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.
