Im starting a local Fantasy Baseball league (1 Viewer)

[Shermanator]

Hello all.

I have been running multiple fantasy football leagues for years now. And now I want to venture into baseball. I have between 8-10 guys that are interested. But I have never played fantasy baseball. I have gotten some ideas from guys I know. But I dont really take them all that seriously.

A few questions for you Baseball league vets...

1. What is a good host site? I have used CBS for a decade now for football and we like it. But if there are better baseball sites to use, Im all ears.

2. What is a good roster size? Starting lineup and bench.

3. Is head to head best? Or cumulative at the end of the season?

4. Set the lineup daily? or weekly?

5. A general synopsis of scoring? This may be asking for too much. But how are points scored? A homer = 1 point? Stolen base equals ?? what? I dont know.

Thanks for any help you can afford me.

Sherm

 

[foo]

Daily lineups, 5x5 Roto (R, HR, RBI, OBP, SB; W, Sv, ERA, WHIP, K)

 

[Eephus]

Roster size depends on the number of teams in the league. With 8-10 teams, I really think you're better off with either NL or AL. Ten teams is the absolute minimum for mixed leagues IMO but your mileage may vary.

Other than that, I think a new league should stick with the most basic of rules. Free Yahoo league, 5x5 roto with basic categories (AVG instead of OBP or SLG), daily lineups.

 

[Wrigley]

Hello all.

I have been running multiple fantasy football leagues for years now. And now I want to venture into baseball. I have between 8-10 guys that are interested. But I have never played fantasy baseball. I have gotten some ideas from guys I know. But I dont really take them all that seriously.

A few questions for you Baseball league vets...

1. What is a good host site? I have used CBS for a decade now for football and we like it. But if there are better baseball sites to use, Im all ears.

2. What is a good roster size? Starting lineup and bench.

3. Is head to head best? Or cumulative at the end of the season?

4. Set the lineup daily? or weekly?

5. A general synopsis of scoring? This may be asking for too much. But how are points scored? A homer = 1 point? Stolen base equals ?? what? I dont know.

Thanks for any help you can afford me.

Sherm

1: I'm a big advocate of Yahoo.....it's free, and since it's your first year.......what have you got to lose2: Our league has a roster of 25 guys(large to some) We play 4 OF's and one UTL guy.....we are able to pitch as many as 7 guys in one day(but have an innings limit at the end of the year.)...each position gets to acquire 162 games played

3: This is not an easy question. I'm a huge fan of 5X5 roto style, but have also played in a points league.....this is really up to you

4: We also are able to set our lineup daily......this again, is something you need to discuss with your league-mates.....it's a very long season, and the active owners tend to fair batter with daily lineup changes.

5: This is straight from our league constitution.

: STANDINGS

The following statistical categories will be used to determine team performance and league standings:

• Composite batting average(BA)

• Total Home Runs(HR)

• Total Runs Batted In(RBI)

• Total Runs scored (RN)

• Total Stolen bases(SB)

• Composite pitchers base runners ratio(hits+walks/innings pitched) (WHIP)

• Composite Earned Run Average(ERA)

• Total Wins(W)

• Total Saves(S)

• Total Strikeouts(K)

Teams are ranked from first to last in each of the ten categories and given points for their respective ranking (12 points for 1st place, 11 points for 2nd, etc)

The team with the most overall points at the end of the major league regular season will be deemed the victor.

One more thing, make sure you have your rules in writing.

Hope this helps

 

[cheese]

I would say that you really don't need to use a pay site anymore to host. Sites like ESPN and Yahoo have made some progress to the point where they're almost as good anyway.

Most people don't use points. Wrigley's post outlines roto scoring pretty well IMO.

If you do daily lineup changes, you will likely want to do something to limit pitcher innings. Otherwise, expect a lot of pickups for 1 start and drop for a guy with an easy matchup the next day, etc...

 

[Pip's Invitation]

Hello all.

I have been running multiple fantasy football leagues for years now. And now I want to venture into baseball. I have between 8-10 guys that are interested. But I have never played fantasy baseball. I have gotten some ideas from guys I know. But I dont really take them all that seriously.

A few questions for you Baseball league vets...

1. What is a good host site? I have used CBS for a decade now for football and we like it. But if there are better baseball sites to use, Im all ears.

2. What is a good roster size? Starting lineup and bench.

3. Is head to head best? Or cumulative at the end of the season?

4. Set the lineup daily? or weekly?

5. A general synopsis of scoring? This may be asking for too much. But how are points scored? A homer = 1 point? Stolen base equals ?? what? I dont know.

Thanks for any help you can afford me.

Sherm

1. Yahoo is the best free site, which might be the best option for the first year. If you want to pay, CBS is just as good for baseball as it is for football.2. The traditional lineup is 2 C, 1 1B, 1 3B, 1 1B/3B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 2B/SS, 5 OF, 1 DH/UT, 9 P. If you are looking for something simpler, the Yahoo default lineup is 1 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 3 OF, 1 DH/UT, 7 P.

3. There are good arguments either way. This is something that should be discussed with the other founding owners. I personally think cumulative is better for baseball and H2H is better for football.

4. Depends on how active/experienced the owners are. If you're a bunch of newbs, go weekly. If you have guys that you know are gonna be active, go daily.

5. The category-based scoring format is most popular. Most leagues use 10 categories: AVG, HR, R, RBI, SB, ERA, WHIP, W, S, K. If you have 12 owners, you get 12 for having the best/most in a category, 1 for having the worst/least, and so on. There are points-based leagues out there but I'm not aware of a general consensus as to point values.

 

[Shermanator]

Thanks for all the help guys, it is much appreciated!

 

[Underachievers]

Thanks for all the help guys, it is much appreciated!

I personally think H2H would be your best bet. Being your league's first season....you might want to have a game that will keep managers active all season. H2H should do that as their will be weekly competition between managers. In Roto...half the league will probably be eliminated from contention by mid-season.

 

[Michael Brown]

We do H2H as a bonus that runs alongside the main roto portion. The league champ is determined by most roto points, but the last four weeks of the season are the playoffs. If you're the commish and have a little bit of time (not very time-consuming at all, believe me) you just take the top 8 teams in the standings and pair them off in a playoff format over four weeks. Compile the stats yourself, which is very easy to do on Yahoo because they list all the stats anyway.

The first week is Round 1 (1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5), the second week is Round 2, and the last two weeks are the 'World Series'. It might be too much your first year, but it definitely maintains owner interest throughout if the pot is big enough for the winner. Most times, the league champ ends up also winning the WS but at least it gives the other teams an incentive. You figure with 8 teams getting in, just about everyone will at least be in contention for a playoff spot through August, which is nice. And it gives people incentive to acquire better players or take shots on guys with upside rather than just sitting on their teams and giving up in June.

 

[Vikes Fan]

Thanks for all the help guys, it is much appreciated!

I personally think H2H would be your best bet. Being your league's first season....you might want to have a game that will keep managers active all season. H2H should do that as their will be weekly competition between managers. In Roto...half the league will probably be eliminated from contention by mid-season.

This is similar to what my experience is as well. I like H2H because I am a fantasy football player who occupies the offseason with fantasy baseball. I like H2H because it pits me against someone on a weekly basis and I get standings, just like in football. I suggest ending your season in early September if you do this as once Sept. callups start, regular players on bad teams start losing ABs.Another interesting thing that we do so the draft doesn't take so long...we draft an entire pitching staff instead of individual pitchers. So in a given week, we start one staff (i.e. the Mets) and you get points for wins, saves, and stikeouts and you lose points for losses, earned runs, and walks. It keeps the draft to a couple of hours and I like not having to overanalyze pitching...