WarlordJohnCarter
Registered User
Hello All,
I’m looking for a few replacements for quitters in a free, 24-team league. One of them is actually in 2nd place, which is very impressive. (20 managers are very active, and it’s a great league.)
It’s a full 25-man roster with 5 SPs, 7 RPs, and 9 hitters, as well as 4 bench slots that can be used for any player (but there is a limit of 6 SPs on your roster).
Feel free to click on the links below and see the rosters for each team. If you are not a current Fantrax player, you just have to register there (it’s free).
Reply here with your email if interested, or email me at [email protected]
It’s a huge league with very deep stats; 12-15 for both hitting and pitching, so about 27 overall.
It’s a redraft league, so no keepers or dynasty.
Here are all of the rosters of the four teams. (You’ll notice that some teams are short on players, but AquaSox is going to have to drop players—especially starting pitchers to get within roster limits; we have unlimited DL positions, and five minors positions, and some of those players are now healthy or in the big leagues, so they must be activated or dropped. A couple of the other teams need to move guys to the DL and add players from the free agent list. I think a couple of these teams need to add a couple of starting pitchers because the minimum is 40 innings per week. You get 4 adds per week, so that should be no problem.)
(Below the rosters is the league setup including scoring categories and weights, etc. Below that is the commish note from the league.)
AquaSox (2nd place) Roster (in order of overall performance; hitters first, then pitchers below)
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 UT Ortiz, David - BOS AquaSox 2nd Place
2 1B,UT Rizzo, Anthony - CHC AquaSox 2nd Place
3 OF,UT Braun, Ryan - MIL AquaSox 2nd Place
4 OF,UT Fowler, Dexter - CHC AquaSox 2nd Place
5 1B,2B,3B,UT Solarte, Yangervis - SD AquaSox 2nd Place
6 1B,3B,UT Reynolds, Mark - COL AquaSox 2nd Place
7 SS,UT Andrus, Elvis - TEX AquaSox 2nd Place
8 OF,UT Ellsbury, Jacoby - NYY AquaSox 2nd Place
9 OF,UT Rickard, Joey (R) - BAL AquaSox 2nd Place
10 2B,UT Phillips, Brandon - CIN AquaSox 2nd Place
11 C,1B,UT Norris, Derek - SD AquaSox 2nd Place
12 OF,UT Parra, Gerardo - COL AquaSox 2nd Place
13 OF,UT Aoki, Norichika - SEA AquaSox 2nd Place
Pitching (This guy has tons of pitching that you will have to drop: 6 SP limit)
Rk Pos Player AquaSox 2nd Place
1 RP Melancon, Mark - PIT AquaSox 2nd Place
2 SP Price, David - BOS AquaSox 2nd Place
3 RP Buchter, Ryan (R) - SD AquaSox 2nd Place
4 SP Happ, J.A. - TOR AquaSox 2nd Place
5 RP Bush, Matt (R) - TEX AquaSox 2nd Place
6 RP Cedeno, Xavier - TB AquaSox 2nd Place
7 SP Lewis, Colby - TEX AquaSox 2nd Place
8 SP Hammel, Jason - CHC AquaSox 2nd Place
9 SP McCarthy, Brandon - LAD AquaSox 2nd Place
10 RP Ottavino, Adam - COL AquaSox 2nd Place
11 RP Perez, Oliver - WAS AquaSox 2nd Place
12 SP Nolasco, Ricky - MIN AquaSox 2nd Place
13 RP Johnson, Jim - ATL AquaSox 2nd Place
14 RP Osich, Josh (R) - SF AquaSox 2nd Place
15 RP Smith, Carson - BOS AquaSox 2nd Place
16 SP,RP Manaea, Sean (R) - OAK AquaSox 2nd Place
17 SP,RP Stripling, Ross (R) - LAD AquaSox 2nd Place
18 SP Shields, James - CHW AquaSox 2nd Place
19 SP,RP Hughes, Phil - MIN AquaSox 2nd Place
20 SP Cain, Matt - SF AquaSox 2nd Place
21 RP Boscan, Wilfredo (R) - PIT AquaSox 2nd Place
22 SP,RP Young, Chris - KC AquaSox 2nd Place
23 SP,RP Huff, David - (N/A) AquaSox 2nd Place
24 SP Hader, Josh - MIL AquaSox 2nd Place
25 SP Minor, Mike - KC AquaSox 2nd Place
26 RP Nathan, Joe - (N/A) AquaSox 2nd Place
27 SP Newcomb, Sean - ATL AquaSox 2nd Place
28 SP Alvarez, Henderson - OAK AquaSox 2nd Place
Toronto (19th place) Roster (in order of overall performance; hitters first, then pitchers below)
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 3B,UT Donaldson, Josh - TOR Toronto 19th Pl
2 OF,UT Beltran, Carlos - NYY Toronto 19th Pl
3 1B,UT Freeman, Freddie - ATL Toronto 19th Pl
4 3B,OF,UT Sano, Miguel - MIN Toronto 19th Pl
5 1B,2B,3B,OF,UT Dietrich, Derek - MIA Toronto 19th Pl
6 1B,UT Loney, James - NYM Toronto 19th Pl
7 OF,UT Peralta, David - ARI Toronto 19th Pl
8 C,UT Soto, Geovany - LAA Toronto 19th Pl
9 C,UT Fryer, Eric - PIT Toronto 19th Pl
10 SS,UT Simmons, Andrelton - LAA Toronto 19th Pl
11 C,UT Navarro, Dioner - CHW Toronto 19th Pl
12 2B,3B,OF,UT Hernandez, **** - LAD Toronto 19th Pl
13 OF,UT Murphy, David - (N/A) Toronto 19th Pl
Pitching
1 RP Betances, Dellin - NYY Toronto 19th Pl
2 SP Hill, Rich - OAK Toronto 19th Pl
3 SP Maeda, Kenta (R) - LAD Toronto 19th Pl
4 RP Baez, Pedro - LAD Toronto 19th Pl
5 RP Watson, Tony - PIT Toronto 19th Pl
6 RP Strickland, Hunter - SF Toronto 19th Pl
7 SP,RP Wood, Travis - CHC Toronto 19th Pl
8 RP Robles, Hansel - NYM Toronto 19th Pl
9 SP Garcia, Jaime - STL Toronto 19th Pl
10 SP Bettis, Chad - COL Toronto 19th Pl
11 SP,RP Fiers, Mike - HOU Toronto 19th Pl
12 RP Sipp, Tony - HOU Toronto 19th Pl
Unstrung: 22nd place
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 OF,UT Stanton, Giancarlo - MIA Unstrung 22nd pl
2 1B,2B,3B,UT Freese, David - PIT Unstrung 22nd pl
3 OF,UT Werth, Jayson - WAS Unstrung 22nd pl
4 3B,UT Escobar, Yunel - LAA Unstrung 22nd pl
5 2B,UT Gennett, Scooter - MIL Unstrung 22nd pl
6 OF,UT Choo, Shin-soo - TEX Unstrung 22nd pl
7 1B,UT Park, Byung Ho (R) - MIN Unstrung 22nd pl
8 C,UT Iannetta, Chris - SEA Unstrung 22nd pl
9 OF,UT Garcia, Avisail - CHW Unstrung 22nd pl
10 1B,UT Duda, Lucas - NYM Unstrung 22nd pl
11 3B,OF,UT Goeddel, Tyler (R) - PHI Unstrung 22nd pl
12 SS,UT Aybar, Erick - ATL Unstrung 22nd pl
13 C,UT Sanchez, Gary (R) - NYY Unstrung 22nd pl
Pitching
1 SP Kluber, Corey - CLE Unstrung 22nd pl
2 RP Wilson, Justin - DET Unstrung 22nd pl
3 SP,RP Hendricks, Kyle - CHC Unstrung 22nd pl
4 SP Lackey, John - CHC Unstrung 22nd pl
5 SP McHugh, Collin - HOU Unstrung 22nd pl
6 SP Ray, Robbie - ARI Unstrung 22nd pl
7 SP Perez, Martin - TEX Unstrung 22nd pl
8 RP Grimm, Justin - CHC Unstrung 22nd pl
9 RP Bastardo, Antonio - NYM Unstrung 22nd pl
10 RP Smith, Joe - LAA Unstrung 22nd pl
11 RP Caminero, Arquimedes - PIT Unstrung 22nd pl
12 RP Benoit, Joaquin - SEA Unstrung 22nd pl
13 RP Cecil, Brett - TOR Unstrung 22nd pl
Vancouver 23rd place
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 OF,UT Yelich, Christian - MIA Vancouver 23rd pl
2 1B,UT Hosmer, Eric - KC Vancouver 23rd pl
3 OF,UT Smith, Seth - SEA Vancouver 23rd pl
4 2B,UT Panik, Joe - SF Vancouver 23rd pl
5 OF,UT Span, Denard - SF Vancouver 23rd pl
6 1B,UT Morrison, Logan - TB Vancouver 23rd pl
7 2B,3B,SS,OF,UT Holt, Brock - BOS Vancouver 23rd pl
8 C,UT Castro, Jason - HOU Vancouver 23rd pl
9 SS,UT Marte, Ketel - SEA Vancouver 23rd pl
10 1B,3B,UT Plouffe, Trevor - MIN Vancouver 23rd pl
11 1B,OF,UT Robinson, Clint - WAS Vancouver 23rd pl
12 1B,OF,UT Ackley, Dustin - NYY Vancouver 23rd pl
Vancouver pitching
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 SP Bumgarner, Madison - SF Vancouver 23rd pl
2 RP Osuna, Roberto - TOR Vancouver 23rd pl
3 SP,RP Sanchez, Aaron - TOR Vancouver 23rd pl
4 SP Greinke, Zack - ARI Vancouver 23rd pl
5 RP Kelley, Shawn - WAS Vancouver 23rd pl
6 SP,RP Conley, Adam - MIA Vancouver 23rd pl
7 RP Wilson, Alex - DET Vancouver 23rd pl
8 RP Broxton, Jonathan - STL Vancouver 23rd pl
9 RP Smith, Will - MIL Vancouver 23rd pl
10 RP Avilan, Luis - LAD Vancouver 23rd pl
11 SP Nicolino, Justin - MIA Vancouver 23rd pl
12 SP Jungmann, Taylor - MIL Vancouver 23rd pl
13 SP Bailey, Homer - CIN Vancouver 23rd pl
League Setup, Rosters, Scoring, etc.
General
• League Name: All-Star Baseball
• Duplicate Player Allowance: Not Used
• Scoring System: Head-to-Head - Each Category is a Win
• Maximum # of teams: 24
• League Creator Username: WarlordJohnCarter
• Commissioner Team Name: Warlord John Carter
Schedule
• Your league stats begin accumulating on: Sun Apr 03, 2016
• Your league stats end accumulating on: Mon Oct 03, 2016
• Merge first n periods of season: 2
• Merge last two periods of season: Yes
• Scoring Period Interval: Weekly
• Scoring Period day to start: Monday
• Use Playoffs: Yes
Playoffs
• Playoffs will begin in this Scoring Period: 22 (Sep 6/16 - Sep 19/16) and last for 2 periods (rounds).
• Playoff matchups entered manually: No
• Number of teams qualifying for playoffs 4
• Reseed each playoff round: No
• * To view the playoff bracket, go to the Standings screen and click on the Playoffs tab.
Player Pool
• Player Pool: All teams
• Players traded out of league's player pool continue to accumulate stats: No
• Only include players signed to a MLB team in the player pool: No
• Lock Player Pool: No
Rosters
Restrictions
• Minimum Total Players: 0
• Maximum Total Players: 25
• Minimum Active Players: 0
• Maximum Active Players: 21
• Maximum Reserve Players: 4
• Maximum Injury Reserve Players: Unlimited
• Maximum Minor League Players: 5
• Prevent any transaction that would cause a roster to become illegal: Never
• Allow suspended players to be moved to Injured Reserve: Yes
• Allow players on a bye week to be moved to Injured Reserve: No
• Injured Reserve players count toward roster limitation rules: No
• Only players on the MLB Disabled List may be moved to the Injured Reserve slot: No
• Minor League players count toward roster limitation rules: No
• Minor League Eligibility:
Condition Constraint
Players have a status of In the minors Must meet to be eligible
• Injured Reserve Enforcement type: Lock Transactions
• Number of Lineup Periods until Injured Reserve Enforcement takes effect: 0
Pos Min Active Max Active Total Max Min GP Max GP
Catcher (C) 0 1
1st Base (1B) 0 1
2nd Base (2B) 0 1
3rd Base (3B) 0 1
Shortstop (SS) 0 1
Outfield (OF) 0 3
Utility (Any Hitter) (UT) 0 1
Starting Pitcher (SP) 0 5 6
Relief Pitcher (RP) 0 7
Pitcher (P) 0 0
Position Eligibility
• Games needed from previous season for a player to qualify at a hitting position : 20
• Games needed from current season for a player to qualify at a hitting position: 2
• Starts needed from previous season for a player to qualify as a starter : 3
• Starts needed from current season for a player to qualify as a starter : 2
• Relief appearances needed from previous season for a player to qualify as a reliever : 3
• Relief appearances needed from current season for a player to qualify as a reliever: 1
• Use Fantrax's default position(s) in addition to any position(s) a player qualifies for based on above criteria: No
• Note: If a player does not qualify for any positions based on the above selections, he will qualify at the position(s) played most in the previous MLB season. If he did not play at all last season, then the default position(s) will be used.
Other Roster Preferences
• Allow players to play at an ineligible position without making the roster illegal: No
Scoring
Scoring Group Scoring Category Weight
Hitting Hits (H) 2.5
Hitting Home Runs (HR) 3.8
Hitting Net Stolen Bases (NSB) 2.5
Hitting Pitches Faced (Pit) 1.3
Hitting Balls Faced (BF) 1.3
Hitting Runs Batted In (RBI) 2.5
Hitting Runs Scored (R) 2.5
Hitting Walks (BB) 2.5
Hitting Batting Average (Avg) 2.5
Hitting Extra Base Hits (XBH) 2.5
Hitting Isolated Power (ISO) 2.5
Hitting On Base Percentage (OBP) 2.5
Hitting Total Bases (TB) 3.9
Hitting Weighted On Base Average (WOBA) 3.8
Hitting Slugging Percentage (SLG) 2.5
Hitting On Base + Slugging Percentage (OPS) 3.9
Hitting Runs Created (RC) 3.8
Pitching Holds (Hld) 2.5
Pitching Inherited Runners Stranded (IRS) 2.5
Pitching Net Saves (Sv - BS) (NS) 2.5
Pitching Net Saves + Holds (NS+H) 2.5
Pitching Strikeouts Pitched (K) 2.5
Pitching Earned Run Average (ERA) 2.5
Pitching Home Runs Allowed Per Nine Innings (HR/9) 2.5
Pitching Modified Outs Recorded (MOR) 3.8
Pitching Relief Appearances (RA) 2.5
Pitching Strikeouts Pitched - Walks (K-BB) 3.9
Pitching Strikeouts Pitched Per Walk (K/BB) 2.5
Pitching Walks Allowed Per Nine Innings (BB/9) 2.5
Pitching WHIP Ratio (WHIP) 2.5
Pitching Wins + Quality Starts (W+QS) 3.8
Pitching Wins x 2 - Losses (W2-L) 3.9
Pitching Defense-Independent Component ERA (DICE) 3.8
Pitching Slugging Percentage (SLG) 2.6
Pitching On Base + Slugging Percentage (OPS) 3.9
Team Minimum and Maximum Requirements per Scoring Period
Scoring Category Min Max
Innings Pitched - Pitching 40 None
Games Started - Pitching 1 None
• If a maximum has been met or exceeded: All hitters or pitchers, depending on the scoring category exceeded, will stop accumulating stats for the rest of the scoring period. If the max has not been met or exceeded at the beginning of a day, stats will accumulate throughout that entire day, even if the max is exceeded. Note that ALL pitchers includes both SP and RP. For example, if a max is exceeded for Relief Appearances, stats will be lost for the season for Relief Pitchers (RP) as well as Starting Pitchers (SP).
• If a minimum has not been met by end of scoring period: The team will get a loss for each averaged hitting (e.g. Avg, Slg, etc.) or pitching stat (e.g. ERA, WHIP, etc.), depending on the scoring category whose minimum has not been met, for the scoring period.
Other Scoring Preferences
• Players will always accumulate stats in all scoring category groups: No
• Stat Correction Handling: No Official Scoring changes will affect your league beyond the default stat freeze time. Official corrections will be applied to your league if they come in within 7 days (168 hours) after the end of that game. Any Official Scoring changes which come in after this time will not be reflected in your league's stats/scores/standings.
Transactions
Lineups
• Lineup Change System: Owners enter lineup changes
• Lineup changes are executed: Daily
• Lineup Changes are locked 0:01 (hours:minutes) Set amount of time before each player's scheduled game start time of the day
Trades
• Trade System: Owners propose their own trades
• Trading Period: All Year
• Maximum Trades per Team: Unlimited
• Trade Deadline Date: Tue Aug 16, 2016 12:59 PM JST
• Trade Voting System: Owners
• Days to Vote: 3
• # of Objections Required: 50%
Claims/Drops
• Claim/Drop Privileges: Owners perform their own claims & drops
• Max # of claims per season: Unlimited
• Max # of claims per week: 4 ( Free Agents: 4 , Waiver Wire: 4 ) starting every Monday
• Use Waiver Wire process: Yes
• Allow claims/drops before the draft: No
• Can't drop list: Not Used
• Pending claims/drops are viewable by: One's own team
Free Agents
• Free Agent Claim System: Free for all (1st come 1st serve)
Waiver Wire
• Priority order: Random
• Rotate Waiver Wire Claim Order After Each Claim: No
• Waiver Wire Claim Order Reset Days: Sun,Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat
• Waiver Wire Claim Order Reset Time: 3:00 am
• Waiver Wire players are processed: After a selected # of Days
• Waiver Wire claim processing time: 3:00 am
• # of days players remain on waivers for: 2
• Automatically put players on waivers: Never
• Pending claims/drops are viewable by: One's own team
Draft
• Draft Type: Live Online Standard
• # of rounds: 25
• Draft Date & Time: Sun Mar 20 2016, 11:00PM JST
• Time limit per pick (mm:ss): 00:45
• All teams will have the same # of players as the # of rounds when the draft is over: No
• Immediately pick for owners not present in draft room: Yes
• Fill rosters legally when drafting: Yes
• Draft order type: Manual - Fixed (Non-Snake/Serpentine)
• Draft order: The Flip Side, Roseville Renegades, Vancouver Canadians, titanhawks, YANKEE GREATS, Goodfellas, thoze guyz, ithrewsomerocks, Big Daddy Beau, Rainiers, Rib Eye, AquaSox, Stoon City Paupers, Jack Straw, Warlord John Carter, toronto blue jays, Unstrung, Sizeduzmadder, NagsHead Rippers, East Coast Pirates, Tandoori Nuggets, The Brown, Chief Wahoo, SP Deacs
• Undrafted players go to the: Waiver Wire
Miscellaneous
Tie Breakers
Standings Tie Breakers
1. Head-to-head record vs. team(s) tied with
2. Most wins in entire season
3. Randomly selected
Matchup Tie Breakers
None
Prizes
• This league does not use prizes (or they have not been configured yet)
The commish note:
Welcome to the 2016 All-Star Baseball League!
Basics: this is a free, DAILY (set your lineups daily), H2H redraft league (no keepers, no dynasty) that’s going to have about 24 teams. Every team plays three matchups a week, every week of the regular season. This is to allow us to play every other team at least twice during the season. Our live draft is Sunday, Mar 20 at 10:00 AM EDT. Four teams make the playoffs, and each playoff round is going to be two weeks long. This is actually a paid Fantrax league with advanced stats, but I will pay the whole fee in advance—you pay nothing. Be sure to read below for all the details about our rules, the setup, scoring, playoffs, draft, rules, etc.
One key point for managers I don't know joining via the public listings here. I will check on your status here over the next couple of months to see if you are still here. Make sure to logon here at least every week or two before spring training, and more often after that. If not, I might assume you have quit and delete your team. (Every season managers sign up very early, and then they never come back. They miss the draft and the whole season.) Feel free to join the league and have a look around at the setup. Everything except the draft order is set: the schedule and roster settings are set. The scoring is set, and the draft day and time are set.
Draft: the draft order has NOT been set and it will continuously change as new teams join—this is a Fantrax idiosyncracy. I have to wait till the league fills to set the order. The top four teams from last year may choose their positions based on their order of finish. In other words, the champ gets first choice, and the runner-up gets second choice. Teams that finished 3rd and 4th in the regular season get 3rd and 4th choices of draft positions. All other positions will be determined by a random drawing I do at random.org.
One key point is that we DON’T use the usual fantasy snaking draft. Our draft snakes for the first two rounds and then locks for rounds 3-25. In other words, the 2nd round will be the opposite of the first, but then the draft order is going to be the same as the 2nd round until the end. Based on a 24-team league, this means that the team that picks 1st overall is going to pick 48th, 72nd, 96th, etc. and the team picking 24th is going to pick 25th, 49th, 73rd, etc.
This serves two functions: it eliminates the slight advantage that picking top 3 has, as well as eliminates the variable gaps between picks that come with snaking drafts. In other words, you pick every 24 picks after your 2nd round pick, so you will be able to plan better. Also, every team will be picking every 24th pick, so no teams get stuck waiting 40-47 picks for their next pick. This gap could kill you if you are thinking of waiting on a closer, and there is a huge run on closers—and you have to wait 40+ picks for your next turn.
If you are not happy with your draft position, you can try to swap positions with me or someone else. (In order to arrange a swap of draft positions both managers must post a message agreeing to the swap on the league message board or chat window. Also, you must trade your entire draft for someone else's entire draft; there is no individual swapping of positions.)
Regarding changes to the setup, draft day/time, scoring, rosters, etc.: I usually get a couple of requests every season, and I politely decline 95% of them. I respect your input, but I’m not going to change the setup. It’s nothing personal; it’s just that I’ve been doing these leagues since 2009, and I have them setup exactly the way I like them. If the change is very important to you, you should probably find a different league. My whole point in being a commissioner is that I want to set it up my way. My assumption is that all of you joining the league are happy or at least satisfied with the setup as is. This is very important regarding the draft. I am not willing to change the draft day or time. Again, it’s nothing personal, it’s just that I assume that you are happy with the draft day and time if you have joined. (I’ve used the exact same Sunday morning draft time for at least five years in all my leagues, and I like it. BTW, I strongly urge teams to participate in the live draft, but if you can’t, that’s ok. Fantrax does a decent job of ranking players, and you can do very well with autopick by pre-ranking 500 or so players if you have to miss the draft.)
Changes for 2016: four-team playoff, innings limit, expanded rosters on Sept. 1, First of all, we are going to have four teams in the playoffs. It’s going to be a month-long playoff with each round being two weeks. Next, I have totally revamped the pitching requirements; now there is an innings-pitched minimum of 40 (doubled to 80 for the playoffs but NOT doubled for All-Star Week). All teams are required to have at least one start per week, but I’m really only doing that so that I can see the total number of starts easily on the “live scoring†screen. There are also going to be five SP positions and seven RP positions this season. The maximum number of SPs is six on your roster (NOT including DL pitchers, so you can EASILY put injured guys in the DL position and have 7+ SPs on your roster INCLUDING the DL—just not active or on your bench. Fantrax will/should block you (we’ll see how it works, but I’m trying to set it up that way) from making any transactions until you drop any extra SPs you may have. You can choose to carry fewer than six starting pitchers, but you must not have more then six and that includes RPs who become fulltime starters—but NOT if it’s just a spot start here or there. Basically, if your RP makes the rotation out of spring training, he is a starter in my book, and I might just set his eligibility to SP only.
BTW, there are about 150 real starting pitchers in MLB, and with 24 fantasy teams here on Fantrax (at 5 SPs each) that is 120 SPs. Six SPs each would be 144, so there will be between six and 30 or so SPs available after the draft.
I've tweaked the scoring a little. As you may know, last season I tried to set "IP per game for starters." but it didn't work due to our roster settings. Fantrax was counting that stat only for ANY pitcher in the "SP" slot on your roster—as a result, I had to switch it to "quality starts," which I didn't like because we already had "quality starts plus wins." This season, I think will use "modified outs recorded" as a substitute for that extra QS. It's very similar to innings pitched (using outs instead), but it gives bonuses for complete games, no-hitters, and perfect games.
Rosters: this league has full MLB rosters (25 players). Rosters expand to 40 on September 1, and we will expand to 30 here. This is because lots of real teams don’t bother to use the real DL in September, and if not, we won’t be able to put those players on the DL or add replacements here.
Pitching: You are required to have at least 35 total innings pitched per week—or lose all percentage-based pitching stats, such as ERA, WHIP, etc. The innings minimum will be doubled for the playoffs to 70—but not doubled for any other extended weeks during the season—it’s not really an issue. The three extra games during the extended All-Star week aren’t going to have much impact on our league with or without adjusting the minimum.
Position eligibility: I’m happy to change any player’s position eligibility if you can prove that he is the long-term starter. That goes for pitching as well as everyday players. All you have to do is send me a link to an official announcement that says, for example, “John Smith has been named starting shortstop by Manager Jones.†Of course, Fantrax automatically changes eligibility based on games played or started at a new position.
Scoring setup: basically the scoring setup is the same as last season. Here's the breakdown of scoring by category:
Total Pitching: about 53% of scoring
Total Hitting: about 47% of scoring
Reliever-Only Categories: about 13% of pitching
Starting-Pitcher Dominated Categories: about 40% of pitching
Hitting stats favor the best pure hitters—homeruns are very important as is OBP.
Pitching stats favor pitchers who don’t let guys get on base and don’t give up HRs.
This is the mix I really want for this league, although I wouldn't mind tweaking these numbers by a couple of percentage points here and there. Basically, I think pitching and hitting should be equal, but I adjusted that slightly to allow for relievers. Again, this is something I might change in the future depending on how it plays out this season. (For those of you in my Yahoo league, my Yahoo setup has a very similar balance.)
Does that mean you should focus on pitching? I'm not sure. The problem is that starting pitchers can't score in every category, so hitters are probably still more valuable. My calculation is that a good hitter who also steals bases can score in 46% of the categories overall. A hitter who doesn't steal any bases is limited to about 43%. Starting pitchers are limited to about 44%. Obviously, relievers are not as important no matter how good they are, but in this league they can definitely win 10% of the categories, and they can definitely help out in another 30% of the categories.
One thing I always do now is to make the total number of points available each week an even number that's easy to understand. The total points available each week is exactly 100 points. That means that the maximum possible victory would be 100-0 in a given week. I think this really gives us a good idea of how our team is performing during the week. Champion teams are usually around 63% to 65% in my baseball leagues, so if you average 65 points in your matchups every week, you will probably finish first.
For those of you who are coming from Yahoo where each category is equal to one point, this system might be confusing. In Yahoo, the final score every week is simply the number of categories each player has won versus number he lost that week. In this Fantrax system, not every category is equal. I decided that some categories are more important, so I give them more value than other categories.
Fantrax uses some kind of points formula that shows you how every player is projected to perform and his corresponding rank according to the scoring system we have, so you should definitely check out the player rankings.
More about the draft. Be careful with the Fantrax autopick function. It will select the highest rated player in your PRE-RANKINGS—NOT your queue!! It NEVER chooses from your queue (which has caused me some major trouble, since Yahoo does choose from your queue). If you don’t prerank, you get the Fantrax ranks, which are actually pretty accurate, but not perfect. (Remember that the draft is not set. After the league is full, I will lock it and do the draft lottery.) If you pick a player by mistake, let me know immediately, and I may be able to stop the draft and correct your pick. Also, if you are having trouble, you can ask me to pick for you—by using the chat window in the draft room.
Removal from league: I remove teams that don’t participate. If you are active, you have nothing to worry about. If you manage your lineups daily; put injured players on the DL and add replacements; and meet the pitching requirements; you’ll be fine. I definitely reserve the right to replace anyone at any time for any reason, but generally speaking, I only replace managers who are inactive OR who drop stars OR who try to trade stars for garbage—this is very rare, but it has happened. All of my leagues require participation. It doesn't mean that you have to post messages every day or that you can't make a mistake here or there regarding your starting lineups. However, I will not allow players to seemingly abandon their teams for more than a few days. If I see that your lineup repeatedly includes players on the DL or in the minor leagues; or starting players on the bench when open spots are available in the daily lineup, etc., you could be removed.
The way it usually works out is that I don't notice an inactive manager right away. As such, it's possible that that particular manager might lose stat categories he should have won if he hadn’t left his starters on the bench. (I especially hate it when he leaves his best players on the bench and his bench in the starting lineup for weeks!) When that happens, I usually notice, and I will typically notify that manager that he has a couple of days to remedy the problem. However, if I notice that that manager has not been active for a couple of weeks and his/her performance has been particularly weak, I might replace that manager immediately without any notice.
Even so, I'm flexible. Longtime managers who barely miss a minimum requirement probably have nothing to worry about. I certainly consider past performance, and I make a very strong effort to contact such managers and give them several days to become active. I also look much more harshly upon people who miss minimum requirements when they are ahead in several of the affected categories--if you're losing all or most of those categories anyway, it's not going to be as serious to me. Most players occasionally forget to set their lineups once or twice during the season--that's not a problem.
Let's try to keep the language clean, positive, and relatively kid-friendly. I don't mind smack talk, but let's not ridicule others—regardless of how much they deserve it. ;-)
Commish overrides of lineups, etc.: If you make a silly mistake like dropping a star, notify me immediately (in the chat window, preferrably), and I will put him back on your team. Also, if you forget to start an SP, and it results in missing your innings minimum, I may agree to retroactively start that player—depending on the situation. At the least, I might put it to a vote. In any case, be sure to notify me immediately—and publicly on the chat window or message board. If it really seems like an honest mistake—especailly a mistake of omission—I might correct it. I will not, however, correct mistakes of commission. If you start a bum by mistake, that’s your problem.
If you like, set up your team page the way you like by going to "Team/My Team Preferences." It makes a difference!
If you need to contact me at any time, I suggest posting a message on the league page, but the chat window is fine. My listed email is valid, too, if you need to send a more private message. I respond to every question.
Good luck!
Stu
I’m looking for a few replacements for quitters in a free, 24-team league. One of them is actually in 2nd place, which is very impressive. (20 managers are very active, and it’s a great league.)
It’s a full 25-man roster with 5 SPs, 7 RPs, and 9 hitters, as well as 4 bench slots that can be used for any player (but there is a limit of 6 SPs on your roster).
Feel free to click on the links below and see the rosters for each team. If you are not a current Fantrax player, you just have to register there (it’s free).
Reply here with your email if interested, or email me at [email protected]
It’s a huge league with very deep stats; 12-15 for both hitting and pitching, so about 27 overall.
It’s a redraft league, so no keepers or dynasty.
Here are all of the rosters of the four teams. (You’ll notice that some teams are short on players, but AquaSox is going to have to drop players—especially starting pitchers to get within roster limits; we have unlimited DL positions, and five minors positions, and some of those players are now healthy or in the big leagues, so they must be activated or dropped. A couple of the other teams need to move guys to the DL and add players from the free agent list. I think a couple of these teams need to add a couple of starting pitchers because the minimum is 40 innings per week. You get 4 adds per week, so that should be no problem.)
(Below the rosters is the league setup including scoring categories and weights, etc. Below that is the commish note from the league.)
AquaSox (2nd place) Roster (in order of overall performance; hitters first, then pitchers below)
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 UT Ortiz, David - BOS AquaSox 2nd Place
2 1B,UT Rizzo, Anthony - CHC AquaSox 2nd Place
3 OF,UT Braun, Ryan - MIL AquaSox 2nd Place
4 OF,UT Fowler, Dexter - CHC AquaSox 2nd Place
5 1B,2B,3B,UT Solarte, Yangervis - SD AquaSox 2nd Place
6 1B,3B,UT Reynolds, Mark - COL AquaSox 2nd Place
7 SS,UT Andrus, Elvis - TEX AquaSox 2nd Place
8 OF,UT Ellsbury, Jacoby - NYY AquaSox 2nd Place
9 OF,UT Rickard, Joey (R) - BAL AquaSox 2nd Place
10 2B,UT Phillips, Brandon - CIN AquaSox 2nd Place
11 C,1B,UT Norris, Derek - SD AquaSox 2nd Place
12 OF,UT Parra, Gerardo - COL AquaSox 2nd Place
13 OF,UT Aoki, Norichika - SEA AquaSox 2nd Place
Pitching (This guy has tons of pitching that you will have to drop: 6 SP limit)
Rk Pos Player AquaSox 2nd Place
1 RP Melancon, Mark - PIT AquaSox 2nd Place
2 SP Price, David - BOS AquaSox 2nd Place
3 RP Buchter, Ryan (R) - SD AquaSox 2nd Place
4 SP Happ, J.A. - TOR AquaSox 2nd Place
5 RP Bush, Matt (R) - TEX AquaSox 2nd Place
6 RP Cedeno, Xavier - TB AquaSox 2nd Place
7 SP Lewis, Colby - TEX AquaSox 2nd Place
8 SP Hammel, Jason - CHC AquaSox 2nd Place
9 SP McCarthy, Brandon - LAD AquaSox 2nd Place
10 RP Ottavino, Adam - COL AquaSox 2nd Place
11 RP Perez, Oliver - WAS AquaSox 2nd Place
12 SP Nolasco, Ricky - MIN AquaSox 2nd Place
13 RP Johnson, Jim - ATL AquaSox 2nd Place
14 RP Osich, Josh (R) - SF AquaSox 2nd Place
15 RP Smith, Carson - BOS AquaSox 2nd Place
16 SP,RP Manaea, Sean (R) - OAK AquaSox 2nd Place
17 SP,RP Stripling, Ross (R) - LAD AquaSox 2nd Place
18 SP Shields, James - CHW AquaSox 2nd Place
19 SP,RP Hughes, Phil - MIN AquaSox 2nd Place
20 SP Cain, Matt - SF AquaSox 2nd Place
21 RP Boscan, Wilfredo (R) - PIT AquaSox 2nd Place
22 SP,RP Young, Chris - KC AquaSox 2nd Place
23 SP,RP Huff, David - (N/A) AquaSox 2nd Place
24 SP Hader, Josh - MIL AquaSox 2nd Place
25 SP Minor, Mike - KC AquaSox 2nd Place
26 RP Nathan, Joe - (N/A) AquaSox 2nd Place
27 SP Newcomb, Sean - ATL AquaSox 2nd Place
28 SP Alvarez, Henderson - OAK AquaSox 2nd Place
Toronto (19th place) Roster (in order of overall performance; hitters first, then pitchers below)
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 3B,UT Donaldson, Josh - TOR Toronto 19th Pl
2 OF,UT Beltran, Carlos - NYY Toronto 19th Pl
3 1B,UT Freeman, Freddie - ATL Toronto 19th Pl
4 3B,OF,UT Sano, Miguel - MIN Toronto 19th Pl
5 1B,2B,3B,OF,UT Dietrich, Derek - MIA Toronto 19th Pl
6 1B,UT Loney, James - NYM Toronto 19th Pl
7 OF,UT Peralta, David - ARI Toronto 19th Pl
8 C,UT Soto, Geovany - LAA Toronto 19th Pl
9 C,UT Fryer, Eric - PIT Toronto 19th Pl
10 SS,UT Simmons, Andrelton - LAA Toronto 19th Pl
11 C,UT Navarro, Dioner - CHW Toronto 19th Pl
12 2B,3B,OF,UT Hernandez, **** - LAD Toronto 19th Pl
13 OF,UT Murphy, David - (N/A) Toronto 19th Pl
Pitching
1 RP Betances, Dellin - NYY Toronto 19th Pl
2 SP Hill, Rich - OAK Toronto 19th Pl
3 SP Maeda, Kenta (R) - LAD Toronto 19th Pl
4 RP Baez, Pedro - LAD Toronto 19th Pl
5 RP Watson, Tony - PIT Toronto 19th Pl
6 RP Strickland, Hunter - SF Toronto 19th Pl
7 SP,RP Wood, Travis - CHC Toronto 19th Pl
8 RP Robles, Hansel - NYM Toronto 19th Pl
9 SP Garcia, Jaime - STL Toronto 19th Pl
10 SP Bettis, Chad - COL Toronto 19th Pl
11 SP,RP Fiers, Mike - HOU Toronto 19th Pl
12 RP Sipp, Tony - HOU Toronto 19th Pl
Unstrung: 22nd place
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 OF,UT Stanton, Giancarlo - MIA Unstrung 22nd pl
2 1B,2B,3B,UT Freese, David - PIT Unstrung 22nd pl
3 OF,UT Werth, Jayson - WAS Unstrung 22nd pl
4 3B,UT Escobar, Yunel - LAA Unstrung 22nd pl
5 2B,UT Gennett, Scooter - MIL Unstrung 22nd pl
6 OF,UT Choo, Shin-soo - TEX Unstrung 22nd pl
7 1B,UT Park, Byung Ho (R) - MIN Unstrung 22nd pl
8 C,UT Iannetta, Chris - SEA Unstrung 22nd pl
9 OF,UT Garcia, Avisail - CHW Unstrung 22nd pl
10 1B,UT Duda, Lucas - NYM Unstrung 22nd pl
11 3B,OF,UT Goeddel, Tyler (R) - PHI Unstrung 22nd pl
12 SS,UT Aybar, Erick - ATL Unstrung 22nd pl
13 C,UT Sanchez, Gary (R) - NYY Unstrung 22nd pl
Pitching
1 SP Kluber, Corey - CLE Unstrung 22nd pl
2 RP Wilson, Justin - DET Unstrung 22nd pl
3 SP,RP Hendricks, Kyle - CHC Unstrung 22nd pl
4 SP Lackey, John - CHC Unstrung 22nd pl
5 SP McHugh, Collin - HOU Unstrung 22nd pl
6 SP Ray, Robbie - ARI Unstrung 22nd pl
7 SP Perez, Martin - TEX Unstrung 22nd pl
8 RP Grimm, Justin - CHC Unstrung 22nd pl
9 RP Bastardo, Antonio - NYM Unstrung 22nd pl
10 RP Smith, Joe - LAA Unstrung 22nd pl
11 RP Caminero, Arquimedes - PIT Unstrung 22nd pl
12 RP Benoit, Joaquin - SEA Unstrung 22nd pl
13 RP Cecil, Brett - TOR Unstrung 22nd pl
Vancouver 23rd place
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 OF,UT Yelich, Christian - MIA Vancouver 23rd pl
2 1B,UT Hosmer, Eric - KC Vancouver 23rd pl
3 OF,UT Smith, Seth - SEA Vancouver 23rd pl
4 2B,UT Panik, Joe - SF Vancouver 23rd pl
5 OF,UT Span, Denard - SF Vancouver 23rd pl
6 1B,UT Morrison, Logan - TB Vancouver 23rd pl
7 2B,3B,SS,OF,UT Holt, Brock - BOS Vancouver 23rd pl
8 C,UT Castro, Jason - HOU Vancouver 23rd pl
9 SS,UT Marte, Ketel - SEA Vancouver 23rd pl
10 1B,3B,UT Plouffe, Trevor - MIN Vancouver 23rd pl
11 1B,OF,UT Robinson, Clint - WAS Vancouver 23rd pl
12 1B,OF,UT Ackley, Dustin - NYY Vancouver 23rd pl
Vancouver pitching
Rk Pos Player Sta
1 SP Bumgarner, Madison - SF Vancouver 23rd pl
2 RP Osuna, Roberto - TOR Vancouver 23rd pl
3 SP,RP Sanchez, Aaron - TOR Vancouver 23rd pl
4 SP Greinke, Zack - ARI Vancouver 23rd pl
5 RP Kelley, Shawn - WAS Vancouver 23rd pl
6 SP,RP Conley, Adam - MIA Vancouver 23rd pl
7 RP Wilson, Alex - DET Vancouver 23rd pl
8 RP Broxton, Jonathan - STL Vancouver 23rd pl
9 RP Smith, Will - MIL Vancouver 23rd pl
10 RP Avilan, Luis - LAD Vancouver 23rd pl
11 SP Nicolino, Justin - MIA Vancouver 23rd pl
12 SP Jungmann, Taylor - MIL Vancouver 23rd pl
13 SP Bailey, Homer - CIN Vancouver 23rd pl
League Setup, Rosters, Scoring, etc.
General
• League Name: All-Star Baseball
• Duplicate Player Allowance: Not Used
• Scoring System: Head-to-Head - Each Category is a Win
• Maximum # of teams: 24
• League Creator Username: WarlordJohnCarter
• Commissioner Team Name: Warlord John Carter
Schedule
• Your league stats begin accumulating on: Sun Apr 03, 2016
• Your league stats end accumulating on: Mon Oct 03, 2016
• Merge first n periods of season: 2
• Merge last two periods of season: Yes
• Scoring Period Interval: Weekly
• Scoring Period day to start: Monday
• Use Playoffs: Yes
Playoffs
• Playoffs will begin in this Scoring Period: 22 (Sep 6/16 - Sep 19/16) and last for 2 periods (rounds).
• Playoff matchups entered manually: No
• Number of teams qualifying for playoffs 4
• Reseed each playoff round: No
• * To view the playoff bracket, go to the Standings screen and click on the Playoffs tab.
Player Pool
• Player Pool: All teams
• Players traded out of league's player pool continue to accumulate stats: No
• Only include players signed to a MLB team in the player pool: No
• Lock Player Pool: No
Rosters
Restrictions
• Minimum Total Players: 0
• Maximum Total Players: 25
• Minimum Active Players: 0
• Maximum Active Players: 21
• Maximum Reserve Players: 4
• Maximum Injury Reserve Players: Unlimited
• Maximum Minor League Players: 5
• Prevent any transaction that would cause a roster to become illegal: Never
• Allow suspended players to be moved to Injured Reserve: Yes
• Allow players on a bye week to be moved to Injured Reserve: No
• Injured Reserve players count toward roster limitation rules: No
• Only players on the MLB Disabled List may be moved to the Injured Reserve slot: No
• Minor League players count toward roster limitation rules: No
• Minor League Eligibility:
Condition Constraint
Players have a status of In the minors Must meet to be eligible
• Injured Reserve Enforcement type: Lock Transactions
• Number of Lineup Periods until Injured Reserve Enforcement takes effect: 0
Pos Min Active Max Active Total Max Min GP Max GP
Catcher (C) 0 1
1st Base (1B) 0 1
2nd Base (2B) 0 1
3rd Base (3B) 0 1
Shortstop (SS) 0 1
Outfield (OF) 0 3
Utility (Any Hitter) (UT) 0 1
Starting Pitcher (SP) 0 5 6
Relief Pitcher (RP) 0 7
Pitcher (P) 0 0
Position Eligibility
• Games needed from previous season for a player to qualify at a hitting position : 20
• Games needed from current season for a player to qualify at a hitting position: 2
• Starts needed from previous season for a player to qualify as a starter : 3
• Starts needed from current season for a player to qualify as a starter : 2
• Relief appearances needed from previous season for a player to qualify as a reliever : 3
• Relief appearances needed from current season for a player to qualify as a reliever: 1
• Use Fantrax's default position(s) in addition to any position(s) a player qualifies for based on above criteria: No
• Note: If a player does not qualify for any positions based on the above selections, he will qualify at the position(s) played most in the previous MLB season. If he did not play at all last season, then the default position(s) will be used.
Other Roster Preferences
• Allow players to play at an ineligible position without making the roster illegal: No
Scoring
Scoring Group Scoring Category Weight
Hitting Hits (H) 2.5
Hitting Home Runs (HR) 3.8
Hitting Net Stolen Bases (NSB) 2.5
Hitting Pitches Faced (Pit) 1.3
Hitting Balls Faced (BF) 1.3
Hitting Runs Batted In (RBI) 2.5
Hitting Runs Scored (R) 2.5
Hitting Walks (BB) 2.5
Hitting Batting Average (Avg) 2.5
Hitting Extra Base Hits (XBH) 2.5
Hitting Isolated Power (ISO) 2.5
Hitting On Base Percentage (OBP) 2.5
Hitting Total Bases (TB) 3.9
Hitting Weighted On Base Average (WOBA) 3.8
Hitting Slugging Percentage (SLG) 2.5
Hitting On Base + Slugging Percentage (OPS) 3.9
Hitting Runs Created (RC) 3.8
Pitching Holds (Hld) 2.5
Pitching Inherited Runners Stranded (IRS) 2.5
Pitching Net Saves (Sv - BS) (NS) 2.5
Pitching Net Saves + Holds (NS+H) 2.5
Pitching Strikeouts Pitched (K) 2.5
Pitching Earned Run Average (ERA) 2.5
Pitching Home Runs Allowed Per Nine Innings (HR/9) 2.5
Pitching Modified Outs Recorded (MOR) 3.8
Pitching Relief Appearances (RA) 2.5
Pitching Strikeouts Pitched - Walks (K-BB) 3.9
Pitching Strikeouts Pitched Per Walk (K/BB) 2.5
Pitching Walks Allowed Per Nine Innings (BB/9) 2.5
Pitching WHIP Ratio (WHIP) 2.5
Pitching Wins + Quality Starts (W+QS) 3.8
Pitching Wins x 2 - Losses (W2-L) 3.9
Pitching Defense-Independent Component ERA (DICE) 3.8
Pitching Slugging Percentage (SLG) 2.6
Pitching On Base + Slugging Percentage (OPS) 3.9
Team Minimum and Maximum Requirements per Scoring Period
Scoring Category Min Max
Innings Pitched - Pitching 40 None
Games Started - Pitching 1 None
• If a maximum has been met or exceeded: All hitters or pitchers, depending on the scoring category exceeded, will stop accumulating stats for the rest of the scoring period. If the max has not been met or exceeded at the beginning of a day, stats will accumulate throughout that entire day, even if the max is exceeded. Note that ALL pitchers includes both SP and RP. For example, if a max is exceeded for Relief Appearances, stats will be lost for the season for Relief Pitchers (RP) as well as Starting Pitchers (SP).
• If a minimum has not been met by end of scoring period: The team will get a loss for each averaged hitting (e.g. Avg, Slg, etc.) or pitching stat (e.g. ERA, WHIP, etc.), depending on the scoring category whose minimum has not been met, for the scoring period.
Other Scoring Preferences
• Players will always accumulate stats in all scoring category groups: No
• Stat Correction Handling: No Official Scoring changes will affect your league beyond the default stat freeze time. Official corrections will be applied to your league if they come in within 7 days (168 hours) after the end of that game. Any Official Scoring changes which come in after this time will not be reflected in your league's stats/scores/standings.
Transactions
Lineups
• Lineup Change System: Owners enter lineup changes
• Lineup changes are executed: Daily
• Lineup Changes are locked 0:01 (hours:minutes) Set amount of time before each player's scheduled game start time of the day
Trades
• Trade System: Owners propose their own trades
• Trading Period: All Year
• Maximum Trades per Team: Unlimited
• Trade Deadline Date: Tue Aug 16, 2016 12:59 PM JST
• Trade Voting System: Owners
• Days to Vote: 3
• # of Objections Required: 50%
Claims/Drops
• Claim/Drop Privileges: Owners perform their own claims & drops
• Max # of claims per season: Unlimited
• Max # of claims per week: 4 ( Free Agents: 4 , Waiver Wire: 4 ) starting every Monday
• Use Waiver Wire process: Yes
• Allow claims/drops before the draft: No
• Can't drop list: Not Used
• Pending claims/drops are viewable by: One's own team
Free Agents
• Free Agent Claim System: Free for all (1st come 1st serve)
Waiver Wire
• Priority order: Random
• Rotate Waiver Wire Claim Order After Each Claim: No
• Waiver Wire Claim Order Reset Days: Sun,Mon,Tue,Wed,Thu,Fri,Sat
• Waiver Wire Claim Order Reset Time: 3:00 am
• Waiver Wire players are processed: After a selected # of Days
• Waiver Wire claim processing time: 3:00 am
• # of days players remain on waivers for: 2
• Automatically put players on waivers: Never
• Pending claims/drops are viewable by: One's own team
Draft
• Draft Type: Live Online Standard
• # of rounds: 25
• Draft Date & Time: Sun Mar 20 2016, 11:00PM JST
• Time limit per pick (mm:ss): 00:45
• All teams will have the same # of players as the # of rounds when the draft is over: No
• Immediately pick for owners not present in draft room: Yes
• Fill rosters legally when drafting: Yes
• Draft order type: Manual - Fixed (Non-Snake/Serpentine)
• Draft order: The Flip Side, Roseville Renegades, Vancouver Canadians, titanhawks, YANKEE GREATS, Goodfellas, thoze guyz, ithrewsomerocks, Big Daddy Beau, Rainiers, Rib Eye, AquaSox, Stoon City Paupers, Jack Straw, Warlord John Carter, toronto blue jays, Unstrung, Sizeduzmadder, NagsHead Rippers, East Coast Pirates, Tandoori Nuggets, The Brown, Chief Wahoo, SP Deacs
• Undrafted players go to the: Waiver Wire
Miscellaneous
Tie Breakers
Standings Tie Breakers
1. Head-to-head record vs. team(s) tied with
2. Most wins in entire season
3. Randomly selected
Matchup Tie Breakers
None
Prizes
• This league does not use prizes (or they have not been configured yet)
The commish note:
Welcome to the 2016 All-Star Baseball League!
Basics: this is a free, DAILY (set your lineups daily), H2H redraft league (no keepers, no dynasty) that’s going to have about 24 teams. Every team plays three matchups a week, every week of the regular season. This is to allow us to play every other team at least twice during the season. Our live draft is Sunday, Mar 20 at 10:00 AM EDT. Four teams make the playoffs, and each playoff round is going to be two weeks long. This is actually a paid Fantrax league with advanced stats, but I will pay the whole fee in advance—you pay nothing. Be sure to read below for all the details about our rules, the setup, scoring, playoffs, draft, rules, etc.
One key point for managers I don't know joining via the public listings here. I will check on your status here over the next couple of months to see if you are still here. Make sure to logon here at least every week or two before spring training, and more often after that. If not, I might assume you have quit and delete your team. (Every season managers sign up very early, and then they never come back. They miss the draft and the whole season.) Feel free to join the league and have a look around at the setup. Everything except the draft order is set: the schedule and roster settings are set. The scoring is set, and the draft day and time are set.
Draft: the draft order has NOT been set and it will continuously change as new teams join—this is a Fantrax idiosyncracy. I have to wait till the league fills to set the order. The top four teams from last year may choose their positions based on their order of finish. In other words, the champ gets first choice, and the runner-up gets second choice. Teams that finished 3rd and 4th in the regular season get 3rd and 4th choices of draft positions. All other positions will be determined by a random drawing I do at random.org.
One key point is that we DON’T use the usual fantasy snaking draft. Our draft snakes for the first two rounds and then locks for rounds 3-25. In other words, the 2nd round will be the opposite of the first, but then the draft order is going to be the same as the 2nd round until the end. Based on a 24-team league, this means that the team that picks 1st overall is going to pick 48th, 72nd, 96th, etc. and the team picking 24th is going to pick 25th, 49th, 73rd, etc.
This serves two functions: it eliminates the slight advantage that picking top 3 has, as well as eliminates the variable gaps between picks that come with snaking drafts. In other words, you pick every 24 picks after your 2nd round pick, so you will be able to plan better. Also, every team will be picking every 24th pick, so no teams get stuck waiting 40-47 picks for their next pick. This gap could kill you if you are thinking of waiting on a closer, and there is a huge run on closers—and you have to wait 40+ picks for your next turn.
If you are not happy with your draft position, you can try to swap positions with me or someone else. (In order to arrange a swap of draft positions both managers must post a message agreeing to the swap on the league message board or chat window. Also, you must trade your entire draft for someone else's entire draft; there is no individual swapping of positions.)
Regarding changes to the setup, draft day/time, scoring, rosters, etc.: I usually get a couple of requests every season, and I politely decline 95% of them. I respect your input, but I’m not going to change the setup. It’s nothing personal; it’s just that I’ve been doing these leagues since 2009, and I have them setup exactly the way I like them. If the change is very important to you, you should probably find a different league. My whole point in being a commissioner is that I want to set it up my way. My assumption is that all of you joining the league are happy or at least satisfied with the setup as is. This is very important regarding the draft. I am not willing to change the draft day or time. Again, it’s nothing personal, it’s just that I assume that you are happy with the draft day and time if you have joined. (I’ve used the exact same Sunday morning draft time for at least five years in all my leagues, and I like it. BTW, I strongly urge teams to participate in the live draft, but if you can’t, that’s ok. Fantrax does a decent job of ranking players, and you can do very well with autopick by pre-ranking 500 or so players if you have to miss the draft.)
Changes for 2016: four-team playoff, innings limit, expanded rosters on Sept. 1, First of all, we are going to have four teams in the playoffs. It’s going to be a month-long playoff with each round being two weeks. Next, I have totally revamped the pitching requirements; now there is an innings-pitched minimum of 40 (doubled to 80 for the playoffs but NOT doubled for All-Star Week). All teams are required to have at least one start per week, but I’m really only doing that so that I can see the total number of starts easily on the “live scoring†screen. There are also going to be five SP positions and seven RP positions this season. The maximum number of SPs is six on your roster (NOT including DL pitchers, so you can EASILY put injured guys in the DL position and have 7+ SPs on your roster INCLUDING the DL—just not active or on your bench. Fantrax will/should block you (we’ll see how it works, but I’m trying to set it up that way) from making any transactions until you drop any extra SPs you may have. You can choose to carry fewer than six starting pitchers, but you must not have more then six and that includes RPs who become fulltime starters—but NOT if it’s just a spot start here or there. Basically, if your RP makes the rotation out of spring training, he is a starter in my book, and I might just set his eligibility to SP only.
BTW, there are about 150 real starting pitchers in MLB, and with 24 fantasy teams here on Fantrax (at 5 SPs each) that is 120 SPs. Six SPs each would be 144, so there will be between six and 30 or so SPs available after the draft.
I've tweaked the scoring a little. As you may know, last season I tried to set "IP per game for starters." but it didn't work due to our roster settings. Fantrax was counting that stat only for ANY pitcher in the "SP" slot on your roster—as a result, I had to switch it to "quality starts," which I didn't like because we already had "quality starts plus wins." This season, I think will use "modified outs recorded" as a substitute for that extra QS. It's very similar to innings pitched (using outs instead), but it gives bonuses for complete games, no-hitters, and perfect games.
Rosters: this league has full MLB rosters (25 players). Rosters expand to 40 on September 1, and we will expand to 30 here. This is because lots of real teams don’t bother to use the real DL in September, and if not, we won’t be able to put those players on the DL or add replacements here.
Pitching: You are required to have at least 35 total innings pitched per week—or lose all percentage-based pitching stats, such as ERA, WHIP, etc. The innings minimum will be doubled for the playoffs to 70—but not doubled for any other extended weeks during the season—it’s not really an issue. The three extra games during the extended All-Star week aren’t going to have much impact on our league with or without adjusting the minimum.
Position eligibility: I’m happy to change any player’s position eligibility if you can prove that he is the long-term starter. That goes for pitching as well as everyday players. All you have to do is send me a link to an official announcement that says, for example, “John Smith has been named starting shortstop by Manager Jones.†Of course, Fantrax automatically changes eligibility based on games played or started at a new position.
Scoring setup: basically the scoring setup is the same as last season. Here's the breakdown of scoring by category:
Total Pitching: about 53% of scoring
Total Hitting: about 47% of scoring
Reliever-Only Categories: about 13% of pitching
Starting-Pitcher Dominated Categories: about 40% of pitching
Hitting stats favor the best pure hitters—homeruns are very important as is OBP.
Pitching stats favor pitchers who don’t let guys get on base and don’t give up HRs.
This is the mix I really want for this league, although I wouldn't mind tweaking these numbers by a couple of percentage points here and there. Basically, I think pitching and hitting should be equal, but I adjusted that slightly to allow for relievers. Again, this is something I might change in the future depending on how it plays out this season. (For those of you in my Yahoo league, my Yahoo setup has a very similar balance.)
Does that mean you should focus on pitching? I'm not sure. The problem is that starting pitchers can't score in every category, so hitters are probably still more valuable. My calculation is that a good hitter who also steals bases can score in 46% of the categories overall. A hitter who doesn't steal any bases is limited to about 43%. Starting pitchers are limited to about 44%. Obviously, relievers are not as important no matter how good they are, but in this league they can definitely win 10% of the categories, and they can definitely help out in another 30% of the categories.
One thing I always do now is to make the total number of points available each week an even number that's easy to understand. The total points available each week is exactly 100 points. That means that the maximum possible victory would be 100-0 in a given week. I think this really gives us a good idea of how our team is performing during the week. Champion teams are usually around 63% to 65% in my baseball leagues, so if you average 65 points in your matchups every week, you will probably finish first.
For those of you who are coming from Yahoo where each category is equal to one point, this system might be confusing. In Yahoo, the final score every week is simply the number of categories each player has won versus number he lost that week. In this Fantrax system, not every category is equal. I decided that some categories are more important, so I give them more value than other categories.
Fantrax uses some kind of points formula that shows you how every player is projected to perform and his corresponding rank according to the scoring system we have, so you should definitely check out the player rankings.
More about the draft. Be careful with the Fantrax autopick function. It will select the highest rated player in your PRE-RANKINGS—NOT your queue!! It NEVER chooses from your queue (which has caused me some major trouble, since Yahoo does choose from your queue). If you don’t prerank, you get the Fantrax ranks, which are actually pretty accurate, but not perfect. (Remember that the draft is not set. After the league is full, I will lock it and do the draft lottery.) If you pick a player by mistake, let me know immediately, and I may be able to stop the draft and correct your pick. Also, if you are having trouble, you can ask me to pick for you—by using the chat window in the draft room.
Removal from league: I remove teams that don’t participate. If you are active, you have nothing to worry about. If you manage your lineups daily; put injured players on the DL and add replacements; and meet the pitching requirements; you’ll be fine. I definitely reserve the right to replace anyone at any time for any reason, but generally speaking, I only replace managers who are inactive OR who drop stars OR who try to trade stars for garbage—this is very rare, but it has happened. All of my leagues require participation. It doesn't mean that you have to post messages every day or that you can't make a mistake here or there regarding your starting lineups. However, I will not allow players to seemingly abandon their teams for more than a few days. If I see that your lineup repeatedly includes players on the DL or in the minor leagues; or starting players on the bench when open spots are available in the daily lineup, etc., you could be removed.
The way it usually works out is that I don't notice an inactive manager right away. As such, it's possible that that particular manager might lose stat categories he should have won if he hadn’t left his starters on the bench. (I especially hate it when he leaves his best players on the bench and his bench in the starting lineup for weeks!) When that happens, I usually notice, and I will typically notify that manager that he has a couple of days to remedy the problem. However, if I notice that that manager has not been active for a couple of weeks and his/her performance has been particularly weak, I might replace that manager immediately without any notice.
Even so, I'm flexible. Longtime managers who barely miss a minimum requirement probably have nothing to worry about. I certainly consider past performance, and I make a very strong effort to contact such managers and give them several days to become active. I also look much more harshly upon people who miss minimum requirements when they are ahead in several of the affected categories--if you're losing all or most of those categories anyway, it's not going to be as serious to me. Most players occasionally forget to set their lineups once or twice during the season--that's not a problem.
Let's try to keep the language clean, positive, and relatively kid-friendly. I don't mind smack talk, but let's not ridicule others—regardless of how much they deserve it. ;-)
Commish overrides of lineups, etc.: If you make a silly mistake like dropping a star, notify me immediately (in the chat window, preferrably), and I will put him back on your team. Also, if you forget to start an SP, and it results in missing your innings minimum, I may agree to retroactively start that player—depending on the situation. At the least, I might put it to a vote. In any case, be sure to notify me immediately—and publicly on the chat window or message board. If it really seems like an honest mistake—especailly a mistake of omission—I might correct it. I will not, however, correct mistakes of commission. If you start a bum by mistake, that’s your problem.
If you like, set up your team page the way you like by going to "Team/My Team Preferences." It makes a difference!
If you need to contact me at any time, I suggest posting a message on the league page, but the chat window is fine. My listed email is valid, too, if you need to send a more private message. I respond to every question.
Good luck!
Stu
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