2013 GWJ Fantasy Baseball League Catch-All

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[color=red]Draft is Wednesday, March 27 @ 9:00pm EST[/color]

Current roster format

Roster size: 25
Positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, OFx4, UTIL
Pitching: SPx3, RPx2, Px4
Bench: 4
DL: 1

re-Inaugural season!

2013 GWJ "Champion of the Internet" Fantasy Baseball League

Going to try this again. Last year was rather last minute so hopefully with a few months before Opening Day, there will be enough time for this to plant in your brain and compel you to participate. If we don't get at least 10 teams again this year, I'll probably take the hint that GWJ just hates baseball. [color=red]LEAGUE IS NOW FULL[/color]

League settings (ESPN) will be:

Scoring based on 5 batting categories (avg. / HR / RBI / Runs / SB) and 5 pitching categories (era / WHIP / K's / Saves / wins)

Head 2 Head - 2 teams face off against each other each week. Team that scores more out of the majority of those 10 categories wins the matchup that week.

Top 6 teams make it to the playoffs which will occur the last 5 weeks of the MLB season (week 21-26). 1 week per playoff matchup.

Standard Snake Draft. Link to WhenIsGood for draft scheduling.

Limit of 4 waiver pickups per week. No limit over the course of the season.

Current list of owners:
FSeven
GioClark
Kush15
absurddoctor
ukickmydog
sr_malo
Cronox
CptDomano
jonfentyler
B Dog
shag26
Carlbear95

Wait list
gizmo

EDITS
1-14-2013: Changed league to ESPN, added new owners
1-19-2013: Added new owners
2-8-2013: Created league, created WhenIsGood scheduler, fine tune settings

In

In.

Question: Will rosters lock for the week, or can you make changes throughout the week? I prefer locked, but I don't mind unlocked.

Kush15 wrote:

Question: Will rosters lock for the week, or can you make changes throughout the week? I prefer locked, but I don't mind unlocked.

I perfer unlocked as it's better for playing matchups vs. pitchers and can save your hide from a dismal week should one of your guys go down with an injury on Monday.

I'd be happy to put it up to a league vote once we have all 10 or 12 owners.

In.

I prefer locked, but I can play just as happily with unlocked.

In. I've always done unlocked.

Count me in. I've never played BB on Yahoo (I'm an ESPN guy).

I'd prefer unlocked rosters, but will go with the will of the people.

Question: How would a roster lock/unlock work? Do you preset rosters for upcoming weeks that are locked by day 1 of that week or is there a window or grace period where changes are allowed between weeks?

Locking for baseball is dumb. It doesn't matter for the offensive players since you essentially keep the same ones in all week anyways, but there's no point to having a deep pitching staff since they will just sit on the bench all week. It's not that hard to figure out on the first day of the week which of your starters will pitch on which day and just put them in in advance. I never look at it every day, just set it up at the beginning of each week.

It also makes head 2 head matchups even more about luck then they already are for a couple reasons. 1) if an injury hits at the beginning of the week, you are out of luck. 2) you have fewer pitchers playing so one bad game or one really good game from a pitcher has more impact than it would otherwise.

I've never heard them so I ask: what are the arguments FOR locking?

My main desire for a weekly roster is as a streaming prevention method. I won't argue whether its a 'legitimate' strategy or not, but I'm not likely to have the time to keep up with anyone who does so.

ukickmydog wrote:

Locking for baseball is dumb. It doesn't matter for the offensive players since you essentially keep the same ones in all week anyways, but there's no point to having a deep pitching staff since they will just sit on the bench all week. It's not that hard to figure out on the first day of the week which of your starters will pitch on which day and just put them in in advance. I never look at it every day, just set it up at the beginning of each week.

It also makes head 2 head matchups even more about luck then they already are for a couple reasons. 1) if an injury hits at the beginning of the week, you are out of luck. 2) you have fewer pitchers playing so one bad game or one really good game from a pitcher has more impact than it would otherwise.

I tend to believe that locking rosters is for the casual fantasy league, and unlocked rosters are for the more serious ones. So I guess what we have to decide is if this league is a casual league or a hardcore league. I personal have no issues with either league, I only asked originally because I wanted to know what the setting would be. I prefer locked, but it doesn't mean I hate unlocked.

absurddoctor wrote:

My main desire for a weekly roster is as a streaming prevention method. I won't argue whether its a 'legitimate' strategy or not, but I'm not likely to have the time to keep up with anyone who does so.

Well I don't stream, unless you count putting in bench players... I think the weekly transaction limit pretty much ensures there is no streaming. I've played yahoo fantasy baseball for about 15 years now and never had a problem with it.

absurddoctor wrote:

My main desire for a weekly roster is as a streaming prevention method.

Not sure what "streaming" is? I just did my first fantasy baseball league last year, but I'd be interested in joining up

CptDomano wrote:
absurddoctor wrote:

My main desire for a weekly roster is as a streaming prevention method.

Not sure what "streaming" is? I just did my first fantasy baseball league last year, but I'd be interested in joining up :D

Streaming is when you essentially don't have permanent starting pitchers. You add and drop them every day depending on which ones are starting that day. This virtually guarantees 2 wins in the 5 pitching categories (wins, strikeouts) simply by sheer volume, while giving up on 2 others (era, whip). Most of the time streamers have a bunch of closers too so that they take that 3rd pitching category. They then can focus their early draft picks on pure offense because they don't bother with elite starters.

But like I said earlier, with a weekly transaction limit, this is not really a feasible strategy. I've never been in a league in 15 years where a streamer won.

ukickmydog wrote:

But like I said earlier, with a weekly transaction limit, this is not really a feasible strategy. I've never been in a league in 15 years where a streamer won.

Agreed on both counts. I've never been in a league with a winner who streamed either.

Currently I had in mind setting the weekly transaction limit to 6, however we could lower that to say 4.

In regards to casual/hardcore, I think the league is what you make it whether you're a person who likes tweaking their lineup on a daily basis or someone who focuses all their energy on the draft and only checks in occasionally to make roster moves. I've been in leagues where guys drafted well, made the least amount of roster moves and won the league. I've also been in leagues where some guys seemingly spend all day doing research and playing matchups, maxing out their transaction limit, and turn their poorly drafted team into a championshpi contender. That's what's great; anything can happen.

My own personal preference is to keep the league rules as it is. Max weekly transaction limit = 6. As it is, streaming is not an exact science. It still ultimately comes down to how the player performs. Think Francisco Liriano - one of the most used pitchers for streaming. He could pitch a 2-hitter against the Angels and then give up 8 runs on 14 hits in 4 innings against Cleveland, completely blowing any chance a streamer might have of winning pitching that week. Streaming is a double edged sword. You might be able to catch lightning in a bottle but you also might start a pitcher who implodes in the 3rd inning. I think it's a ballsy strategy that should be left to succeed or fail on it's own merits.

Personally, I still stick to the tried and true method of drafting a good starting rotation.

Edited note: Last year was a great case for unlocked rosters and a generous weekly transaction limit of 5 or 6. The sheer number of closers used by teams was unprecedented. Injuries, poor performances, you name it. I think with the exception of a very small number of teams, most MLB teams had between 3 and 6 different pitchers in the closer role last season. I remember getting into the habit of checking MLB news as soon as I woke up in the morning to see if there were any new closers named by MLB teams that I could pick up. To see who got demoted so I could drop them. It was nuts, all year long.

Kush15 wrote:

Oh, moving someone from the bench to the starting position would qualify as a transaction? *light comes on*

I like this and fully support unlocked rosters!

*EDIT*
Question, if you pick up a player, and then place him into your starting lineup, is this two transactions?

No, moving people from the bench to starters is not a transaction, just picking up someone from the waivers and cutting someone.

ukickmydog wrote:
Kush15 wrote:

Oh, moving someone from the bench to the starting position would qualify as a transaction? *light comes on*

I like this and fully support unlocked rosters!

*EDIT*
Question, if you pick up a player, and then place him into your starting lineup, is this two transactions?

No, moving people from the bench to starters is not a transaction, just picking up someone from the waivers and cutting someone.

Got ya. Then I would vote making it between 4 or 5 per week.

Oh, moving someone from the bench to the starting position would qualify as a transaction? *light comes on*

I like this and fully support unlocked rosters!

*EDIT*
Question, if you pick up a player, and then place him into your starting lineup, is this two transactions?

*EDIT 2*
I was in a work league with Shag26 (who is also interested in joining the GWJ league if you need players) last year and we had a 10 start limit for the week. The loophole was that if you used 9 thru Saturday, you could jam 5 SPs to start on Sunday and they would count. If you maxed out 10 on Saturday, your Sunday pitching wouldn't count. What made it worse was people would also drop their closers and get guys with RP/SP eligibility to max out at 7 starts on Sundays. We drafted Kimbrel and grabbed Rodney during Week 1, so there was no way we were dropping our closers. We also had 3 bench spots, so if you dropped an average closer, no one was grabbing it, so you could drop your closers on Friday/Saturday and pick them up by Monday/Tuesday for the next week. We couldn't drop our closers, since they would be grabbed almost instantly.

Granted, we also drafted Myers because he had SP/RP eligibility, so we had 3 closers every week until he was traded. Although we took advantage of 1 loophole, the above loophole was rediculous.

Limiting the number of pickups to 4 or 5 does control "streamers" so I wouldn't have an issue with doing that. Four is perfect, IMO. It's enough to compensate for injuries and prospects/hot waiver claims.

I had skimmed over the transaction limit, which takes care of my main reason for preferring a weekly roster. My lesser reason for preferring it still based on my likely limited chances to update my roster throughout the week, but that isn't anything that I can't live with.

I'm in, don't really mind about the format.

Cronox wrote:

I'm in, don't really mind about the format.

9 hour old account and jumping right into the mix!

Seven filled, three to go...

Very nice.

I'm in. On a side note, when will MLB TV be available to buy for the 2013 season?

sr_malo wrote:

Seven filled, three to go...

Very nice.

Oh, I was actually signing up with my post. I just had the question about streaming. I'm definitely in.

CptDomano wrote:
sr_malo wrote:

Seven filled, three to go...

Very nice.

Oh, I was actually signing up with my post. I just had the question about streaming. I'm definitely in.

Make that eight nine. I love it when a league comes together.

Anyone have any issues if I create the league with ESPN instead of Yahoo?

I'm in. Took a three-year break from fantasy baseball, but I'm ready to jump back in. (Especially since the Mets are going to stink again this year and this will give me a reason to watch a lot of baseball.)

FSeven wrote:

Anyone have any issues if I create the league with ESPN instead of Yahoo?

I have not used either, but if one has better mobile management, I'd pick that one.

jonfentyler wrote:
FSeven wrote:

Anyone have any issues if I create the league with ESPN instead of Yahoo?

I have not used either, but if one has better mobile management, I'd pick that one.

Yahoo's is pretty decent. I'm not yet familiar with ESPN's, but have no objections to having to change that.

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