I have a fantasy baseball question.?

Question

I am the commissioner of a fantasy baseball league (head to head) and last year we had a team that didn't draft one starting pitcher in the draft and ended up with the best record in the league. Needless to say that he killed every team he faced in the offensive categories (AVG, HR, R, RBI, SB) and still won most weeks in pitching. The reason he won pitching is that each week he would make moves to pick up pitchers who would pitch twice for the week. By doing that he would win K's and W's and he also had a good reliever so he'd win Saves as well. The ERA and WHIP would depend on how good the outings were for his pitchers.

Is there a way to make pitching more important? To weight it more so that just merely picking up 2 start pitchers won't cut it?

Fantasy Baseball is supposed to be somewhat realistic. To me, not drafting a pitcher and still doing well doesn't seem like it is right.

Any help?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The draft should be an important part of any season, but making smart moves at the right time should also be a part of the winning strategy. That said, the volume moves approach should not be rewarded (this takes no skill or true knowledge of baseball and is counter to the spirit of fantasy sports).

1. Limit the transactions (trades, adds and drops). There is simply no reason to need more than 100 transactions or so in any league. As you said, the point is to make it realistic, so you might want to make it even tougher by lowering the limit even further (no real team has more than about 20 moves per season).

2. Lock in positions and leave fewer bench spots.

3. Try slightly different categories: K/9 rather than straight Ks, add a loss category to balance the wins category, try adding holds as a pitching category.

4. Make line-up changes weekly rather than daily, so that only a finite number of pitchers can be used for the week. The disadvantage here is that you get stuck for the week with an injured player, etc.

Answer 2

Make a minimum innings pitched rule and make it around 30 - 35 innings pitched per week or there pitching stats don't count. Also on draft day allow them to draft whatever players they want and then set a meeting date before the season starts. At this meeting they must have there roster spots filled example: 9 position players 9 pitchers 4 util. spots no more no less. Hope this helps!

Answer 3

I've seen those type of players before... very unfair. It takes away from the ones that drafted good pitchers. I think Yahoo needs to limit the amount of moves you can make per week (to maybe 1 or 2) to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Either that or add a "loss" column for pitchers.

Answer 4

My yahoo keeper institutes something like 20 innings min. a week (which does help in that you need a couple good starts from S.P.'s) ... also a move restriction to around 100-120 moves for the season could help.

Smart strategy,I've seen it done by a good manager in my league. He started off hot ,but then the strategy started to backfire on him because his offense was not holding up/ RP's started to fail him.

K/9 catergory has been added instead of K's this year in our league.That might not help in your circumstance but it does value the strikeout pitchers more (i.e. good arms).

Answer 5

That actually sounds like a good strategy; ensure you have 2 starts in a single week.


The easy solution is to have a bigger league, and pitchers wont' be as available.

Or make a pitcher a required roster spot.

Answer 6

Play in a points league and make pitching worth more pionts

Answer 7

This will only work if the leauge is played with money, but the best way to solve this situation would be to charge per transation. That way people will be more reluctant to pick up and drop players, but rather play with who they have.

Answer 8

sorry, I have Baccalaureate Mass today and graduation from high school tomorrow so i wouldn't be able to draft. plus I am already in a few leagues. good luck to all the teams though.