Need Help Balancing a Points League. WHIR.

[Raider704]

I've been the commish of a public baseball league for the past 5 years. It is always a 10 team league with 3-4 other people I know and the rest random joiners of the Yahoo public. I've been switching around the point values for the past few years, and I just can't seem to get anything that is balanced. Here are our league settings for last year.

The rosters look like:
1 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 SS, 1 INF, 3 OF, 1 UTL, 3 SP, 2 RP, 2 P, 7 Bench

The points for hitters worked like this:
R = 1
1B = 1
2B = 2
3B = 3
HR = 4
RBI = 1
SB = 2
CS = -1
BB = 1
HBP = 1
K, GIDP, Error = -1

For Pitchers: (1400 IP Maximum)
Win = 8
Loss = -5
CG = 5
SHO = 5
SV = 5
OUT = 1
Hit, Earned Run, BB, HBP = -1
K = 1
Wild Pitch = 1
Hold = 3
Blown Save = -3

I'm thinking of throwing the whole CG/SHO out the window for next year. I also thought of making K's for hitters -0.5 instead of -1. I am also thinking of changing the 1pt per out for pitchers into something more reasonable (maybe 2pt per IP).

I also noticed relief pitchers (even middle relief) get way more points per inning pitched than most starters. I'd like to also reduce that to where they are not as powerful, but at the same time I don't want to make them worthless.

To give an example, CC Sabathia was the best pitcher in our league last year with 804 pts. There were also many pitchers with 600 and 700+ points. The most valuable hitter in the league was Albert Pujols, who was the only one to break 600pts with 610.

CC managed about 3.18pts per inning pitched. Papelbon had about 5.9pts per IP, Broxton 3.9pts per IP, Brian Wilson had 5.3pts per IP. Anyone who just loaded up on RP could and did have a huge upper hand. I would like to make it as even as possible for next year.

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. I apologize for making this so long. I will help in return if any of you have trade/league setting/keeper questions.

Thanks,
Bob

[BoBtheMule]

download open office and make a spreadsheet using last year's totals and the various point amounts. adjust the point amounts til you get things how you want it.
It'll take some time but once you're done, you won't have to mess with it again plus the time you spend playing with spreadsheets will help you in the long run.

[gocardinals413]

I have a similar league to yours and my points are pretty much the same. Some minor changes: I have no CG/SHO, with 1 point per out this kind of takes care of itself no need for the bonus. I made saves worth six and holds worth two, places a little more importance on the precious commodity of closers. For batters I had 1 point for SB's and nothing for CS. The CS probably takes a lot of points away from your batters. With those changes, Albert Pujols was about 10 points behind C.C. at the end of the year. I have been trying to fix the gap a little bit more but I can't think of what else to add or takeaway.

[noseeum]

No negatives for CS or Ks for batters.

the same players who steal get caught, so you're making their steals worthless.

Why is a strikeout-1 but any other out is not? They're all the same. If you want it for some reason make it -.25.

Pitching, yes make IP 2 points not 3.

Defintely use the spreadsheet idea. Very easy to do and very informative.

[Raider704]

Thanks guys. I've got J35J's spreadsheet and I'm going to play around with it.

[tavo2311]

No negatives for CS or Ks for batters.

the same players who steal get caught, so you're making their steals worthless.

Why is a strikeout-1 but any other out is not? They're all the same. If you want it for some reason make it -.25.

Pitching, yes make IP 2 points not 3.

Defintely use the spreadsheet idea. Very easy to do and very informative.

Just to play devil's advocate here, all outs are not the same. you can have productive outs that are better than just K's. That being said, I'm not about to start giving points for sacrifices or anything, so I agree you shouldn't have the negative K's.

Unfortunately for me, we are switching to points this season for the first time, but it is a keeper league and we used 6x6 last year (K's and L's), so I am getting pressure to keep the categories essentially the same, i.e. not making Adam Dunn more valuable than he was last year, blah blah blah.