What categories would be best to emulate real baseball?

[Absolutely Adequate]

I wish that fantasy baseball were closer to real baseball - there are just too many differences.

For instance, in real baseball, Barry Bonds is the most valuable player every season - no one even comes close. But he's the 15th or 20th best fantasy player.

If you were to try and set up a league that most closely emulated real baseball, what categories would you set up?

I'm thinking that a points league might work best - but I can change my mind. Here are the options available through Yahoo:

Batters
Batter Games (GP)
Games Started (GS)
At Bats (AB)
Runs (R)
Hits (H)
Singles (1B)
Doubles (2B)
Triples (3B)
Home Runs (HR)
Runs Batted In (RBI)
Sacrifice Hits (SH)
Sacrifice Flys (SF)
Stolen Bases (SB)
Caught Stealing (CS)
Walks (BB)
Intentional Walks (IBB)
Hit By Pitch (HBP)
Strikeouts (K)
Ground Into Double Play (GIDP)
Total Bases (TB)
Putouts (PO)
Assists (A)
Errors (E)

Pitchers
Pitching Appearances (APP)
Games Started (GS)
Innings Pitched (IP)
Wins (W)
Losses (L)
Complete Games (CG)
Shutouts (SHO)
Saves (SV)
Outs (OUT)
Hits (H)
Total Batters Faced (TBF)
Runs (R)
Earned Runs (ER)
Home Runs (HR)
Walks (BB)
Intentional Walks (IBB)
Hit Batters (HBP)
Strikeouts (K)
Wild Pitches (WP)
Balks (BLK)
Stolen Bases Allowed (SB)
Batters Grounded Into Double Plays (GIDP)
Save Chances (SVOP)
Holds (HLD)
Total Bases Allowed (TB)

Let's see. I'd also want as many teams as possible, up to 30. I think Yahoo sets a limit at 20, and I'm using them as my provider. So 20 teams, with deep rosters. Maybe 40 men.

Any ideas about the categories/point values?

Thanks -

[GotowarMissAgnes]

For hitters: OPS
For pitchers: K/9, BB/9, HR/9

Everything else you have listed is either already included in those, an effect of defense (which cannot be measured by the stats you've listed), or mainly dust motes in the scheme of what really matters in baseball.

[AcidRock23]

we actually use 13x13 (AB, R, H, HR, RBI, SB, BB, K, E, AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS for hitters and W, L, CG, SHO, SV, HR, BB, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP, K/9).

It may seem a bit heavy but it seems a bit more balanced than 5x5 for H2H as, when Geoff Jenkins has his yearly 3 or 4 HR outing, you still have a chance to catch the guy w/ pitching and a few of the intangible categories. It also 'costs' a guy who has Bonds AB if he doesn't get his slot covered when he's taking days off each week and 'costs' a Soriano owner for the fielding/ strikeout lapses 'fonso is so renowned for. I had quite a bit of success looking at the 'matchup' on Friday and identifying categories that were already 'won' 'lost' or 'contested' and tweaking my lineup to try to take the majority of the 'contested' slots, punting where I was ahead already as needed.

I'd really like to set up a 'evil twin' league and see how it would play out w/ 5x5 and this format next to each other w/ the same teams, managers and players but that would be a bit involved and would collapse as soon as you were out of town or something like that. We did a 5x5 1/2 season league concurrently w/ the first season of this format but the autodraft didn't work very well so there wasn't as much interest. I do recall some close matchups but we've not really had any matchups decided by the 'lame' stats, other than that they were involved.

Oddly, we used GIDP the first year and that was the only stat identified by multiple people as 'annoying' that we'd discarded. There was also some debate about using TB instead of one of the %age categories which are so obviously derived from each other and do perhaps weight hitters a bit higher than SP but we just let it ride. We'll see how this year goes. It is still not really like 'real' baseball, as it is kind of missing the human element but still is quite a bit of fun.

[SaintsOfTheDiamond]

I've always wanted to try out a leauge like that. Anyway, mine would be similar to GTWMA's, but I'd add:

Hitters:
K/PA -- I would want something that punishes guys with high K totals since I hate "unproductive" outs. But then again I guess that's not very realistic since guys like Dunn, Bellhorn, and Sosa are still on major league rosters
SB% -- Again eliminates the high "unproductive out" guys, but is the closest thing to rewarding smart baserunning we can probably get in mainstream fantasy providers.

Pitchers:
I would maybe change K/9 to K/BB since K/9 still favors high strike out guys, which has always bothered me. I guess it takes the defense out of play, but I've always thought K's were one of the most overrated stats in baseball -- real or fantasy.

[DK]

I've always wanted to try out a leauge like that. Anyway, mine would be similar to GTWMA's, but I'd add:

Hitters:
K/PA -- I would want something that punishes guys with high K totals since I hate "unproductive" outs. But then again I guess that's not very realistic since guys like Dunn, Bellhorn, and Sosa are still on major league rosters
SB% -- Again eliminates the high "unproductive out" guys, but is the closest thing to rewarding smart baserunning we can probably get in mainstream fantasy providers.

Pitchers:
I would maybe change K/9 to K/BB since K/9 still favors high strike out guys, which has always bothered me. I guess it takes the defense out of play, but I've always thought K's were one of the most overrated stats in baseball -- real or fantasy.

K's are immensely important. Don't fool yourself.

[Absolutely Adequate]

These are great ideas. So you guys would go for a roto/h2h over points?

[CameronCrazy]

yeah go with roto

[Tavish]

These are great ideas. So you guys would go for a roto/h2h over points?

If you are wanting to emulate real life as much as possible go with points. Depending on how you are hosting the game you could pretty easily copy linear weights as the point system.

[CameronCrazy]

i think that the more catagories you have the better. it makes the league way more like actual baseball

[Absolutely Adequate]

These are great ideas. So you guys would go for a roto/h2h over points?

If you are wanting to emulate real life as much as possible go with points. Depending on how you are hosting the game you could pretty easily copy linear weights as the point system.

It was your post that gave me the idea, actually. What would you recommend? Where do you get your #s? etc.

If you are going to do a point system, the easiest and most tested system would be to simply institute the linear weights values.

+ Singles * .46
+ Doubles * .8
+ Triples * 1.02
+ HR * 1.4
+ Walks * .33
+ SB * .3
- CS * .6
- Outs * .25

The problem, of course, is that Yahoo doesn't have the "Outs" category.