I suck at rotisserie because I simply lose focus over the day-in, day-out management of 6 months. Fantasy football is less time-intensive. And it's not just that my roto team sucked the last two years and I thought Jason Kubel would hit 30 homers.

single-league weekly leagues like tout AL/NL are less management-intensive because you're picking guys up less often, and when you do, the players are awarded through FAAB, not to whoever's paying the most attention on a given day. This has the effect of seriously levelling the playing field. I'd say that if you take 12 top players and have them play the tout format for 50 years, no one player will win more than 30% of the time because you need to be lucky to win. To think there's some magic strategy is a farce--it's simply 1. get a competitive offense and 2. guess right on which free agents to go for.

Kubel has a good shot at 30. He only needs 7 more.

I pretty much agree that 5x5 roto as described by Eugene is a roll of the dice among good players. Keepers just make the whole season more interesting, especially if you have injuries to key starters - you can always punt the year and "wait till next year," when you'll be loaded with Cole Hamelses.

That said, I am looking forward to the rest of this series, Eugene.

I still don't understand the value of Rotisserie over game-simulation leagues. I may be wrong, but don't Rotisserie leagues generally draft, say, Jose Reyes and possibly even Jimmy Rollins over Albert Pujols? How is that possibly realistic?

i have never played in a league where rollins and reyes went ahead of Pujols. Albert and Arod have been the king of the hill for a few seasons now.

mm. well keep in mind that I tried to delete that last comment, due to my retrospective (embarrassing) lack of knowledge, but found myself unable.

6: category domination

Last year, Reyes was a chic #2 pick with Arod slipping down to #3 in some leagues. This year, it looks to be Reyes and Ramirez at 2 and 3 with Pujols at 4. We'll have to see how it plays out. And yes, it's unrealistic in the sense that Arod and Pujols have higher runs created, etc. The steals category knocks everything out of whack.

A-Rod went as late as 8th but usually 4th-6th in the drafts I saw last year. I snagged him whenever I could.

I don't do any drafts. Most people just pick the best player available each round. I do regular Rotisserie leagues, with an auction, 23 man active rosters, AL only 12 or 11 team leagues, usually with Runs, RBI, HR, SB, and batting average, Wins, Saves, ERA, WHIP, and Ks as categories.

These leagues are auctions and ARod is always the highest priced hitter- at least for the past 10 years. Pedro and Johan have surpassed him at times on the pitching side of the ledger. Crawford and others have come close, but never cost more than ARod.

Does anyone know the best free online fantasy league for four casual players where we can play NL-only? And when can we start registering our league?
Thanks!

Does anyone know the best free online fantasy league for four casual players where we can play NL-only?

Yahoo has been berry, berry good to me. Great access, flexible scoring rules and set up, if you've only got four guys, you should try to join the same public league. I don't do anything OFF of Yahoo...

I just completed two auction drafts, one AL, one NL, using standard rotisserie league format, for the CBS Sportsline Analysts leagues. Jose Reyes was the highest priced player player bought in the NL at $53, Arod went for $54 in the AL.
I overpaid for Miguel Cabrera at $46, but in my defense the inflation on all the top tier guys was ridiculous. While I generally subscribe to more of a stage 3 approach to auctions, even letting the other touts bid themselves out of the picture for later bargains becomes a hazardous tactic.

Interestingly, in the AL draft no pitcher made the top ten most expensive player list, but both Johan ($44) and Peavy ($43) were in the top ten in the NL.

In a mixed league I am perfectly content to let the "name" players go early and bide my time, since there is obviously more depth to choose from. I drafted a team recently where I didn't pay $20 for any one player (and conversely kicked myself in the rear for leaving $13 at the table) but came out with a very solid team if not spectacular team. I prefer to spread the risk across multiple players in these situations. For instance, how many guys traded Pujols, Santana, Atkins etc., early on? If you spent premium dollars they killed you in the first half of the season.

Needless to say I am breathlessly awaiting Part 2. Nice work Eugene

What is lame about Roto ball is the fact that steals and saves are valued the same as the other categories. Are you trying to tell me that a steal is as valuable as a home run? A save as valuable as a win? The answer is that it is not a realistic format. Rotisserie baseball does not mirror MLB. Yet it is the most popular format of fantasy baseball by far. I think it uses a paradigm that we are all familiar with-the top ten in batting average, RBIs, home runs, ERA, SOs, etc. that we grew up reading in the paper.

What is the answer? Use ERA (with team errors factored in) and a weighted Runs Created. I don't know how Diamond Mind and other formats work though.

What is lame about Roto ball is the fact that steals and saves are valued the same as the other categories.

The most popular versions are usually the easiest for people to understand. There are plenty of leagues using more SABR-friendly cats.

Fantasy football is less time-intensive.

Baseball is harder. Football is quite simple; print out a cheatsheet from a website the day of the draft, follow it and hope for the best. Yes, some owners are better than others but the injuries and lack of predictability from season to season make it an educated crapshoot.

Would using more sabre-friendly categories result in markedly different player values? If not, then why make the game more complicated.

The game has been tweaked from 4x4 to 5x5 with the addition of Runs for hitters and Strikeouts for pitchers. Runs boosted the values of no-HR, no-SB hitters and Ks ramped-up startin pitchers while devaluing closers and relievers.

What is the net result of changing the categories beyond making the game less accessible?

The problem is in using categories to score. You wouldn't win a baseball game by striking out more guys but giving up a lot more runs.
You wouldn't win a baseball game just by stealing more bases than the other team hits HRs. You want to have a formula that measures as close as you can how many runs your team would probably score given a set of data (walks, Hbp, singles, doubles, triples, and Hr's) vs. how much you give up (ERA -plus include errors). The ideas of categories is fine as a game format, but to say that your Roto team was the best actual team based on placing the highest in all categories combined does not work for me.

Maybe so, but in the end, do those complications add enough to the end-value of the players involved to merit the change? The principle of Parsimony leans toward, "No."

Do you have examples of players who are very integral to the real game that are worthless in the fantasy one in a traditional 5x5 format who would be recognized for their real life value with your proposed change?

Do you have examples of players who are very integral to the real game that are worthless in the fantasy one in a traditional 5x5 format who would be recognized for their real life value with your proposed change?

I don't know about worthless so much as grossly under- or over-rated compared to real life value.

Juan Pierre has traditionally been a fairly useful fantasy player despite being a bad player in real life. His 2007 season is a pretty good example: .293/96/0/41/64, OPS+ 75.

On the other side would be maybe Pat Burrell. .256/77/30/97/0, OPS+ 127. Imagine if their parks were reversed and the difference might be even greater.

Juan Pierre, the new poster boy for all that is wrong with traditional baseball thinking. I'd also say most SB-only players fit this bill. So are they worth changing the rules of a game to slake the distaste of some sabre-biased opinion?

I am not saying that those opinions do not further the understanding of the game. I tend towards agreement, but I have seen enough to understand that the worth of the SB is not completely explained by the current metrics used to evaluate them. If the SB was so bad, why has it not died out? I am not assuming the people who get paid to run the game are so stupid as to miss this.

My experience with changing rotisserie rules have their genesis in just this kind of distaste. A bunch of Mets fans didn't like Armando Benitez blowing saves in big games so they decided to change Saves to Net Saves to penalize Benitez' rotisserie value. No mind paid to the fact that he would be paid handsomely in the free agent market where teams assess his value differently.

And so on.

If the SB was so bad, why has it not died out? I am not assuming the people who get paid to run the game are so stupid as to miss this.

Fantasy games work best for the general public when their statistics are easy to understand and easy to find. Fantasy sports do not accurately reflect the way the games are played. What they do is to give fans an opportunity to role-play.

Many companies offer a chance for fans to customize their game. Most fans opt for the tried and true because it's easier to get others to play along.

Juan Pierre sucks, let others draft him.

A one category fantasy league that used some sort of total wins over replacement calculation (park and league adjusted even) would be far more accurate than 5x5 fantasy ball.

It would also be completely boring. Fantasy baseball is a completely different game than real baseball, but if you can accept that, it can be a great experience. I've been doing an auction league with keepers for the last few years. We do a live draft. For some of the guys in the league, its the only time we see each other all year, and the best part of being in the league.

Juan Pierre is about as valuable as Adam Dunn in 5x5. Pierre helps you in BA and steals and kills you in HR/RBI. Dunn does the opposite. Runs scored is probably a wash. Just accept that, understand that in no way you are endorsing them as equal value to a real team, and have fun.

Not entirely true, Adam Dunn won't kill you in steals if he swipes 12-15 surprise bags, but they are pretty close. Of course Pierre's value drops to nothing if Joe Torre understands he has better corner outfield options.

I still don't understand the value of Rotisserie over game-simulation leagues.

I prefer sim leagues with my core friends, but roto is more accessible and is the "mainstream" sport that I end up playing with another group of friends.

A-Rod went as late as 8th but usually 4th-6th in the drafts I saw last year.

Those drafts were crazy.

Do you have examples of players who are very integral to the real game that are worthless in the fantasy one in a traditional 5x5 format who would be recognized for their real life value with your proposed change?

Mark Ellis. He's not worthless, but not particularly valuable in a deep league. BA is so-so, not many steals, gives you a little more pop than the other 2B. His great defense is useless in fantasy though.

For many players speed is positively correlated with defensive ability so valuable real life plays without power often have a place in fantasy. Though of course it doesn't always work that way and you get your Pierres, Podsedniks, and Womacks. Those players carry some extra risk though - that their team gets tired of them and puts them on the bench. You don't have to worry about that happening to Todd Helton or Nick Swisher.

What is lame about Roto ball is the fact that steals and saves are valued the same as the other categories. Are you trying to tell me that a steal is as valuable as a home run? A save as valuable as a win? The answer is that it is not a realistic format. Rotisserie baseball does not mirror MLB.

I don't think the values of players in rotisserie baseball should necessarily mirror the values of players in real baseball. Of course, you would like the valuations to be generally close to preserve some sense of realism, but ultimately, it's more important that rotisserie baseball be a fun, playable game than it is that the rotisserie baseball player values conform exactly to actual player values.

I suppose you could organize a league with VORP, EQA, WS, dERA, etc. as categories, but I imagine that it wouldn't be much fun as you would spend a lot of time watching baseball and thinking "My player hit a home run. That's great. I wonder how that affects my EQA." Simpler, counting statistics are good for rotisserie baseball not just because they are understood by the general public, but because those statistics are easier for all fans, even sophisticated ones, to gauge. In an auction, you could look at your roster and make a determination that your roster is low on HRs or saves and adjust your valuations accordingly. During the season, you can look at the league standings and know that you need 5 SBs to get 2 more points or 28 RBIs to get 3 more points and look for trades to gain those points accordingly. I think that is harder to do when the categories are more advanced metrics.

Additionally, while certain categories like SBs or Saves aren't particularly important in real baseball, they do add a distinct element of strategy to rotisserie baseball. Teams have to decide if they want to play in those categories and how they will do so. Do you waste a lineup spot on a guy like Pierre who will get you a lot of SBs, or do you try get get more 5 category players? I like having to think about these things and make these choices. It adds to the game. I think that's the most important thing.

Or, what AROM said.

The categories of players who are undervalued in traditional 5x5 rotisserie baseball:

1) Good defenders
2) Center fielders (most leagues have 3 OF spots in place of LF, CF, RF)
3) Lower average / high OBP / medium power hitters (few HR, bad BA, mediocre R, RBI, SB). Think Brian Giles later in his career or Kevin Youkilis.
4) Platoon players (Matt Diaz last year, e.g.)

Others?

Middle relievers or setup men are basically worthless. Can help ERA/WHIP, but probably not enough to make up their lack of meaningful contributions to S, W, or K.

Yeah, that's a good point. Those guys are a lot more important to a real baseball team than they are to a fantasy team.

5) Good hitters playing in pitcher's parks, good pitchers in hitter's parks.

I've heard endless whining about the HOLD stat, but this is why I love it and include it every year in the Yahoo league I'm the commissioner for. Otherwise the middle relievers ARE worthless, and lord knows they aren't in regular baseball.

For what it's worth, here are the stats we used last year, and probably this year:

Hitters: R, H, HR, RBI, E, OBP, SLG
Pitchers: W, SV, ER, K, HLD, TB, WHIP

We were thinking of adding a stat to each side, but Yahoo has added some of the STUPIDEST stats I've ever seen this year. Hitting for the cycle for hitters and perfect games for pitchers? Lord. Anyhow, the two I like are GIDP for hitters and quality starts for pitchers. We'll have a level of email debate about it, and then decide.

EVERY year we have the debate about SB and every year it's shot down, thankfully.

Kyle S

Thank Yahoo! for that. Traditional Roto is 4x4 one league only. Points 2-4 are not an issue. As for good defenders, only the most stellar can get by with no discernable contribution. Otherwise, fans clamor for an upgrade Twins not withstanding.

Having the Hold as a stat is nice, particularly for larger leagues. Errors, I'm not so sure. GIDP would be better, IMO.

I do like adding ones like those to the standard 5x5. I'm in a 5x5 every year with the same guys, and I tolerate it. Keeping the same scoring is nice to compare to historically great teams.

But I also do a random free Yahoo league every year with one friend who doesn't have any other league to be in, and its interesting to get in some leagues with additional scoring such as holds. I don't think GIDP has been used in any I've been in, I'd like to see that.

One argument made by Primate Mark Donelson (who's in the league) is that adding GIDP for hitters (and symmetrically, for pitchers) seems a little off as it dilutes the more "major" stats, which I can't actually disagree with. So at the moment we're adding SB% and QS, which I think are a little more fair as far as importance than GIDP.

And no, let's not get started on RBI, please.

Errors are another hotly debated issue, but I have to stand by them as the only worthwhile fielding roto stat. Fielding is important and should be counted SOMEHOW. Errors are a strong and harsh and quick and subjective judgment, just like real life. But they are important, just ask Alex Gonzalez.

ANYHOW - I'm actually looking to get a few more women in my league. We always have one or two, and this year it's only one. If anyone reading this knows of any women who are interested in playing roto, drop me an email. No, not to hit on, for diversity.

For several years, I was a member of a fantasy points, head-to-head league that was based on the Front Office League points system created by Steve Mann. He published it in a couple of fantasy baseball books back in the early-mid 90's, I believe, and I think it was based on the idea that if you applied this point system to a real MLB team's offense, added up all of the individuals' point totals, and divided it by some number (I want to say 4.4), you'll end up with a pretty close approximation to how many runs that team actually scored.

Sort of a modified linear weights type of idea. In that sense, I thought it was quite sabr-friendly, and because the best players were actually worth the most points, it's the most enjoyable experience I've had in a fantasy baseball league.

This is from memory, and I haven't been in the league for 4 years so it could be wrong, but it was something close to this:
For hitters:
AB -0.5
1B +3
2B +4
3B +5
HR +6
BB +1.5
SB +1
CS -0.5

For pitchers:
IP +4.5
H -2.5
BB -1
HR -3
SV +2

I was moderately successful in the league, and I attribute a lot of that to the fact that I'd typically eschew closers for the best middle relievers/set-up men, whom I could grab late in the draft and who would be more valuable than the bottom half of closers.

Thinking about this again makes me want to join another Front Office league.

Middle relievers or setup men are basically worthless.

They aren't worthless. I many times substitute two top-notch middle guys for a weaker starting pitcher. Getting 160-170 high end innings is better than no better than league average innings. Plus, they cost much less, many times add a bunch of strikeouts while only shorting a team in wins.

boond

Totally agree. I'd much rather have Jonathan Broxton and Carlos Marmol than #3/4 starter i.e. Brian bannister from a mediocre team. The hit to ratios plus the general lack of Wins from the #3/4 makes the top middle relievers much better contributors.

The additional of Ks to the classic 4x4 set-up has obscured this to some extent.

I'd rather replace mediocre numbers with good numbers. It's all about flexibility.

Sort of a modified linear weights type of idea.

I attempted this by myself one year. Somewhere the math was incorrect and the league was screwed and then abandoned. I still like the idea though.

I played front office baseball several years ago and one of my other leagues is folding so I may be starting one up.