Yea, daily I understand is way too intense for some people. I wouldn't have a problem with it, but we've been down this road before. And CBS was terrible except for the player pool which was vastly superior to yahoo's.
My biggest complaint that I've had about the league is the number of inactive teams. The first month is usually okay, but after that participation drops off considerably. Because of that, chances for trading drop as players are essentially taken of the block for trading not because the owner doesn't want to move them but because the owner hasn't logged on.
Over half of the teams that made the playoffs last year were teams who's owners probably didn't even know they were in the playoffs. To me, that's not quite fair to guys who actually logged on and made moves to try and improve their team. Seeing lineups with guys who have been on the DL for 4 months is pretty lame. What's the point of the league if the people playing it don't make the playoffs?
So I propose to limit the number of teams allowed in the league. My vote would ten, but twelve would be alright assuming we didn't have to scrounge for them. This lowers the chance of those filler teams from disappearing midway through the season.
The problem with doing just that is the player pool no longer becomes as thin, as 100 or so more players get added to the Free Agent pool. Personally, I like a thinner free agent class as it rewards guys who do a little research and can come up with those gems. If there's quality talent everywhere, what's the point in trying to dig deep?
So I think expanding the
active rosters would be necessary. Before in our old system, we had 25 players for 16 teams, which came out to 400 rostered players. If we subtract four teams, rosters would have to expand to 34 players to keep the free agent pool identical. That seems like a lot, but I think it'll help reward the active teams. More guys playing = more holes in the lineup. It's pretty easy to get 9 good hitters. Having 14 good hitters? Not so much.
At any given point, we had 17 active players: 9 position players and 8 pitchers. Since we're now talking 34 players on the roster versus 26. If we keep the bench size the same (and I think we should to keep talent in the lineup as opposed to out of it), the 8 players could be arranged as follows:
1 C, 1 CI, 1 MI, 2 OF, 3 P
It doesn't have to be that way, I'm just suggesting it to get some conversation started. With four less teams, catching wouldn't be as thin so carrying and extra active catcher would be feasible. You could also exchange that for another utility spot if you so desired to give a little extra value to your DH types. Or exchange the catcher for another pitcher to keep the split between number of pitchers and hitters close to even.
I think as far as the stats we use, dumping the useless and totally inaccurate fielding percentage stat should happen. Most of us know it's not a true gauge of how good a player is defensively. Look at Jeff Mathis and Mike Napoli. Last year, Mathis' F% was .988 while Napoli's was .986, yet Mathis is wildly regarded as the far superior defensive backstop. Plus career-wise Napoli has a slightly better F% than Mathis does. Huh? To clarify, F% doesn't factor in throwing arm strength or range which is just as important as catching the ball and throwing it accurately.
Instead of it, I'd probably use Total Bases. Sure, the stat is already reflected in most of the oher hitting stats, but look at the lead leaders for last year and there's some interesting things. Let me put it this way: who had more TB last year, Billy Butler or Chase Utley? Butler did, with 299 vs 290 for Utley. The reason for this is Butler had 51 doubles last year to Utley's 28, plus having a slightly better BA didn't hurt either. It's a good stat for a class of players that do a little bit of everything. Another example, this time from my own fantasy team: Shin Soo Choo had more TB than Carl Crawford last year.
Since last year CBS didn't allow us to use K/BB ratio, that should be put back in as well. If I recall we added BS to the list but I think we should keep it in for reasons outlined below. With that stat being added in and TB replacing F%, another hitting stat would be needed to balance pitching with hitting. I'm not sure here what would work best. OBP is the only major stat missing and I think it'd work but I'm open to other suggestions.
Finally, I'd probably remove the SP and RP restrictions. To me it locks every team into the same strategy. Especially with regards to having three RP and having both holds and saves as a category. My line of thought is you can only compete in one - winning both week in and week out is next to impossible. So make every pitching slot just a regular one. If guys want to gut IP and QS and just go for SV and Holds with stellar peripherals they should have that option. Conversely, if players don't want to play for saves and would rather construct a starting rotation that rivals the Orioles from the 1970's they should have that open too. Forcing players to have RP or SP maybe realistic, but this is fantasy (
). If an owner wants all SP or all RP or maybe stream a handful of pitchers with a solid relief core they should be able to do it. Which is why I'd leave Blown Saves in - teams that choose the all or mostly RP route should have some sort pitfall and the BS stat would do it.
Yea, that's a lot, but given the current arrangement I think there's room for us to improve. So post some feedback, let's get some discussion going and let's get some sign-ups!
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. I think K's work fine. He strikes out enough as it is. Just for giggles I looked up GIDP. In Howard's case, GIDP wouldn't actually penalize him - he didn't make the top 100 players who GIDP last season.
not sure what you mean by the official site ? cfc? mlb?
