OT: Fantasy Baseball - what is your league doing?
Quick Hot Take: Fantasy Baseball is the best of all of the Fantasy Sports.
My league always drafts a week before opening day (which usually is the 2nd weekend of the NCAA tournament), with the postponement of the MLB season we have delayed our draft until further notice. I'm curious how other leagues are setup and how are you are preparing for a shortened or possibly cancelled season?
My league operates the following way:
- Auction Draft
- 5 MLB Keepers +1 Minor League Keeper, minimum 2 years (3 years total including the year they are drafted)
- Head to Head - 6x6 categories.
- Batting - Avg, OPS, R, HR, RBI, SB
- Pitching - W, S, ERA, WHIP, K/9, QS
- Lineup, set everyday - C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF x 3, Util x 2, P x 6, 9 Bench
Some questions:
- If the season is cancelled, are you not counting this year towards keeper eligibility?
- What categories are you using, or have you moved to a points league?
- I would like to remove Wins in my league. I think QS is a much better indicator of pitching performance and more teams are moving towards using "openers"
- I'm in the minority in my league that doesn't like the SB category. Stealing bases just isn't happening as much anymore, and I think that there is probably a better stat the encompasses ability on the base paths (total bases maybe?)
Nothing at the moment.
April 24th, 2020 at 10:16 AM ^
I’m with you. Fantasy Baseball is sooooooo much better than any other fantasy sports.
We drafted on March 15th. Our commissioner is on chemo and we needed to draft a little early since he had upcoming treatments.
We are a H2H points keeper league. Auctions and ROTO just isn’t our thing.
I have been made co-commission and am trying to figure out what to do if the season is cancelled.
We usually just keep 10 guys after the season and have a 13 round draft, but I am thinking maybe we just keep our full rosters.
We are in some strange times, but we are just going to sit tight and until there’s some more info regarding the MLB season.
April 24th, 2020 at 10:24 AM ^
We are just chilling right now -- no decisions have been made. Already drafted in March because we needed the distraction. Agree that fantasy baseball is the best. Requires so much more skill and research than fantasy football.
April 24th, 2020 at 10:38 AM ^
Our league has had the W vs QS debate and I'm firmly on the side of W. I fully acknowledge all the issues with counting W, and accept the as is. I think they add a fun bit of randomness to the game of fantasy, which is appropriate since it fits with the randomness of baseball. The difference between a home run and a strike or an out can be a few feet at the fence and foul pole. The difference between many and no runs is the distribution of hits among innings. There are a lot of arbitrary things baked into baseball that make it interesting so fantasy should reflect that. In my mind, a straight WAR league (as an extreme example) would be boring, and using standard stats for either points or roto gives all the teams a chance to try different strategies and look for hidden advantages.
April 24th, 2020 at 10:44 AM ^
Yeah ,we have the W vs QS debate every single year and every single year we can't agree on a better stat to replace it with.
I agree on the WAR League, that seems extreme. The biggest move we made away from "Standard Stats", was going from counting strikeouts to K/9 but even that is probably pretty standard now.
April 24th, 2020 at 10:41 AM ^
Everyone is freebasing Lysol at the moment.
April 24th, 2020 at 10:48 AM ^
100% agree on fantasy baseball being the best.
We drafted in March and are just waiting. My favorite league is a little nuts in that we have 20 teams with 40 man rosters. 26 keepers a year. It has been fun to try to draft minor league guys and keep them around for 3-5 years before they even contribute. My biggest win was drafting Nolan Aranado the very first year. We still do wins, but I'd prefer quality starts.
April 24th, 2020 at 11:19 AM ^
Crying ourselves to sleep.
April 24th, 2020 at 12:36 PM ^
I'm in a keeper league that is going on year like 15. It's a very unique league, but I love it. Keepers are selected around Thanksgiving time. Our draft is a longer one where we do it "off-line" and give each team 24 hours for each pick. We finish in the beginning of March. Right now, just sitting and waiting. Not sure how we will treat the off-season if the MLB season is cancelled. Probably just try and do the same thing we always do.
On a side note, I really think MLB could get their season going quicker than most sports. They don't rely on ticket sales nearly as much as other sports do, especially the smaller-market teams. They rely greatly on TV contracts and ratings, which, could set records if it's the only American sport being played and televised during the summer. You also have many more people home (whether they are working or not) where you could play more games during the day to really maximize viewers. And I still think you could sell tickets, just limit the number and have them spaced out. Probably all wishful-thinking, but I think they could make it work, moreso than other sports.
I've been in the same 12 team (H2H) league going on 6 years now. At first I had no idea what I was getting myself into - as I've only played FF Football in the past - but I'm so glad I jumped into Fantasy baseball.
Our draft keeps getting pushed back (obviously), but I'm thankful we didn't have the draft before all of this mess started. Hoping we can eventually have a season this year - but not holding my breath.
I’m in four leagues this year:
TGFBI is redraft, slow draft. My league’s draft finished before things went crazy
Tout Wars (NL only redraft): at the last minute the auction was moved from NYC to OnLine where it was broadcasted on SiriusXM. (I bought Syndergaard, sigh, so repeat title is unlikely if there’s a season)
NL-only keeper league: draft postponed indefinitely. If no season, contracts will be extended.
Mixed Dynasty league: draft postponed indefinitely. No contracts, so no issue there.
FWIW, it’s paywalled, but there’s an ongoing thread about this issue at BaseballHQ.com: https://forums.baseballhq.com/showthread.php?103250-What-if-no-season