Here’s today’s chat transcript. Thanks for playing.

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Fantasy waiver wires have been closed for over a month, and real world free agency is about to begin. Major league clubs are “better” than ever at hunting for value. They’ve all developed similar models for evaluating players which has left several notable free agents on the dole in recent seasons. The 2018-2019 winter is scripted to break the trends. Even with Clayton Kershaw already off the market, there’s a healthy supply of star and superstar talent available. But what about ordinary folk? Some of them will be left bat in hand.

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Last week, I kicked off my new offseason series on custom league designs with a 2×2 roto format. It pits quantity against quality. This time around, we’ll shift towards an uncommon draft style that already exists in the fantasy ecosystem: the Split Auction.

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Here is today’s chat transcript which started a little catcher heavy before moving on to other topics.

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Yesterday, I sat down to write this article only to discover there was another topic I had to cover first. Classic 5×5 Roto is one of the original forms of fantasy sports. And, despite attempts to tinker with the inputs, it remains the king of fantasy baseball.

A common change to the classic 5×5 categories is to swap out pitcher wins for quality starts. Although all agree a quality start doesn’t exactly measure its name – after all, a six inning, three run performance is pretty mediocre – everybody also agrees the stat is less capricious than pitcher wins. This season, Jacob deGrom won 10 games with a 1.70 ERA over 217 innings. He led the league in quality starts. Ryan Yarbrough won 16 games with a 3.91 ERA in 147.1 innings. He only made six starts, none of which were a quality start. Yeah, wins are sloppy.

Despite the flaws with wins, they’ve become vastly preferable to their number one alternative. It’s time to ditch the quality start. Don’t believe me? Behold, a table!
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League design is something I greatly enjoy. In my more innocent days, I believed in using stats that most closely mirrored on field performance. For example, replacing batting average with OPS or using quality starts instead of wins.

Time and math – mostly the math to be honest – taught me that the best fantasy experiences have nothing to do with accurately estimating real world values. Instead, the name of the game is managerial flexibility. Put another way, how many different strategies and tactics can I use and still contend? The top formats like classic 5×5 roto allow for dramatic mid-season pivots. It’s not simply a matter of zigging when others zag, I want the option to zeg, zog, and zug* as needed.

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Over the offseason, I’m going to endeavor to “invent” about 15 leagues – roughly one per week up until March, excluding vacations. This is the first entry in the series. Let’s kick things off with a real mindbender – 2×2 Roto.

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Here is today’s chat transcript:

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I really wanted an excuse to use that headline. This post isn’t directly about Victor Mesa Jr. and Victor Victor Mesa, although I will be referencing their scouting reports. Also, there’s a fun pun-ish connection between the headline and my conclusion. Layers!

I’ve already botched this intro. Let’s pretend I wrote a normal paragraph laying out today’s topic is a cogent manner. Oh! The topic is “y’all too &@%*ing crazy about prospects.” Proceed.

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UPDATE: A co-manager has been selected. Thank you to all who applied.

I’d like to thank all those who applied in response to last Thursday’s talent search for the Screw Cancer ottoneu league. We raised over $300 for charity in the process. Unfortunately, we only had one open spot thus quite a few applicants were left hat in hand. Today, I have a fresh new opportunity to play fantasy baseball and battle cancer.

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