Advice on starting pitching issues....WHIR

[jonboycubs]

I run a 16 team 4 keeper league h2h scoring. Last year we had issues with teams streaming pitchers and having empty batting positions to carry extra pitchers. Pretty much collecting them, even the bad ones to gain any points you could. I could not change this as it was the middle of season when teams figured this out and I had no rule against it, but this year I am going to fix it. I am putting different polls up so people have a voice and I can hear what they have to say. I would like to hear what yall think is a good option for fixing this problem.

First i have said any empty roster slots leads to a forfeit of the week. My main question is what do you consider a better option

Limit number of starters a team can carry at once or limit number of starts a team can have per week.

The loophole with starts per week is, say the limit is 12 starts per week. If on Sunday you have 11 starts allready and you start more than the one you have on sunday, say you start 3, they all will count as this is a loophole espn has. Not sure why but there you have it. Please any advice would be great, THANKS

[bigmck]

In the leagues I run I use a 10 start per week rule. Like you say if a team has 9 on Saturday they can start 4 on Sunday and exceed it. I don't really see anything wrong with that. With a 16 team league there are not going to be that many good players in the FA pool. If someone wants to start several pitchers on Sunday, he will have to pickup some players that no one else wants. Most likely his ERA and Whip will suffer. I don't like your idea of a forfeit for empty batting positions. A limit on starts will take care of any problems you have.

[Pogotheostrich]

I had an problem with streaming the year before last in one of my leagues. The league chose to limit the max acquisitions per week to 7 and ended the riduculous streaming. Teams can still pick up a few starters a week if they like but they can't go crazy. Plus they still have enough moves to make changes and adjust for injuries.

[jonboycubs]

Yeah I have a limit on how many you can pick up per week (7), My main problem, why I am doing the forfeit thing, is teams were leaving several batter spots open so they could carry more pitchers and would just leave those slots empty all year and hang on to the pitchers. Its a points league and you do lose points for ER, but a bad outing you could still get 25-50 points, while the average good outing gets you from 200-300. So even 25 points is still positive points. The league just voted to limit the number of starts per week, so now I just need to figure out how many is a good number of starts

[jonboycubs]

Just realized that in espn fantasy leagues you can not limit the number of starters anyway. You can have a start limit or innings cap

[bigmck]

Just realized that in espn fantasy leagues you can not limit the number of starters anyway. You can have a start limit or innings cap

Yes you can. The pitcher position can be SP, RP or P.

[moozzy77]

In out league we only allow 4 "spot starters" a week. a spot start is a sp you pick up off the FA and starts a game on your team. once a spot starter pitches on your roster he is now a member of your team and not a spot starter.
If a team keeps an empty spot in their lineup then bench their best starter for their next start every time they have an empty hitters spot

[bigmck]

These problems the OP outlines occurs because it is a points league. Pitchers are worth more points than batters so the owners leave batting spots open. This is the reason I don't play point leagues. If you are in a Catagory League, you do not have these problems because every catagory is equal whether batting or pitching.

[Urban Cohorts]

If you want to eliminate or reduce the effects of streaming and hoarding SP, the best thing to do is what you said-

First i have said any empty roster slots leads to a forfeit of the week.

Make sure every manager has every active hitting roster spot filled, otherwise they forfeit the match. There really isn't a better option.

And IMHO fantasy baseball in a league without many active hitting spots filled doesn't seem like an actual fantasy league. I wouldn't invest my time in it. It is called fantasy baseball for a reason- to simulate being a MLB GM, etc. To roster a "fantasy team", it should include both MLB hitters and pitchers and use ALL of those spots in the match. Otherwise it isn't fantasy baseball.

I have a similar set of rules in one of my leagues. Teams can hoard all of the SP they want and stream the crap out of SP as well, but EVERY manager needs to have a player at EVERY roster spot- hitters, SP, and RP.

[dfa]

A few things I do:

Weekly locks instead of daily. I was in a daily league this year and it required way too much time.

Point system...I put a lot (probably too much!) time into devising a scoring system which essentially results 53% of the league's total points deriving from offensive players and 47% from pitchers. I really hate categories because saves are a normal categories and I think this results in closers being overvalued. I poured a lot of time into figuring out how to value innings, quality starts, wins, strikeouts, hits allowed, runs allowed, etc. It has proven to be its own kettle of fish and coming up with a good point system is tough, but I have buy in from the league to do what I think makes the most sense from a baseball perspective, and I have tons of spreadsheets to back it up .