MoFo Fantasy Baseball 2012: Draft Time, Rules, Settings

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:

1. 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.
   
2. 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.
   
3. 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.



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.

Ryan Braun approves this post...

\

...and thank you for changing the draft day to sunday.

When is a dirty U.A. not a dirty U.A.? Whenever a Major Leaguer gets popped, that's when. And then he gets off totally scott free to top it off. I'm not one to side with the MLB very often but my god. Now every time one of these clowns gets popped they will immediately appeal and of course they will strategically take another test a week or so later when its safe to do so.

MLB should make everything legal now, these guys are all gonna start doing it again anyway.

[/end rant... for now]


Anywho, Sunday works for me!

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Draft time is good for the Clowns!

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That's two. C'mon, MoFos! Please weigh in. The longer it takes for you guys to sign off, the more likely it is some of you will be stuck with this date and time even if it doesn't work for you.

The proposed draft time works for me, but I'm fairly flexible if it turns out we need to move it.

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"I know, honey. Look at the map. We go your way, that's about four inches. We go my way, it's an inch and a half. You wanna pay for the extra gas?"

I thought I was only supposed to check in if it doesn't work. Of course it works.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

The time works greatly for me, so I assume that's 7 of us. (everyone that's posted)

Yeah, could still use a few more of you guys. But we're just 17 days out, so it's almost locked in, fellas.

One other thing to note: we're using a standard innings cap to guard against things like streaming pitchers, which can suck a lot of the fun and strategy out of the game. My understanding is that this is pretty normal for a roto league. Just wanted to be upfront about it. I'm looking around to see what a good, standard cap level is. Open to suggestions if any of you have played Roto and have direct experience that might help make a sound choice.

Don't forget: March 25th!

If this is something different from the last three years, I don't know what you're talking about.

It's Rotisserie format, which is actually standard (we've been playing a more unusual format the last three years). It's described in the first post of this thread.

I know half-angel would love to play, but thought we were filled up - anyway draft time is perfect.

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“The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

I'm talking about the "streaming pitchers". I know there was a minimum innings pitched before, but what's "standard innings" mean?

Standard cap? By that I just mean that it's common among Roto leagues; it's "standard" in the same sense that most leagues have the same 10 categories.

Anyway, streaming pitchers is when someone decides to throw as many starters as possible out there, winning multiple categories by brute force, punting the others, and loading up on offense to compensate. Technically if you don't institute any kind of cap it's well within the rules, but it's very controversial, primarily because it reduces the amount of strategy and balance in constructing a team.

If people prefer allowing this, it can certainly be debated, though we'll have to decide before the draft either way.

I wouldn't mess with the streaming. Yes, you can get an advantage off of it but it can also become a disadvantage at well. Actually, I don't really care either way I'm up to anything

So what's the cap now? Is it like it was before where you can only make a certain amount of moves per week? Or are we talking a innings cap?

Was thinking innings cap; it's 1800 right now but I'm reading up on it and it sounds like 1500 might be closer to normal. And doing some rough math, 1500 does seem to make more sense, otherwise we're looking at a "cap" that still allows in upwards of 70 IP per week.

Yeah, that's a lot. 1500, would probably be better.

I said in my earlier post Im happy its sunday.

Ive done a couple mock drafts, and have to say Im underwhelmed with my selections. Thinking seriously of letting Yahoo pick my team as its done all three seasons Ive played so far. Made the playoffs the first season which was roto and I was absent then. Barely missed the playoffs season 2 and it picked my team last year which I won. Of course being present for the draft Im sure Ill be compelled to jump in and grab a player I know Yahoo wont, or vice-versa. Like in the case of Miguel Cabrera, I still dont get it. Id make sure I would take someone else if I got the #1 seed.

Just talked to Adam, and it's looking iffy that he'll be able to make it since we've moved it to Sunday, which is a pretty tough break because he doesn't seem to have a ton of control over when he works and he's off Saturday.

He broached the possibility of having an evening draft; say, 7:00 PM ET. I told him that'd be a tall order but I said I'd ask, thinking in part that it might not be a big thing since everyone either a) has the day off or b) would probably be home by then. Same day, too.

What do you guys think? I don't think he's expecting us to move for him, but I figured I'd ask since there's a decent change an evening draft works just as well for everyone as an early afternoon one.