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.
RulesLeague 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.
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Commissioner League.