Info on a Keeper/Dynasty Auction System?

[Matthias]

We use a kind of fun, tweaked stat.

It's: Innings Pitched + 9 * Complete Games.

Basically, it's just innings pitched. And then if your starter throws a CG, you get 18 innings of credit instead of 9. On the one hand, it's kind of cheap that IPs don't tell you a whole lot. On the other, if everyone has more or less the same composition of staff, there is good real baseball value in starters who throw 6-7 innings a start versus those who throw 5 or less that you're capturing in fantasy. And it did give some preference to starters since we were also concerned that otherwise relievers would be overly attractive.

To not have it (or any rate stats) be abused, though, we limit pickups to 60 per year. Which is fine... only had two guys cap out on them over two seasons.

Edit: Forgot to mention that the CG part is also really fun for guys to watch. Once their starter starts making it to the 7th inning, they start following and rooting, hoping to score the bonus. So that's a perk.

[MTUCache]

Sounds intriguing... I was considering adding an IP category.

Do any of the standard sites support that kind of category (IP+CG*9)? Seems like kind of a specialized thing.

I was trying to avoid any categories that would just influence people to stream pitchers, but I'm thinking that with all the other quality categories (ERA/WHIP/etc) that it's not as much of an advantage as stuffing closers would be.

In the end, I think I'm just going to have to accept that there are going to be weaknesses in any system, loopholes for guys to find, and we'll adjust to them when/if they become a problem in future seasons. For the current season, I'll just have to hope guys either don't figure them out, figure them out late, or have enough honor to win the "right way".

[Matthias]

Don't think it shows up as a standard stat anywhere. But if you use Sportsline or someone else that lets you do formulas, you can make it for yourself.

It is a tough balancing, but our system is fairly similar to yours, and we have no limitations on pitchers (I didn't want to do X starter slots and Y reliever slots and then have people game it via the starter-qualifying reliever) so we just have 10 pitching spots. In two years, noone has gone extreme anything. At the end of the year, you may see people who are lagging in rate stats decide to punt and accumulate counting ones, but that'll happen. And the check of negative stats is probably the biggest deterrent. Especially if you are subtracting losses and walks, people will try to be careful on who they throw up there. A little encouragement to get them throw people out there would probably do some good.