Experimental League: Utility Wars

On New Years Day, I promised I would create a number of experimental leagues. Today I’m unveiling the first – Utility Wars. There is a method to my madness when designing these experimental leagues. In recent seasons, I’ve been unable to keep up with the sheer volume of industry leagues I get roped into, so I’m cutting down on most of them.

I plan to play a dynasty, ottoneu, sim (2005 season), home, college, and MLBTR league. The latter is my only redraft. But I love draft season way too much to have only three normal leagues. These experimental formats will combine my love of drafts with a minimum of in-season management.

Utility Wars is a 20-team auction draft with points scoring roughly-based on linear weights. The positions are as follows: six utility, six bench. That’s it. That’s everything. Owners will have $120 to draft their 12 players.

You will not be allowed to trade. You will not be allowed to use the waiver wire. There is no disabled list. You pick a team, and you live with it. Simply manage your 12 players. Ignore everybody else. Except for banter – that’s always encouraged. It should take no more than a couple minutes a day to stay on top of your roster.

The non-standard nature of the league may flummox your attempts to use normal resources for valuations. Widely available ADP and auction values won’t be directly applicable. The FanGraphs auction calculator has the proper categories, but it breaks when you try to exclude pitchers. Good luck trying to proxy your way through that (it can be done). Without positional adjustments and normal 5×5 scoring, there’s plenty of unusual prep work to be done.

Now here is your chance to join this league or others like it. Use this sign up sheet to apply to be a part of the league. The nine reserved spots will go to other industry folks. The draft will be at 7:00 pm ET on March 7. This is not up for discussion. If you are unavailable at that time, please do not apply to the main league.

The sign up sheet includes a column labelled “Willing to commish.” If you’re open to running a second league, please write “yes” in that column. I will contact commissioners as needed based on the number of overall applicants. Most of the heavy lifting will be up to you including any wrinkles you would like to add, i.e. trading or waiver moves.