Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 12, 2012 at 4:18am

A couple of discussion points:

1) DRAFT: A baseball draft can be intimidating due to the size of the rosters, as well as the inexperience of some of our owners (particularly the younger partners). I think the easiest way to expedite this and lower the bar at the same time is to trust a ranking list (i.e. ESPN 500) and use that list to distribute hitters and pitchers into pre-assembled rosters. We would still draft, but it would be only two rounds and you would each have the choice to draft hitters or pitchers first. It would be serpentine, so the team with the first pick may get the "best" hitters but would have last choice of pitchers (or vice versa). 

This will also likely encourage trading this season, as we will be inheriting players we don't want (e.g., Mets) and seeking favorite players we do like (e.g., King Felix). That activity will help establish a culture of trading and trade value that will be helpful in future seasons. 

2) STARTING LINEUP: In my main league, we have 9 hitters, mimicking a normal lineup. This was nice since it allowed us to use more players, but it turned out to be detrimental to trading, as there was a bigger dropoff between a starter and a backup player. I am suggesting a balanced hitter-pitcher 12-player starting lineup to help us stay active with dealing, better guard against injury, and offset the issues that come with a large 20-team league.

Permalink Reply by Steve Henry on April 12, 2012 at 11:23pm

Here is Team Henry (I think to be called the Owensboro Sluggers since we are near the Lousiville Slugger factory) input:

1) Draft proposal makes sense - especially since we are starting from scratch with 20 teams.

2) 12 player starting lineup is fine

3) Scoring system suggestions:

• Pitcher Strikeouts: What if we made it (Pitcher Strikeouts minus Pitcher Walks) to get penalized for walks?
• Hitter Homeruns: how about Total Bases instead?  You would still be rewarded for a homerun (4 total bases not to mention the 1 or more runs and 1 or more rbi's in the other categories) - but it would also reward to a lesser extent those players who hit doubles and triples
•  Hitter Batting Average: what if we use On Base Percentage (OBP) instead which would give credit for walks and HBP (taking one for the team)
• It would be nice to have Fielding Percentage (or Errors) to emphasize the important defensive side of the baseball.
• I am assuming you left 9 scoring categories to minimize ties (odd number of categories).  However, my instinct tells me we would be better off with an even number of batting and pitching categories - otherwise we risk weighting the hitting over pitching.  On the other hand, I don't know how many ties would result if we had an even number of categories.  I don't have experience playing head-to-head.  I previously played on a total point system when I played years ago.  Just sharing my thoughts aloud here...

4) Roster suggestion - what if we drop the developmental players for the first year to allow (and encourage) our kids to focus on the main roster.  My fear is that this is enough for our kids to learn (and enjoy).  The developmental roster could be added down the road once the basics are understood and mastered.

5) Tie breaker suggestion - for the same reasons as 4) above, is there a simpler tie breaker option for the kids?  How about using the fielding percentage here for the tie breaker?  If not, Pitching WHIP would be another option.

5) Question - how will the schedule be arranged with 15 week regular season and 4 opponents in your division?  Will you play division opponents once or twice?  How will we fill the remainder of the schedule?

My son and I are both looking forward to the season!

Play ball!

Steve

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 13, 2012 at 2:55am

RE: Developmental Roster

Valid points. Originally, I wasn't planning to include this, but there are a number of ownership teams located in proximity to minor league and college teams. A developmental squad allows the fantasy league experience to overlap more directly with real life by encouraging kids (and parents) to find some favorite young players to root for. Five spots may be overkill for that purpose, but even a developmental squad of 1 would help encourage some advance scouting and personal investment in watching players develop.

I'd love to hear more from you and other owners about this.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 13, 2012 at 3:03am

RE: Tie-breakers

Interesting. What I like about it most is that it removes the need to designate or track a separate set of players (the PH/ST) to break a tie. We just assign other kinds of stats to each of the extra innings and use the same players. It will probably still be a manual process, but I'll ask the host about this option.

Most games end resolved in regulation, btw. In a 20-team, 18-game season, we typically need to go to the PH no more than a half dozen times, and very rarely even need the ST. Picking another 5 extra innings categories should be more than enough to make sure we don't have ties, but it's a cheap exercise to extend it out to 9 or more just to be sure.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 13, 2012 at 3:06am

RE: Schedule

My preference is to have twice-a-year meetings with division rivals (8 games total), one with conference rivals (5 more), and a couple interconference games (e.g., if you finish second in your division, you play the other second-place finishers). I've got some templates for a schedule to that effect, but I have to check with the host to see if their system already manages that.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 13, 2012 at 3:44am

RE: Innings

I'm biased toward the simple, traditional stats because (a) they are more likely to appear on the backs of trading cards, and (b) when I started playing, all of the calculation was by hand -- even batting average an era were time consuming. It was much easier and more straightforward to count things you can see.

That said, this is a GEEK fantasy baseball league, and we shouldn't be afraid of a little extra math to track our players progress. There may be limitations on the host with some of these (K - BB, for instance), but I can check on any changes we make.

Some thoughts on those specific suggestions:

• I like the K - BB very much ... except when it results in negative numbers. Aesthetically, not pleasing to see that. It's a safe bet that this total will usually result in positive numbers (league averages are about 6+ Ks and 3+ BBs per hitter), but week to week it is more likely we'll see some negative results. If there is support from our owners for this, I can get over my numbers phobia, especially since it is just used to turn it into a binary.
   
• Total Bases ... I can definitely see the argument here. I think we might be overloading the value of hits, though, as historically they follow the same trends. Homeruns are special, since both sluggers and slap hitters can get on base but only the heavy hitters are going to knock the ball out of the park consistently. BA vs HR as two different categories describe two different kinds of players, which translates to multiple ways of being strategically successful. 
   
• OBP ... This trends similarly to BA (since there are many more hits than walks), so it definitely describes the same kind of player. It's no more difficult to calculate, either, and is a better indicator of contribution to the game. The only knock is that my 1989 Jody Davis trading card doesn't have OBP on it (although it is easily approximated with available stats). I'd be in favor of replacing BA with OBP
   
• Fielding Percentage / Errors ... When my league initially dumped MLB Coaching Wins (yes, we drafted guys like Dusty Baker to start as a manager) we replaced it with Runs to give credit to the guys on the other side of the RBI single. This gave us more emphasis on hitting, but we also start 9 hitters to 6 pitchers in that league. Fielding was nixed mainly because getting those statistics reliably gathered and calculated by hand was a daunting task, and it is somewhat more subjective to determine when you get credit for a chance or charged with an error (read: it's more difficult to watch a player's fielding percentage than if they scored a run). I like the idea of incorporating defense, though, as it reflects a completely different kind of player skill than any of the other categories. Any concerns about tracking the stat go away when we have a hosted service, and it is one category where both hitters and pitchers can play. The bigger question isn't should we add it but where? Should it replace a hitting category to be part of the 9 innings of regulation, or the 10th-inning tie-breaker (if we make a change to how we handle extra innings)?
   

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 13, 2012 at 4:23am

I've started pecking away at distributing the ESPN 500 into 20 squads of hitters and another 20 of pitchers. I think this is going to work out overall. There is one hitting squad with three quality MM (only two could start, one as a DH), but there will be a number of strong pitching staffs to offset that club. With several more rounds to go (I'm only through the top 100), things will even out. 

I am skipping over anyone listed as OUT FOR SEASON (e.g., Ryan Madson), but otherwise not evaluating the quality of the rankings.

Once the rosters are done, I'll post them for review and scouting.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 13, 2012 at 6:06am

And a couple hours later ... Here are the hitting and pitching squads (see attached), as distributed from the ESPN 500 list.

Some notes:

• I went with 11 hitters and 9 pitchers, mainly due to there being more positions to manage (4 types of hitters, compared to two types of pitchers). 
• Catchers had an early run, and then had to dip deep on the list for 4 teams in the final round to find one. This will be a quick catalyst for trades.
• A couple teams had to dip a little below ranked value for their starting MM, as well
• I presumed every pitcher was a SP unless I knew otherwise. There are likely some misapplied positions of "SP" that should be "RP" as a result.
• A couple teams don't have a bona-fide closer; others have several. This, too, will be a source of trade value.
• Five pitching staffs and six hitting squads have Mets on the roster. These are units I will be avoiding in the draft, FYI.

Attachments:

• 2012 Draft - Hitting Squad.txt, 5 KB
• 2012 Draft - Pitching Staff.txt, 4 KB

Permalink Reply by Thomas Watson on April 13, 2012 at 6:20pm

Kevin, How do you want us to get you our logos and paragraphs about our teams?

Permalink Reply by Kevin Makice on April 14, 2012 at 8:28am

You can post them to the Assignment #1 thread.

I'll send out a reminder Sunday morning to those who haven't posted yet. It would be great if we could get all of the logs, names and a brief backstory about those choices for a Wednesday GeekDad post.

Permalink Reply by Steve Henry on April 14, 2012 at 10:03pm

It would be great to hear the opinions of some of the other owners.  Here are some responses to Kevin's post in response to some of the suggestions I made:

• Developmental Squad - I can support 1 developmental player.  I think this would greatly simplify it.
• Tie Breakers - It sounds we are both in favor of using additional categories as opposed to pinch hitters and relivers.  I think it will keep it simple and add some fun.  I suggest the following:
• • 10th inning - Fielding Percentage (assuming our host site supports it - if not, use errors)
  • 11th inning - Pitchers: Innings Pitched
  • 12th inning - Hitters: Walks
  • 13th inning - Pitchers: WHIP  (total number of hits and walks allowed by pitchers divided by total innings pitched, the lower the better)
  • 14th inning - Hitters: Caught Stealing (less is better)
• Scheduling - sounds good, I like playing division rivals more - especially ones from Indiana
• Draft Order - how do you plan on selecting draft order?  Pull out of hat, random number generator, geographic distance from Owensboro, Kentucky (closest team gets #1 team)...
• Adjustments or Supplemental Picks for Injuries between Now and Start of Season - after seeing the news that Brian Wilson is likely out for the year, have you given any thoughts on how to be fair to those teams that have a player that gets injured between now and the start of the season?  If it was the 400th player in the draft, it is one thing.  It is another if you lose a top player like a Brian Wilson.  Just thought teams with that unfortunate luck perhaps should have a supplemental pick with the team that is most impacted (most highly rated player injured) gets the 1st supplemental pick, etc.... Maybe I am overthinking this?

 

Looking forward to the start of the season.  Those logos and team names are great.

Steve

Permalink Reply by Steve Henry on April 14, 2012 at 11:06pm

One last thought...

• 14th inning - use Hitters: Strikeouts (less is better) rather than Caught Stealing

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