What Your Players and Your League Settings Say About You

You know, I can advocate for different types of leagues. I can talk about the pros and cons of head-to-head, and how redraft leagues are great for the refresh, and about deep leagues and shallow leagues. It’s my job!

But when it comes to playing, to the leagues I actually join, the rubber hits the road. In other words, I vote with my wallet when I join these leagues, because I’m spending actual time and energy in this way. So I thought I’d look through my leagues and see what kinds of leagues I like. And while I’m there, I might as well count up my pitchers so you can see what sorts of arms I’m investing in. My arms and my leagues, and now you know what I *really* like.

Leagues: 12 (Finally cut down from 15!)
Head to Head: 7 (one is both)
Keeper: 9
Mixed: 11
Deeper than 12: 8
5×5: 3
OBP or OPS instead of Average: 7
Holds or SV+Hlds: 4
Auction: 5

Fill out this form from @tylersnotes about your favorite settings from!

I knew the keeper number would be high, but wow, I’m pretty much moving toward only keepers and dynasties at this point. I’ll have to be careful to remember that most leagues are probably not keepers. Sometimes you can’t wait forever on a player like you can in a keeper league. Sometimes you need to cut bait sooner. I’m sort of surprised that OBP has moved so far ahead of batting average in my leagues — is that happening in your leagues? And thought I like deeper leagues, I guess I like having my choice of both American League and National League players. So, I guess it’s obvious what sort of leagues I like: Deep mixed-league dynasties that use OBP instead of batting average!

Now, the arms I like (and yes, this was an excuse to give all my teams a quick constitutional before the games today):

Maybe we didn’t need to put the “twos” on there, but considering how different all my leagues are with regards to settings, it’s significant if not statistically significant when I own a guy twice. In other words, I love Kevin Gausman, but he was long-owned in many of my dynasty leagues, and in my shallower leagues it’s hard to hold on to a pitcher that won’t be in the bigs to begin the year. I love Danny Salazar but the helium attached to his name mad it hard for me to pony up the investment it required to acquire him this year. I love Carlos Carrasco because he has three legit pitches and a job, but until I see some improvement in the command, it’s hard for me to drop guys higher on the list for him in mixed leagues. I love Dallas Keuchel, but he was mine in my deepest of leagues only — 12-team AL-Only AL-LABR, a 20-team 40-man-roster mixed dynasty, and an 18-team 40-man mixed dynasty — so don’t go chasing after him in your mixed.

When it came to guys that I absolutely wanted to own in a league of any size, I guess you could point at Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer and Masahiro Tanaka seem to fit the bill. When it comes to sleepers for leagues of any size, you have Tyler Skaggs, Corey Kluber, Dan Straily, and Jenrry Mejia — but I did have a hard time dropping guys like Straily or Kluber for newcomer Mejia, as much as I like Mejia. But remember this is a list of sleepers. Don’t drop a more established player in your leagues for Tyler Skaggs. As much as his new mechanics mean his new velocity is very interesting, he’s always had iffy command. The strikeouts AND the walks will be there, most likely. And the Derek Holland thing? I don’t love love Holland, and I know the injury is an issue, but I’m all about filling every single one of my roster slots. So there’s a cheap Derek Holland, hanging out on just about every DL slot I could dedicate to him.

The relievers? As you can see, I’m in a lot of leagues that count holds, so take them with a grain of salt. But if you ask me if I like Jim Henderson, Sergio Santos, Rex Brothers, Nate Jones, Chad Qualls and Shawn Kelley, I’ll say yes, obviously I do!

What do your league settings and arms say about you?