Remember These Guys? – In Praise of Sim Leagues

Here at RotoGraphs, we mostly write about traditional fantasy leagues. It’s in the name of the site – ‘Roto’ Graphs. Somehow, the term roto has come to stand in for not only a popular scoring method, but all typical fantasy formats. I’ve had the etymology explained to me, and it doesn’t make a damned lick of sense.

We also spend a fair amount of time discussing ottoneu. Surprise! It’s our own personal contribution to the fantasy baseball panoply. At it’s best, ottoneu is more than a keeper league but not as onerous as a true dynasty format. We like it, and we tell you about it. During the season, we’ll also cover Daily Fantasy (aka DFS). Brandon Warne’s known to spill a word or three about scoresheet baseball.

Today, let’s talk about sim leagues.

Unlike most fantasy formats which use actual events in real time to score your team, sim leagues put everything that happened into a black box and then simulate games. Sims are typically set in past seasons. My league is set 11 years in the past. I’m currently playing out the 2006 season – we just entered May. It’s an interesting wrinkle because current performance can still be relevant. When I traded for Zack Greinke prior to the 2005 season, the potential for more dominant seasons helped me to pull the trigger.

Undoubtedly, there are many sim providers out on the marketplace. I only know of two. I’ve been hearing about Out of the Park (OOTP) for the last dozen years. I assume they are the leader in this space since they are most visible. We use Tom Tippett’s Diamond Mind Baseball (DMB).

OOTP is already offering 2017 leagues which tells me that their simulation experience is much different than that of DMB. Our league uses the performance stats from the season in question. For example, Nomar Garciaparra’s numbers are split by handedness. I can intuit how he’ll perform against righties and lefties. In 2006, he posted a solid .839 OPS versus righties. This is listed as B-grade power. His 1.020 OPS versus southpaws is A-grade.

Defense is also graded. Garciaparra is a first baseman in 2006. He’s assigned C-grade range, meaning he’s neither an agile cat nor a rooted tree. He’s also assigned an error rate of ‘059.’ That means he makes errors at a rate of 59 percent of league average. For comparison, Alfonso Soriano has C/204 defense, meaning he has passable range and regularly butchers plays. Outfielders also receive an A-to-F letter grade for throwing arm. Other graded skills include bunting, running, stealing, and jumping. There are also categories for health (Iron, normal, prone, very prone), hit type (spray or pull), and clutch ability (normal or terror).

The pitching side of things is even more fun. Prior to our most recent draft, I stumbled through creating a sort of pseudo-FIP for this league. It looks remarkably like xFIP. The simulator doesn’t account for HR/FB rate. Pitchers are automatically regressed to league average no matter how poorly they actually performed. So while some of my leaguemates are paying for pitchers with good ERAs and a low HR/FB rates, I made affordable acquisitions of James Shields and Ricky Nolasco.

Our 20 team league has a few unique wrinkles which add to the fun. It’s called Gruntleball because players have to be ‘gruntled’ in order to be kept. This means they have to play 80 percent of their real world usage, measured by plate appearances for hitters and batters faced for pitchers. For example, if Soriano had 600 PA, I’d have to play him at least 480 PA in order to keep him. It’s a dynasty sim. After reaching 105 percent of their real world plate appearances, they become hobbled – that is, slightly worse than replacement level.

After building our teams – up to 50 players with a 25-man active roster – we set lineups, player tendencies (never bunt!!!), pinch hitters, defensive replacements, and pitching roles. The games are run by the Computer Manager or CM. It’s not particularly smart. My team has Mark DeRosa as a super utility man, but there’s no way for me to signal that I want him to start at SS then move to 3B if Joe Crede gets swapped out in a double switch.

Once everything is set, the games are simulated. We usually do two per day so rosters can be managed accordingly. Here’s a boxscore from my most recent game (sorry, the last column for AVG is cut off). The Colorado A Team (me) won this unusual Coors Field pitchers duel. I usually succeed with a mash-and-bash approach.

                       1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9     R  H  E   LOB DP
2006 Atoms             0  0  0  0  0  0  1  0  0     1  2  1     5  0
2006 A-Team            0  0  0  0  1  0  0  2  x     3  4  1     7  1
 
Atoms                AB  R  H BI   AVG    A-Team               AB  R  H BI   AVG
Mauer             c   4  0  0  0  .398    Napoli            c   4  0  0  0  .141
Beltran           cf  4  0  0  0  .262    Garciaparra       1b  3  1  1  0  .317
Wells,V           rf  3  0  0  0  .292    Soriano,A         lf  3  1  0  0  .319
Ibanez            lf  3  0  0  0  .247    Damon             cf  4  0  1  0  .339
 Baldelli         ph  1  0  0  0  .273    Glaus             ss  1  0  0  0  .250
Teixeira          1b  2  1  0  0  .268    Crede             3b  3  1  1  1  .192
Anderson,M        2b  3  0  0  0  .244     Embree           p   0  0  0  0  .000
 Ensberg          ph  1  0  0  0  .286     Blanco,H         ph  1  0  1  2  .364
Furcal            ss  2  0  0  0  .252     Marte,Da         p   0  0  0  0  .000
Sanchez,F         3b  3  0  2  1  .413    DeRosa            2b  4  0  0  0  .294
Zambrano,C        p   2  0  0  0  .200    Kapler            rf  3  0  0  0  .192
 Ross,D           ph  1  0  0  0  .237    Santana,E         p   2  0  0  0  .188
 Oliver           p   0  0  0  0  .500     Branyan          3b  1  0  0  0  .281
 Nathan           p   0  0  0  0  .000                         29  3  4  3
                     29  1  2  1
 
Atoms                            INN  H  R ER BB  K PCH STR   ERA
Zambrano,C                       6.0  2  1  1  3  9 102  62  3.93
Oliver           L 0-2           1.2  1  2  2  2  2  36  21  8.56
Nathan                           0.1  1  0  0  0  0   5   2  1.56
                                 8.0  4  3  3  5 11 143  85 
 
A-Team                           INN  H  R ER BB  K PCH STR   ERA
Santana,E                        6.2  1  1  1  2  7 107  66  2.55
Embree           BS 1, W 2-0     1.1  1  0  0  0  2  11  10  4.85
Marte,Da         S 1             1.0  0  0  0  1  1  19  10  6.75
                                 9.0  2  1  1  3 10 137  86

You might notice that Crede was indeed double switched. Russell Branyan (F/124 3B defense) was called upon. Ideally, DeRosa would have moved to third base with Ramon Santiago coming off the bench to play second base. Or, actually, Glaus to third, DeRosa to shortstop, and Santiago to second.

At some point during this game, Milton Bradley injured himself despite never stepping on field. That sounds just like Bradley to me. Kudos to the simulator.

Below our boxscore reports is a complete play-by-play so we can see exactly what stupid things our players did. This particular game was fairly clean. Troy Glaus made an error while playing shortstop. Yea, he’s shortstop eligible in 2006, and his D/089 defense isn’t terrible.

Since this is a simulation, there’s opportunity for substantial good and bad luck. My team is supposed to be the third best in my five team division, about eight wins worse than the second best team and 20 wins worse than the best unit. I should finish about 10th overall. However, I’m currently leading my division with an 18-9 record – third best in league. I began the season with a six game sweep of the team that should be second.

I went into 2006 targeting the 2008 season as my best shot at a championship. My quick start has me searching the trade blocks for reinforcements, particularly in my shaky bullpen. While this sort of thing happens in traditional fantasy too, it feels completely different when you’re pulling a lucky win via 10th inning Bobby Abreu throwing error.

If you’re ever offered the opportunity to join a good sim league, I recommend taking it. They’re an unique experience and loads of fun.