Looking for Catagories for a H2H League

[wolfeman]

What are the basic catagories for a standard 10 team H2H leagues? Thanks for the help.

[WaCougMBS]

If you are just looking to go with a standard 5x5 scoring system, the cats are:

Hitters - AVG, R, HR, RBI, SB

Pitchers - ERA, WHIP, K, W, S

6x6 will usually add OBP/OPS to hitters and k/9, k/bb, or L for pitchers...

Hope this helps

[MTUCache]

Try not to get too cute with categories for a H2H league... anything further than the standard 5x5 or 6x6 tends to end up becoming kind of broken, or exploitable.

For example, my league last year was a 7x7... a standard 5x5 with additional hitting categories of Doubles and Triples, and additional pitching categories of Complete Games and Shutouts.

With two fairly competitive and predictable counting categories added to hitting, and two somewhat rare counting categories added to pitching, hitting became even more valuable than pitching. With only 3 averaging statistics (AVG, ERA, WHIP) out of 14, it largely became a numbers game of people trying to cycle through to get the most possible starts out of every position, disregarding quality altogether.

Suddenly getting one CGSO was more important than your entire team's HR and Run total for the week. It virtually guaranteed you the win, even though it was completely unpredictable.

Don't get too carried away with H2H categories. A standard 5x5 would be just fine.

[Matthias]

True, although those are just bad categories.

Hitters you have a fair amount to choose from and the standard fare isn't too bad...
AVG, OBP, HR, RBI, R, Steals... nothing really wrong with that.

Pitchers are more tricky.
K's I would definitely put in.
ERA is a must.
WHIP is good.

After that, it becomes a balancing job. You don't want to create a situation with too many, or at least too rough, of counting stats so people just churn through crap. But you also want to have enough that people do more than just play RP's and win on rate stats.

So I would suggest:
Wins - Losses: This creates a potential penalty for playing a crappy starter.
Saves + Holds: This makes a relief counting stat, equivalent to wins, that favors closers but keeps the top-tier set-up men in the game.
Innings Pitched?: This one I'm not so sold on, but you have to look at what you're doing in the context of what you have. ERA, WHIP, and Saves/Holds are all reliever-friendly stats. K's is a starter-friendly stat. And W-L is a quality starter-friendly stat, but can be negative to crappy starters. So there's incentive with those 5 to go heavy on relievers and light on starters. Putting in IP would create a further incentive to go a bit deeper on starters.

These are just ideas, but you should go through the same type of thought process no matter what assortment of stats you decide upon. Make sure that you aren't creating a system where people can succeed by loading up on one type of player versus simply finding good ones.

[MTUCache]

Hitters you have a fair amount to choose from and the standard fare isn't too bad...
AVG, OBP, HR, RBI, R, Steals... nothing really wrong with that.

I would definitely be up for these offensive categories, in just about any league. You could swap OBP for OBP or SLG, but either way I like an additional averaging category to emphasize quality over quantity.

Pitchers are more tricky.
K's I would definitely put in.
ERA is a must.
WHIP is good.

After that, it becomes a balancing job. You don't want to create a situation with too many, or at least too rough, of counting stats so people just churn through crap. But you also want to have enough that people do more than just play RP's and win on rate stats.

So I would suggest:
Wins - Losses: This creates a potential penalty for playing a crappy starter.
Saves + Holds: This makes a relief counting stat, equivalent to wins, that favors closers but keeps the top-tier set-up men in the game.
Innings Pitched?: This one I'm not so sold on, but you have to look at what you're doing in the context of what you have. ERA, WHIP, and Saves/Holds are all reliever-friendly stats. K's is a starter-friendly stat. And W-L is a quality starter-friendly stat, but can be negative to crappy starters. So there's incentive with those 5 to go heavy on relievers and light on starters. Putting in IP would create a further incentive to go a bit deeper on starters.

Agreed. The K, ERA, and WHIP are givens (although, an argument for K/9 could be made, but this brings us back to the relievers/starters).

I particularly like the W-L category. Much moreso than just W, or using W and L as seperate category. Combining the two leaves you with some decisions to make throughout the week as the H2H picture becomes more clear. This also puts a little heat on the guys who have pitchers going against eachother to pick one or the other in a tight match.

The Saves+Holds doesn't really float my boat, but it wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. With a 10 or 12 team league, there's more than enough relievers to go around so that everybody can scratch together a couple of routine closers for saves. Adding in holds just seems to try and fix a problem that was never really there. Setup guys and MR in fantasy baseball have always seemed like kickers in fantasy football... not really necessary. Sure, it's nice to be able to flaunt your knowledge in front of other players when they don't have a clue, but if everybody knows about these guys it's pretty much a wash.

IP is a pretty arbitrary category as well. Seems to favor quantity over quality. A balanced enough league should be able to not worry about a minimum IP per week. If things are setup right, there's no advantage to punting Wins just to load up on Saves and keep a bunch of premier closers going with good ERA/WHIP. This is why I think the K total (rather than the K/9) would work better.

My preferred pithing categories would be:
Wins-Losses, Saves, ERA, WHIP, K's, and K/BB.

Three averaging categories, two counting, and one in the middle... keeps quality high while still requiring some decent quantitiy.

In this type of league hitters would definitely still be more valuable than pitchers... but I prefer that any day of the week.