Comments on: Razzball Poll – Part II

By: Rudy Gamble

Rudy Gamble — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:49:28 +0000

@Disco, Outs is identical to IP. assuming there isn’t an innings cap, this is okay i guess. But you have to go 6 SPs in a league format like that given the extra counting stat

By: Disco

Disco — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:35:26 +0000

One of my H2H leagues this year added OPS for hitters and Outs for pitchers to the standard 5×5 cats. It’s a weekly lineup league, starting 4 SP, 2 RP and 2 P, so outs and Ks can’t be gamed from streaming except by starting 6 SP, and then you’re probably at a disadvantage in Saves. We wanted to add OPS but also had a hard time coming up with a sixth pitching category, didn’t really want to do Holds, and Yahoo didn’t have a Losses+Blown Saves category, so we went with Outs. Also we figured since HR are both a R and a RBI it added some symmetry having a K also be an Out. Any thoughts on this?

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:20:54 +0000

@3FingersBrown, Having only 5 pitching slots, having qs, and only 1/8 of the pitching stats being directly reliever oriented, comPletely removes relievers from our league equation and it’s a travesty.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:17:21 +0000

@Skeptic, …imply and are there different ways to get to the same value. Plus every league drafts differently so a tool that allows you to deal with that would be powerful.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:15:24 +0000

@Rudy Gamble, Thanks for the as always thoughtful reply. I’ve made a ton of arguments for classic 5×5 but these are guys who like to over analyze stupid crap; your slg v tb point is the same one that I made. I ultimately have to go to “whats actually the best proxy for real baseball.” the diminution of relievers in the league infuriates me the most and we have only 5 pitching slots so you can’t have mr if you want to make the innings max each week (and you’re rolling out liriano to get his 3ip of 9era suckitude).

Anyway, I applaud the effort to accommodate a wider variety of playing styles. I’m trying to convince awesomeous Maximus to create a dynamic pitching tool to try something differen than greys tiers– because liriano really burned me and I want to see if I can track greys quasi point share values ie how many $/pts total does greys pitching strat

By: 3FingersBrown

3FingersBrown — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:36:48 +0000

I dig OBP, SLG% or OPS over AVG. Screw singles hitters with no plate discipline…

QS is a useful metric to give value to innings eaters who may have so-so K rates. Of course it puts an even greater emphasis on starters… I agree, holds are weak.

I play in both Roto and H2H. The statistics geek in me appreciates Roto but the degenerate gambler in me prefers H2H. So yeah, I’d love to see more H2H content – Hitter match-ups against upcoming pitchers, splits, that sort of stuff.

By: Rudy Gamble

Rudy Gamble — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 15:47:18 +0000

@Skeptic, Grey and I are personally fans of classic 5×5. I think any variant should maintain an equal # of categories for hitting and pitching. And I really don’t think any of the other pitcher metrics out there are worthwhile from a sabermetric point of view. I can see the argument for Holds since Middle Relievers are so important in baseball but the best MRs have real value in 5×5 – no need to use a phony metric like Holds.

There are solid arguments why OBP is better than AVG and that AVG + HR undervalue DB and TR. And that R/RBI are team-dependent. If I was creating a sabermetric league, I would totally change the categories. But I don’t think that league would be more fun than 5×5 fantasy baseball so what’s the point? Re: your league’s format, TB AND SLG? Why both? K’s for hitters seems arbitrary.

This poll is definitely showing that a lot of people are taking advantage of Yahoo/ESPN/CBSSports’ flexibility in adding new categories. So Grey and I will need to think about if/how we can address this better in our posts/projections.

By: Skeptic

Skeptic — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:28:08 +0000

For leagues that use greater numbers of categories, the more diminished the value of steals and save stats become. For example my primary league has TB/avg/sb/slg/obp/k/r/RBI and era/w/whip/so/s/k9/l/qs/kbb ratio.

Ps what are your thoughts on those cats? I don’t much care for them personally but what are some arguments I can make against them?