I'm popular.

Either that or your last Pulcawer article got a lot of criticism too hostile for the public boards... Nah, we'll go with the former. :p

I'm popuuuuuuuuuular :p

From? So you gonna play, or what?

Sorry plaw its from a musical but they use it a lot on SportsCenter I thought you'd recognize it

I just can't get into having 5 relief pitchers on a fantasy team. In every league I've ever been in, you were never even allowed to use more than 2 on any given day, or 140 appearances in one season.

JL:

1) My goal in creating this scoring system was to make it as close to having a "reality-like" team as possible.

2) If you can give me a logical reason, other than "every other fantasy game I've ever played", I'll be happy to listen.

In reall ife, a manager is limited to the number or RPs he can use veryday only by the number of RPs on his staff. Just like here.

He is, however limited to getting 162 starts in total from his position players and SPs, just like here.

3) We're playing the basketball game pretty much the same way and it seems to be working fine.

Believe it or not, I rarely, if ever, watch SportsCenter.

We have a difference of opinion. I don't think having 5 relief pitchers on a fantasy team is realistic at all. Real teams have an average of 5 relievers. A closer, a setup man, a long reliever, a "specialist", and a "scrub" they avoid using. We're going to have to draft 5 closers in order to get "save points" which count more than wins.

A real life manager won't have the type of quallity we'll have on our team on the bench, or as their starters at every position, either.

That's more a function of the fact that we won't have 12 players in out league, but rather, only (probably - hopefully) 6.

While it's true that saves count for more points then wins, that's by far the most important category for a RP.

More important, in fact, than actual "wins" are for a SP.

Today, if a starter goes 6-7 innings and leaves the game ahead, tied, or even one run behind, he's considered to have done his job.

The actual number of SP "wins" are often a function of run support as much as anything else.

Bottom line, though, is that if you look at last year's point toals by all pitcher, I think you'll agree that, as I said, relief pitxhers fall in where they belong on the scale of how valuable they are in relation to the rest of the pitchers, and the rest of the players.

I could greatly reduce the value of relief pitchers, but relative to each other their value would still be the same, so you'd still need to draft the best 5 you could get.

All that would do is change where they would be drafted.

As it stands now, the best RPs, I think, still figure to score fewer points than just about any of the offensive players you will take.

OK, I took a quick look.

Using this scoring system

The best offensive player last year scored 737
The 84th best scored 440

The best SP scored 609
The 36th best scored 288

The best RP scored 381
The 36th best scored 156

The proportions seem about right to me, but if you want to tell me that RPs should be devalued another 10-15% or so, you could make that case.

But relative to each other, their value would still be the same, so what difference would it make?

The 84th best offensive player (yes, we will have to go deeper than 84 because the top 84 probably has a disproportionate number of outfielders and not enough catchers, but you get my point, Im sure) is still is worth more than the best relief pitcher.

So basically if we have a reliever on the same team as one of our starters, we have to hope our starter doesn't pitch a complete game, otherwise we'll get penalized for not getting to our RP.

You won't really be be "penalized", you'll be getting extra points that day from your starter.

But over the course of the season, every closer makes about 70 appearances or so, so it should even out.

If there's a team whose starters have a tendency to pitch a lot more CGs, then it might be a valid strategy decision to stay away from that team's closer, sure.

But that info is there in last year's scoring totals coupled with your opinions about what will happen this year.

And BTW, altho the value of a win is +6 and a save is +8, keep in mind that Save Opportunities are -4, and losses are -6.

So the net difference between Wins and Losses is worth +6 each, and the net difference between Saves and Blown Saves is worth only only +4 each, so "Net" Saves are not worth more points than "Net" Wins.

True, the total number of points earned by a reliever for his net saves will typically be greater than the total number of points earned by a starter for his net wins, but the two are two completely different categories.

RPs get a lot more save opportunites than SPs get starts, and convert a higher percentage of them to saves than starters convert their opportunities to wins.

That's just the way baseball is today. I can't change that.

What if our RP comes in a tie game and wins. He doesn't get any points for a win?? I wish someone else besides us had some opinions.

Sorry Just Lou it is 11:00 and some of us do have a job

I do too, but I spend more time on here than doing any work.

Sure he does. What gives you the idea that he doesn't?

Just checking, with all the talk about starters getting 6 points for winning and relievers getting 8 points for a save.

BTW, the top 36 starters last year, based on this scoring system, pitched a total of 83 complete games between the 36 of them, so I don't see that being much of a factor.

Any CG means one helluva start, and I don't think anyone is gonna complain if they have Pedro and Wagner and Pedro pitches a CG and Wagner doesn't pitch that day.

Look, we could set up this game any way we want to.

We could have 8 outfielders and no catchers or second baseman.

We could 4 SPs and 2 RPs, or all SPs or no SPs.

We could make RBIs worth 2 points each or 10 points each.

We could make RPs themost valuable players to have or the least valuable.

We could do the same for hitters or SPs.

We could make HBPs more important than home runs.

The bottom line is that the stat categories and their values are the same for all of us, so it doesn't really matter how we set it up.

I think the problem here is, with all due respect and no offense meant, is that you've played this before and have a pre-conceived idea about how it "should" be.

I haven't, and I don't think that JG or DM have either (Beth doesn't really care what we do or how we do it ), so we have a completely open mind here.

To me, the way it should be is the way we want it to be, and I don't think you've given me any logical reasons yet why it shouldn't be this way.

Net saves - and there's an important distinction here - are only worth 4, not 8.

Net wins are worth 6.

Have you looked at last years scoring totals yet?

I haven't played on Yahoo, but I've played Fantasy Baseball many different places and on different levels. You're probably right. I never played a game with so much relief pitching, so I guess it's not the way I see it should be. But if we're all forced to draft 5 relief pitchers, then we're all in the same boat.

I really don't see why that's such a big deal to you.

Every MLB team has 5 RPs. It's just that our 5 will be better than any MLB's team.

But so will out starting lineup from top to bottom. We're all gonna end up with an All-Star Team, aren't we?

And we'll have All-Stars on our bench, too.

Too bad that Homer Bush and Donnie Bush are both out of baseball.

Otherwise I'd draft one, and then every day I could write "That fucking Bush...."

All I know is I'm drafting 2 pitchers first followed by a Right fielder, after all I will need a Bigbie to compensate for my Small Johnson :p :rolleyes:

There is Dave Bush on the Brewers

It's funny....

I think that Roto scoring, especially in basketball, is the dumbest thing there is.

How can blocked shots, which you get maybe 5-6 per game per team, be as important as turnovers (maybe 20 PG), and turnovers be as important as assists (maybe 30 PG), and assists be as important as rebounds (maybe 40 PG), and rebounds as important as points (maybe 90-100 PG)?

How can a guy like, I dunno, maybe a Brevin Knight or somebody like that, with a high free throw percentage and field goal percentage, few turnovers, a lot of assists, and a lot of steals, but very few points, rebounds, or blocks, be more valuable than a guy like Jermaine O'Neal, who gets more points, rebounds and blocks, but gets outscored by Knight in 5 of the 8 categories

And in baseball, how can steals be as important as homers, or RBIs less important than walks?

But some people love Roto ganes. Me, I don't get it.

Been studying already, huh?

Here's a thought:

I can think of any number of fair and random ways to do this....

Suppose we pre-determine the order of the draft a few days or so before the actual draft takes place?

I think it would be an advantage for all of us to know what spot we were picking in, just as they know in real life.

The more planning you could do in advance, the faster the draft would move.

Also, if the majority agrees, once the season starts I plan to change the waiver order every day (or at least weekly) based on the standings, with the standings based on projected finish like I do in basketball.

The question is, if you are in last place, and pick someone up on waivers during the day (or week) should you retain your first waiver position (you still are in last place), or should the waiver priority list rotate?

Not that this will be that big a deal...rarely does anyone drop someone that's good enough that someone else will pick them up on waivers (except for JG in basketball :p ), but I'd say that as long as someone is in last place, they should always have the #1 waiver priority.

click below to see how I feel about this whole thread:

Yahoo Baseball Thread

Cute. :rolleyes:

I guess you prefer those other well-thought-out fantasy games we play here.

At least he *plays* them... :p