Looking for good advice on settings and rules...

[TheGhost]

I'm the commissioner of a H2H, 10 team, yahoo league. Last year we had problems with owners streaming pitchers and I was wondering if someone could give me advice on how I should set up my league to avoid that. I also had a problem with the pitching not being balanced between positive and negative categories. In other words, there were more pitching categories where more was always better (i.e. wins, strike-outs, quality starts, etc... as opposed to WHIP, ERA, etc.) Which stat categories should I use? Just looking for someone who has a tried and true way of setting up a yahoo league that is fair and fun. Thanks!

[brtnsbs]

I feel like I was in about the same boat as you about 5 years ago. Unfortunately I feel like the more categories the WORSE for a league. I'm currently the commish of a 16 team league on Yahoo run with friends and as we started with about 7 categories for each side (hitting & pitching) I feel its been better as we've moved to a more conventional (5x5).

The best way to stop streaming that I have come along is using maximum moves per week. We run a H2H league and use a maximum of 3 moves per week. While this does limit overall moves in general it does make it VERY strategic when it comes to moving a bench player for a pitcher on Monday-Thursday. There is always the thought of waiting until Thursday to see how the week is playing out before making a move. I think that implementing a weekly limit to transaction to add/drops would definitely help on the counting stats.

[Matthias]

I'm the commissioner of a H2H, 10 team, yahoo league. Last year we had problems with owners streaming pitchers and I was wondering if someone could give me advice on how I should set up my league to avoid that. I also had a problem with the pitching not being balanced between positive and negative categories.

You realize that these are the same problem, right? You can always put in weekly or yearly transaction limits but that's just a real band-aid to the problem.

The more direct way to solve both your problems is to have a balance between counting and averaging categories. So if you have Wins, Ks, and Saves, then you should also have something like: ERA, WHIP, and Walks (as a negative category). I'm not going to get into a huge debate as to what are exactly the best, but the basic idea is that you tinker with it so that there is no "strategy" (streaming pitchers, playing all relievers, whatever) that works better than simply drafting and keeping good starters and relievers.

FWIW, in my league my pitcher categories are (I play on CBS so I can customize my stats):

Wins minus Losses (starters only): This really discourages streaming crappy pitchers. Getting a Win is hard enough; it sucks when you take 3 Losses in one day.

K's: Self-explanatory and encourages use of all pitchers, especially starters

WHIP: Self-explanatory and encourages use of relievers and high-quality starters

RAA: Same as ERA but includes unearned runs. Encourages use of relievers and high-quality starters

RELIEF: Custom stat that is (Saves + Holds - Blown Saves + Wins by a Reliever - Losses by a Reliever).... this rewards closers but gives some (although lesser) value to middle relievers.

IPCG: This is another custom stat that is (Innings Pitched + 9 * Complete Games). This encourages starters and gives a little bonus if they finish their game without being completely random and small-sample size of CGs alone. It provides a nice offset to RAA, WHIP, and RELIEF so that people don't go exclusively relief guys. That said, it's also not a stat like QS where the relievers are completely shut out of it, either; they still contribute in their way.

As I said, I'm not going to say what combination of stats is the ideal. What we use works for us but I think other, completely different stats can work as well. The trick is not in zeroing in on what are the "best" stats; the trick is looking broadly on what are the best "balanced" stats. You want to encourage people to play pitchers, but there should be a penalty involved for playing pitchers who are bad.

Best of luck.