Starting a first year keeper league, H2H, need stat recs...

[stepsinsc]

I need some recomendation for stat categories, in addition to the usual 5x5, for my H2H league...

I was thinking about adding Total Bases as a pitching category to try and curtail people 'punting' ERA & WHIP by pitching tons of innings to win the Ws, Ks, and SVs categories. With TB as a category, the more pitchers you throw the more TBs you would get and therefore risk losing that category. Does that sound like secure logic?

I also want to add Holds as a pitching category.

To get an equal number of hitting stats, I was thinking about OBP and strikeouts (that way I would have one "negative" category, strikeouts, just like the negative cateogry of TBs for pitchers). Are there better options for H2H leagues? Ideas? All thoughts appreciated...

[acsguitar]

I like lots of stats!

I don't really like wins and loses though as I think they are more team dependent then pitcher dependant.

[Amazinz]

My personal preference for extra cats are:

6x6: OPS, Holds
7x7: OBP, SLG, Holds, Losses

I also use K/9 instead of K.

[WittyC]

I can't understand why you would want to discourage people from throwing a lot of innings. First off, if someone really wants to dump two categories, I would say let them. It's no different than using no SP's and punting W and K. If you're worried about people cycling pitchers, just use weekly locked rosters. That will put an end to the nonsense in a hurry (plus for H2H I just think it's more fun!).

My preference for adding holds is to simply eliminate the WHIP category. It's basically fluctuates with ERA (how often do you win one and not the other in a given week?). I then add in holds and keep the league 5x5. It devalues all other pitchers to some degree, but I think it's worth it to add a whole new pool of talent with MR's.

[ironman]

Yeah K/9 instead of K would basically leave the pitching churners just one category to really gain from. I'd do that and set a minimum weekly IP around 25-30 to ensure people actually start pitchers instead of relying on one start from Johan Santana and benching the rest of their SP's for the week.

[Amazinz]

We use a 30 IP minimum as well. It definitely doesn't discourage a lot of innings, it just discourages a lot of crap innings. WHIP may not be the best stat in the world but for me it's just a must have for fantasy baseball. To each his own.

[Ender]

Just set a maximium IP or go to weekly lineups, that fixes pitcher churning. Most stats don't add anything to a standard 5x5. Think long and hard before you add something.

Holds is not a good stat, its way too random, it makes MR's useful but it just degrades the value of SP's more as now they only give you 4 stats out of 6. I see people add things like OPS to offense, having just done an OPS draft all this does is devalue speed players and make already good players more valuable. I don't see how adding OPS does anything positive for the player mix and replacing AVG with OPS is even worse.

I guess what I"m saying is don't add stats just to add stats, only add one for a good reason. TB does not add anything to the league, in fact it gives value to crappy pitchers over good pitchers since they tend to give up more TB... it may fix your specific problem but it does it by making bad pitchers more valuable and good pitchers less valuable, thats not a good thing.

Just slap a 1250 IP limit on your league and your pitching churning problems mostly go away, go to weekly transactions if you are H2H and it completely goes away.