SubscribeWith any game — not just fantasy — there is a precarious balance between being fun and being realistic.
Think about sports video games: Most games have two settings — the actual game and an “arcade” style game. The arcade game is much simpler — the plays are standardized, the buttons are limited. If you’ve never played the game before, you are much more likely to have fun with the arcade style, just because it is more straightforward. The trade-off, of course, is that you sacrifice some realism from the main game to make it easier to play.
With fantasy sports, I think in general there is a tendency to want to make things more realistic. Leagues are always wanting to add more categories because there is some element of real baseball that is not being perfectly modeled by the fantasy game. We know that real teams roster middle-relievers and not just closers, so we add holds. We know we are leaving out defense…maybe adding errors will help?
Or maybe we just need one stat category: How about just using WAR for both hitters and pitchers? Using that one stat is probably a more realistic reflection of value than any combination of others.
The downside of those more realistic 9×9 and 10×10 leagues is that you lose the simplicity. And the downside of the uber-stat like WAR is that you lose the fun. Fantasy is about balancing realism and fun.
Fantasy baseball in its most common forms (4×4 and 5×5) is a pretty fun game. It also does a decent job of reflecting reality: Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer are valuable both in real life and in fantasy. Carlos Silva is worthless in both.
But I’m curious: Are there any rule changes that can improve realism without detracting from the simplicity of the current game? Are there any changes that would make fantasy baseball more fun without compromising its realism?
Related posts:
I’m working on a fantasy baseball site that uses an uber stat, but maintains/increases fun by using “arcade” style drafting and trading of players. It’s part slot machine, part fantasy baseball. I’d love to hear what you think. You can see how it works at rosterslots.com.
Using OBP instead of AVG is the simplest compromise we have found between the two. BBing is so important that leaving it to be captured in runs only seems silly. That and we are 4×4 and don’t have runs! Everything else we have left alone and reflects the fact that superior teams lose to inferior teams in baseball because of lucky HR rates and unlucky LOB%s for example.
@KY: Man, you just summed up tomorrow’s post! (I promise I already had it written!)
The league I run has fiddled with stat categories over the years and have (currently) settled on these:
R, RBI, Net-Steals, OBP, SLG
Quality Starts, K/BB, SVS, ERA, WHIP
We feel it makes for a more realistic league but not too extreme. We started with the traditional 5X5 and have tried categories such as Holds, Net-Saves, OPS, and Winning Percentage (for SPs), but are currently quite happy with what we have.
I think the ‘fun’ of fantasy comes from the unkown part of it. If we just use ‘WAR’, there is less variability involved in the categories. For example, one of the most fun things about trading, drafting, and free agent pickups is understanding their lineups and when their luck may turn around.
I think a pivotal part of the fun in fantasy is trying to think about how many R or RBI a player may have. I even think the Batting Average guessing makes it fun. If we use simple rate stats or those with more consistency across seasons (like FIP or BABIP, etc.), we take out some of the uncertainty involved in making the game fun. The external factors that determine our fantasy moves are much more enjoyable than everyone using the same WAR projection system.
It turns out that if we take the traditional 5×5 roto categories, they tell us very well who the best teams are in the game (correlating at about 0.98). Predicting R and RBI, W and SV is much harder than predicting more consistent stats…that’s what’s so fun.
I run a keeper league. Here are our deviations from standard Yahoo fantasy league practices that make the league interesting:
1.) Out offensive categories are: RBI, HR, R, SB Strikeouts, On Base Percentage, and Slugging Percentage. This balance gives more value to lead-off guys as their traditional bane – not having guys on base when going to bat in the 1st – only directly impacts 1/7th of their offensive categories. Further, the things they do best (getting on base and being driven in) have a greater impact (2/7ths of the stats rather than 1/5th).
2.) For pitching we use W, L, K, WHIP, ERA Holds and Blown Saves. Further, you’re limited to 5 SPs and 2 RPs. A player pitching RP (in real baseball) may not be started in an SP slot. This forces teams to try to get that 1 great closer and a reliable set-up guy. If they try to do the old fashioned ‘collect as many closers as possible) technique, they can’t start them all and the cramming of relievers into the game has a neagtive impact on blown saves. It rewards quality over quantity, and it helps us keep a decent pool of middle quality RPs in the free agent pool in the event of an injury.
3.) We reduce the maximum games and innings pitched by 5 or 10%. That makes it easier for teams to get to 100% of their totals even if they get an injury on day one of a week long vacation away from the internet.
4.) We have a dynasty keeper league. We use this site to generate cap numbers for the league using league settings and a $100 cap and each team can keep $100 in players at the end of the season. Some teams end up with less than $100 in players at the end of the season, while others have $150 and need to cut a lot of talent to get under the cap. Some teams keep 18, while others keep 11. We then have a 7 round draft at the start of next season to fill out rosters. This year I had to drop Wright, Hamels, Rivera, McCutcheon, A Cabrera and a bunch of solid young guys to get under the cap… but a team that struggled could keep all of their developing young players and then pick up one of those studs in the next draft.
(For the record, we just determined keepers from last season this week and plan to draft next week).