Suggest Ban Matt Wieters: Our 2010 ILB Fantasy Baseball League

http://imgur.com/oa9s0.jpg
http://imgur.com/fN5i7.jpg
http://imgur.com/q8Ri4.jpg

i know it's early, but there's talk of a keeper league this year, which would mean we'd have to sort out all the bickering on stat categories and rules a few weeks before registration opens.

a couple certainties:

Thermo for commissioner, did a great job in the past
roto set up
no Morbs

i want in this year

I'm in. Roto set up is good. Off the top of my head, the only thing I didn't like about last year's categories were SV and SV percentage (one or the other is good, but not both).

keeper league???

thermo is going 2 tunisia or w/e now i think

good start 2 the thread

i'd do a keeper league, though i'd prefer if the categories weren't too goofy (fielding percentage from last year was pretty much a dice roll imo).

i'd do something like
R, HR, RBI, net SB, OPS
W, K, ERA, SV, H (or maybe quality starts instead of wins to be more sabr-friendly)

i prefer OPS to replace batting avg rather than be alongside it since batting average is already kind of counted twice in OPS

I am ready for my sophomore slump.

I will join to keep the cellar warm.

i sort of really enjoyed fpct% and gidp from last year. you had to actually look at the players and in many ways it invalidated all those blogs and cheat sheets based on a 5x5 format. regardless, i agree for sabr-friendly stats, a few exotic ones but no bs like cycle or shutouts. i think the league regretted that in 08.

quality starts is a great idea. and i like save percentage a lot with our without saves. but as was pointed out in the 09 thread, it needs to be a holds league or a save percentage league, not both, as they're negatively correlated to each other.

I would like to play, but on the other hand my recent history has been to lose interest after a month or two, so maybe I should be a last resort?

doesn't using save % without also using holds make middle relievers almost purely negative in value since they can get blown saves but not saves?

^^^yes, don't listen to sanskrit and his "negative correlative" doo-doo

ciderpress, you're absolutely right. not actually advocating for a save % league without saves or net saves as a counting stat of some sort. that would be disastrous, as you could simply ignore the category.

to son steve shasta, it's a problem of a smaller magnitude to have both save % and holds together, as to ciderpress' point and common fucking sense every hold chased creates the risk of an additional blown save with little chance for a net save while the closer is healthy.

the negative correlation existed in the league oin '09 (let me the first to say small sample size)

you also can't discount the value of two empty slots in lieu of middle relievers to stash subs or sleeper picks.

Overall Points
Rank	Team			HLD		SV%		Total
1	In Ambiorix Burgos	1		12		174
2	The Cerutti Column	6		5		146.5
3	Whole Camels		2.5		8		144.5
4	dealwithkhalil		11.5		9		140
5	No Tulo only Zuul	5		10.5		138.5
6	The Vottobots		4		10.5		137
7	Moistest Aloo		8		6		131
8	Koyaanis Kotsay Sr.	7		14		124.5
9	Kneel Before ZAUN!	14		3		122.5
10	The Hitless Wonders	10		13		118.5
11	b---- t---		13		4		85
12	joe pepitowned		2.5		1		83
13	Carlos Carlos Carlos	9		7		71.5
14	Peraltese Falcons	11.5		2		63.5

Overall Stats		
Rank	Team			HLD		SV%
1	In Ambiorix Burgos	4		84.2
2	The Cerutti Column	28		79.2
3	Whole Camels		11		83.7
4	dealwithkhalil		50		83.8
5	No Tulo only Zuul	24		84.1
6	The Vottobots		17		84.1
7	Moistest Aloo		38		80.6
8	Koyaanis Kotsay Sr.	36		85.8
9	Kneel Before ZAUN!	81		76.1
10	The Hitless Wonders	44		84.6
11	b---- t---		59		76.5
12	joe pepitowned		11		22.2
13	Carlos Carlos Carlos	41		81.8
14	Peraltese Falcons	50		70.6

http://imgur.com/BmQt1.jpg

for my team i figured holds and saves were the two stats which the pitchers who accumulated them were one-category wonders, for the most part, and holds are certainly more unpredictable (and the pitchers who gathered them tended to have higher eras and a lower K rate, from what i could tell), so i decided to almost completely forgo that category in favor of aiming for everything else.

*taking notes*

Tim Lincecum on Die Young?

If people like that name, maybe I do this thing again.

What are the specifics in a keeper league? How many players do we get to keep?

I reckon I'm in.

i have no idea but what is the secret to getting spreadsheets play nice with ilx?

bnw - the .xls thing is bracket code bracket as below in show formatting help

WmC - that's the thing.. along with coming to a general consensus about stat categories and rules, we'd have to figure out keeper rules, for example, keep 3 but only those drafted after the sixth round, or keep 5 but lose picks in the slot you previously drafted each one. it does add on another layer of complexity.

the point may be moot as i'm fairly certain for a Yahoo dynasty league where keepers auto-populate year over year you need to be in a Plus league. not sure what that costs, maybe $15 or $50 each? or $150 overall total? so a keeper league might not be in the cards. of course, one way to beat the fee would be to have a slow draft on an ILB thread and then Thermo manually enters the results. And we wouldn't have to worry about that until 2011. An ILB slow draft could make for either an epic or total clusterfuck thread.

Having figured out yahoo fantasy baseball last year with workmates, i'm in for this year.

I will join if you will have me. The other leagues I play in have all folded.

hey guys. i'm out of Tunisia and in Cairo right now. will be back in sunny Toronto in a little over a week and will start thinking/looking at our league set-up then. and also you might not hear from me until then.

glad to see more people interested and glad to see people are still down for the keeper league. keep your comments/suggestions coming - and i am very sorry for uncluding save% last year. it won't happen again.

also, thanks for the kind words and unexpected graphs, sanskrit!

andf Francis, if i;'m not mistaken you're qualified to compete for the Lightfoot cup this year, correct? welcome!

also - Thermo's free travel tip of the year: looking at pictures of the pyramids is much, much more pleasent than making it there in person.
end transmission.

ok - stats:

hitting:
i was pretty happy with our stats from last year (R, HR, RBI, GIDP, FPCT, AVG, OPS, NSB).
ciderp suggested yanking avg - and i'm ok with the idea so long as we break ops into obp and slugging. and i'm with sansk that fielding and gidp are both useful(ish) stats that give our league a funner/unique aspect.
i'll see what others have to say about avg/ops vs obp/slg

pitching:
last years stats: W, SV, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP, K/BB, SV%
most of us hated sv% last year - so lets kill that. i thought about net saves instead of just saves - but that would still seem to punish middle relievers too much and we'd probably almost all end up ignoring holds again. but i am down with adding quality starts - while still keeping wins. i like having another counting stat for pitching (cg and shut outs were never that popular even tho i'd like one or the other) and keeping wins allows a little more reward for having a quality reliever.
so lets hear what people think about quality starts (or even going with either cg or shutouts aswell)

as for the keeper settings - i'm still trying to figure out how the set up would work. but it looks like the 2010 draft will work exactly the same, except keep in mind you may be drafting people with more of a long plan in mind.

i think the only thing we need to agree on is how many people we should be allowed to keep. making keeper picks based on draft position was something i'd honestly never thought of. it could be complicating things too much - but i'll have a look at how some other keeper leagues are set-up.

maybe we should also discuss roster size. we had 23 last year - and i think maybe we should make it a full 24 so we have an extra roster space for a keeper that might not be performing so well or young or whatever?

so apparently the way keepers work is i assign players to teams before the draft starts and it's pretty much as simple as that. no extra cost either.

personally i think 9 players is good. it's a good amount that might let us keep a promising young guy or two in addition to the stars. the nice thing is that we can adjust this year from year if we want to tweak things.

I would like to join in this year too. I'm destined to lose because I'm not much of a stats junkie (anymore) and I only really follow a few teams really closely, but I still think it'll be fun!

cool - as long as you think you can stick with a keeper league, welcome!

so far we have (i'm taking it that the people who haven't said they're in yet are going to be in since they're taking part in the conversation):
myself
sanskrit
Jordan
NoTime...
bnw
johnny crunch
ciderpress
Andy K
Brownie
Steve Shasta
Omar Little
Lee
WmC
Francis F
Mayor J...
ZS

and maybe polyphonic? pretty good number!

Can someone link to last years's fantasy baseball thread? I can't seem to find it using search and I'd like to read through it to get a feel for what will be going on.

O NOES Fantasy Baseball 09 Thread (No Morbs)

I'm in. Still not sure whether a keeper league helps me or hurts me, but fuck it, I've decided the point to fantasy baseball is the journey, not the destination.

beat me to it on c and p ing

morbs should play this year

back, to comment on thermo's post:

offense: never thought it out that way like ciderpress did, good points. i kind of prefer an obp and slg split as suggested. another way of doing it is credit for BB but that's more of a counting stat than an average. i like something average based as proposed.

pitching: quality starts is a great idea. but agreed to keep the W so alfredo aceves or jp howell types can grab some vulture wins. maybe BB/9 or HR as a negative category? don't really care.

the most important things to maintain interest and participation are keeper rules. maybe as few as 3 keepers or as many as 6 but limited by what round they're drafted. so you can only keep draftees in 2011 if you picked them up 8th round, 10th round or later. or even 4th. but think about blocking the top 50 players from being retained, otherwise my 3 keepers will be pujols, sizemore, haren, 1-2-3, i'm out, with very little thought and a major impediment to a level playing field for future ILBers that want to join.

i'll be in to defend my title

i think quality starts would be cool -- complete games/shutouts would be a pretty inconsequential category -- also QS helps to lessen the blow of owning someone like... idk john lannan or roy oswalt who is a solid pitcher on a shitty team but can only finish with like 12/13 wins max on the year

Yes to OBP/SLG, QS, W.

No to CG, SHO, SV%.

^^^^ this

great. that's what i was expecting.

i'd agree on no to cg, sho, and sv%. cg and sho are rare enough that roto categories for them could become seemingly capricious.

but it would be nice if the two flukey but manageable offensive categories (gidp and fpct%) were mirrored by two non-traditional "fun" pitching stats. maybe something like hr/9 or babip. except i don't think those exist on yahoo. maybe batting average against? i don't know.

i have a question about how the keeper settings you suggested would work, sanskrit.

lets say we can protect 5 guys taken in the last 15 rounds (rounds 10-25). the next year the commissioner (me) would have to manually input the first 5 rounds - which would be the pre-determined keepers. would these guys then be ineligable for keeper status after that then - counting as rounds 1-5; *or* by virtue of being drafted originally in the bottom rounds are they still keep-able?

basically, if the keepers count as the early draft rounds it means you'll never be able to keep someone twice. which, honestly, i don't like because it means you can't have any "franchise" players. but if they don't count it means you could keep the same guys you drafted in the late rounds over and over again. which would probably require a limit on how many years you could keep someone to be instituted. which i think would be my preference.

i like the idea of having the super-stars up for grabs every year. and i also like the idea of having franchise players too - where a team may have some of the same core players year after year - with a max of maybe 5 years(?). which means, basically, if you were able to draft Matt Wieters in the 17th round - you could keep him for a maximum of 5 seasons.

i'm trying to keep this as simple as possible - not just out of obvious self-interest but so that our league's workings are a clear and easy to understand as possible for everyone. alot of the keeper leagues i've read about also have team payrolls - so many of the keeper rules/settings they use can't apply.

anyways, i hope i explained myself clearly enough there. what does everyone else think?

your instincts are right but i don't have the technical answer. i can ask someone i know who runs a y keeper league. i'm guessing it's as simple as locking keeper players pre-draft then unlocking and assigning to a team post-draft. you as commissioner can boot their last three or five picks and add in declared keepers manually in their place. i dont know if yahoo has the capability to track keeper status - i think you have to do that.

it claims it does - but doesn't go into any further detail about it! we (i) may have to learn as i (we) go.

really - if i'm manually drafting the keepers myself we could have almost any kind of guidelines we want for who can be kept. like age, for example, or yahoo rankings (although they are hit and miss).

i'm not sure where your line of thinking is headed, but age based keepers might be really simple and novel/fun. if only one half of the aging curve could be kept, say only players under 27 on the 2011 draft day, the dynamic of the league could really change.

teams out of contention in late 2010 could gain ground by finding or trading for the next 19 year old jose reyes
would a 25 year old prince fielder be worth more than pujols?
how do you value late bloomers like nelson cruz?

:: checks Brian McCann's age ::

ya - the more i think about the age thing the more i like it. similar to the way mlb franchises have so much more control over their younger guys - i think with a few simple rules this could be easily do-able.

advantage of jet-lag is i can lie in bed, not sleeping, and think about this stuff!

what about something like this: you can keep 1 guy under the age of 24 (opening day age) - 3 under 27 and - and two under 30 (ie 29 or less).

it allows you to grab one really young guy you feel strongly about - who might not be contributing at the mlb level, three who are most likely just getting their careers started, and two established – yet still young-ish – guys. it allows you to potentially control 1 guy from his very beginning until the end of his 20's and a few others for their first few years. but pretty much once a guy is really established he's not going to be a keeper for long.

i think the only stipulation is that you'll have to have drafted or traded for the guy (from a team that drafted him). basically being the first to jump on the waiver wire when someone like Strasburg pops up mid-season is a little unfair. but that's the only thing i can thing of that needs to be laid out.

thoughts?

and sanskrit - there's no hr/9 or babip but there is total bases. how would that sound?

dude i have no idea but team name oh, wrinkleKLAWs is up for grabs who wants dibs

FYI I have put tarps up in the locker room and the champagne is chilling.

Everything in my other glorping clubhouse, with the exception of Manny's recliner, is tarped/bagged/protected (Stand Up 2 Clubhouse Cancer).

My man Chen pitches the game of his life.

major upset if you pass me for 3rd

congrats, polyphonic! number one in the standings and moves!

and nya nya - whoever was predicting i would come in last! 5th place, yeah!

so i guess for next season - start thinking about your keeper picks (and team names). i'll need to know your keepers when you sign up for 2011.

ha, I guess it was me who "predicted" you'd come in last, but that ranking were created by taking the average of 3 or 4 different player projections (ESPN, CBS, Yahoo, etc) and applying it to everyone's lineup as of draft day. In other words, if all of our players would've performed according to the average projection, and no one got injured, and no one traded, added or dropped players, you WOULD have finished in last place!

So yeah it wasn't a terribly useful ranking :-/ But it was just meant to give an idea of who had the best draft days, pitching-wise, batting-wise, and overall.

In other news,

http://i54.tinypic.com/33wnn0m.jpg
(Devastating Prooooooooooooooooooobes, left)

While everything's fresh in my mind, I'll go ahead and put my keepers for 2011 here so I won't have to look everything up again next year:

2 players 27, 28, or 29 as of April 1, 2011
Jose Reyes, 27 (drafted 2010)
Denard Span, 27 (drafted by Anal Kent, obtained via trade)

2 players 26 or younger
Brett Anderson, 23 (drafted 2010)
Matt Cain, 26 (drafted 2010)

1 player 29 or younger
Robinson Cano, 28 (drafted 2010)

I'm totally pumped about getting to keep 4 of these 5 (not so hot on Span)

all my keep-hopeful-hitters were busts. Wieters, Fowler, Reimold & Markakis. bleh.

pitching worked out good tho - King Felix and Cole Hamels :D

congrats, polyphonic! number one in the standings and moves!

The hilarious thing about the moves is that I would've been so much better off if I'd just kept Scott Rolen and Marlon Byrd, but I couldn't help myself. I can't sit still.

i don't know about claiming keepers so soon. maybe a week or two before 2011 draft? those guys could all be crossing the street together and get hit by a drunk driver.

good work all, especially the more important winner bnw for tagucci mane.

god my team blows. my keeper-eligible players are all totally uninspiring.

i have a small saving grace in stanton, miggy & shin shoo choo assuming he doesn't get drafted into the red army or whatever

& i guess cliff lee

stanton could really work out.

congrats champ poly! i feel a moral victory with getting into the top half of the standings after being near last or actually last earlier.

is jamie moyer keeper eligible?

Moyer was last keep eligible in 1991.

that is not a joke.

don't know about claiming keepers so soon. maybe a week or two before 2011 draft? those guys could all be crossing the street together and get hit by a drunk driver.

oh, oops, I guess I don't mean to claim the people I listed, it's just that those are the ones who are eligible on my team.

btw your plan to get drunk and murder all my keepers is despicable!

thermo, I can't remember - how will the keeper aspect actually play into next year's draft? Is there a way to exclude certain players from the draft?

i do the first five rounds of the draft manually is how it works.

what about (hypothetically) people who aren't keeping 5 players? they would end up one or more players short at the end of the draft, so would they then just hit the waivers/free agent list?

you will get a "filler" pick, since i need to input full rounds. it will most likely be Eric Henske.
the rules are upthread and on our fantasy homepage.

although it is alot of scrolling to find them on this thread. i will repost the rules when i, or someone else, starts our 2011 thread.

I thought we weren't necessarily going to abide by the tiered ages. Can I get clarification, commish¿

i don't know what gave you that idea¡

Yeah, congrats poly on a dominating win.

My team went in the crapper over the last month and a half and lost 40 points in the standings. But I can look forward to kicking ass next year with my keeper core of Mauer, Kershaw, and Strasburg!

Whoooo, 13th place!

My keeper-eligibles:
Broxton and Heyward, 26 or younger
Wainwright, McCann, Kinsler, Zobrist, Bourn

I'll pick my five next year before the draft. Actually the only choice will be Kinsler, Zobrist or Bourn for the 5th spot.

Congratulations, polyphonic.

After coasting at the top for a while, Colon/King AC got complacent -- should have shored up its clubhouse with some veteran presence, like that of Wes Helms or Matt Stairs.

Greinke: ON THE BUBBLE, keeper-wise.

Thermo, check out Dexter Fowler's last month of the season before dumping him.

oh, i'm def going to stick with him as a keeper. i wouldn't have held on to him all season if i wasn't. last few weeks did make me hopeful - but he had a few runs like that over the season.

same problem here with Adam Fuckin' Jones

WmC, correct me if I'm wrong but reaching 4th-to-last place doesn't let you keep 7 guys, though if I, as 5th-to-last, get to keep that many...

Value question: I'm deciding between a SP and an OFer as my final keeper. Yahoo ranking for the OFer is 35 places above the SP... should I go with the guy who's better in absolute terms, or should I go with the marginally above-average guy at a scarcer position? (If I go with the OFer, then I'd be keeping 4 position players.)

Like I said in my post, I'll pick my five next year before the draft, from among seven eligibles.

I can count, but can't read. ._.

i'm already psyched for the 2011 draft! wooo!

OK, guys, after 4-5 years, fantasy sports is starting to lose its appeal for me. This is sort of a problem in a keeper league, but hopefully not too much of one, if anyone is willing to take over my team.

As mentioned upthread, I have seven keeper-eligible players:
Broxton and Heyward, 26 or younger
Wainwright, McCann, Kinsler, Zobrist, Bourn

Anybody who's not already in the league want to take this team?

bump

anybody want this team?

I could pretend I'm not in the league and take over your team, or I could abandon my own because your keeper-eligibles are sexier than mine...

there's not really a whole lot to rush. sorry to lose you and i think all enjoy the large league size (was it 16?)

Therm can hand over the team to a newcomer (there's a fairly large disincentive to join a league as an expansion team with no keepers) or contract and dump those players into the draft pool.

steve shasta do a non-JPN league in 2011.

aw, will :(

so i'm ok with passing this team onto a new owner - but only if you're 100% here, Will.
i feel like this is a failure of mine somehow - we shouldn't be losing teams after the first season! :`(

also: i'm already preemptively pumped for 2011!

me too!

i'm really excited. last year, tbh, was the first year i followed baseball closely since probably the mid-90s. so my draft was all based off of online suggestions/rankings and a custom spreadsheet I made to aggregate & weight the results. this coming year i'll actually know about most of the big name players going in. also this year i plan on checking the injury lists before the draft to make sure i don't wind up with 3-4 guys out with season ending injuries.

Thermo, I'm 100% sure I'm ready to pass give this puppy to a good home, and 100% sure that it's not anything you did. I've been feeling this dissatisfaction with fantasy sports coming for over a year -- I just can't get a handle on what makes a good draft, and have never been able to spot FA talent early enough to grab it. I could study up and get better, but I'd actually much rather put that study time into improving my poker game -- I'm actually building a bankroll at that. It's been a lot of fun, but I'm ready to pass the torch.

your new login had confused me for a bit there.

well if someone comes along it's theirs - otherwise all your athletes will be melted down and sold off to various glue manufacturers around the gta.