Standard 5x5 is unrealistic

[fantasyfiend]

I have an idea for new 5x5 categories that I feel accomplish the same competitive balance, putting accurate weight on the different types of skill sets that comprise a current major league team.

Batting: Plate Appearances, OBP, ISO, R, SB

* OBP takes care of contact/walks
* Isolated Power takes care of power/xtra base hits (formula is AVG-SLG%)
* SB takes care of basestealers (not as important in "real life" but a fun stat to have in fantasy leagues)
* R (one of the stats i'm on the bubble about, but I thought I'd add it to balance out power types with speedy types)
* PA puts value on players that get a lot of PAs (durable, healthy, very productive real life players)

Pitching: Innings Pitched, K/9, BB/9, ERA, SV

* SV - fun category to chase, it's fantasy baseball pastime/tradition
* IP - puts a lot of weight on valuable innings eaters, but they need to be good pitchers, because K/9 and BB/9 will suffer if you just throw any junk pitcher in.
* K/9 - Nice rate stat that accurately incorporates an important part of the game, and keeps owners honest, by not streaming sucky pitchers who dont strike anybody out.
* BB/9 - Almost identical to K/9 .. but makes control pitchers who eat innings valuable.
* ERA (this one is like "R", i'm not too sure about using it, I thought about using WHIP, but I thought that stat would have too much overlap with BB/9).

It's important that everything is balanced so that relief pitchers or starting pitchers carry accurate value to a team. Nobody wants to play in a fantasy league where everybody drafts only starting pitchers, or only drafts relief pitchers. Or only drafts power hitters, and ignores speedy types.

I'm thinking of commishing a league with these categories, and was hoping the fantasy baseball cafe community can help me optimize these categories. Or add some suggestions to the methodology here.

[Neato Torpedo]

IP + PA = enough streaming to flood the Mississippi River

[Bloody Sox]

My initial comment is that in your effort to make things more realistic, you've done nothing to address the use of middle relievers. You should change saves to something that is a combination of saves and holds (2*saves+holds?), even possibly removing vulture wins from the equation somehow.

[fantasyfiend]

But what if you make all Adds/Drops a 3 day waiver process (it costs you waiver priority to pick up a player, and it takes 3 days for the waiver process)

I'm thinking of running this in deeper leagues, too.

10 Team NL/AL only redraft leagues.

To combat streaming I can either put a cap on add/drop, or change it to weekly lineups if the "waiver system" isn't sufficient enough.

[fantasyfiend]

My initial comment is that in your effort to make things more realistic, you've done nothing to address the use of middle relievers. You should change saves to something that is a combination of saves and holds (2*saves+holds?), even possibly removing vulture wins from the equation somehow.

Thanks for the response.

I think good middle relievers will have a lot of value because of their ability to prevent walks (bb/9), and get a lot of strikeouts (k/9). They also add innings pitched.

[ayebatter]

IP + PA = enough streaming to flood the Mississippi River

Yep, you would either need to limit FA moves or institute FAAB to prevent this, and it will still happen to some extent.

[jake_harv88]

when I sign up for fantasy sports, I dont sign up to pretend like I'm managing a real baseball team. So yeah I'm good with standard 5x5...

[fantasyfiend]

It doesn't make a lot of sense to throw junk into your active line up (aka streaming) when there are several rate stats that can hurt you: OBP & SLG. A team wouldn't want to kill their scores in the other categories by throwing waiver wire fodder into their lineup. Same for pitchers. You don't want a bunch of waiver wire junk when K/9, BB/9, are being accumulated.

[fantasyfiend]

when I sign up for fantasy sports, I dont sign up to pretend like I'm managing a real baseball team. So yeah I'm good with standard 5x5...

Interesting perspective.

IMO, my intentions aren't to simulate a real baseball team. I'm trying to find a system that puts more emphasis on metrics that correlate from year to year. I think this makes the fantasy game more competitive, and reduces the amount of luck involved.

[fantasyfiend]

I punched in these categories and generated dollar values using PECOTA's 2008 projection system. Here are the top 25, let me know what you think:

* It's worth noting that 2 RF, 1 CF, 2 LF are required in the hypothetical league I used to generate these dollar values. Position scarcity (based on these permutations) might affect the rankings/dollar values slightly:

* The dollar values are based on PECOTA's 2008 player forecasts (its 1 year outdated)

PLAYER POS $$$
Rodriguez, Alex 3B $48.48
Roberts, Brian 2B $42.98
Sizemore, Grady CF $39.57
Crawford, Carl LF $38.50
Ortiz, David DH $37.41
Papelbon, Jonathan RP $36.77
Ellsbury, Jacoby LF $34.86
Figgins, Chone 3B $34.19
Upton, B.J. 2B,CF $33.85
Street, Huston RP $32.81
Soria, Joakim RP $30.79
Cabrera, Miguel 3B $30.16
Rodriguez, Francisco RP $29.65
Kinsler, Ian 2B $29.54
Sabathia, C.c. SP $28.70
Nathan, Joe RP $27.64
Abreu, Bob RF $27.20
Bedard, Erik SP $26.69
Jeter, Derek SS $26.51
Swisher, Nicholas 1B,CF,RF $26.47
Guerrero, Vladimir RF,DH $26.18
Suzuki, Ichiro CF $25.60
Rivera, Mariano RP $25.58
Hafner, Travis DH $25.46