Once football is over I'm really gonna have to think this thru better... luckily we have plenty of time.

There's football?

Plaw, what are the other options for games played besides 162?

From 50 to 180, and also "No Maximum"

But that's just for hitters. They don't give you any options for pitchers.

Am I the only one that has a job in here? :p

9:30PM too late for you?? :rolleyes: You just posted at 10:30... :p

You could act like a man! Wha'sda matta wit you!

As I've said....the draft date and time isn't engraved in stone; I just had to pick something to proceed to the next step in setting up the league.

I will do anything and everything within my powers as commissioner to get you into the game, JL.

Post a few days or dates and times that would work better for you; I'm sure that we can come up with something that will accomodate everyone.

Yours truly,

plawrence
Commissioner-of-the-Year Nominee

Are you sure about that Plaw? I thought that I saw an option for Maximum Innings Pitched.


Don Cardi

Maximum number of innings pitched, yes.

But not maximum number of games.

Posting on here at 10:30 is one thing. Having to stay online for several hours late at night is another.

After looking at my schedule, I may actually be working until 11PM on that night. So make it around midnight.

It deosn't have to be that night. Post a few dates and times that are better for you, and we'll see what everyone else says.

Midnight is fine for me and JG, of course. JG will just have to come home from the bar early, and I'll just have to move my pee break up an hour or so

It doesn't matter to me. If I'm not around, I'll have my players ready for an auto-draft, just like I did for hockey.

Good point. Make that 2AM!

....And then when my teams sucks, I'll have an excuse.

You know, I was just gonna post "I'd prefer that you be there in person. I don't want any excuses."

Has anyone seen DB around lately?

"Busy with wedding plans"?

That phrase has always gotten me.

Like, "I didn't have time to ____________(fill in the blank) because I was "busy with the wedding plans."

:rolleyes:

What? Is planning a wedding a full-time job?

If someone says "Sorry, I didn't have a chance to call you becuse I was over in Iraq fighting the insurgents, and my platoon was holed up in Fallujah for a week, pinned down by the enemy and without food or water"......or "Gee, I meant to get in touch with you but I was in a car accident last Thursday and just came out of my coma yesterday"......

Well, that I would understand.

Come on, DB. We need to know if the draft date for baseball works for you or not, and your opinion on the open questions (*making not-so-subtle assumption that DB is gonna play*)

Come out, come out wherever you are :p

JG, JL, DM, and I REALLY want you in this game. Along with Crabby, it would make it a true "All-Star Game", with the strongest field in Gangster BB fantasy history

I mean, I'd love to have LZ and GG and The Big Wuss, and SC and MC and fathersson, and even LDV (assuming that she hasn't dropped off the face of the earth), but if I could just get you in there, my life would be complete.

Oh, and definitely you too, Don Cardi.....

Good news, players.....

Yahoo now has available (at least I think that they just became available; I'm pretty sure that they weren't there the last time I looked, but I could be wrong) last season's player stats for both hitters and pitchers in our league's format.

Click on your team, then on "Players", then use the "2005 Season Totals" filter, then click on the last column, “Fan Pts”, to put the plaeys in order based on their point totals in our scoring system as it is presently set up.

Accordingly, I'd like to settle all of our "Open Questions" ASAP.

Which brings to mind the following:

If we add a +1 for each "Game Played" for a pitcher so everyone can track their 162 game max for starters on their own, that will add another 30 points or so to the value of a closer over that of a starting pitcher.

So I'm thinking that maybe we should reduce the value of a save from +6 to +3, and the value of a save opportunity from -3 to -1.5, and maybe reduce the value of wins and loses to +4 and -4, respectively.

Here's another thought:

I set this up so that we'd each have 5 starting pitchers and 5 relief pitchers.

Then, as I describe somewhere above, makings "Games" a stat category for pitchers and giving it a value of +1, everyone could track their own 162 game max for starting pitchers, since as a stat category, that number will appear in your Team Log.

I figured if that if, barring injury, the typical starting pitcher starts 33-35 games a year, there would by several occasions during the season that you'd want to bench one of your SPs - like when they were pitching at Coors, for example - so as not to exceed the 162 game limit before the end of the season.

In other words, you would decide which starts the pitcher would miss, not Yahoo because you never benched a pitcher and hit your 162 game max couple of weeks before the season ends.

However.....

If one or more of your SPs misses an odd start here or there without ever going on the DL (which happens often), by carrying only 5 starters someone could find themselves in the position of it being an impossibility to hit the 162 game max.

Let's say, for example, it's some time in August, and the total of your SPs starts plus their projected number of starts for the remainder of th season only adds up to 158 or 159.

What are you supposed to do now? Dropping one of them doesn't help, since you can only have 5 SPs, so while you'd add someone else's future starts you'd be losing the future starts for the pitcher you drop.

So this is what I came up with to solve the problem:

I suggest that we change the roster configuration so that we have one less hitter on the bench, and carry six SPs instead of 5.

That's what most MLB teams carry anyway: 11 pitchers and 14 position players.

Plus, this will add another element of strategy to the game, because now, if you don't bench one of the 6 regularly, you'll hit the 162 game max around the time that each makes his 27th start of the season, and again, you'll be locked out of possible upcoming matchups which are more favorable than the ones you've already used.

I don't know if I explained that very well.....

5 SP and 5 RP???? I've never been in a league that carried more than 3 RP, or less than 6 or 7 SP.

Actually, I'm changing it to 6 SPs and 5 RPs.

I want it to resemble a real ML roster.

Were the other leagues you played in "Roto," "HTH," or "Points Only"?

Did they have a "Max # of Games at Each Position" factor?

Did you read the rest of the thread with my reasoning?

They were Roto, with max games. I also played on Sandbox for a few years.... If we only have a few people playing, I guess 5 relievers will be OK. But with more than a few, we'd be wasting roster spots with middle relievers instead of closers. Only speaking for myself, I'd prefer not to have to draft 5 relief pitchers. I see your reasoning for the 5 RP, but if it comes down to drafting middle relievers, it's a waste of time.

Here's another change I made (Don't worry....I'll summarize all the stat categories and their point values and my reasoning and the implications on draft strategy in the near future, so there will be one post to refer to....):

I eliminated the "Total Bases Allowed" (-1 value) category from the pitching stats and replaced it with "Hits Allowed", also with a value 0f -1.

Here's my logic:

Using TBs for -1:

If Pitcher A pitches one inning (+3), and allows five singles (-5) which lead to three earned runs (-9), he ends up with a -11 for the inning.

If Pitcher B pitches one inning (+3), and allows two solo homers (-8) which produce only two earned runs (-6), he ends up with the same -11 for the inning.

Seems to me that the guy who gave up the three runs had a worse inning than the guy who gave up only two.

If we simply charge a pitcher with -1 for each hit, then in the above example the pitcher who allowed the three runs winds up with a -11, and the pitcher who allowed only two winds up with a -5.

Also, if you look at it at a point at the beginning or the middle of the inning:

Let's say Pitcher A allows singles to the first five batters, thee runs score, and he's taken out.

Using the "Total Bases" method, his score for the game is -14.

Meanwhile, Pitcher B allows solo homers to the first two batters and then is taken out of the game.

His score for the game is also -14.

But which pitcher left his team in worse shape?

Why should they both get a -14 when Pitcher B left the game with no one on and nobody out and two runs in, while Pitcher A left the game with two men on, nobody out, and three runs in?

Using the ESPN method of -1 for each hit, in the example above Pitcher B leaves the game with a -8, and Pitcher A leaves the game with a -11 which, since he left his team worse off, makes more sense to me.

Here's my reasoning:

Again, seeking to make this resemble reality as much as possible, what real MLB team has five quality relievers?

Every team has at least one guy who's worthless.

If we have to really scrape bottom to come up with that many each, there's still strategy involved in drafting.

True, these guys will score a minimal number of points, but they should score something, and a few points at the end of the season could make the difference.

Also, picking 5 RPs give you the chance to find a "diamond in the rough" or two, so to speak.

But the bottom line is, if there are six of us playing (or even 7 or 8), there are 30 ML teams, and each one has a closer, so that's at least 30 closers, and presumably decent relievers, right there.

And, if you look at last season's stats, which are available on the game site and can be sorted in order based on our scoring system, you'll see that there are some set-up men who got pretty decent totals for the year, in some cases better totals than closers.

Another option could be to go with 6 starters, only 4 relievers, and add an extra hitter to the bench, but the reason I don't like that it is it detracts from the "reality factor."

Edit: I looked. There are plenty of valuable relievers, IMO once you get past the first 30 (based on last year's scores.

AAMOF, the difference in total points for least season between the 25th highest scoring reliever and the 50th is only about 70 points.

Since our opinions about who will do well in the upcoming season are what makes the draft, and since I'm sure no one in our league will just let Yahoo do the draft for them based on their rating system, I don't see any problem with picking 5 RPs.)

Don't panic over all the monkeying around I did this morning with the stat mofidifers.

I was just trying to see how changing certain values affected the rankings, as I try to bring them into line with what I think resembles reality in terms of one player's relative worth compared to another.

Again, though....this is all based on last year's stats.

What makes the draft fun, IMO, is being able to make correct (or incorrect) judgements about who will do better this year than last, and who will do worse.

I'll give you guys the summary of everything before the weekend is over. As I've said, I'd like to finalize all this as soon as we can.

Summary: Where We Stand

Roster Configuration

Designed to resemble a real MLB as much as possible, each roster will contain 25 players, as follows:

Offense:

1 Catcher (C)
1 First Baseman (1B)
1 Second Baseman (2B)
1 Third Baseman (3B)
1 Shortstop (SS)
1 Leftfielder (LF)
1 Centerfielder (CF)
1 Rightfielder (RF)
1 Utility (UT) – Can be any offensive position, will serve as Designated Hitter (DH)

5 Other Players, your Bench. These players can play any position, and will be the guys you use in the event you wish to play someone other than a starter because of injury, slumps, more favorable match-ups, etc.

**Actually, to be more precise, you won't be drafting a "Utility Player" as such. You'll ne drafting 8 position players, and 6 players for your bench. But every day's lineup will have an open spot for "Utility" which you should fill, as the ponits for the player you put there will count every day.

That's what I mean when I say that the Utility Spot is really your Designated Hitter.

So, what you should do in the draft is try to cover all your 8 field positions with a backup, keeping in mind that one of them (or possibly the same one) will be playing every day in the DH role).

Pitching:

6 Starting Pitchers (SP)
5 Relief Pitchers (RP)

See “Pitching” in the “Maximum Number Of Games Played Per Position” Section for an explanation on how to use the 6 starters

***************

Maximum Number Of Games Played Per Position

Offense:

162. Yahoo will track this for you with the link on the bottom right-hand corner of your team's home page.

Once you reach 162 games at an offensive position, points at this position will automatically no longer be counted by Yahoo .

This feature allows you to devote as much or as little time to the game as you wish.

You can play the same guy at a position every day with no worries, since no one player can exceed 162 games.

The only time you would want to play someone else is if your regular guy misses a game. If you don't make that game up at some time in the future, you lose that game forever, which you don't want to do since the more games you have, the more potential points you can get.

To make up the game, you would wait until a day when your regular isn't playing, and then fill the position with someone from your bench.

Also, keep in mind that if a player goes on the real-life disabled list, you can put him on your DL as well (up to 5 players can be on your DL), in which case you would also want to make up whatever games your first-stringer misses.

Or, you can take the strategy to the next level, and deliberately bench your regular in favor of someone else, because of slumps, hot streaks, or because certain hitters do especially well or poorly against certain pitchers or in certain parks.

Although I am not sure if this information will be available from the Yahoo site, it definitely is available in the ESPN Salary Cap Game, which we will presumably all be playing as well.

Pitching:

Yahoo does not allow for a “Maximum Number Of Games Played Per Position” for pitchers, which I find rather odd. A real MLB team has no maximum number of games played for relief pitchers, since a real-life MLB manager can theoretically use as many or as few as he wishes to but, as on offense, it is impossible for a pitching staff to start more than 162 games during the course of a season.

Accordingly, to impose the 162 game limit, it will have to be done “artificially”, so to speak, and this is the only part of the game which requires (albeit brief) daily attention.

This will be done as follows:

One of the Stat Categories for pitchers is Games Started (GS). Since we will have an artificially imposed maximum of 162, it will be necessary for each of us to track our number of starts ourselves, although I will post the number of starts used/available in the scoring update every day.

The number of games started by each SP is available from the “Team Log” link, at the bottom right hand corner of your team’s home page, which shows the total number of points accumulated by each player in each stat category on days in which they were in your starting lineup, whether they are still on your team or not.

Since GS is a stat category, the number of games started by each pitcher will be listed there.

Once you hit the maximum of 162 GS, I will act as Yahoo would if there were a “Maximum Number Of Games Played” feature for SPs as there is for position players, and stop adding starting pitchers score into your daily total, or subtract them from your total at the end, or whatever.

Also, to make life easier, when you hit the 162 game limit, you should simply place all of your SPs on your bench. Or, as commissioner, I can do that for anyone who happens to drop out along the way.

Now, this is where the game gets a little tricky, and the only time, really, that it does:

As stated above, each team will have 6 SPs. Since a MLB SP typically starts 33-35 games each year (barring injury), if you don’t carefully choose when to have each of your SPs in your starting lineup and when to bench them, you will hit the 162 game maximum when your 6 SPs hit their 27th start each, which should be some time in mid or late August, and at a point when each will have maybe 6-8 starts left.

If you do that, that’s fine. However…..

You will not have taken advantage of the fact that you can bench certain starting pitchers on certain days because of their past history against certain teams, or in certain parks, or because they are slumping, or whatever.

(Again, while I don’t know if this “match-up” info will be available from Yahoo, it definitely is available in the ESPN Salary Cap Game in the “Splits” section of each pitcher’s profile).

You may end up with 4 of your starters making all 34 of their starts (for a total of 136), and the other 2 making only 13 starts each. You may wind up with 5 starters making all 162 starts, and your 6th starter making none.

Or any combination at all, really. Just like a real MLB manager.

You may find at the very end of the season that all 6 of your SPs have no more scheduled starts left, and you are only at 159, so you may want to drop 3 of them and add 3 available free agent SPs that have a start left, to make sure that you maximize your points.

Even if the three that your drop are, say, Johann Santana, Chris Carpenter, and Roy Oswalt, it won't matter since they won't have any starts left among them anyway.

The way I envision it playing out – at least at the strategy level that I personally intend to take it – is that I will draft the best 6 SPs that I can (I’m not suggesting here that I’ll draft SPs first, just that, at at every position, I’ll want the best one(s) available and I’ll draft them when I think that the total number of points that one will get is more than the total number of points I can expect from another position I need to fill).

So when the draft is over I’ll have 6 SPs, but obviously some will be better than others.

So my plan would probably be to use my top 5 SPs as many times as I thought it prudent to, and fill in the rest of my starts with my 6th SP.

I know, for example – and I’m not giving away too much strategy here, because I think everyone pretty much knows this – that if I have any National league SPs on my staff, they’re gonna definitely get benched on days when they’re scheduled to pitch in Colorado, regardless of who they are.

So that’s the way to do it, I think.

Have your best 5 SPs in your starting lineup at all times, bench one of them when you think the match-up on a particular day is really bad (or if they’re slumping or whatever), replace those lost starts with starts by your 6th starter when you think that he has a favorable match-up, and be mindful at all times of the 162 game limit.

Don't get so far ahead of yourself that the 162 game limit is reached before you want it to be, and don't get so far behind in using your starters that it's so late in the season that it becomes impossible to make up all of the lost starts (like where DMC is headed in Yahoo Basketball)

***************

Offensive Categories & Values:

The following are all self-explanatory:

Runs Scored (+1)
Runs Batted In (+1)
Stolen Bases (+1)
Caught Stealing (-1)
Bases On Balls (+1)
Hit By Pitch (+1)
Singles (+1)
Doubles (+2)
Triples (+3)
Home Runs (+4)

Also,

Grounded Into Double Play (-1):
We discussed this one briefly. My thought is that since the game treats an "out" as a "neutral" occurrence, with a value of Zero, when someone hits into a double play and, in effect makes two outs with one at bat, that event should have a value of (-1).

Sacrifice Flies and Sacrifice Hits:
We talked about this one also, about the possibility of assigning a (+1) value to each of these, since they were positive occurrences, but my feeling is that although a Sac Fly, for example, drives in a run, why should a player get two points for that (one for the RBI and one for the Sac Fly) when a player who does so is using up an out as well, while a player who drives in the run with a single also gets credit for two points without using up an out?

Pitching Categories & Values

The following are all self-explanatory:

Wins (+6 for each)
Losses (-6 for each)
Complete games (+3 for each)
Shutouts (+3 for each)
Saves (+8 for each)
Outs (+1 for each out recorded)
Hits Allowed (-1 for each allowed)
Earned Runs Allowed (-3 for each allowed)
Walks (-1 for each allowed)
Hit By Pitch (-1 for each)
Strikeouts (+1 for each recorded)
Wild Pitches (-1 for each)
Save Opportunities (-4 for each opportunity)
Holds (+1 for each)

Games Started (+1 for each):
The only reason this one is in there is because by making it a stat category it will appear in your team’s Game Log, so we all can can track our own and each others progress towards the 162 Maximum Number of SP Starts. While I originally thought that it was stupid to give everyone an extra point for that, I later realized that actually it was a good idea, because those of us who manage our teams well will get all 162 points that you can from this category, while those of us who don’t will lose a few points by not hitting the 162 game max.

Balks: I had to eliminate this category, since you are only allowed 15 stat categories, and I figured Balks was the one with the most minimal impact.

Total Bases Allowed: I went back to -1 for each hit allowed, as ESPN does it, rather than a -1 for each Total Base allowed. There’s an explanation why in my third post above.

Yes, I fooled around with some of the pitching values a bit in order to assign pitchers what I felt was their proper place in the overall spectrum of both all pitchers as well as of all players, including hitters.

For example, the SP with the most points last year (Chris Carpenter) rates below the best offensive players, like A Rod, Pujols, Ramirez, etc., but above the “second tier” offensive players, like Cabrera, Tejada, etc.

And the highest rated relief pitcher (Mariano Rivera) rates below the top SPs (Buehrle and Colon are the two rated directly above him), but above the "second tier” SPs (Brett Myers and John Patterson are the two rated directly below him).

With this system, you might as well spend your first 5 picks on the best RP's.

Well, you go ahead and do that.

But since the best RPs scored about 300 points each less last year than the best hitters, I don't see why you'd want to.

Actually, I can see some possible validity to your point.

If we have 6 people in the league, and the difference in point toals between the 5th and 6th best RPs is 100 points, while the difference between the 1st and 6th best position players is only 20 points, you could be right.

But that's not the fault of the scoring system.

That's the fault of the close equality between position players and the huge gap in quality among RPs.

Any reasonable scoring system that we devised would more or less produce the same results, wouldn't it?

If there's a position where the best guy is worth, say 400 points (where an A rod or Pujols is worth, say 700) and the second thru 6th best are worth only 200-300, you'd be better off with that 400 point guy than a Pujols who may be worth 700 if the 6th best first baseman is, say, Delgado and he's worth 650.

But I guess we'll leave everyone's draft strategy to themselves.

The scoring system that I came up with values the players in their correct place on the "spectrum" (IMO), so to speak, and if you want to talk about the valisitiy of that, I'll be happy to.

The very best offensive players are worth the most, then come the best SPs, then come the best RPs.

The best SPs are more valuable then the "second tier" offensive players, the seond tier offensive guys are better than the second tier SPs, and so on.

Thanks PL, that's very helpful. Btw, your PM box is full.