Walks Issued as a category

[Trojan Pony]

I'm setting up a league and toying with the idea of expanding it to 7x7. Unfortunately it's on ESPN which doesn't have K/BB ratio for some reason, which would be my first choice. After trying several other stupid cats, just for the hell of it I put in Walks Issued (BBI), assuming it would correlate too strongly with WHIP, and to a lesser extent ERA, and I'd do away with it quickly. I wound up being pleasantly surprised by how weak the correlation was. There were plenty of top-tier pitchers with nice all-around numbers, including WHIP, but glaringly high walks (such as BBI All-Star Carlos Zambrano). I'm thinking it might be cool to bring more separation among the pitching ranks...reward guys with good command and punish wild pitchers. I'd prefer K/BB but BBI seems to be a better alternative than I would've thought...

I guess the argument could be made that if a guy gets the job done and keeps his ERA down and racks up strikeouts along the way he shouldn't be penalized for walking guys. But in that case why have WHIP either?

What do you think about it as a category? Do any of you have experience with it?

[BigKahuna83]

having walks as a category will make players think twice about streaming Pitchers. I have used it for many years.

[Trojan Pony]

Thanks for the input. What about besides that? That's not the main reason I'd use it, because I already have a 40 move limit.

[Y`s Guy]

Does ESPN do quality starts?

We used to do BBs to penalize lesser pitchers but it didn't satisfy us enough. We have shrunk back to a 5x6 league with HOLDS being pitching stats #6.

Quality starts would be a cool option if we had it in Yahoo.

[Trojan Pony]

Yes, ESPN actually does have QS as a cat. But do you think that would make sense in a one-week H2H format that already has Wins as a cat? I think the small sample size would make it really flukey, no?

[Y`s Guy]

My bad, 'pony. I have roto on the mind. Even tho I am in one H2H league I hate it.

Forget what I wrote.