BtB Saber-Slanted Fantasy League: Rules and Discussion
by SFiercex4 on Mar 13, 2010 2:37 PM EST
in Site News
23 comments
UPDATE: With the amount of trepidation about auction drafts with regards to both time and experience, I'd figure it might be best to let everyone do a regular draft. Thus, we will officially be doing a STANDARD LIVE DRAFT for the BtB Saber-Slanted Fantasy League.
On Monday, I introduced the Beyond the Box Score Saber-Slanted Fantasy League, run via the CBSSports.com Commissioner Fantasy Baseball League tool. I opened up the league to anyone in our loyal BtB readership, and there has been some interest and a few questions. Today, I'll go through a more thorough rules list and ask a few questions for discussion about the rules and the draft for the league.
Rules
League Size: 14
League Draft Pool: AL/NL mixed
League Type: Points rank or Head-to-Head
Roster Sizes: 22/23
Active Positions: C, 1B, 2B. 3B. SS, LF, CF, RF, UTIL, 5 SP, 3 RP
Bench: 5
Injured/DL: 1, players in Injured/DL slot must be on DL, and you must make appropriate lineup changes once they come off DL
Position Eligibility: 20+ games played last season or 10+ games played this season at a position
Starter/Relief Eligibility: 5+ games started last season or this season, 10+ games in relief last season or this season
Draft Type: Standard Live Draft
Lineups Set: Weekly, before 1st game of Sunday
Add/Drop: Waiver process, unlimited waiver claims
Waiver Period: 2 days
Waiver Order: Reverse of previous week's standings
Trades: Allowed, trade must be approved by league members, 4 down votes on a trade sends it to The Commissioner for approval, 3-day voting period
Trade Deadline: August 19, 2010
Scoring System:
Hitters
| Event | Points |
|---|---|
| AB | -1 |
| 1B | 6 |
| 2B | 9 |
| 3B | 12 |
| HR | 15 |
| BB | 3 |
| HBP | 3 |
| SB | 2 |
| CS | -3 |
Pitchers
| Event | Points |
|---|---|
| IP | 5 |
| K | 2 |
| BB | -3 |
| HR | -13 |
| Saves | 5 |
| Holds | 2 |
Right now, those are the rules that are currently set. All rules of course are subject to discussion and change. I'm more than willing to listen to anyone that is interested. Some rules that have been contended:
- 5 pts for Saves, 2 pts. for Holds: This was used to simulate reliever leverage, but it seems people are not big fans. I'll discuss this a bit more with more research on Tuesday or Wednesday, discussing some of the differences and how they can affect point scoring based on 2009 stats.
- Pitcher slots: JinAZ suggested 5 SP and 3 RP, and I'm perfectly OK with that. I also thought about 6 SP and 3 RP. What does everyone think?
- Head-to-head versus Points: Head-to-head sounds a lot more interesting and can bring up playoffs, which always brings excitement. A strictly points-based league is the default, and it would reward the best overall performance, kind of like counting up WAR/runs for a team.
Players
Right now, these are the players that have expressed interest in the league's 14 slots.
BtB folks
- Me
- JinAZ
- Sky Kalkman
- erik
There are two more slots available for BtB players. If any of you guys are interested, please let me know.
Readership
- billp
- Zach Sanders
- viktor06
- Have a friend from another site that is interested as well
That gives us eight of 14 slots filled. Jump in and sign up, there are only four slots left for the readers! If no other BtB players are interested, those two slots will also be open to readers.
If you are interested, I need you to do two things. First off, express interest in the comments so I can keep a running tally of everyone. Secondly, I need your email address so I can send you a league invitation. You may post your address here, but if you are uncomfortable giving it out in such a public manner, feel free to send it to me at:
SFiercex4@gmail.com
As soon as I receive an email from you, I'll send you an invite. With plenty of spots remaining, I'm not as concerned about running out of invites, but try to get it in as quickly as possible.
Draft Type
This is a bit of an important point. The following draft types are allowed by the CBSSports.com Commissioner League:
- Live Draft (all in one day)
- Live Auction (all in one day)
- Live Extended Draft (over a period of days)
- Auto Draft
- We could all meet in one location and do this, but I doubt that will happen.
Since auction is all the rage and it includes resource usage strategy along with knowing your players, I figured that this would be the best option for the intelligent readership of BtB. However, I also understand the concerns people have regarding time, and these concerns are especially important in auction. Auction drafts can easily last 3+ hours, so finding the time for 14 people to line up one weekend date and three straight hours to complete something like this may be difficult. The live draft circumvents this by allowing auto-picking, though I am not sure whether the auction allows auto-bidding like Yahoo's platform does. The Extended draft may be of some interest, but I feel like that may be similar to what we've done for Ball on a Budget, and that format may fizzle out in the later rounds. The other two options are of no interest to me.
What I'll need you all to do is help determine the draft type. I am in favor of an auction personally, but I'm more than happy to do any other type of draft (outside of auto drafting). I'll consider the wishes of players who have already shown interest, but anyone and everyone should chime in on how they think this should be run. I want this to be a community event with me as ringmaster, not iron-fisted leader.
What I'll also need is a general availability for the draft. I believe the draft should be done within the next two weeks so that we can be definitely ready for Opening Day. Weekends are of course preferable for everyone, but time on weekends is also important. I am available almost at all times (such is the way of the barely-employed college graduate), though weekends are my best time. When would everyone be most available for three or so hours of baseball-only focus? When will your family hate you least for doing this?
And the pitch, again
I would be remiss if I did not mention that you too could run your own CBSSports.com Commissioner Fantasy Baseball League if you don't like the one here on BtB. In addition, not only should you go ahead and run one, but SBNation is giving you a chance to do so at a reduced cost, only $90 instead of the regular $180!
Here's how you can do it. Get to CBSSports.com via this link and you can go ahead and set up a league as similar or dissimilar to mine as you'd like. Not only will you get half off on your Commissioner League, but you'll also cut me a little bit as well, and you'll in turn receive my gratitude. And really, isn't that the greatest gift of all?
Here's some of the features of the league in which you may be interested:
- Customize entire league the way you want...rules, scores, teams + more
- LIVE scoring & stats so you can follow along as your teams rack up points
- Keeper league capability to carry on the tradition for many seasons to come
- Expert analysis provides up-to-date information on all players & teams
- Live chat/league messenger to trash talk with your competition
- 14-Day Free Trial included
Again, if you're interested, go and get your half-off Commissioner League from CBSSports.com and start the league you always wanted to have. If that's not your cup of tea, just join the BtBSSFL now by talking to me in the comments section! Also, please discuss some of the things mentioned here, so I can assure us the best saber-slanted fantasy league possible.
CBSSports.com is an SB Nation partner and paying sponsor of the SB Nation baseball communities.
This post is one of a series of sponsor endorsed posts related to the CBSSports.com Fantasy Baseball
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Comments
I prefer the auction format.
My brother’s done some mock drafts with the online auction tools and says they greatly speed up the process. With only about 17 players being auctioned, I doubt it would take two hours, let alone three. One downside is that it does move really fast, so trying to update a spreadsheet after every pick might not be feasible. I’d normally be against that, but it might be kind of run to give it a whirl in this type of league, just working off some pre-printed lists of values.
Also, do we even need SP/RP categories? As long as the point system includes saves and holds, there should be enough RP mixed in the top 9*14=126 pitchers that they’ll be taken. Does every team really need some, especially since there are always a fair number of RP that qualify as SP for some teams to avoid them anyway?
Love that it’s weekly transactions. Please keep that.
Beyond the Boxscore Not a member? Sign up.
I'd be open to taking off pitcher qualifications.
I just like having the separation myself. What does everyone else think?
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
Thoughts
Pitcher slots: How about 5 SP, 3 RP, and one P spot that we can do what we want with? Or, if you want to go with Sky’s idea of all P slots, that would work fine, too. I’ve always prefered some seperation, so maybe we do a 3 SP, 2 RP, 3 P system?
Weekly Moves/Rosters: Like it, like it a lot.
H2H v Points: I’m good with whatever, but H2H does work great with weekly moves (making moves just for that matchup), and the playoffs are cool.
Draft Type: Auctions are fun, and since I’m assuming most haven’t done a lot of them (including a Fantasy guy like myself), it would be an interesting exercise, and I’m all for it. However, introducing the FAAB system can frazzle some people, so that’s a potential hiccup. Extended draft is not something I’m a fan of.
Draft Time: Any time on the weekends, or weekday evenings are fine for me.
I can't mix SP, RP, and P categories
It’s either all P or SP/RP only.
Right now I might lean towards 6 SP, 3 RP, but I want to test how that works out.
The other option is, as Sky pointed out, requiring 9 P, which could be a decent way to go as well. Of the two, what does everyone prefer?
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
No preference on my part
3 RP will require more actual RP’s than 9 P’s, but going with 9 P’s will put less emphasis on chasing saves since you can just get mediocre starters that will be the equivalents of closers.
If you decide to drop points for saves/holds, I think you absolutely have to keep RP’s separate—otherwise you would NEVER select them. So, maybe the scoring decision needs to happen first, and after that you can decide the positions.
My $0.02
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
For those who wish to spend less....
I’m trying to get a league started on ESPN with the same concept, but with only a $20-25 entry fee. Right now, I’m not sure if I’ll find enough people to get it going, but if anyone is interested, you can email me.
HS team nickname: Redmen, College team nickname: Warriors, Amateur team nickname: Chiefs, Favorite MLB team: Braves. Holy political incorrectness...
Whoops...
I guess my fantasy inexperience is showing. I thought it was $90/person, which seemed ridiculous, but I didn’t know any better. Since it’s free, I’m willing to join, if there are still spots available.
HS team nickname: Redmen, College team nickname: Warriors, Amateur team nickname: Chiefs, Favorite MLB team: Braves. Holy political incorrectness...
Somewhat interested...
No one does weekly any more, and I really miss it! Definitely an attractive feature.
I’m in IF…no auction, straight draft, on the weekend. Also, is there a cost to join?
FYI: I like 6 SP + 3 RP
by WeNeedDavidJustice on Mar 13, 2010 4:20 PM EST reply actions
No costs to join the league.
It’s all free.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
I honestly think that asking for 3+ hours on a weekend is not a possibility for me.
Maybe I could do it if it’s in the evening, starting 8pm or later. But earlier is almost certain a no go. Young children, and I’m away from home too often as it is. Not fair to the wife. This is the main reason I’m in favor of the live draft instead of an auction. I might be able to carve out 2 hours of a weekend, especially if I can take the occasional breaks a live draft allows.
But hey, if I can’t do it and everyone else wants an auction, that’s fine. I probably don’t need the extra fantasy team anyway. :)
Other rules, I have no strong opinions that run contrary to the thoughts above. I like HTH except that it’s only weekly matchups and thus a fairly small sample size. But the playoffs are too much fun to avoid. My dream would probably be fantasy points in the regular season, and then playoffs, but I haven’t seen software yet that will do that for us and I’d rather not depart from software for logistical reasons.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
I'm not sure if the Auction will take 3+ hours. If everyone is there and active, I'd like to think it could be done in 2.5 hours?
by Zach Sanders on Mar 13, 2010 4:45 PM EST up reply actions
Even that's really stretching things for me
Live draft should be faster, and allows me to only need to make a decision once every 10 minutes or so. Much easier for me to manage. Heck, in my own league, I wasn’t even sure I could do the live draft and so we’re set to autopick!
Seriously, though, guys, I really don’t mind just bowing out if you want to go this route. That’s probably the smarter thing for me to do, frankly.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Thanks for reminding me to put together my Autodraft list for that league
Almost forgot about it.
by Zach Sanders on Mar 13, 2010 6:10 PM EST up reply actions
interested in the league
havent really commented much but read this and fangraphs daily. Weekday nights would be better for me but I could probably do weekends.
Nathan Holmes
univholmes@gmail.com
never done an auction draft
and the thought of it terrifies me, and the time commitment would probably be pretty tough. It’s also never seemed to me like it would hold my interest as well as a non-auction draft does. All that said, I’d give it my best shot if that’s the way it has to be.
Interested
If there is a still a spot, I’d love to join.
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