Yoda
02-24-12, 02:17 PM
Here we go! Last year we had 9 of the 14 owners return, and this year it's even better: we have 11 coming back, and that's without making any effort to increase the ranks. The only new owner below is Ray, a friend of TONGO's. He makes for 12, which seems like a nice number.
Neither mack nor Spud have asked about the league or been around for awhile, so we'll play this by ear. Both are welcome back if they happen to inquire about the league in the next few weeks. One of the nice thing about switching to a Rotisserie format is that we can have an odd number of teams, so we don't have to fret about excluding someone or finding another owner at the last minute if one of them shows up at the 11th hour.
Okay, that said, here's the master team list (I'll update this if needed):
TEAMS
Chevelles (my friend Adam; not a MoFo)
The Clueless Clowns (Sedai)
Dangerous Person (7thson)
Done with Dunn (voneil7)
Bradenton Red Sox (TONGO's friend Ray; not a MoFo)
Dynamic Dynamite (rauldc14)
Eve of Dextruction (DexterRiley)
Suicide Squeeze (my friend Tim; not a member)
Dodgers (mark f)
The Naturals (TONGO)
Fresh out of 'Roids (Powdered Water)
Springfield Isotopes (Yoda)
DRAFT TIME
Very important that we go over this and that as many people as possible reply to confirm whether or not the date and time suggested are good for them. It's helpful to hear from everyone, even if they have no issue with the time, just to make sure. At least one owner in the signup thread mentioned that Sundays work better for them than Saturdays, so I'm tentatively suggesting Sunday, March 25th at 7:00 PM ET. I figure most people have Sunday afternoons open, and this should help make things easier for those on the west coast.
If this date and time is a problem for anyone, please let me know ASAP. We're still four weeks out, so changes aren't a big problem yet, but if we get closer and most of the owners have already signed off on a date, we might not be able to move it to accomodate just one person's schedule.
FORMAT
I've been blabbing about it since the middle of last year: Rotisserie format! It's the original format of fantasy baseball and has lots of advantages. Super-quick summary of how it works: instead of playing another team each week, you just set your lineup and simply accumuluate totals in each category. You get points depending on where you rank. For example: if your team has the most home runs of all the teams in the league, you rank 1st, and because there are 12 teams, you get 12 points for that category. The team ranked 2nd gets 11, the team ranked 3rds gets 10, and on down. Your team's total score is all your categories added together.
Another quick example: if the Isotopes are 1st in home runs and 5th in stolen bases, they have 20 points (12 for HRs, 8 for SBs). If The Naturals are 2nd in home runs and 3rd in stolen bases, they have 21 points (11 for HRs and 10 for SBs), and would be ahead of the Isotopes.
This format accomplishes a number of things:
It reduces the amount of luck involved. We all know what it's like to hit 12 homers in a week but be unlucky enough to be playing someone who hit 13. Or to hit 12 homers and play someone who hit 3. In both cases, the total is effectively "wasted" either because you had the misfortune of playing the wrong team at the wrong time, or because you hit more than you needed. But in Roto, all stats matter equally all the time. It also precludes the possibility of managing a kickass team and losing anyway because they happened to play badly (or play someone having a great week) in the playoffs. Manage your team the best, barring big injuries, and you almost definitely win.
It forces you to consider all categories. Because we're not playing head-to-head, loading up on a majority of categories and ignoring the others won't necessarily work. If you punt a category, you'll get yourself a big fat 1 in it. It may still make sense, but you can't build a team designed to win in the playoffs by dominating 6 categories and ignoring the other 4.
It mirrors real baseball. Head to head is a lot more like football: anything can happen, there are only a handful of games, and a lot is riding on every outcome. But Roto is more like real baseball: it's a marathon. All stats are equally as valuable no matter when they happen.
The only thing that really resembles a downside is that the type of drama Roto produces is different. The old format produced drama because of its randomness: any team can win in the playoffs, which means any team within a stone's throw of a playoff spot still had a shot to win it all. In this format, it's more likely that only a few teams will have a real shot in the last few weeks.
That said, it increases drama among those teams, because the late-season fluctuations can be wild, and the trades even wilder. For example, if one team has a huge lead in HRs and no danger of losing it, but is only a few Saves behind several owners ahead of them, it might make perfect sense for them to trade a 40-homer threat for a merely above-average closer. The only consideration is whether or not it can increase their point total. This leads to a lot of strategizing about which categories you can start to give away versus the amount you can gain in others.
If you want a more detailed, technical overview of the format, check out Yahoo's "Rotisserie Details" link on this help page (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/sports/fantasysports/baseball/scoring/;_ylt=AkRkcgHJ2JLq5tCIKCFgE.wl2XhG).
Anyway, that's my pitch. I know about half of you are already explicitly on board, and I hope everyone's willing to make a go of this. I think the league could use something fresh that differentiates it from football a bit, and this is the method most serious players prefer. I've only played this way once myself, too, so while I've thought a lot about it I'm probably technically greener than some of you.
If there are any questions, objections, or suggestions, feel free to post them! And here's to another great year.
Neither mack nor Spud have asked about the league or been around for awhile, so we'll play this by ear. Both are welcome back if they happen to inquire about the league in the next few weeks. One of the nice thing about switching to a Rotisserie format is that we can have an odd number of teams, so we don't have to fret about excluding someone or finding another owner at the last minute if one of them shows up at the 11th hour.
Okay, that said, here's the master team list (I'll update this if needed):
TEAMS
Chevelles (my friend Adam; not a MoFo)
The Clueless Clowns (Sedai)
Dangerous Person (7thson)
Done with Dunn (voneil7)
Bradenton Red Sox (TONGO's friend Ray; not a MoFo)
Dynamic Dynamite (rauldc14)
Eve of Dextruction (DexterRiley)
Suicide Squeeze (my friend Tim; not a member)
Dodgers (mark f)
The Naturals (TONGO)
Fresh out of 'Roids (Powdered Water)
Springfield Isotopes (Yoda)
DRAFT TIME
Very important that we go over this and that as many people as possible reply to confirm whether or not the date and time suggested are good for them. It's helpful to hear from everyone, even if they have no issue with the time, just to make sure. At least one owner in the signup thread mentioned that Sundays work better for them than Saturdays, so I'm tentatively suggesting Sunday, March 25th at 7:00 PM ET. I figure most people have Sunday afternoons open, and this should help make things easier for those on the west coast.
If this date and time is a problem for anyone, please let me know ASAP. We're still four weeks out, so changes aren't a big problem yet, but if we get closer and most of the owners have already signed off on a date, we might not be able to move it to accomodate just one person's schedule.
FORMAT
I've been blabbing about it since the middle of last year: Rotisserie format! It's the original format of fantasy baseball and has lots of advantages. Super-quick summary of how it works: instead of playing another team each week, you just set your lineup and simply accumuluate totals in each category. You get points depending on where you rank. For example: if your team has the most home runs of all the teams in the league, you rank 1st, and because there are 12 teams, you get 12 points for that category. The team ranked 2nd gets 11, the team ranked 3rds gets 10, and on down. Your team's total score is all your categories added together.
Another quick example: if the Isotopes are 1st in home runs and 5th in stolen bases, they have 20 points (12 for HRs, 8 for SBs). If The Naturals are 2nd in home runs and 3rd in stolen bases, they have 21 points (11 for HRs and 10 for SBs), and would be ahead of the Isotopes.
This format accomplishes a number of things:
It reduces the amount of luck involved. We all know what it's like to hit 12 homers in a week but be unlucky enough to be playing someone who hit 13. Or to hit 12 homers and play someone who hit 3. In both cases, the total is effectively "wasted" either because you had the misfortune of playing the wrong team at the wrong time, or because you hit more than you needed. But in Roto, all stats matter equally all the time. It also precludes the possibility of managing a kickass team and losing anyway because they happened to play badly (or play someone having a great week) in the playoffs. Manage your team the best, barring big injuries, and you almost definitely win.
It forces you to consider all categories. Because we're not playing head-to-head, loading up on a majority of categories and ignoring the others won't necessarily work. If you punt a category, you'll get yourself a big fat 1 in it. It may still make sense, but you can't build a team designed to win in the playoffs by dominating 6 categories and ignoring the other 4.
It mirrors real baseball. Head to head is a lot more like football: anything can happen, there are only a handful of games, and a lot is riding on every outcome. But Roto is more like real baseball: it's a marathon. All stats are equally as valuable no matter when they happen.
The only thing that really resembles a downside is that the type of drama Roto produces is different. The old format produced drama because of its randomness: any team can win in the playoffs, which means any team within a stone's throw of a playoff spot still had a shot to win it all. In this format, it's more likely that only a few teams will have a real shot in the last few weeks.
That said, it increases drama among those teams, because the late-season fluctuations can be wild, and the trades even wilder. For example, if one team has a huge lead in HRs and no danger of losing it, but is only a few Saves behind several owners ahead of them, it might make perfect sense for them to trade a 40-homer threat for a merely above-average closer. The only consideration is whether or not it can increase their point total. This leads to a lot of strategizing about which categories you can start to give away versus the amount you can gain in others.
If you want a more detailed, technical overview of the format, check out Yahoo's "Rotisserie Details" link on this help page (http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/sports/fantasysports/baseball/scoring/;_ylt=AkRkcgHJ2JLq5tCIKCFgE.wl2XhG).
Anyway, that's my pitch. I know about half of you are already explicitly on board, and I hope everyone's willing to make a go of this. I think the league could use something fresh that differentiates it from football a bit, and this is the method most serious players prefer. I've only played this way once myself, too, so while I've thought a lot about it I'm probably technically greener than some of you.
If there are any questions, objections, or suggestions, feel free to post them! And here's to another great year.