretty much resolved before your post.

When I PMed you, which was prior to that discussion (which only really took place last night), it was to invite you to play, and also, since I know you're an experienced player, to solicit your comments more on the league configuration and scoring system than anything else.

Apparently you didn't go that far back in your reading the thread. :p

If you change your mind and decide to play, we'll probably have a cutoff date for joining around March 13th or so, a week before the draft.

Perhaps, I misinterpreted your discussion then, and for that I apologize. After reading the recent posts, it still seemed like people were going to be scorned for a lack of 100% participation in this league. Personally, I wouldn't get pissed about people not participating in a non head to head that ws just for fun and bragging right, so when I heard other people saying this, I assumed the league wouldn't just be for fun. Evidently, that wasn't going to be the case, but I didn't read/interpret the posts on this most recent page of the thread as they were intended to be read.

I should amend my post also. I don't see the point in playing in a fantasy sports league without monetary reward unless it is for fun. I also do leagues for fun, mostly because I use the drafts as quasi-mock drafts for our real money league, but also because it gets old following the same players all summer long. As I said in the PM, I was planning on joining the league today, but before I responded to your PM, I checked the recent posts from last night to catch up. After reading them, it didn't really sound like you guys wanted people who were playing for fun or bragging rights, but people who were willing to make an absolute commitment. I can't really give that commitment that I will be active 100% of the time. Just like last year when I made the decision to accept a job offer coming out of college rather than hold true to my commitment to the league in the salary cap game, there might be one or two or twenty things in my life that take precedence over a baseball league I do for fun. I just want to make that clear to everyone, so there isn't any hostility if I do join, then disappear for several weeks. The posts prior to my initial post didn't make it sound that way. If I was mistaken in interpreting these posts, then I would be interested in participating.

Sorry, but that's the exact point where I stopped reading your post. :p [/b][/quote]Don't tell me you missed the part about Jessica Alba's ass...

No way! THAT part caught my eye immediately!

OMG - I hate February. Football is over and baseball is not on every night just yet.

This thread bites. Too wordy and so little time! So tell me, are y'all playing ESPN or just yahoo or both?

Reason I am asking is I always play with the real life locals and I'm trying to figure out where I want to play. We always play the ESPN game - not sure that I have played yahoo - except in football.

I side with Jimmy Buffer - bigger incentive when there is some cash, bling or side bets involved.

Let me know what baseball game(s) are being played.

btw - I won my Survivor pool this football season - roughly $1600. I think in Week 14. Yay me.

I also placed 1st in Fantasy. Here's a screen shot. Yay me and a couple hundred smackers $$ to me!
http://football.fantasysports.yahoo.com/f1/353005

I'm not allowed to view your screen shot cause I'm not in the league.

Congrats to the Buffster for being on top of all those guys. As Sicilian Babe's daughter says, "Chicks rule and boys drool".

I'm pretty sure we're playing both ESPN and Yahoo here. We'll probably do the Salary Cap game too. Is this the ESPN game here? Listen to me talking, someone who has no idea what Uber points are. There's so many darn games going on I can't keep track. Next I'll expect to see a thread on cock fighting. Wait, there is one in The General Section isn't there?

But I'm sure if the Buffster told these lads what game you'll be interest in playing they'll be all too happy to set it up.

Fantasy Cock Fighting?

OMG - so many jokes, so little time.

But can you imagine the smack talk that would come of that game?

Oh, the "My cock is harder and better then your cock" remarks are boundless. Grab a margarita and enjoy the view I say.

And that is just talk from the girls ...can you imagine the guy talk?



Surely, Fantasy Cock Fighting has not gone mainstream yet.

Thankfully.

The guys know they miss the girl talk. They're probably doing some shuddering of their own.

Hey, Geoff, Uber king. See if you can go somewhere and hook us up with a good cock fight.

I thought this was the Ladies Thread for a second.

I found some human cock fighting on a Google search, but it ended up just being about "ultimate fighting"

Considering where that guy's head on the right is it just might be a cock involved.

Yes, Buffy, we'll be playing the Salary Cap game (which is the ESPN game, Crabby) as well as the Yahoo game.

And like you, I would love to play for something more than simply bragging rights and glory, but I don't think any one else here does.

Strangely enough, though, being the gambler that I am, I'm content to play these games without the additional incentive.

Of course, if you wanted to play and make a little side bet with me, naturally I'd be happy to.

As far as the Yahoo games goes, what format do you play with your friends?

Head-to-Head or Roto, I'd imagine, huh?

The Yahoo baseball game we're gonna play sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is.

--Live draft

--Draft a full major league roster: 8 position players, 6 hitters on your bench, 6 starting pitchers, and 5 relievers

--Points only, with a scoring system that is very similar to the ESPN Salary Cap Game

--162 game maximum at each position, including starting pitcher, so there will be days when you don't field a complete team and you may want to decide who to play among your hitters based on match-ups vs. specific pitchers, and how to distribute your 162 starting pitcher starts among 6 starters based on match-ups, parks, etc.

--Those are the basics, pretty much. The rest of the rules more or less follow the rules we used in Yahoo Football.

Get in.

I have never played yahoo baseball. We locals play the espn game too. We used to play this sandbox league on mlb I think but I havent done that for a few years.

When is the draft day?

Im still thinking about it. Lately I have been hiatus-prone if you haven't noticed and I also have a number of vacations scheduled. Gimme the date of the draft. I will check out the yahoo site if I can. Will have to reasearch that.

As for bets....I believe I still owe you two. Dinners that is. I never welsh - geography is a big factor here. Surely that one poor showing you did in football that one year would cancel out at least one of those dinners.

Ah, I'll mail you some coupons!

Draft is Monday, March 20, at 9:30 our time, 7:30 your time.

The draft is Monday, March 20th, 9:30 PM Eastern.

To get onto the site, you have to join the league first.

Why don't you, and then if you decide not to play after looking it over, you can remove yourself from the league, as long as you do so before the draft.

If you do have a look, BTW, I should mention that the Yahoo rankings of theplayers are meaningless for our purposes, as they're based on some secret formul of theirs designed for Roto and HTH games.

But if you click on the link for "Players" and then filter them by their 2005 stats, you'll get the soring total for each player for last year based on the scoring system we'll be using this year.

Hah! I just got a flashback of Macauly Culking in Home Alone. Wait. I've got a coupon for that.

If you have trouble deciding which coupons to send bug some of your friends with babies if they have any baby wipe coupons. The pic Bad Daddy posted of plawrence receiving his shipment is old, so I'm sure he's out of supplies by now.

I can't eat baby wipes.

I spoke to SC, who has graciously agreed to pick the names out of a hat to pre-detrmine our draft order.

The draft is Monday, March 20th, so I'm figuring we'll make the deadline for entering Tuesday, March 14th, and he can determine the draft order and post it on Wednesday, March 15th.

That gives everyone five days and includes a weekend to work on it.

I'd say we should do it sooner, but I'd rather keep the game open for new entrants as long as possible.

Plaw, I must admit I haven't read the entire thread yet, but I don't have time and wanted to ask 2 questions.

1) What are the limits for relief pitchers
2) If a starting picther comes in for a 3 pitch save for some odd reason, that counts as a game?

1) Limits like what? Unless I'm misunderstanding your question, there aren't any.

Just like in real baseball, there are no limits to how often a manager can use a particular RP, or his relief "staff" in total.

2) No. The stat category that gets you one point (and will enable us to track the 162 game maximum for SPs) is "Games Started".

There's a separate option in pitching stats for "Appearances" which we are not using.

ok thanks, that answered both questions.

That part's obvious, but DM raises a valid point, which I'm sure is "yes" anyway, but -- if an SP pitches as a RP, and he's on your roster, do you still get those stats?

(You may've even answered that before...)

If you have him starting that day (b/c he was listed as a starter), then he couldn't pitch in relief also.

And if he wasn't scheduled to pitch and you had him benched, then you wouldn't get his stats, like anyone else on your bench.

But if you had him in your starting lineup (what I think you mean by "on your roster") even if he wasn't scheduled to pitch - like if you decided on 5 starters and just left them in your starting lineup, figuring you'd only replace one of them and use the 6th in certain spots - and he appeared in relief on a day he didn't start, then yes, you'd get his stats for that day but it wouldn't count as a game started against your 162 game max.

Hmmm.....some elements of strategy come into play here, don't they?

I've always believed that in life you should only try to control what's controllable, which prompts this post:

Since we will be pre-determining the draft order, there is nothing to stop us from trading draft picks before or during the actual draft, or trading players for draft picks once the draft begins.

For example....

If there are 9 of us in the league, and JG, say, has the #1 pick and I have the #7 pick, I may be so anxious to get A Rod that I might be willing to trade my first two picks, which will be the 7th pick of the 1st round and the 3rd pick of the 2nd round (the 7th and 12th players selected overall) for JG's 1st pick.

And JG might be willing to do it, since depending on how he rates the players, he might think it more valuable to have the #7 and #12 picks instead of the #1 and #18 picks.

If any trading takes place before the draft, I believe that the order can be changed, but if someone trades the #1 pick for the #7 pick, that order would remain in effect throughout the draft.

So what you would have to do is communicate among yourselves - presumably on the group IM chatbox while the draft takes place - and tell each other who you want the other person to pick.

Like if I made this trade with JG, the draft order would remain the same, but I would tell him who I wanted him to pick first, and then when my turn came up 7th, and again 12th, he would tell me who he wanted me to pick for him.

Then when the draft was over, you would effect the trade among yourselves.

The only problem is that if you do this, you do so at your own risk.

If I tell JG to pick A Rod first for me and he does, and then he tells me who he wants me to pick for him and I don't, he's stuck with the picks he made as his own if he doesn't want the players I picked in exchange and doesn't agree to the required trade.

I only mention this because, it's something that players can do amongst themselves that no one has any control over.

I don't know if anyone thought of this possibility besides me, but if they did and it should happen during the draft, I don't want anyone to be able to say "I didn't know you could do that."

Because when you stop and think about it, it's perfectly logical that you can do that.

I don't know if I explained this very well.....

You explained it well enough. But if anyone tries that with me, I'll probably tell'm to fock off. Unless, of course, it benefits me incredibly.

Why "incredibly"?

Sure, there's a lot of luck involved in the draft since we can't be sure who will have a season that surpasses or falls below our expectations, but I'd make a deal if I thought it benefitted me, and it wouldn't have to be "incredibly".

If the way I rank the players indicates a significant drop-off in quality between, say, the 13th and 14th picks, I might be williing to trade the 1st & 19th picks for the 9th and 10th, if I didn't think there was as much of a difference between the 1st and 9th.

This might come into play in the later rounds when there's someone left who you really want and you're afraid he might get taken before your turn, so you might be willing to trade up, trading away maybe two later and lower picks.

And if I figure that it doesn't make too much of a difference - that the later rounds are even more of a crapshoot than the earlier ones - I might trade a pick that's a few notches higher for two picks that are a few notches lower figuring that I'm increasing my chances of getting lucky with a "sleeper" pick.

I gues we'll see what happens.

As I said, I just want everyone to understand that there's the possibility that this could happen, since in reality it can't be stopped.

you mean this ranking? I don't know if this is the one based on our system

Yup, that's it.

Just make sure you always go to that far right hand column and click on "Fan Pts" to get them in our order, not Yahoo's.

Also, as you've probably figured out, you can use those other windows to isolate each individual position.

You really should ammend the first post so ppl know where to join and when the draft is... I surely wouldn't (and don't) wanna weed thru 7 pages to find it...

When is the draft again?

lol...yeah

Monday, March 20th, 9;30 PM

FYI, all that stuff....draft date, scorings cats, values, etc., can be found in the link to "League Settings"

K, thanks

You should also include a link, and, don't they need the league # rather than the name?

Good thinking. You and DB and DM can be the League Board of Governors.

Getting into yet now (finally)?

Nah. I may just skip baseball entirely this year.

BTW - Thanks again for alerting me to the problem this morning. For that, I won't pick on you for the next hour.

Save the thank you's.


It was done strictly out of self-interest. :p

'I can't wait the game (and most likely the season itself) to start!' and all, I just noticed that the draft didn't work in my pc (I mean the test on the game's page) - I still didn't sit and tried to figure out the whole thing (can't do it now because it's really late and I still have plenty of things to do) but I thought it'd be nice to mention it as early as posible. does anyone know how I can fix it? I already disabled firewall and it still doesn't work...

I'm not certain, TM, but maybe Yahoo calculated the odds of you lasting 164 games and decided there was no way you'd make it....

(I have no idea, sorry)

Thanks for inviting me to the League Board of Governors.

Without having to sift through pages and pages of posts, anything in particular I should be looking at?

I dunno...if I were you I'd do some sifting and try to read all of my lengthier posts.

Some of it is repetitious (of course ), but I think I covered pretty much everything.

OK, but it's going to take a whole weekend to read all of it! :p

If you want, I'll write and post a "Reader's Digest" version.

No, that's OK Plaw. I'm sure it'll be a quick read. I'll just skip over all of JG's and DMC's penis posts.

That'll be a lot of work for me of course, but maybe I should anyway.

Seriously, you don't have to (unless you really want to). It's my fault that I've been a bit lax on reading through all the back-and-forth - no need for you to do extra work.

I should probably do it.....more for the new players who have never played this style game before.

Maybe over the weekend.

okay I'm a genious. fixed that shit. I thought it would be trickier because my PC has been terrible lately but at least it says "successfull" there

Good.....then you're all set.

Now just don't forget to show up for the draft. :p

What time is 9:30 PM EST for you?

nah don't worry. I wouldn't miss it

Brazil time = GMT - 03:00 = draft time = 11:30 PM

Finally done reading... only took a couple of hours! :p

Fantasy Baseball Commissioner Suffers Mild Heart Attack
Gangster BB Bigwig Said To Now Be Resting Comfortably

By Neal Pulcawer

Gangster BB Yahoo Fantasy Baseball Commissioner plawrence suffered a mild heart attack this morning during an IM conversation with league member Don Sicilia, when Sicilia - known more familiarly in fantasy sports circles as "DB" - erroneously informed him that part of his plan for this year's game was unworkable.

Although details are sketchy, it is believed that DB misinterpreted a Yahoo rule involving the number of players that could be benched at a given time.

By the time DB realized his error, Mr. plawrence was already suffering chest pains and dizziness, which he later attributed to the several alchoholic beverages he consumed during the chat.

By the time paramedics arrived at Mr. plawrence's home, however, Mr. Sicilia had already realized his mistake and Mr. plawrence was able to pick himself up off the floor without assistance.

plawrence, who declined to be hospitalized and was said to be resting comfortably at the computer table which he seldom leaves, is a longtime member of the Gangster BB, and a moderator of its Sports Forum.

Sicilia, also a longtime member, was once considered Mr. plawrence's Most Worthy Adversary in fantasy sports, but he hs given up that title due to his limited participation in the BB's more recent fantasy sports games, although he has found time to participate in the major games despite a heavy job related workload and the planning for his impending marriage.

DB pointed this out to me last night during our IM chat, regarding the Disabled List:

(From the Yahoo rules)

Any player is eligible to be placed on the DL as long as he is on the real-life disabled list. Once on the DL, a player may stay there for the entire season, even if he returns to real-life action. However, once a player comes off the real-life DL, you will not be able to complete any transactions until you remove him from your team's DL. You will, however, be able to make intra-roster moves (switching players between bench and active) regardless of a player's DL status.

Also...

We discussed the waiver rules....

The way Yahoo sets it up as as follows:

After the completion of the draft, everyone is assigned a "waiver priority", which is the reverse order of the order of the draft (whoever had the last pick in the draft gets the #1 waiver priority, and so on).

If more than one of us claims a player off waivers, then the person with the highest priority wins the claim

Then after a successful claim, the winning claimant goes to the bottom of the priority list and everyone else moves up a notch.

However, we have the option of customizing the waiver priority in any way we wish, which is what I'm inclined to do.

I think that whoever is in last place in the standings - based on average points per game (rather than total points -the way I do the Yahoo Basketball standings) - should have the #1 pick.

Two questions then arise:

1) Should the waiver priority order be re-set on a daily or weekly basis? and

2) Should the winning claimant retain his waiver position based on the standings even after making a successful claim?

My inclination is to reset it daily, and that the order emain the same regardless of how many successful claims someone makes.

Plaw and I have been discussing the league settings and he will be making three hopefully innocuous changes:

1 - After the draft is over, players go on waivers instead of the free agency list. This change was made to give people a couple of days to study their teams and see who is available rather than being obligated to do this studying immediately.

2 - Wins count for +7 instead of +6

3 - Save Opportunities count for -6 instead of -4

For the last two, Plaw and I discussed the "breakeven" concept - i.e. what type of record should a pitcher have to be considered average. An average pitcher should get no points.

We agreed that the breakeven point for a starting pitcher should be .461 since a win is harder to get than a loss. With change #2, if a pitcher has 6 wins and 7 losses, he gets no points for those wins and losses.

We also agreed that the breakeven point for a closer should be .750 - i.e. he should convert 3 out of 4 save opportunities. Change #3 corrects for this.

Please let us know what you think.

I looked over the pitcher rankings and these changes dont really affect the rankings of the pitchers very much, if at all.

What it does chhange slightly is the points spreads between the pitchers, so, for example, Chris Carpenter, who was the #1 rated starter last year, now has a greater difference in points between himself and Johann Santana, last year's #2 rated starter, because Carpenter was 16 games over .500, giving him an additional 16 points, while Santana was only 6 over .500, so he gets an additional 6 points.

SC tells me that he'll be posting the draft order about 4:30 or 5:00 or so this morning.

Everyone all excited, or is it just me?

Sorry for the delay.

**************** DRAFT PICKS ORDER *************************

1. JL
2. DB
3. DA
4. CC
5. DJ
6. LZ
7. JG
8. PL
9. TM

Good luck everyone!

Thanks, SC.

I regret to inform you, however, that next year I'm gonna ask someone else.

(Didn't you get my PM that the commissioner is supposed to get no worse than third pick?)

let me get this right. I get the first pick, then the last pick of rd 2, then the 1st pick of rd 3, etc.....

That's right JL. They call this the "Snake Draft" because of how the picks snake around.

Thanks SC!

wow seems I'm lucky this year :rolleyes:

maybe I can find a way to make this work out well...

Well, you do get 2 picks in a row...

Of course if I win, PL will blame it on the draft. :p

Well, you do get 2 picks in a row... [/b][/quote]yeah that's my hope.

I don't know, I have always been lame in math, but according to me (watch out) I'll get 9th, 10th, 27th, 28th, 45th, 46th picks and on and on... is that right?

I tried, plaw, when you asked me to pick you a winner. Unfortunately all I could come up with was this:

Your prompt payoff, uh, umm, payment will be appreciated.

I almost wish I didn't pick first, because most likely I'm going to have pick someone that I really can't stand.

Take Pujols; You loved him in Salary Cap last year.

Actually, we can start "unofficially" drafting now. Save some time on Monday.

yeah I'd love to know who you guys are picking before me. come on, DA let's get it started! (since we know who the first 2 picks will be)

just remembered... now that the draft is all set, I have a new doubt: more especifically, how does the draft works? I'm talking about how much time do we have to make a pick, or what we know about what the other players are doing, or anything related to that

I'm still going to have to figure out how to do this draft. I'm working until 9:45 and really don't feel like sitting in my office all night doing this. ...And maybe I will take Pujols, and maybe I won't. :p

TM....

It will all be self-explanatory once the draft starts.

If you rank the players yourself, Yahoo takes them off your list as they are drafted. If you don't, Yahoo takes them off the list that they have there now, based on their rankings.

I believe you get 90 seconds to make your pick. If you don't manually pick within 90 seconds, Yahoo will pick for you, taking the next player on the list - either your list if you've ranked the players yourself, or their list if you haven't.

You don't have to go by your list, either, maeaning you don't have to pick the player you have ranked next when your turn comes.

Just log into the draft early, and you'll see how it works.

We'll all be there; they even have a chatroom set up so we can talk to each other while it's going on.

thanks again plaw. now, okay I'm a lazy muthafacka and don't feel like looking throught the thread all over again, so please remember me some key elements that I don't remind.

- how many bench players our teams will have?
- how many SP? 6 right?
- relievers? 5 ?
- when we set the team for opening day, we just pick 3 outfielders or are they separated in right, center and left?

thanks!

Am I allowed to trade the #1 overall pick?

Hey guys, when's the draft again? :p

Of course. You looking for offers?

Of course. You looking for offers? [/b][/quote]....Yes

This Is Important:

While the "Roster Configuration" calls for 14 offensive players and 11 pitchers, and that the 11 pitchers be 6 SPs and 5 RPs, this is really gonna have to be an "unwritten rule", since I believe Yahoo will allow you to have your entire bench consist of pitchers.

The advantage to having your entire bench consist of pitchers is that it would give you a great deal of flexibility every day in deciding which pitchers to have in your lineup and which to have on your bench.

You can only have a maximum of 6 SPs and 5 RPs in your lineup every day, but if you had 16 pithers all together (by using your 5 bench spots for pitchers as well), that would give you much more of a choice of who to use every day.

Of course the drawback is that you have no one on your bench to play offense if needed.

In any case, the limit is 11 pitchers, and if anyone has more on their roster ata given time, I will void the transaction that added the extra pitcher(s) and put that person's roster back to 11.

You can, however, configure those 11 pitchers any way you wish.

You can carry 6 SPs and 5 RPs, giving you the flexibility of having 6 SPs to choose from in making your 162 starts.

Or, even 7 SPs and 4 RPs, which gives you even more flexibility with SPs, requires that you sacrifice potential points that your RPs may get, since you are allowed to have 5 in your lineup every day and you will only have 4 on your roster.

Or, you can carry 5 SPs and 6 RPs. This gives you no flexibility with your starters, since you will pretty much have to use each of the 5 every time they start to reach the 162 games started, but you will gain the flexibility of having 6 relievers to choose from every day to fill the 5 RP slots on your roster every day.

I hope I explained that so everyone understands it......

Trying to control our BENCHES now? What difference should it make to anyone? What if I wanted 5 catchers on my bench, shouldn't that be up to me?

What if I wanted to pick up a SP or RP for a one day strategic move, even if I already have 11 pitchers - you're really gonna play God and change my roster? :rolleyes:

I vote NO on that - at least until you give me a good reason for it. :p

Boy did I make the right decision. :p


Don Cardi

LOL

OK.

Configure your bench any way you want to.

Have all pitchers if you want or all catchers.

Since MLB teams almost always carry 11 pitchers, I figured it would be more realistic to limit the the number of pitchers you have on your team, but it really makes no difference to me.

So, everyone, disregard that whole lengthy post of mine earlier today and configure your bench any way you want to.

It's also realistic to be paid $2 million to manage a baseball team, but we're letting that slide....

"Almost always" means it's not set in stone, right? Is it in the rule book? If Torre wanted 12 or 13 pitchers for some reason, is anyone gonna try to stop him (besides you)?

My main points, basically, are: 1) I don't want to have to worry about who's on my bench since there are no particular position slots for those players, and, 2) having a commish playing God by making what should be my managerial decisions and making changes to my bench for no good reason other than because of "tradition".

That's all.

This is supposed to be a fun game - the more rules there are to follow, and the more things to worry about screwing up, and having someone else effect YOUR team, the less fun it'd probably be.

So thanks.

P.S. And maybe someday someone else will chime in with an opinion as well, so Plaw doesn't just think I'm the only one picking on him.

I've already told PL privately that I thought he was taking the fun out of the game, and that was the main reason I wasn't going to play. I know he means well, and is putting a lot of time into it, but it's supposed to be fun.

Let me get this right before the draft. We have no limit on relief appearances, and we're supposed to get up to 162 games at SP.

Right on relief appearances, and 162 is the maximum number of starts you can have.

Like I said, JG, I don't care, so you're beating a dead horse AFAIC.

If anything, having it the way you suggest will help me, because if Yahoo Basketball is any indication I'll be paying closer attention to all of that stuff than you will.

Have as many pitchers as you want, but remember: A maximum of only 6 SPs and 5 RPs can be in your lineuop on a given day.

Speaking of the draft... I better start doing some research soon. Ah, maybe tomorrow since The Sopranos is tonight.

...unless, of course, my Godfather game comes in early and it could end up being an auto-draft.

You take care of Plaw during the Baseball season, and I'll take care of him during the Hockey season.

j/k Plaw.


Don Cardi

Now if someone can just convince PL to switch the daily active RP's from 5 to the traditional 2.

Well, I think with 5 you MIGHT be able to get 2 out of them each day... maybe. If we only designated 2 RP's, you'd almost never get both playing on any given day, and most days you wouldn't have any RP's at all playing. And besides, most games seem to have at least 3-4 relievers these days anyway... so this time I agree w/ Plaw.

Why does it say "The draft order will be randomly determined approximately 30 minutes before the draft begins", when I log into the league page.

Man, I've got the fifth and 221st picks eh?! I don't even need 14 through 212! You guys are gonna be in deep in trouble cuz I'm gonna have Vladimir Guerrero and er...uh...Johnny Damon...on my squad! Power and speed baby, power and speed... :rolleyes: :p

Hey PL.... Just confirm this now. Once our teams are drafted, they'll be no changing of the scoring system. I'm going to be drafting based on the way you have it set-up. Definitely not how I'll be doing it in other leagues. I don't want any "tweaks", especially to the pitching values, after our teams are picked.

There will not (read: better not) be any "tweaks" to scoring, unless unanimously voted upon, after the draft.

But why? What hole did you find to take advantage of?? Feel free to PM me with that info....

I'll throw out some examples, and let you figure it out.
Take 2 different RP. Take a mediocre/average closer and an average set-up/middle reliever, and see what the numbers come out to in this league. A good example would be Braden Looper vs Dan Wheeler. See what the numbers come out to for an entire season. Wheeler gets about double the points. If you want to go one further, take the arguably #1 closer Mariano Rivera with his 7 wins and 43 saves, and compare it to some of the better set-up men. The numbers will probably surprise you.

Maybe the numbers would surprise me... but wouldn't that mean we don't have the best formula?

I don't know... I still am not really paying much attention... I still have another 15 hours to think about it!

We don't have the best formula. The RP values are off the wall. A "save" has a net value of only 2 points, and a closer is starting the inning off in a -6 hole. Meanwhile, setup men just come into the game, eat up innings, and suck up "hold" points. Top it all off with the 5 RP system we're using, and my draft board looks a lot different than any other one I've ever done. ...but that's fine. We're all playing under the same rules, and I'm ready. Leave it as it is.

Edit: I miscalculated the value of earned runs as -1, but it doesn't really matter.

Here's the flaw in your argument:

Looper was anything but an "average/mediocre" closer.

In fact, he was just about the worst in baseball.

He ranked 29th in points last year among all closers, and the save percentage of the 28 guys ranked ahead of him was 86.2%, while Looper's was 77.8%, which was better than that of only three guys ahead of him on the list of 28.

As far as set-up men vs. closers go, the top 6 RPs in points, and 11 of the top 14 in points were closers, so I don’t see any problem there

In fact, I think it works out about right.

The top closers get more points than the top set-up men, the top set-up men get more points than the mediocre closers, the mediocre closers get more points than the mediocre set-up men, and the mediocre set-up men get more points than the worst closers.

Also, what makes you say that a closer enters the game in a -6 hole?

Rivera had 294 points last year.

The top set-up men were:

Dutscherrer (222)
Linebrink (213)
Politte (2019)
Howry (190)

What's wrong with that?

Rivera had anywhere from about 30% to 50% more points than the top set-up men.

A save should have a net value of only +2.

A closer who doesn't save at least 80% of his opportunities is basically worthless, since the league average is way above that.

If a guy saves 50% of his games, he winds up with a net in the minus column, which is how it should be.

If a guy saves 75% of his games - way below the league average - he winds up with a net of zero, which is about what he's worth, since he's way below the league average.

SPs are different. A SP who goes 12-12 has much more value than a closer who saves 12 games and blows 12 saves, doesn't he?

And how do you figure a closer starts off in a -6 hole?

Because he's starting off with a "save opportunity"?

Well, yeah, but if he does his job that -6 becomes a +2.

He's only stuck with the -6 if he doesn't do his job, in which case he deserves the -6.

It's not like he has to do something special to get rid of the -6.

What I would have done if I had the option of doing so, was assign a negative value to "blown saves".

I would have made a save worth, say +2, and a blown save worth, say, -5.

So a guy like Rivera, who saved 43 of 47 would have wound up with a net of about +66, and a guy like Looper, who saved a putrid 28 of 36, would have been only +16.

But since Yahoo didn't have the option of making "blown saves" a stat category, this was the only way of creating an equation to allow for blown saves.

But if they did, I would have given a blown save a negative value and the effect would have been exactly the same and you couldn't say that a closer enters the game in a -6 hole.

That, I think, is the fallacy in your reasoning/

Aw shucks.

You guys caught me.

I was planning to change the whole thing around depending on who I wound up with in the draft. :rolleyes:

Frankly, I find the implication involved in the idea that you would even suggest the possibility that I might do something like that to be somewhat insulting.

The implication that either I would change something to benefit myself, or that I would be so stupid as to change something after everyone drafted based on the system that was already in place.

If you can give me a logical reason why, other than it's "traditional".

My goal here was realism; bullpens on MLB teams "traditionally" have 5 RPs, don't they?

The "traditionally" you speak of applies to roto and H-T-H leagues, where they have a bench of one corner infielder, one catcher, and one or tw outfielders.

Points only leagues are designed to be "custom" leagues - I don't think that there's anything traditional about any of them.

Here's what I figured:

We have 9 people in the league.

Based on last years stats, if you had the 5th highest point producer at each position, this is how many offensive points you'd have had:
That'a a total of 4263 points on offense

The top 45 SPs totaled 19,474 points, or an average of 361 points each.

So if you had 6 of them

That's a total of 2,166 from your SPs

The top 45 RPs totaled 8,246 points, or an average of 183 points each.

So if you had 5 of them

That's a total of 915 points from your RPs

On a percentage basis, you wind up with this:

So what's wrong with the scoring system?

About 60% of your points come from offense, about 40% from pitching, the very best hitters are worth more than the best SPs, the best SPs are worth more than the next level or "group" of hitters, those hitters are worth more than all but the best SPs, and almost everyone that's gonna get picked in our draft worth more than all but the very best RPs.

#1, there are only a handful of closers that will get nearly as many points as this. And #2, not one of the set-up men you listed was one of the ones I used to check the the formula. Which is good for me. ...Don't even ask who. :p

Waiver Rules

Since no one offered any feedback to the contrary, i think the waiver rule should work as follows:

Until the game actually starts, waiver priority we be determined in the reverse order of the draft.

If someone makes a successful waiver claim, they will then move to the bottom of the priority list and everyone will move up a notch.

Once play actually begins, it will be determined on a daily basis by your position in the standings: Whoever is in last place will have the #1 priority, and so on.

The only exception will be if you make a second claim on the same day. After your first successful claim, everyone rotates, and, assuming you are still last, you don't get your top position back until the next day.

However, your position in the standings will be based on projected points, not actual points, the way I do the standings in basketball.

This prevents someone from deliberately holding back on making up their missing games until the very end of the season, so they can stay in last place based on their actual number of points and keep the #1 waiver priority for the first 20 weeks or so out of 24.

I won't, and i don't know why I'm telling you this, but guys like heilmann and Sosa got a good many of their points because they also started a lot of games.

The top six closers all had more points than any of the true middle relievers.

You undervalued a save (IMO). I've played in dozens of leagues, using all kinds of scoring methods, and a save has always been double the value of a blown save. (Also wins were double the value of loses) With this scoring system, a middle reliever is just as valuable as an average closer.

I don't agree. The top middle relievers are more valuable than the mediocre and poor closers - which I think is how it should be - but the top closers are more valuable than the top middle relievers.

The top 6 RPs and 11 of the top 14 RPs are all closers.

Bradon Looper who had one of the lowest save percentages and was 29th among closers in points, was not an "average" closer.

That doesn't make it right.

Where's the logic?

Scoring that way, a guy who blows 50% of his save opportuniites, which makes him less than useless IMO, winds up with a positive points total, which makes no sense when you consider that the average closer converts more than 80%.

A blown save should really have twice the negative value of a save, so if a guy converts two out of three - which still stinks - his total is zero.

if the league average for converting save opportunities is over 80%, shouldn't a guy who does much worse have a negative value?

So 6 people will have closers thgat are valuable, and the other 39 relief pitchers draft won't be.

I don't have any part time starters on my list, and they all have well over 200 points. Much more than I can say about 2/3 of the closers. ...Miscalculating ER's did change the values more towards the closers. I give you that much.

So 6 people will have closers that are valuable, and the other 39 relief pitchers draft won't be.

I don't have any part time starters on my list, and they all have well over 200 points. Much more than I can say about 2/3 of the closers. ...Miscalculating ER's did change the values more towards the closers. I give you that much. [/b][/quote]Maybe I'm missing your point, but I don't understand what you mean by "39 relief pitchers won't be"

Yeah, 39 RPs won't be as valuable as the top 6.

The top 6 RPs are closers, as are 11 of the top 14 and 17 of the top 29.

As I said, the best closers are more valuable than the best set-up men, the bset set-up men are more valuable than the next level of closers, the next level of closers are more valuable than the next level of set-up men, and so on, which I think is how it should be.

Also, I don't know where you're getting your figures from.

There were 12 RPs with more than 200 points last year, and 9 of them were closers, so yeah, those 3 set-up men with more than 200 points have more points than 2/3 of the closers, but there are only three of them. How about the rest of the closers who across the board pretty much have more points than the set-up men?

I have to get to work. I'm late. One of us has to be miscalculating something. I has Rivera getting less than 290, and a few setup men over 200. I don't have the numbers, but just double check it for me.

Based on our scoring system, Rivera had 294 last year, and only three "true" set-up men had over 200

Dutscherrer (222)
Linebrink (213)
Politte (209)

Where are you getting your numbers from? Aren't you getting them from the Yahoo game site?

Ok. I'm at work, and re-did some numbers. My "Earned Run" miscalculation lowered most middle relievers I had over 200 to the 160-170 range. It also lowered the closers too. If my calcualtions are right, a "good" closer such as Texas' Francisco Cordero would get about 160 points. The same as a very mediocre middle reliever such as Juan Rincon. ...you're right about Rivera's score.

Hey PL, The draft countdown clock on my Yahoo team page shows the draft starting in 3 hours, 50 minutes, and counting. (6:30PM EST, not 6:30PST)????

Uh-oh.....I dunno.

Mine is right. It says starting in 5:30 and however many seconds.

I just logged in now, and now it's correct. 5:24

I think the difference in our opinions here, JL, is that you think I'm undervaluing closers.

You think that a save should be worth more positive points than a blown save is worth negative points.

I think, on the other hand, that since the league average for converted save opportunities is around 85%, a blown save has much more of a negative impact than converting a save opportunity has a positive one.

In other words, at an 85% success rate, it's "easy" to get a save, but "difficult" to blow one.

So because I value saves for less than what may be "traditional", that pulls the value of closers down in worth relative to set-up men.

As you say, though, the rules are the same for everyone....

Half Hour Away!! Please get in the draft room early if you can -- it won't wait for ya!

So do you just go into the draft room and chill so to speak? I'm in the area and I see that some of you guys have yahoo messenger (more of an msn messenger man myself) and whatever. I guess I'm all set and ready to go. Any last minute stuff that I've gotta know??

There's a live chat in the draft room where we can bitch at each other for taking the whole 90 seconds per pick. So around the 1.5-hour mark, things will start getting ugly.

draft finally done. trades anyone???

1 hr 32 mins - half hour shorter than I figured!

How grueling. :p

T.M. you're talking trades already hermano?

Hmmm, I'm actually not all that disappointed (YET!) with my draft.... come May I'm sure Plaw will have stolen all my studs from me for a bunch of rookies, tho...

I'm not too disapointed. Except I only have 2 RP. Plaw will be so pleased.

yeah I think I went this bad!

just kidding! actually, having to play a real RF instead of 3 random outfielders will hurt me, but I have big hopes in my two top young men Wright and Bay.

I'll offer you my usual bag of potato chips.

Gotta go smoke now.....nicotine fit

AROD is available for the right price. A hefty price.

Uhh.....

I guess there are several trades in my future.

That only took an hour and a half, not two hours.

Record time for 225 picks.

90 minutes, 5400 seconds, an average of 24 seconds per pick.

thanks to you guys. I might have averaged 1:49 min per pick!

I actually ran out of time on one of my last picks (Jon Lieber), and the computer picked for me.

I was wondering about that pick.
He sucks, and in that park.......

Same thing happened to me with one of mine.

He did win 17 games...Anyway, I'm very satisfied with my team.
I'll do some fine tuning later.

I just got home from class to find I ended up with 2 Dodgers... Good enough. And no Angels, which is even better, because you know I would have thrown them out on their asses immediately, whether anyone wanted to trade or not!

I have Clemens... is he even playing this season? Other than that, I know one or two guys, and I have a bunch of names that sound familiar, but I don't really know who they are.

I'm all packed up and ready for my move into the basement. :p

The Rocket is a gamble as to if he's playing this season, an Prior is injured, and pretty much is iffy about his season too. All I can say is pass the sunny d.

Someone brought the following question to my attention earlier today:

"If you have a pitcher who is listed as both a SP and a RP, and you have him in your starting lineup on a given day as a RP, and he winds up making a start that day, does that start count against your 162 game limit for starts?"

I discussed it with JG and DB, and we all agreed that it should count, however if anyone else wishes to offer an opinion to the contrary, feel free to do so.

I don't care either way because it probably won't effect my team. I'd assume that people that are using spot starters as relievers, wouldn't want to waste a start on these guys.

Right...that was the assumption.

Altho someone could argue that they intentionally drafted "combo" guys, thinking that if they had them in there as relievers and they wound up starting a game then that game wouldn't count against their 162 game total, someone else could argue that they intentionally did not draft these guys because they were afraid that if they had them in as relievers and they started a game here and there then that start would count, and they didn't want to waste one of their 162 starts on the guy.

Since it wasn't spelled out 100% clearly in the rules, we figured that since "games started" was a stat category, and since you got one point for each game started, and when you reached 162 in that category you stop getting points for starts, that a start made by anyone -starter or reliever - should count against the 162.

Now it's just something else to keep an eye on.

If you have a spot starter that you're using as a reliever, you may want to pay attention to see if he's scheduled to start and put him on your bench if you don't want to use up one of your 162 games on him that day.

I ASSume that position players will count at the position we chose them to start. If we have an outfielder that plays all 3 positions, and we have him playing LF, he will be counted as a LF'er even if he starts at CF?

Correct.

There's really no other way for Yahoo to do it.

Supose you have Javy Lopez as your starting catcher and he starts the game at 1B, then goes behind the plate in the 6th inning.

What could they do? Only count his at bats from the time he was catcher?

If you have a guy who plays more than one position in your starting lineup, then the points count regardless of what position he actually plays, and the game counts against your 162 at the position you have him in your starting lineup at, regardless of what position he actually plays in the game.

If they didn't do it that way, then guys like Ryan Freel would be worthless because you never know from day to day what position he's gonna play.

Ok....

Hey, if it is ok to talk trades now, I'm gonna go on the record and state that I am willing to trade anyone on my team for a bag of peanuts, a box of cracker jacks and a mail-order bride (of my choosing of course). However all three must be included for the deal to work. Anybody interested?? :p

After those pics you posted of Mark Pierce, maybe we should choose your bride for you.

J/K, buddy! (kinda)

Meet JG.

He traded away Lebron James for a bag of potato chips, with no mail-order bride included.

That's cuz you took advantage of me. And didn't even leave a tip when you left. :rolleyes:

You can find your tip HERE

Let's not start THAT up again!!

All I can say for the last six posts is " ". Especially the tip. Man, this is gonna be a fun season. :p

But yeah... JG, what were you thinking with that Lebron thing? I still want to know the logic behind that one. No matter what PL could have said or done... I'm not understanding it.

Wow...plenty of action in the waiver/free agent market.

Bethie fills her hole at Relief Pitcher, and PL, JL, and DB do some roster tweaking.

And a trade already:

TM trades Mike Cameron & Richie Sexon

to

LZ for Carl Crawford & Chad Tracy

Just a few words about trade procedures:

The league is set up so that only the commissioner can veto or disallow a trade.

Just so everyone knows...the only time I will disallow or veto a trade is in a case where I believe there is collusion between the two people making the trade and the trade is obviously designed to really help one team at the expense of the other.

If anyone suspects that to be the case, feel free to PM me and express your concerns. If it involves a trade that I made, then PM either JG or DB.


Didn't I explain it to you once?

At the time of the trade it looked like JG was gonna get help at two or three positions, and there would be a net increase in his scoring average.

Oh yeah. But still! (And I think that's what I said when you explained it the first time too... "but still!")

What a coinky dink. Old poster McClusky's Veal goes by the same name. His pic wasn't that disgusting though.

j/k...I'm assuming you meant Mary Pierce.

Is there a reason I don't know about, for nobody drafting Clint Barmes??

Not that I'm aware of...I'd guess that because he missed half the season and his total stats weren't up there with the leaders, people just missed him.

I didn't pay much attention to other SS's drafted because I took Reyes so high. Barmes was among the SS leaders in fantasy baseball until his freak injury, and most cheat sheets had him has one of the top picks for SS this year.

Alright, maybe the pics I posted of Mary Pierce are not the best photos she has taken. However, I still maintain that Mary Pierce is hottt in her own way, plus she was born in Montreal and that means something, to me at least. However I maintain that my taste in women is nothing short of impeccable. If you care to dispute this please check out my posts in the "female hotties" thread and where ever else I may have taken the opportunity to post pictures of beautiful women. Having said this if anyone on here does know of a service that deals in mail order brides and can set the whole thing up, please do let me know either through a p.m., email, or publicly. We can discuss the details of the trade and whatnot at a time to be decided after I look at several nude and non nude pictures of the mail order bride. :p

Oh yeah, not for nothing, but Don Malta, I don't recall you posting too many pics in the "female hotties" or "fellas" threads. What gives bro? :p

When do we get to put guys on the DL? I already have someone that is going to be out 6 weeks. :rolleyes:

My guess is when the "real-life" Disabled List goes into effect.

Real-life teams don't need one yet, because they can always put guys on retroactively back to a certain date, so I suspect that they don't have to do it until opening day (or maybe the day before) when they announce their 25-man rosters.

I did, however, write to Yahoo just to make sure my assumption is correct.

plawrence
Your Commissioner

--------------------
Working harder to serve you better.....

Here 'ya go, JL...

My question:

My custom league is set up to have 5 DL positions. I understand that players can only be put on the DL if they are on the "real-life" DL, but when will
that feature become available?

Correct me if I am wrong, but I would think that some players are on the real life Disabled List already.

The managers in my league who have players to whom this would apply would like to be able to put them in the DL as soon as possible so that they may replace them as soon as possible.

Thank you in advance for what I anticipate will be your usual prompt response.

Here's what Yahoo wrote back. They have a tendency in answering questions to simply provide you with all of the information that pertain to that particular subject and hope that somewhere in there is the answer to the question,

Anyway.....

Hello Paul,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Fantasy Sports.

MLB will not release a DL list until the season starts.

In order to be placed into the DL position for Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball, the player must be on the official MLB DL. Player injury information is updated nightly based on official information.

Therefore, there may be a delay between the time that the player is placed on the DL and the designation appearing in Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball. Similarly, a player may be activated on the day of a game. If a manager places them into their active lineup for that day, they will receive scoring for the statistics earned by that player.

All Public Leagues have one DL spot, while Private League commissioners can choose to have up to five (5) DL positions.

Players cannot be added directly from the Available Players list into the DL spot on your roster. They must first be added to your roster. If your roster if full, you will be prompted to drop a player.

When a player is placed on "DL", it will show as one of their positions in the drop-down menu. Select "DL" and then hit the "submit changes" button. This will create the DL spot and you will be able to pick up another player.

If you have moved a player to the DL spot and wish to claim a new player from the available players list, make sure that the injured player has been moved to the DL spot for today and tomorrow's lineups.

Once on the DL, a player may stay there for the entire season, even if they return to real-life action. However, once a player comes off the real-life DL, you will not be able to complete any transactions until you remove them from your team's DL. You will, however, be able to make
intra-roster moves (switching players between bench and active) regardless of a player's DL status.

You can also use your bench spots to house injured players. If you have no available DL or bench positions, or if your league doesn't allow them, you will need to drop the injured player from your roster if you want to pick up another player.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Marshall
Yahoo! Customer Care

So I would say my guess was correct. When it becomes necessary for the teams to come out with their real-life DLs - basically cut-down day, when they make their final decisions on which players will constitute their 25-man roster, that's when we will have the option of putting guys on our DLs,

plawrence
Commissioner

Less than 121 hours away from the first pitch of 2006.

Shouldn't we be counting in minutes, at least?

On my fantasy web site, I have a countdown until the first lineup must be set - partially to scare all of the players by putting their lives on a timer, and partially for my own happiness, because it just warms my heart to think about how close it is to the beginning of "life."

Eh?!?!?! Is it April yet?! Wake me up on Apr. 4 eh?! Make sure you wake me up before 7:15pm when The Blue Jays start beating The Minnesota Twins!!!

About 107 hours to go now, or around 6400 minutes.

Ohhhhhhhh....stat boy starts early.
:p

Can't put that caclulator to better use in the Yahoo Basketball thread? :p

Already Bethie w/ a pre-season trade request?! I've been studying high-and-low and cannot make up my mind... I sure wish I could predict the future! :p

But FWIW, I normally am not crazy about trading before the season actually starts... besides that, Plaw left a bad taste in my mouth about trading in general!

Trading away LeBron for a bag of potato chips will do that to you! :p

...and they weren't even Sour Cream & Onion flavored :rolleyes:

You should have held out for some tongue! :p

You two are gonna give me a bad rap and make all the newbies afraid to trade with me.

The Lebron trade seemed fair at the time, it just didn't work out for JG.

Ask JG about his other great moves, like simply cutting Antowan Jamison and Gerald Wallace.

He didn't even get back a bag of chips for either of those guys.

No..Bethie is the requestee.. Say no. It's no sweat off my nose..hahaha.

Hmmmmm.... that means you regret requesting the trade, and I should say YES!!! :p

But then again, you *are* a chick... who knows what you're thinking, really... :p

Hmmmmm.... that means you regret requesting the trade, and I should say YES!!! :p

But then again, you *are* a chick... who knows what you're thinking, really... :p [/b][/quote]I didn't request the trade. Could you refresh my memory on what trade request you are referring to. I must be having a senior moment.

Less than 3 1/2 days to go.....

Everyone all excited?

You get excited over what you want, I'll get excited over what I want. I'm more confused then anything.

Oops, my bad!

I saw "Bedroom Bombers" and thought it was you for some reason...

I think that's Don Andrew. How can you not know who "San Diego or bust is"? :p

I'm glad it's you who's going senile and not me.

Ah yes... the "bust" should've given it away.

And besides, it's not like you bomb in the bedroom, right?

I actually read "bedroom" as "basement" for some reason... I guess I am getting senile...

I think maybe because it's initials are bb, and that's my baseball initials.

I didn't want to touch the "I must bomb in the bedroom" scenerio, but I was thinking it.

Hey, I'm still offering anybody on my squad to anyone in the fantasy game for a bag of peanuts, a box of cracker jacks and a mail order bride. No one is interested? :p

Poor Orioles fans. Anna Benson has filed for divorce from new Oriole Kris Benson. Now, what do we do for entertainment? She's filing for divorce on grounds the marraige has be irreversibly broken down.

Does the thought of moving to Baltimore bother her that much?

Now that she is available, if anyone can persuade Anna Benson's crazy but beautiful ass to by my woman, I would trade all the stud players on my team plus a bag of peanuts, a box of cracker jacks and a 2 4 of the beer of your choice, and by your choice I mean MY choice (Molson Canadian, Labatt's, Carling, M.G.D., Budweiser, Coors etc.) Hell, I'll also throw in a bottle of your favourite liquor (and by your favourite, I mean MY favourite((s)) (((Canadian Club, Canadian Mist, Crown Royal, Seagram's, Yukon Jack, Dr. McGillicuddy's etc.)))) :p

that would be me now, are you waiting the season to start so you see who's playing better??? :p the fact is Varitek has demanded a trade. he'd hit in the 8th spot of my lineup and he told me he wants to go. I don't care if I'm lowering (does this word exist?) his tradind value, the fact is he's not being a good influence in the clubhouse.

Why do you hate Varitek so much??

hey I don't hate him at all! actually I really like him as a player, only not that much as a fantasy player.

I don't know if Plaw wants to do his "extended stats" for this game or not, but here're the point totals for Day 1:

April 2 Results

Gkad you mentioned "extended stats"

I had originally said that I would determine the waiver priority order based not only on the standings, but on the standings based on "Projected Points" (like I do in basketball), rather than on the raw point totals that Yahoo provides.

However.....I realized when attempting to figure out "Projected Points" there is a lot of work involved, since there are three separate components involved - Starting Pitching, Relief Pitching, and Offense - all of which have to be treated and weighted differently.

So....I'm just gonna adjust the waiver order every day based on the Yahoo standings.

After everyone's team "settles in" there aren't gonna be that many waiver claims anyway (I don't think).

What I will do every 5-7 days or so is post a standings which are based on projected points scored for the season so everyone has an idea of how the are doing relative to everyone else when taking into account how many games of their maximums they have used up, and when I do it the first time, I'll post the formula.

Another little glitch which I've noticed is yahoo's failure to give us two essential pieces of information:

1- A running total of how many games we've used at each offensive position (again, as they do in basketball) so we can monitor our own progress towards the 162 game maximum.

I have to believe, though, that since they offer as part of the game set-up a "maximum number of games at each position (for non-pitchers)" that this information will be forthcoming eventually, and if it doesn't appear within the next few days I'll write to Yahoo and ask them what's going on.

If necesaary, that's something I can keep track of manually and post every day.

2- The other bit of info which they don't seem to be offering as of yet is the "Game Log" for each team.

That's the little thingy that keeps track of how many points, category by category, each of your players has scored for you, and that's the raison d'etre for having made "Starts" by a SP a stat category.

The thinking was that by looking at your "Game Log" it would tell you how many starts anyone you had ever used as a SP had made when you had that SP in your lineup as a starter.

Since that seems to be absent (so far) as well, that's another bit of info that, if necessary, I will keep track of manually and post daily.

So, JG......

In answer to your question.....

I will come up with some kind of "extended stats" posting every day which contains the information that we all need.

I'm just not sure yet what it should (and will) include, and probably won't be for at least a gfew days until we see what info Yahoo is gonna give us and what we're gonna have to figure out ourselves, and also I want to wait until we have a few more games under our belts so the stas start to take on a little bit of meaning.

So for now, just the standings and a raw points total is fine.

The only addition I made to your post is an accounting of the number of starts by your starting pitchers ("SPU" - "Starting Pitchers Used"), since that's a key stat in the march to the 162 game maximum, and one that that greatly affects the standings.

( NB...I also changed Don Jasini's initials from the "JA" you called him to the "DJ" that I think I've been calling him all along).

Just for the record, in case anyone has forgotton....

I only used JA instead of DJ cuz DJ means Double-J in these parts, but whichever....

[Whine Alert]

Arrrggghhh, friggin' Pirates bullpen.

[/Whine Alert]

You need more than one whine alert for that, my friend! 16 pts outta Perez is pretty good. I only got 5 from Carpenter, and freakin' -7 from Zambrano!! :rolleyes:

Commissioner's Rulings:

1- In anticipation of getting an additional 7 points from Perez for the win, DB's whine was permissable with only one whine alert.

2- JG failed to provide us with a whine alert in his whine about Carpenter and Zambrano.

plawrence
Commissioner

--------------------
Working harder to serve you better

Nomar Garciapara is such a pu**y. I think his wife is more of a man then he is.

Thank GOD for Andruw Jones.

I think you're in the wrong thread, Bethie.

I have Andruw Jones in this game. You have him in the Salary Cap game.

Which thread am I in again? I have him in Salary Cap..Where am I at? I think I need a map.

I'm just used to seeing baseball in the title and talking some smack. Now we have to be careful. I'm not liking this already.

Oh yeah, (whine alert)

Lehr got the win. Had Perez gotten it, there's be NO reason to whine at all. It's bad enough whining about 16 pts, which is gonna be a great line this year with our scoring, I think.

In a few days we'll see if pitching is valued correctly or not. :p

Very true... But if Perez had gotten the win, I don't think I would have written "Friggin' Pirates bullpen"! :p

My pain was alleviated when Turnbow picked up the save in the same game.

You don't have to wait a few days.

Pitching is valued at somewhat less than it is in the Salary Cap game - where we always said it was too high - because there will be a negative value for pitcher's losses which should be not quite be offset by points awarded for starts, saves, and holds.

Just look at last year's scoring totals for this game, and see what percentage of the points were for pitching and what percentage were for offense.

Don't forget...Even though you're not getting points for the SP's win when the bullpen gets it as you would in the Salary Cap game (and as DB would have for Pittsburgh today), and only getting points for what the SP himself accomplishes, that's being made up for the separate points that you're getting for relief pitching (as DB points out with his comment about Turnbow's points).

To avoid the technical mumbo jumbo on the Official Baseball Rules... What is a Hold?

Well, Manny had a base hit and a walk, Coco Crisp had a base hit and two runs. Freakin Ordonez went 0 for and he's batting a godly .000 :rolleyes: Suzuki has 1 basehit in 4 ab so far and it's tied in the 8th. Carlos Delgado had a base on balls and nothing more. Man, he's not on my team (I didn't draft first ) but Fat Albert Pujols had 2 HR, 4 RBI, 3 R and 2 BB, oh yeah and he's starting off the season batting 1.000 Chipper Jones had a great game today too. I 'm interested in seeing how Barry Bonds deals with the pressure of being an enormous steroid filled asshole and who wins The Yankee/Athletic game.

Don Sicilia, I believe that a Hold falls between a Win and a Save. In other words when a reliever comes into a game with his team in the lead, but does not reach the required amount of innings or batters to get credit for a save, it is reffered to as him Holding the lead or getting a hold for his appearance. He held the lead for his team in his relief appearance.


Don Cardi

Cardi's right... that's what middle relievers get credited with when they don't fuck up (that's tech jargon, see the rule book! ) a lead -- it makes them feel like they've earned something.

Since this game only gives you 2 points for a save, closers aren't much more valuable than scrubs. I only got 5 points for Wagner and a save, and 4 points from Burgos in a KC Loss. :rolleyes:

Yeah, I think something's screwy regardless of what Plaw says. :p Shields pitched only 1.1 innings, got the W, and I got 12 points. Schmidt pitched 7 innings, gave up only 4 runs, and I have 4 pts from him (so far).

I'm sure Plaw's formula is just fine, but that's why I said in a few days I'll get more of a feel for scoring - I'd rather see it in action than have it explained to me for the 8th time.

The two leagues that I am in give 4 points for a save.


Don Cardi

My leagues gave us 5. I tried my best to get PL to reconsider, but I couldn't do it.

The big diference, JG, is that Shields got 7 points for the win, otherwise he only gets 5 points.

In the ESPN game, all of Shields' points would have gone to the Angels pitching staff, so if you had Colon you'd be happy.

This game just rewards the accomplishment of the individual player on a pitching staff, not the staff as a whole.

Again....

Just look at last year’s stats:

The top 25 offensive players ranged from 560 points to 737

The top 25 starting pitchers ranged from 339 points to 630

The top 25 closers ranged from 122 points to 294

The top 25 relievers who were not closers ranged from 112 points to 222.

What looks like it’s wrong with that? The scoring and the relative proportions and everything look OK to me.

If this year proves to be a statistical freak and a bunch a middle relievers get the win in an unusual amount of games and wind up with a lot more points than could have been expected, I can’t help that.

Shields won the first game of the season. For the whole year he may wind up 5-3 or something for a net of +17.

And, as far as what other leagues do and how many points they award for a particular caregory, that means nothing.

Everything has to be looked at and evaluated in the context of the scoring system for the league we are talking about.

They give 5 points for a save. Do they deduct anything for a blown save, which has much more impact on a game than a save with a three run lead does?

Yeah, JL tried to convince me to give 5 points for the save, but I don't remember any other argument as to why we should except "that's the way the other leagues I've been in do it"

Why 7 points for a win? Why not 6 or 5? Why one point for each total base? Why one point for an RBI?

Why anything?

because I attempted to create a scoring system in which the proportion of offense to pitching, and starting pitching to relief pitching seemed to be about "right".

You know, for three years we played the ESPN game, and everyone pretty much agreed that they picked their pitching staff every day based on who the starting pitcher was and paid little attention to that team's bullpen.

Then everyone moaned when a starter went out and pitched 8 great innings, left the game at +25 or something, and watched as the reliever gave up three runs in the 9th, turned the +25 that could have been a +35 with a win into a wasted +13 or so, and said how much better the game would be if you got only the points from your starting pitcher and the relievers didn't count.

Since the SP was the basis for your pick, if he did well, you did well. If he did poorly, so did you.

So I create a scoring system which rewards the achievements of the individual player rather than a whole staff, and because one day one guy gets a lot of points because he happened to get a win, you have doubts about that allready.

If you can't analyze it before the season plays out to figure out if anything is wrong with it, but have to wait until after the games are played so you can apply 20-20 hindsight, something is wrong there.

As I said above, the relative totals for the different categories of players and the proportions look OK to me.

Why don't you look at them and see if they look OK to you?

The only thing that's "screwy" to you is the 7 points that Shields got for the win, which made his total 12.

But a win is a win. Someone on the Angels should get those points, shouldn't they?

Or maybe relievers shouldn't be eligible for "win points" because they don't pitch enough innings or something.

All my baseball life I've complained about the MLB system wherein a pitcher can go 8 great innings and leave with the score tied 0-0 or 1-1, and watch his team score one run in one inning for a reliever and see the reliever get the win, but that's the way MLB does it.

If there was some system whereby the game's official scorer awarded the win to the pitcher who deserved it the most, that would be preferable in my mind, but since there isn't, we're stuck with the system that MLB uses.

Middle relievers don't even need to get a win. When A closer pitches a 1-2-3 ninth inning, gets a save, and only gets 1 more point than a reliever that comes in a game, in the 9th, with his team losing, IMO something is wrong.

Barry Zito

First of all, he gets two points for the save, so the closer gets 5 points and the other guy gets 3.

And if MLB would change the save rule to something meaningful I'd agree with you.

How about the closer that comes in with a 3 run lead, gives up two runs, and gets credit for a save?

Something is wrong there, IMO.

Way too many saves are really "cheap" - protecting a 3 run lead is nothing partcularly spectacular.

AAMOF, a reliever who comes into the game with his team losing 2-1 that pitches a 1-2-3 ninth and gives his team a chance to win did as much or more than a closer who comes in with his team winning 7-4 and pitches a 1-2-3 ninth and "saves" the game.

When MLB creates a rule that doesn't award a save unless the reliever faces the tying run, or at least has the tying run on deck, and the runners on base were not his doing, then I'll agree that a save is worth a lot.

But the way it is now, it's ridiculous, IMO.

And these fantasy games which don't deduct anything for a blown save...I can't understand that at all.

A typical reliever saves more than 80% of the games he closes, so a blown save has a tremendous impact on game because it happens relatively rarely. To not penalize the guy for that, but to give him points for saves when he protects a 3 run lead makes no sense to me.

And as far as the middle reliever geting the win, as I said, I'd much prefer a system where the official scorer awards the win to the pitcher who deserves it the most.

But since this is the way they do it, are you suggesting that we only award points for wins to starters?

Can we all get on the same page about when you have to use a "whine alert", or do I have to start assessing "penalty points"? :p

I didn't hear any whining about Roy Oswalt .

Has he been sent to AA yet?

Wagner got me 5 points with a save. Burgos with his 1K, in 1 inning in a 3-1 loss, got me 4 points. There is nothing that will change me my mind that this is not right.

Burgos got 4 points for a 1-2-3 inning and a strikeout.

Wagner got 5 for his inning, and the save. His strikeout was offset by the hit he gave up.

You're doing what JG did: Using one game as an example.

Talk to me when Wagner "saves" a game with a 1-2-3 inning and gets 2 strikeouts in a game with a 3 run lead and gets 7 points, or after a game where he blows a save and vultures a win and gets even more than 7 points, and compare that to a game where a middle reliever pitches a 1-2-3 inning with no strikeouts, keeps his team in a game they are losing 2-1, watches his team get the win in extra innings for another pitcher, gets only 3 points, and tell me who was more valuable that day or who did more to help his team win and who deserved more points, and tell me there was nothing wrong with that.

No system is perfect, and there will always be some inequities if you compare individual games.

So I'll say it yet again:

Look at the scoring from last year and the proportions between the hitters and starters and relievers, and tell me what looks out of whack.

If the worst thing anyone can say is that a closer with 30 saves should have gotten 30 more points, then I would say that the scoring system is pretty good.

At the end of the year, I'm not going to say a closer with 30 saves should have 30 more points. I'm going to say he should have 90 more points.

D.M.C. alright, I know the sample size isn't exactly ginormous but if trends continue... :p

I'd agree with you if saves weren't so cheap.

If, as i said, to earn a save the RP had to at least have the tying run on deck, or, even better, face thre tying ru, that would be a real save.

But these cheap saves where guys "protect a 3 run lead", or give up a couple of runs and still get a save....

In other words, if a save happened about as frequently as the best starters go a win; maybe 18-20-25 times a year, then I'd say that a save is worth what a win is worth.

Also, JL, and here's really the key question: What would you deduct for a blown save if you give 5 points for a successful one?

If you want to give a guy 5 points for a save and you're willing to deduct enough for a blown save to make the proprtions right......

PL, you seem to have a problem with MLB's scoring system, so you're trying to correct it in the game. Right or wrong that isn't how real baseball is right now. "Cheap saves", are still saves. If it were my league, it would 10 points for wins, -5 for loses, 5 points for saves, and -5 for blown saves.

As always, JMO YMMV.

The problem with that is as follows:

Since an average closer converts more than 80% of his opportunities, I can't see why a blown save shouldn't be worth three times as much as a save.

By valuing them equally, a closer who blows half of his opportunities winds up with a net of "0", when he should be deep in the minus column for a performance like that.

A average starter, on the other hand, wins slightly less than 50% of his decisions, so a win should be worth slightly more than a loss so a starter who has a .500 W-L record winds up slightly on the plus side.

As far as my problem with MLB scoring goes, yeah, I think it stinks and I think that saves are a way overvalued statistic.

After all, how important or hard is it to get a save when the average closer does it 80% of the time?

So yes, I made a save less valuable than what the public perception of what the value of a save is.

It's almost like stolen bases in a Roto scoring format.

Some scoring systems give a stolen base with the same value as a home run.

If you have a guy with 40 steals and no homers, and I have a guy with 40 homers and no steals, we each "win" a category, but there isn't a person in the world that thinks the stolen base guy is more valuable to a team than the home run guy is, is there?

"JMO is" "Just my opinion" I guess. What is "YMMV"?

"You may...."? "Yours may...."? "You might...."? "You must...."?

YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary.

I pretty much agree with PL, but when I said...

...I meant, to me, I need to SEE IT PLAY OUT for it to stick in my head. But your 8th, 9th, and 10th explanations above were helpful also....

Hey, we're all in the same boat - no one gets an advantage that I can tell. So if we all suck at pitching, we ALL suck at pitching. Doesn't really effect overall scores...

Gotta remember that one.

quote:

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Originally posted by J Geoff:
your 8th, 9th, and 10th explanations above were helpful also....

plawrence
Your Commissioner

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