The Best Settings For Your Fantasy Baseball League
From time to time, I’ll hear reference to BeerGraphs as if we’re trying to legislate which beers are actually the best with our numbers. I don’t really think that’s the aim — we research beer trends and report what the numbers say, and we try to offer different ways to slice available numbers so that you can make more informed decisions. There’s no way to analytically prove which beer is the best.
There’s no way to analytically prove which settings are the best for your fantasy league. It’s fantasy, it’s not real, and so whatever settings you decide are just the rules for the game you are about to play. Different settings do beget different styles of analysis, though, so it’s worth a little thinking to get it right, especially if you are about to start a league that you hope will be around a while.
I’ve got 15 leagues. I’ll just write about the pros and cons of each. Maybe that’ll help.
5×5 Old-School Roto
(BA/R/RBI/HR/SB and K/ERA/WHIP/Saves/Wins)
I’ll admit something. 5×5 is my favorite. It’s just the classic game. We know that games aren’t decided by these stats, but that’s okay. When fantasy baseball was born, these were the scoring categories. Saves and steals may become the bane of your existence — they’re flighty, require stringent waiver work, and have little to do with the outcomes of real-life games. But this is the game we decided to play. If you can’t all be at the computer as often as each other, throw a waiver period on there. Give everyone $100 Free Agency Auction Budget (FAAB), and then they have to decide how much they want to spend on that new closer, and everyone who logs in on that day/week gets a shot at the player. But if you look at these five categories, you’ll notice some balance. Power players dominate two offensive categories while speedier on-base guys have a chance to help in three. Starting pitchers are needed for strikeouts and wins, but you still have to have good relievers to help keep the ratios down and get saves.
4×4 Old-School Roto
(BA/RBI/HR/SB and ERA/WHIP/Saves/Wins)
Some think this is the classic game, but you have to be specific about which eight categories you’re talking about. The very first roto games didn’t have runs or strikeouts, but that’s just weird. A batting average / RBI / HR / SB setup weights power over on-base skills to the point that speed guys are almost an after-thought. And taking strikeouts out of the game, at this point, seems crazy. They’re huge. You could put together a great team without any front-line starters — all relievers and some ground-ball guys, and your team is lights out. Eh.
4×4 Saber Roto
(OBP/SLG/HR/R and ERA/WHIP/HRper9/K)
There’s a new 4×4 in ottoneu which might appeal to those that hate saves and steals. Your relievers can still help keep the homer rate and the ratios down, but they don’t get a counting stat that only they can provide. That is kind of nice, that you aren’t forced to chase around the kicker of fantasy baseball, the one-trick pony, just for saves. (And your worm-burner starters and stingy homer relievers get a bit of a boost, too.) Here, you’re trying to get good pitchers, regardless of role. And on the offensive side, you weight power a little bit more, but you also value speedy on-base guys (OBP and R) without putting any emphasis on a stat like steals, which are less valuable in the real-life game.
Sabermetric Points Roto
(wOBA, FIP-based points)
There’s a benefit to using points systems. You can correctly weight the events so that they line up perfectly with real-life value. That’s a lofty goal. However, when it comes to game play, I have a complaint with points leagues. Trading can be strange. It’s like in fantasy football, when you’re offering a guy with x points for a guy with y. If y>x, the person on the other end of the offer is quick to dismiss. You have to spend a lot of time convincing them that the player fits some other need, or will be more valuable in the future, blah blah blah. I just don’t like one number attached to a player’s value in fantasy sports, it’s much more fun to try and shift available resources in my mind — “I’ve got too many steals, you need steals, let me trade this leadoff guy for a middle of the order bat and solve both our problems.”
6×6 Slightly Saber Roto
(BA/OBP/R/RBI/HR/SB and K/ERA/WHIP/Saves/Wins/Holds)
There will be some here that hate these settings. They’re kind of stuck between old- and new-school. Still have the 5×5 in there, but you’ve added on-base percentage because it’s a valuable real-life skill, and you’ve added holds because… Well listen, I get it, but my longest-term dynasty league has these settings, so I’ll defend holds for a second. Holds make relievers other than closers more valuable. Perhaps a saves-plus-holds category would be better, so that it’s still just one counting stat, but making setup men a valuable part of fantasy baseball is fun. They obviously matter in real-life baseball, and it’s a whole class of player that can now be a part of the game. Other ways to accomplish this goal are to either add saves and holds together in one category if your provider allows it… or to up the number of Relief Pitcher slots in your league. If you have five reliever slots in a 12-team league, you’ll be rostering some non-closers to help with rates and ratios, and to take advantage of every starting slot you’ve got. The problem with having both batting average and on-base percentage in your league settings is that one stat is in the other. A high average guy can now kill it in two categories instead of just one.
5×5 New-School Roto
(OBP/R/RBI/HR/SB and K/ERA/WHIP/Saves/Wins)
TOUT is playing footsie with this setting, and it’s easy to see why. With one little flip of the switch, we’re now valuing the better real-life skill — getting on base as opposed to making contact and doing well on balls in play. The only thing that’s a bit weird about this is that it doesn’t go very far. It’s hard to call this new-school, even, but it is to the old versions of the game. OBP! Oh my!
Anti-Streaming Head to Head
(—— and Kper9/ERA/WHIP/Wins/Saves) or an innings cap, moves cap, FAAB strategy
One of the things that’s great about head-to-head settings is that it can be more lively. The setup allows for more trash-talking, for one. And if you’re out of it, you can right your team quicker than if you’re trying to push the roto category rock back up the hill. But an un-intended consequence for some is that the guy in front of the computer 24/7 can add a lot of value to his team by pouncing on the wire for saves, and then perhaps streaming the last few starting pitcher slots on his team. In a world where you’re just valuing strikeouts as a category, he’d be looking to win K, W and Svs every week with a reliever-heavy streaming category. That’s viable — his three categories to your two.
You could put a cap on moves to rein in streaming if you don’t like it. But then everyone, streamer or non-streamer alike, is watching their moves. It tamps down activity, and if you set it too high, you might still allow a player to stream a guy every week and take advantage of two-start pitchers. An FAAB strategy has many of the same flaws, but at least there’s a bit more strategy — go for bulk pickups at lower costs, or get the premier free agents with big bids. If you allow $0 moves in FAAB — most systems do — then someone can still stream, they just lose waiver position every time they make a $0 move. They can still stream, but there’s a penalty now.
The easiest way to make streaming less attractive, though, is to replace strikeouts with a rate stat. Now all those streamers are bringing down the K/9 category and it’s suddenly a losing strategy. In my experience, category changes are the easiest way to affect change — any other attempt to codify anti-streaming policies have unintended consequences (think the lower level of activity that happens when you put a move limit in place).
The Other Stats
(Batter: ISO, BB%, Ks, NetSB, Grand Slams; Pitcher: K/9, BB/9, HR/9, GB%, CG)
There’s some value to be gained by making your stats in your league more sabermetrically inclined, I understand the impetus. For example, why not move stolen bases to net stolen bases? If stolen bases are a positive, being caught stealing should be a negative. And by adding ground ball rate OR homers per nine, you can reward pitchers that keep the ball on the ground, which we know is a valuable skill. I don’t mind the idea. Just try to look at your stats and see, on a very basic level, which sorts of players your system values. Because if you do something like OPS, and then also add in batting average, you’re having the same problem my AVG/OBP league had. If you add GB% AND HR/9, you might be over-valuing worm-burners. Be careful, because every category you add dilutes the importance of any one category, and yet also gives you the opportunity to double-count some more and over-value a certain type of player.
In other words, say out loud what your problem with your current setting is. Get the league to say what they think. If it’s “we think steals guys are too heavily favored,” change SB to Net-SB, or take it out and replace it with OBP or something that helps top-of-the-lineup guys whether or not they steal bases. You could even use strikeouts by the batter here, since strikeouts are correlated with power. If it’s “we hate closers,” maybe consider dropping saves and adding a strikeout rate stat. It’s not that weird to have Ks AND K/9 — it just means you need to accrue strikeouts at a good rate. And you’ll have a reason to have good relievers on your team with or without the chance at getting saves. If you hate wins, sure, use quality starts. They aren’t the best thing in the world, but they’re slightly better than wins!
And don’t forget that there are things you can change other than the categories. The way you run waivers is important to the activity in your league. Your innings and plate appearance minimums and maximums change things for streamers, too. I agree with Paul Singman when he argues for lots of DL slots and long benches, but that can thin out the waiver wire, too.
One thing. Don’t use the rare stats. Especially in head-to-head leagues. The single worst settings I’ve ever seen came from one of my readers. Check out this monstrosity.
H2H mixed points, 12 teams daily moves, non-keeper.
1 point per category won overall each week. W-L-T
R, H, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, (TB) Total Bases, A, FPCT, AVG, OPS
W, CG, SHO, SV, ER, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP, K/BB, NH, PG
I just. I hate it. I can see the good behind it — Let’s give players the chance to add value in all sorts of different ways! Let’s put fielding in! Let’s reward big moments! — but it’s all wrong. By putting a stat into a category that you can win each week, you’re putting them on equal footing. So this setting basically says that a stolen base is as valuable as an assist. That a perfect game is the same as a save. First, that’s nonsensical. Second, you’re adding in some stats that are impossible to predict and have very little real-life value. Fielding percentage! Todd Helton was fifth in baseball in fielding percentage last year! Second, putting in things like complete games does strange things to the matchups. Almost every week, CG and NH and PG are ties in this league. You happen to stream Edwin Jackson against the Rays, he walks eight guys against six strikeouts in one of the worst no-hitters in history, and you randomly get two categories rewarded to your team that week for no good reason.
And the last problem with this setting is all the double-counting. I haven’t emphasized that aspect because, to some extent, you’re double-counting all the time. A home run is a hit, a run, an RBI and a home run. In this setting, a home run is a home run, a hit, a run, an RBI, four total bases, and help in average and OPS. Septuple-counting. If you zoom out, maybe the hitting stats aren’t soooo terrible. The easy question is, whom does this system value. And in this case, by counting every hit in the hit, type of hit, total bases, batting average and OPS category, you’re valuing high-contact power hitters most of all. I tell this guy every year to pick up the lowest-strikeout rate guys he can find on offense.
And that’s the point, really. Agree to settings. Then find the players that are best for your settings. It’s a game, and you just have to agree to the rules.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
We are in a 14 team, H2H, daily moves, no move limit league. Keep 3 a year. we have a 7×7.
R 2B 3B SB HR RBI OBP W L HLD SV K ERA WHIP
I feel that is a great setup. Love throwing in the holds, adds just a little more to the pitching, give some of those 8th inning/specialists some fantasy love.
Triples? Really? I played in a H2H league that counted triples and absolutely hated it. With only 1 or 2 triples per team each week, the triple became huge decider of the winner each week. Most weeks a triple would be more beneficial than a grand slam.
When you start adding categories to leagues, the most important criteria needs to be balance. If the points that one gets from a triple are so high that a grand slam is worth less, the scoring isn’t balanced properly.
The balance thing is what keeps me from loving saves and holds separated into 2 categories. It throws off the balance of the pitching side, making all types of pitchers less valuable as a result. I also hate scoring Losses– scoring wins is bad enough but adding losses is just making the pitching side of Grant’s format significantly less valuable than hitting. One could win this league with a great bench and a bunch of long relief types and setup men; you could probably finish in the top 3 without even drafting a SP.
Which is why I prefer Just one category, Total Bases to 3 categories of 2B, 3B, HR. It properly gives more weight to HR’s but also properly rewards doubles and triples over just the hits that go into BA or OBP.
I am bringing up to vote in out 10 team ROTO league to eliminate WINS as a category for pitching. I know this is sacreligious to the traditionalists, but let’s face it. WINS is the worst statistic to assess value in a starting pitcher. Maybe in 1980, when starters would average 7, 8 innings, but in today’s baseball, most starters only go 5-6 innings, which leaves bullpens to decide the fate of your starter getting a win. Also, I have had too many starting pitchers throwing 7 even 8 innings of great pitching, only to not get a win because their crappy team does not give them any run support, or the bullpen blowing the lead my pitcher provided. The fact is that WINS, is the only statistic that has so little to do with the performance of your player. Example, I drafted Marco Estrada this year, who happens to have led my team in WINS through the first of June, however I had to drop him because he SUCKS more then any pitcher on my team, yet he leads my team in Wins. Why? Because the Brew Crew can hit and he gets run support. Has nothing to do with Estrada, who pitched his way into getting released. However, pitchers like Cole Hamels, Stephen Strasburg, Yordando Ventura, Josh Beckett, have superior ERA, WHIP, K’s, are not on horrendously bad teams (Hamels excluded) yet have a pathetic amount of wins, through no fault of their own, but because their teams just don’t score for them, and their managers take them out at 100 pitches every time. I’m recommending switching out Wins for Quality Starts, which is a much more true bearer on the talent of your fantasy pitcher. After all Roto baseball is about statistics, not about the actual teams your players play for.
I’ve been fond of the settings we’ve been using in the league I commish the last few years. I think it’s a good mix of stats that values positions and types of production pretty evenly:
Runs, Hits, Home Runs, RBIs, OBP, SLG, Steals
ERA, WHIP, Wins, Quality Starts, Holds, Saves, Strikeouts
The league you cite can’t possibly be real…can it? I don’t believe there are 10-12 people that would agree to a league like that.
Settings for my league last year were great, IMHO:
Hitting: OBP/SLG/R/RBI/HR/SB
Pitching: IP/QS/ERA/WHIP/SV/Kper9
After reading the above settings, including IP as a stat appears to be most unorthdox, but posed no problems for our league.
i like IP as a baseline measure for pitcher value, it rewards workhorses who can last in games and also relievers with defined roles.
Innings Pitched can only work well if you have a cap on the number of starts you can make each week. Otherwise every team that is losing era/whip will just stream tons of crappy pitchers at the end of every week trying to blow up their IP total.
One thing that works in the categories I outlaid is the balance that is required. If you do in fact believe that your in a position were you’re rate stats are at a level you can’t hope to draw a “win” out of, then you completely have the option of waiver streaming and filling slots with whatever scheduled SP is available that day. If you do this tho, you’ve in essence conceded 2/3rd of all of the pitching categories and likely are losing/will lose QS as well, which seems like a reasonably preventive trade-off for the IP-mongerers.
Additionally, it should be mentioned that our league had a 3 transaction per-week cap, which undoutedly prevented excessive streaming to occur
Is there a stat that rewards IP/game or something similar on any of the major sites? I’d love to try a Roto league with some sort of extra reward (beyond being credited with a win or QS). Gross Innings Pitched doesn’t really work when everyone caps out at 1400 innings.
While it’s somewhat uncommon, do you want to reward a guy who lasts 8 innings and lets in 3 runs more than a guy who lasts 5 or 6 and lets in no runs (maybe it was a high pitch count I suppose)? I think combination W + QS addresses most concerns if you think about it, you’re rewarding guys who pitch late into games and hold leads as much as guys who pitch well for a potentially terrible defense.
We are moving to the following 6×6 roto in our 10 team AL only keeper:
R, HR, RBI, steals, OBP, SLG
ERA, WHIP, K/9, IP, QS, saves+holds
Am curious to see how it plays out.
Dont forget the opposite leagues, like the old HACKING MASS, and the present Razzball league. Its actually very challenging to find a team of horrible players who play a lot.
in 2011 i was in an 8 team h2h league where every single category was turned on. points were given for putouts. Putouts.
It was basically the fantasy baseball equivalent of super bowl squares: pretend you have a strategy, but it’s all completely random.
Big fan of what Shandler has done, we have incorporated Roto500 categories and it’s been great. 4×4 (OBP, HR, Runs Prod, SB and ERA, K, W, Save+Hlds). Going to W+QS this year.
I like that format. Like ops better though
I’m commissioner of a roto league that uses:
1B, RBI, SH, SF, GDP, E, FPCT, OPS, (NSB) Net Stolen Bases, (CYC), Cycles, GSLAM, OFA for hitting and:
W, L, CG, R, K, (BLK) Balks, HOLDS, ERA, PK (Pickoffs), WHIP, (NH) No Hitters, QS, (NSV) Net Saves.
Is it a super serious league?
No.
Is it fun to chastise the second place finisher for picking up too many balks over the course of a season?
Absolutely!
If I’m counting things right, Brandon Barnes may have been a top 10 player in this league last year
My league has HR, RBI + R – HR, AVG, and TB+BB as full point categories for hitting, with net SB (2x Sb – CS) as a half (5 point) category. For pitching, it’s ERA, new wins ( 2 x W – L), K, and whip as full with net saves (2 x sv – bs) as a half category. I think it’s pretty inclusive and properly nerfs the saves and steals component
Has anyone had a good experience in a league that incorporates defensive stats?
this is pretty hard to do. as far as i know none of the ‘defense’ measure available from the big fantasy players (yahoo/espn/cbs) are worth a damn– things like errors or fielding % or po just aren’t valuable ways of evaluating performance.
I haven’t dug into baseball simulation games like OOtP but I assume they take defense into account in some way.
I’m Commissioner of 12 team H2H points keeper league.
Daily lineup changes, but no roster moves effective until the next week’s match.
Our stats are weighted…not just 1 point for the categories we use.
For example, we downplay categories such as wins, losses, and saves and give more emphasis to successful innings pitched/outs made. This concept makes RP’s valuable, too, and after all they are a third of ML rosters.
We also have fractions of points for assists.
It took a few years of tweaking and our final player rankings match some of the major saber categories.
In addition, our scoring system eliminated one of the problems (IMO) of points leagues, i.e., total points are very skewed towards pitching unless you have extra position players in your active lineup. We chose to go with an actual baseball lineup.
In our league, offense+defense ranges between 45%-50% of the total points.
I’m currently working on a “fantasy team” defensive metric for the 2015 season. It’ll be similar to APBA’s, OOTP’s, etc. methods of assigning each player a defensive value.
I’ll track a couple of formulas this year to see (1)if any make sense, (2) if they make a real difference in the outcome of matches, and (3) if so, if they are worth the work involved to keep the spreadsheet updated throughout the season.
Yeah, I’m joining a new points H2H league and the commish wants to give 1pt/assist.
I’m arguing this is insane.
If it stands, right now, Daniel Murphy would have been the top scoring 1B last year, and that nearly a third of the points he scored were from his glove.
‘Cause you know, he’s such a great fielder.
I’d be very interested in seeing what your league uses if you think you have a good balance.
i’m in a league that goes with an actual baseball lineup (no defensive metrics scored) and we have the issue you mention– points are skewed toward pitching. i very openly exploited this by signing a ton of RP eligible SPs and maxing out the max starts each week, with a completely scrub-filled lineup.
I don’t see any value in the 9-man actual lineup. The argument our LMs gave me is that this is how the game is played and it’s just this modern run environment favors pitchers, but that’s just not true. The game is filled with pinch hitters and late-game substitutes and platoons. Plenty of teams put more than 9 guys up to bat in any given game.
I don’t like the standard espn/yahoo rosters that give everyone an extra guy at each position, but having an extra MI and 5 OF total seems pretty balanced to me.
I can see if you’re counting defense that this could be exploited to swing too far back toward favoring hitting over pitching, but setting a PA limit per week could take care of that.
@Rags: Daniel Murphy? Really? Don’t tell the Mets or the Wilpons won’t think they have a hole to fill.
One thing I did was check the player rankings after applying a variety of adjustments. I found .2/per infield assist to be about right.
The shortstop list was interesting. The assists certainly helped players like Simmons and Segura. IMO, the final rankings were more indicative of the total value of the player without making it ridiculous.
I have no problem with a full point for an OF assist. I think the ML leader in OF assists last season was 17.
We don’t have points for put outs.
Most of our custom adjustments are in pitching and I think we have a good balance. As I said, our final player rankings are pretty close to some of the saber based rankings.
I should point out that we are playing at ESPN and it’s a free LM format. There are a lot of options offered, but not everything that are available at pay-to-play sites. I had to make some choices that would give me the results that we were looking for given the limitations of the site.
BTW-We have an auction draft and a weekly free agent auction. Gotta watch your budgets, but you can trade a player for cash if you are running low. We also have multi-team trades.
I’d be happy to send you some of our data, scoring, and player rankings, if you can find a way to get me your e-mail address.
@tylersnotes
Sounds like you are playing a CBS and are using the winning strategy for its free format, i.e., cram in as many starts as you can using starters in the RP slot and definitely grab as many free agent 2 start pitchers as you can.
Our guys wanted to play at a free site and a format that emulated “real” baseball within the constraints of a fantasy league.
The assists will only add approximately 12-15 points a week per team to the offense. That’s not enough to change the balance between pitching and offense.
We have no lineup designations for RP’s or SP’s (8 pitchers a day in the active lineup) and you can carry 13 pitchers on your roster. We have a max of 8 starts per week. RP’s other than closers are very important to fill the active lineups.
I ran the data on our league’s scoring last year with our 2014 scoring system which included some tweaks to the pitching points and the addition of assists.
If last year’s stats were indicative, offense should make up approximately 47% of the total points. It was 41% last year.
Belle– fwiw the league i’m in is an espn free league, it’s a dynasty that’s been around since 2007 or so but i joined 2 years ago. the salary structure and minor league rosters really change the way players can be valued, and the LMs set it up this way to “emulate the real GM experience” (we use real player salaries and have a 35-deep farm for each team).
I am really drawn to complex league types and formats, and the idea of emulating real baseball value is admirable, but difficult and maybe dangerous in that you have to have a crop of managers on board who are willing to suffer through figuring out the proper weights and balances, and will continue to work to improve their teams and won’t just check out. If you’re finding success, kudos to you! Your league sounds really interesting and incorporating some defense seems like a great way to add a layer of complexity and strategy
@tylernotes
You sound like most of the guys in our league.
Although standard formats can be fun, we were looking for both the GM and field manager experiences. Most standard rotoleagues have you searching for the one trick ponies and chasing somewhat meaningless stats like wins. With a points league, we were hoping to capture the underlying data that comprise some of the saber analysis.
We’re a keeper league and it’ll be another year or two before we can move to a full dynasty format like the one you are playing.
It’s taken us a few years to reach the balance we were trying to achieve. It’s an evolutionary process and nothing is perfect, but we’re getting there. If we find a flaw that can be exploited or scoring that is inconsistent with the goals we wanted, it’s discussed, options are presented, and we vote. It’s a very congenial but analytical bunch with a sense of fair play.
The way this league was formed was somewhat unique (Won’t bore you with the details) and the group consists of players in the US, Canada, and New Zealand. Ages range from 25 to 65 and include all ethnic backgrounds. I’m the only female.
We’re mostly a bunch of math geeks, engineers, and IT guys. We have nightly online chats during baseball season, a weekly newsletter that’s usually hilarious, and an annual league meeting. We’ve met at Kauffman, Busch, Camden Yards, and Citizen’s Bank. This year we’re meeting in Chicago.
So yeah, we’re not the typical fantasy league.
PS…One option to allow for late inning replacements, i.e., more than a 9 player lineup is to add an extra U slot. It fits with our format because we don’t have daily free agent acquisitions. Your bench needs to have backups in the event of injuries.
The best settings take out all randomness and unpredictability. That’s why the best leagues are 6×6. The 5×5 categories are for last years stats in those categories. The additional batter stat is ‘weight’ (so you can assess which batter really is in the shape of their career) and for pitchers ‘fastball velocity’ (so that you can properly weight for injury risk).
The real benefit is that it emphasizes the draft. Once that’s over, the league can total everything up and determine who wins. So that once actual baseball season, everyone can watch actual baseball.
from my perspective, the most important thing in a fantasy scoring format is that it’s properly balanced. when a format isn’t balanced properly it can be broken and exploited, to the detriment of everyone else playing. I’ve really been impressed by Ottoneu’s linear weights scoring in this regard– it has some categories I’m not particularly thrilled with (sv+hld, for instance) but it’s really well balanced.
roto 5×5 is balanced at face value, but the change in the run environment changes the balance completely. The scarcity of HRs and rise of SBs means that there are certain types of hitters who are worth just a ton more than other types. It means guys like matt carpenter are essentially replacement level. The traditional roto 5×5 cats make fantasy baseball dumb and brutal– there are really only a few ways to win and once you figure those ways out it is almost impossible to finish out of 3rd place.
FYI, Carpenter was nowhere near replacement level last year. He was a top 20 player mostly due to runs and a high average with a ton of AB while putting up decent RBI. Most people dont recognize this fact though because the first place most players look on offensive players is HR and SB.
I disagree with your assertion that standard roto makes certain guys worth drastically more than others depending on run environment. certain guys are worth more because of their totality of stats. a Power hitter who puts up a decent batting average is good in literally all run environments because they contribute to 4 of the 5 categories in larger numbers than most. 5 category studs are going to go higher pretty much regardless of run environment.
The guys that fall through the cracks (Carpenter) only do so because people wrongly perceive the values and basically don’t run the numbers on what each incremental point in each stat is actually worth in dollars.
Pretty sure I played in a league once that counted Game-Winning RBIs. Fortunately those used to be printed in our newspaper’s boxscores.
I am in four leagues, three use OBP. I definitely prefer it to BA. Much easier to predict year to year.
Going on year #7 in a super-dynasty league four of us developed, and its been interesting. After 7 years, we’re only now getting the hang of it.
In a snapshot:
Unlimited rosters, $260 payroll, players are signed to 1-3 year contract at highest total dollar value and there are no drops allowed.
5×5 scoring – R, RBI, OBP, SLG, SB-CS & QS, K-BB, H-S, ERA, SLGAgainst
Really has the feel of a GM running your own team. You need a mix of high calibre stars, value contributors and prospects to succeed. Good/bad contracts really decide the winners and losers.
My league (OPS/R/RBI/HR/SB and K PER 9/ERA/WHIP/QS/SVHD with a 50 IP/week minimum) might be the most frustrating, yet satisfying league I have seen
Here is what we do and I’ll explain a bit why.
R/HR/RBI/OBP/SLG/NetSB QS/ERA/WHIP/K/K:BB/NetSV
switch from
R/HB/RBI/TB/SB and W/ERA/WHIP/K/K:9/SV
It allowed us to isolate valuable skills like walking and power without punishing guys without those skills. Votto will get rewarded for his walks. AVG guys get credit too. Keeping SLG separate allowed use to keep OBP and Power skills separate.
QS is obvious too. It isn’t a perfect stat, but better than Ws. Easy to change after the Cliff Lee debacle of 2012. Pitchers ability is rewarded, not team. Also values pitchers that go deep into games..
K:BB was added from K/9. Strikeouts were overvalued. They counted for both K and K/9 whiles BB were only punished in WHIP. This gave Jonathan Sanchez value, but control pitchers like Doug Fister or even Dan Haren were undervalued. K:BB both rewards high strikeout guys and low walks guys.
Net Steal/Saves just reward smart base-running and consistent closing. You should be reward for being a good closer, not because you have the job. Tyler Clippard in 2010 anyone?
I like it because it reward a bit of everything. You get credit for smart baseball. It isn’t really saber because it reward actually one field events as fairly as possible IMO.
Thanks! Fun rundown of these format. But don’t forget “Runs Produced” (R+RBI-HR). Two of my home leagues have been using this for years. De-emphasizes power guys somewhat. And those leagues add in OPS to make it two “average” categories for pitching and hitting.
That being said. I think K:BB ratio is a stat that should be looked at in more leagues,especially over K/9. It is easy to look at, a good indicators of success and is fair to all types of pitchers.
Sure, but if you’re your league includes WHIP there’s a degree of redundancy here. k/9 at least has the benefit of isolating strikeouts
The best settings for a league are the settings that will get your 8 or 10 or 12 or 16 friends/acquaintances interested and invested from, at the very least, March through October. I’m in a long term 6*6 H2H league with less than ideal categories, but the league has some level of chatter 365 days a year. Nobody that is out of the hunt abandons their team, only 1 of the 10 teams hasn’t made the playoffs in the 6 year history, 7 teams have played for a title. If people are involved and providing me entertainment, I’d pay 10 times the buy in and change the categories to infield fly ball hits and pitcher pace.
start a league that scores pitcher pace and i promise i will join it
What about QS? More and more leagues are leaning towards them over W’s and for good reason. One’s based on luck, the other actually skill.
Though I still think QS should be classified by 6 innings or more, and an ERA 4 or below.
My dynasty league uses a 6×6 roto format:
HR/RBI/R/SB/AVG/OPS
and
QS/Sv/Holds/K/ERA/WHIP
I agree the QS, as it should be restructured for 6inn. ERA still could be a bit iffy, but the difference between a guy with a 4.0 and 4.5 era is a big difference
Dump AVG for OBP and lose HRs for XBHs. DONE.
I run two 7×7 H2H 16-team keeper/dynasty leagues. The settings don’t favor any one type of player and I think they are as close to balanced as you can get without going overboard with categories.
BA, OBP, HR, R, RBI, SB, Doubles+Triples, Wins-Losses, QS, Sv, ERA, WHIP, Holds, K
BA, OPS, HR, R, RBI, SB, Doubles+Triples, Wins-Losses, QS, Sv, ERA, WHIP, K/9, K
For “New School Roto,” you’re only halfway there. The way you have it is what we shifted to 10 years ago (should have been more) when BAvg had been thoroughly laid to rest. To get it correct in 2014, you have to jettison pitcher Wins and replace that with QS. If you do that, you’re “new school” to the degree that you have rid your league of the worst stat on both sides.
The thing that bugs me about the old school 5X5 stats is that you get no credit for triples and doubles which is why I would either go with 6 categories with OBP and SLG% as the rate stats or else just substitute Total Bases for HR’s.
One of my leagues did just that – swapped TB for HR. Also, we have OBP instead of AVG. It’s a terrific league. With TB, power still gets rewarded, but so do the gap hitters that are forgotten with the traditional roto categories.
Modified New School Roto here:
R/HR/RBI/SB/OPS
QS/K/ERA/WHIP/SOLD
My league’s actually changed from Ws to QS+Ws this year, as one category. Hopefully should make things much fairer, as wins only sucks.
I use the 6×6 slightly sabermetric in my dynasty league, I really like (though use quality starts). I also struggle with having holds separate from saves. I could combine them, but is it right within the fantasy baseball dynamic to throw saves into the same category as holds and count them equally? It also adds a strategic element to setting up your bullpen with two categories, which I think is good.
The reason I prefer the standard 5×5 is because that’s what all of the rankings and analysis are geared towards. If you’re playing with any casual players in your league at all, they’re operating at a huge disadvantage if the categories aren’t standard. I realize a lot of people on this particular blog may be in leagues with nothing but serious players, and, in that case,use whatever cats you want. But if there’s anyone in your league who is showing up to your draft with the ESPN cheat sheet, then you either need to find someone sophisticated enough to handle different categories, or just use the standard 5×5 cats.
There is an inherant danger in changing league settings. Nearly all rankings for every major site is based off of 5×5 roto. Because of this, changing settings drastically forces everyone in the league to make up their own rankings, sometimes from scratch. This is fine as long as everyone in the league knows this far enough in advance, but if its like a 2 week notice it just favors those who have extreme amounts of time on their hands over those who put in normal amounts of time into their extracurricular activities.
Changing AVG into OBP isnt a huge deal. making saves into saves+holds isnt a huge deal. Wins into QS isnt bad either. but venture too far from those and you run the risk of rankings for pretty much everywhere being meaningless and forcing a lot more time onto the players in the league than is probably necessary. The lack of historical data with which to pull useful information from is also a problem.
While 5×5 roto has its problems simulating actual baseball, its still the most fair to everyone most of the time IMO. unless you are in big money leagues, most people arent going to be able to spend the time getting dollar values that make sense for weird league formats without a full work weeks worth of hours put into projections and such. And even then they miss out on the dummy checks of other fantasy baseball sources because none use their league settings.
Awesome article. My primary league is a standard 5 x 5 but will probably forward this out to the rest of the owners to create an unnecessary but entertaining week long email debate where we ultimately decide to keep our standard 5 x 5 settings.
On a related note it would be awesome Rotographs would produce some similar articles, materials on rule options and standards. We have a 12 team AL only, $260 budget auction, keeper / $5 annual raise format. We developed the format based on our understanding of standard roto and have altered rules from year to year. There seems to be limited available materials on the internet with when proposed rule changes occur which results in a lot of idiotic conversation.
Past examples of proposed or debated rule changes we’ve run across are: NL players traded to AL pickups, salaries for dropped players coming off the DL, options for waiver priority, etc. I can’t think of a better source than Fangraphs / Rotographs to help us get a solid point of reference for these tedious debates and votes.
FYI from our league – We have a 10 team AL only auction keeper league. We use a FAAB bidding for FA pickup, including players coming over from the NL. In-season player salary is based on max(auction price,FAAB bid), with no salary cap during the season, only during auction. This allows bidding / future price protection on new players entering. Player salary increase is based on performance. Our league hosted by ESPN, so we use our league player rater value / 2.5, which gives anywhere between 0 and 8 (Trout was raise of 8 last two years).
I like the idea of FAAA b/c for us FA pickups salaries are $1 and that can seriously undervalue players for a long time w/ $5 annual raises.
We use the $100 budget for NL pickups and have the opposite problem. Owners bid $100 on a guy to insure they get him and they then amount to a 1/2 season rental.
Does ESPN have settings for FAAA or do you have to manage that offline?
We also have a 100 FAAB budget – seems to work well for all inseason pickups, including AL only and players moving over to AL. You can blow it all on a stud coming over, but even if you make a lot of moves you can still price protect on most NL to AL moves so that they are costed out of being kept.
ESPN tracks the FAAB amount inseason and then I manually manage a spreadsheet of offseason player costs/increases and upload the rosters and player values once ESPN goes live for the season.
If you believe that Daniel Okrent and friends both coined the name and popularized the playing of rotisserie baseball than the original format was 4 x 4. In that format, your concern about owners stockpiling relievers is misplaced; that format almost always includes a minimum of 1,000 innings, something Okrent and friends adopted a few years in after someone tried the all reliever strategy. All that said, the original has other flaws that you noted and for which an owner should adjust. Players who move from the top to the middle of the order become more valuable, especially in NL only league where lead-off men hit behind the pitcher.
We use and so far love this modified 6×6 (no Holds):
OBP, SLG, R, RBI, HR & SB
WHIP weighted 1.5, ERA weighted 1.5, QS+W, SV, K
Roto 12 Team Keeper League
C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, U
SP, SP, SP, RP, RP, RP, P, P, P
B, B, B, B, B, B, B
DL, DL, DL
Offensive Categories: R, HR, RBI, AVG., OBP, SB
Pitching Categories: K, ERA, WHIP, QS, NSV, W (1750 IP Limit)
What do you guys think of the way I set my league up this year:
H2H most categories, weekly matchups
5×5
R, HR, RBI, SB, OPS | K, QS, SV, ERA, WHIP
10 GS MAX / 40 IP MIN
Which the following pitching options is the most common way to play Rotisserie:
1. IP Limit
2. GS Limit
3. No pitching limit
Background: I am a league commish and the Rotisserie format is our Olympics so to speak, we do it once every 4 years, otherwise we are playing H2H. I have always used IP limits for Rotisserie but I’m starting to think GS make more sense because they allow for more roster flexibility. Basically when you have an IP limit every pitching stat becomes a ratio stat.
I think IP limit adds value to starting pitchers and typically requires less FA moves to be competitive.
GS limit encourages only holding elite SPs and closers. Other slots should constantly be rotating between stream starters and setup men for ratios/free K’s.
5×5 with OBP instead of average and holds+saves
6×6 with BB and holds. Similar to the 6×6 semi-SABR above but you don’t double dip the average.
When aking changes (additions, deletions, etc)is it better to use 7, 14, 21 or YTD stats?