While there is luck involved (I have a secret – there’s luck involved with roto too: ask anyone who drafted say Ryan Zimmerman last year) in H2H, there are also different strategies involved which make for a different style of play. That’s exactly why I believe Razzball should cover H2H more – as you said “more and better information.”

For the same reason you play Bridge, I play Texas Hold ‘Em and dabble at the dice table. I like to gamble. That said, in ’09 and ’10 I won back to back championships in a competitive 12-team H2H keeper league. Last year I lost in the finals. In 5 years in the league, I’ve never failed to make the playoffs. Tell me it doesn’t take some kind of skill to consistently succeed in a competitive H2H league. I dare you. I double-dog dare you!

Anyway, that’s my rant. Razzball is the king of fantasy sports sites regardless of what formats you cover!

It would be great to see a series on H2H points (strategy, ranking, tips, etc).

I am a avid follower of your site. Thanks and keep up the good work!

As always, a few guys near the back of the pack will implement their cruise-control settings in late July or August. Since you play every team every week, there is no advantage to be gained by anyone. And since there is no roto scoring, no one can simply just leapfrog the dead teams in certain categories to be able to catch you just because others have abandoned their teams.

We have five SP slots and 2 RP slots. Starting marginal pitchers because they have 2 starts that week may seem appealing because of the chance for more K’s, W’s, or QS’s, but the damage they do to ERA, WHIP, and Innings divided by games started will make all owners think twice.

I agree that innings divided by games started isn’t as good for straight roto as it is for our strange bastard-child of a league.

I think the only thing I’d focus a little more on is high AB guys since that should help H/R/RBI. I don’t trust Mauer to put up high ABs…

Great idea to do this Rudy – I know it helps you and Grey focus your content more to your readership, but this is interesting data for us readers to see as well. Thanks

I like quality starts, but it drives me crazy that 6 innings pitched and 3 earned runs is a quality start, but 9 innings and 4 earned runs is NOT a quality start despite being a half-point better in ERA.

This issue reminds me of the reason I found duplicate bridge to be the best card game there is. (And no, I’m not 75 years old–I played bridge with friends in college, and one summer a college buddy and I played duplicate in a local club–we were 20 years old, and the next yougest people were about 65. But they sure knew how to play cards.) In duplicate, you have numerous tables, and the cards for each table are dealt out at the beginning of the night, and the cards stay the same throughout the night for the table. Each team moves from table to table, so that you play different cards each hand, but–and here’s the key–you play the same cards that other bridge teams played either earlier or later that night. At the end of the night, your score is determined by whether you did better–or worse–than other teams playing the same hand. So if you made “game” with one hand, and no other team did, you got the most points. The key is that it took luck out of the equation–with most card games if you get dealt a lucky hand you can beat a better player, but with duplicate you play the same hand as everyone else, so it’s totally about the skill, and nothing about luck. To me, that’s what makes an interesting game, and that’s why H2H can never be as good as roto–too much luck.

Because Razzball is about getting more and better infomration than the other guy, and is not about just getting lucky, I’d suggest you guys keep focusing on roto rather that H2H.

In a 7×6 league where the offensive categories are:
H, R, HR, RBI, OPS, AVG, and SB how highly would you value high average guys?

Do Sandoval and Mauer types go up a couple rounds to you?

Thanks

i can understand ‘why’ all the cbs points-league players
are looking elsewhere for their information .

Overall, on the issue of H2H being more authentic, I’d say that sometimes authentic isn’t always better. When I was in grad school, there were a bunch of people I knew who loved this one little Mexican restaurant in Providence because it was “authentic” Mexican–you could get goat meat tacos there, the menus were all in Spanish, the wait staff didn’t speak a lick of English, it was unclear what many of the sauces on the table were made out of, etc. I actually hated the place–goat meat actually tastes shitty, and the food in general there seemed like it was made from lesser-quality ingredients. I have no doubt that that restaurant was more like a real neighborhood restaurant in Mexico City. But that didn’t make it good, just “authentic.” I’ll take Chile’s instead any day, and twice on Muesday.

Uggla is another good example. At the very least, it mitigates the damage of ultra low AVG guys. Danny Espinosa and Drew Stubbs, while wailing away in the .250s, have an OBP in the .320s. Not the greatest, but it won’t drown you.

SS – Tulo
OF – Stanton
3B – Lawrie
SP – Lester
RP – Kimbrel

I could possibly swing Lester and my 1st or 2nd round pick for Moore and the 2nd overall pick. Would that be wise? Or should I shoot for me sending a worse pick? Or should I avoid it altogether?