Introducing the Beyond the Box Score Saber-Slanted Fantasy League
by SFiercex4 on Mar 9, 2010 11:42 AM EST
in Site News
29 comments
SB Nation, in its infinite wisdom, has paired up with CBSSports.com to provide SBN fans and blogs like BtB an intriguing opportunity. As you may have already gathered from the title, BtB is hosting a new fantasy league this upcoming season! But this won't be your dad's rotisserie league. No sir, there are two primary differences between this league and your usual ones.
1. This one is a CBSSports.com Fantasy Baseball Commisioner League.
2. Well, it's not called "Saber-Slanted" for nothing. Allow me to explain.
Now I'm no fantasy nut (says the guy who writes for BP Fantasy, first piece is up, check it out!) but I do love my stats and I'm getting back into fantasy baseball now. But anyone who is into sabermetrics will probably get a little annoyed at having to pay attention to things like batting average and RBI. Sure, it was what the game was founded upon, but there have been years of work on how runs are scored in baseball and how we can attribute those runs to individual players, so why should we still use archaic measures from ages past?
Well, one of the best parts of the CBSSports.com Commisioner League is that it offers plenty of categories to track and score, and these categories allow us to get creative with our scoring system to fit a more appropriate and familiar feel.
Introducing the League
The league, as it is currently set up*, will be a 14-team league drafting from a mixed AL-NL pool. I will stand as The Commissioner of the league, hereby accepting the responsibilities that come with the title. The scoring system will be points based, meaning various counting stats will be assigned point values and counted up. I am amicable to going head-to-head with points, which gives the league some "adversarial" feel, so I'll leave that decision up to both you, the readers, and internal BtB staff. Tell me what you want in that regard.
* All rules mentioned in this section are subject to changes by The Commissioner. But feel free to suggest changes so that we can make this the best league possible.
Rosters will be 22-man teams with 16 active players, five bench slots, and one injured slot. Of course, only active players will be scored for your team in any given period. Lineups must be set by the first Sunday game of each week. In other words, the weekly scoring period begins on Sunday, so set your lineups before the game then. The following are your necessary starting positions each week:
C, 1B, 2B. 3B, SS, LF, CF, RF, 1 UTIL, 4 SP, 3 RP
And now for the saber-slanted part. Here is the scoring system as I have it currently set up.
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 |
I did not develop this system. All thanks go to BtB author JinAZ, who is also running a league with this scoring system. Thanks Justin!
Now, if you know your linear weights and FIP components by heart (and who doesn't really?), you should be able to recognize why those points are assigned the way they are. If you take a look at the hitters, you'll note that the system looks much like a linear weights model with a baseline of zero runs (an absolute runs model). In most absolute run models in linear weights, the value of an out is around -0.10 runs. Setting at-bats at that result allows all AB not resulting in a hit to appropriately count as an out. Each hit is scaled to the linear weights total for that hit above the value of the out, similar to how wOBA handles hits. For example, a single is worth around 0.48 runs; the system handles it as six points, but because the hit occurred in an AB, it ends up being worth five points, around 10 times the linear weight total. All non-AB events like walks and HBP are handled as 10 times their linear weights.
For pitching, you can clearly see the FIP components of HR, K, and BB and their respective weights. The innings pitch weight was derived by trial and error, but it makes some sense. An inning pitched by an average pitcher is worth about 0.055 wins above having no one on the mound (derived from a .500 pitcher being worth 0.5 wins per 9 IP). Applying a general 10 runs/win conversion gets you close to 0.5 runs, or five points per inning. You may be upset to see saves and holds included, but it was a necessary evil to make relievers worthwhile to pick up. These categories were used to simulate the reliever leverage component of WAR.
The rest of the rules will be mentioned on Friday, when I post a roster of potential players and the full rules list. If you are interested, please state your interest in the comments! I have six slots reserved for BtB-related authors or alumni, with three of them already taken by myself, Jeff Zimmerman, and JinAZ. Three more slots are left for those guys, meaning there are eight slots available to the readership. Generally speaking, I'd say it's first come, first serve, but additional decisions will be made based on availability for our draft and such.
The following is what I'd like to hear some comments/discussion on:
- The rules: Do you like them? What would you want to see different?
- The draft: Auction, standard live drafts, or just straight up autodraft?
- General availability about this process.
- Should there be an innings cap on pitching?
And Now Comes the Pitch
So, you've got a chance to sign up for this BtB Saber-Slanted Fantasy League, but what if you want to make your own? Well, SBN was kind enough to set up this deal for you fantasy junkies who are interested in getting your hands on a CBSSports.com Commissioner League. If you set up your league through this link, you and I both get something. You get a chance to set up a CBSSports.com Fantasy Baseball Commissioner League at half the price it usually costs, $90 down from the regular price of $180. I'd say that's not bad. I'm also not going to lie to you; I get a little cut for getting you to sign up. If you don't want to help a poor college student get a little extra money, I totally understand. But if you are interested in getting your hands on a cool setup for a fantasy league, here are some of the features that you'll get for your money:
- 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
So, if you're interested, sign up a Commissioner League through this link to get your half-off discount and get your fantasy game on. But if you're just interested in joining the Beyond the Box Score Saber-Slanted Fantasy League, or BtBSSFL for short, tell me about it in the comments section!
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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I'd like to do an auction league to test out the CBS auction manager.
And I’d like to win.
Beyond the Boxscore Not a member? Sign up.
I’ve been kind of a silent reader for a long time and would understand if you want to bypass me in favor of “regulars,” but I’m in if I can be in.
I just realized this doesn’t identify me in any way as the guy from The Daily Something, so just wanted to make sure you don’t count me twice, here and on twitter. :)
Ahh Bill!
Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to make it known you wanted in on her as well. You’ll of course be considered.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
Count Me In
Love that the scoring system is the same that Justin has in our league, so I wouldn’t have to create two draft boards!
Oh and
Suprised that “Holds” are a category. I guess I’m the only one who thinks that stat in real life is worthless..
by Mark Kieffer on Mar 9, 2010 12:02 PM EST up reply actions
Holds are worthless stats, and so are saves
The reason I included saves is because they help give credit for high leverage situations, which gets relievers up to appropriate point totals to reflect real life. Essentially, for a game in which a closer pitchers 1 IP and gets a save, he gets double-credit for that inning. It works out to being a fairly reasonable approximate for how we work leverage into how closer values. I used holds because it keeps setup guys as having value, which means that closers aren’t as essential as they otherwise would be.
It’s not perfect, but it works reasonably well.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
I'm inclined to add another pitcher
Either as a “P” (if that’s possible at cbs) or as a SP. Otherwise, I think the overall points balance starts to favor hitters too much.
I’d definitely prefer doing a typical live draft, mostly because I think I’d get my bottom handed to me in an auction as I’ve never done one. I also worry that they might take a lot more time than a live draft, and that the fallback for someone having network troubles or baby troubles would be fairly unforgiving. Live drafts just fall back to the autopick list, which a manager can alter himself, and will usually cover for him/her pretty well if availability gets to be an issue.
I don’t like inning/pa/g caps. Setting transactions to weekly gets around a lot of the issues of people swapping players in and out of the lineup to maximize points. Does mean that it’s harder to make use of part-time players, but such is life.
Best times are after 9pm EST any day for me. Weekends during the day…maybe, but would involve negotiation with my better half. Multiple hours in a row are very hard to come by unless it’s after the rest of the house is in bed.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
I'm very interested
Been in both years of BotB fantasy leagues
Would people be more interested in head-to-head points or straight ranked points.
I’m good with both.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
H2H works better with Weekly roster moves
Straight ranked works better with daily moves, although it does fine with Weekly. I would say H2H.
Only trouble with H2H is that there are only 25 weeks
With 14 teams, that means you will play most other teams twice, and some only once.
It’s even worse in my own league (20 teams). But I love the idea of playoffs and couldn’t resist.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
...
My problem is that if a guy goes one for five with a single he still gets a point…that doesn’t sit well with me. Just my opinion/me being an asshole.
Sweet idea though.
That reflects how runs are attributed to players though
Remember, this is a baseline of 0 runs, kind of like Runs Created or wRC on FanGraphs. A guy going 1/5 with a single contributed runs, just a really small amount.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
We could have done replacement level instead of absolute runs
The problem with that is that there will be times when it would be better for the team to start an injured player instead of a sub-replacement player. That’s not good gaming. This way, it’s always better to have a warm body in there rather than someone on the DL. It’s up to the manager to find a decent player to stick in there.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Saves = 5 points? No thanks!
Tango posted something similar to this where he came up with some weights for a fantasy league. Are these the same?
by WeNeedDavidJustice on Mar 10, 2010 9:21 PM EST reply actions
Essentially, yes
Tango had it at 3 pts = save, but he said that even at that level it was low. Tango recommended something like 5 pts = save to get top relievers around equal level to average starters.
Again folks, the saves/holds are to simulate leverage, not because we’re valuing relievers. Without something like that, there would be no reason for relievers to be taken.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
I'm ok with that, for the record.
Without something like that, there would be no reason for relievers to be taken.
Beyond the Boxscore Not a member? Sign up.
In trying to simulate a scale similar to WAR, these relief categories were used
If it REALLY rubs people the wrong way, I can think about a cap or something. Any ideas Justin?
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
It is the case that you're requiring 3 RP slots
So you literally do HAVE to include relievers on your team. I think removing saves & holds puts a huge premium on guys who have RP eligibility but are pitching as starters, though—using a “zero” baseline means that playing time (innings) matters a lot. Then you’re chasing “rule breakers” rather than saves.
To me, that’s less fun. And I think it should be the case that guys like Broxton, Rivera, Nathan (er…oops!), etc, should be valuable commodities. But it’s up to you guys.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
This seems like a bit of an overreaction
I mean, 5 points… that’s the same as an inning pitched with no home runs, walks, or strikeouts, or a single with no RBI or runs or SB. It’s just not a big deal. And holds are even more trivial — they’re the same as a single strikeout.
I will say that it seems odd for pitchers not to be penalized for hits or runs other than HR, but I guess I’d get used to it…
(also, I’m interested, if you still have room.)
- Mike
They are penalized for hits and runs
It’s just that those things are correlated to K’s, BB’s, and HR’s enough that we can just use those stats to account for them. The advantage of this approach (a DIPS-ish approach) is that pitcher rankings won’t be influenced (much) by fielding behind pitchers. This puts the emphasis on pitcher performance, not performance of a pitcher’s fielders.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
I understand the theory
it’s just strange in a not-like-normal-fantasy-baseball way. It’s already strange for me because the idea of just totaling “points” instead of having categories feels odd, although fantasy football works well enough that way. But it would be very different not having to think about whether you have your source of steals or whatever, but obviously real-world baseball can have a lot of different avenues to building a good team and they don’t have to be “well-rounded” like that…
I’m rambling a bit.
We want to make it feel like you're adding runs up
As you said, to be a good team, you don’t have to have the most singles, doubles, steal, homers, or whatever. You need to have the most runs. This system is supposed to simulate that.
For pitchers, since we can’t include defense with this sort of point system, we tried to take the defense away so it’s not about how good a pitcher plus his defense performs. K, BB, HR are all (mostly) defense-independent, so that’s how we decided to go with it.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
Points systems in fantasy baseball are nothing new
I played points leagues for years at sandbox.com in the late 90’s, so I know they’ve been around. I definitely prefer them to the categories leagues, which always seemed incredibly artificial to me.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
Somehow I remember sandbox.com
Back when I was interested in fantasy baseball but knew very little about baseball.
Marlin Maniac, a Florida Marlins blog
Writer, Beyond the Box Score
Writer, Baseball Propsectus Fantasy Beat
Writer, Heater Magazine
These aren't the same as Tango's points
His used a replacement baseline, which I don’t personally like because it means that there will be times when it’s better to not start someone at a position rather than insert a crappy player into your lineup (mentioned this above).
But yes, absolutely, his work inspired this system. I converted the offensive stuff to absolute linear weights. I also made the pitching points become more “DIPS-y” by removing batted ball outcomes, and it ultimately converted on something that looks a little bit like FIP.
-j
I write at:
Beyond the Boxscore | Red Reporter | Basement-Dwellers.com | Twitter: @jinazreds
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