Hello everyone! The cookie shop is closed as I transition from two-start pitchers to points leagues. Will baking references find their way into this column over the course of the year? Probably. I am who I am. Depending on how you felt about that, I’m sorry/you’re welcome.
Anyway, what are points leagues and why should I play in one (or more)?
Excellent question!
To answer this, I actually have to ask a second question first. And that is, what do you see as the goal of fantasy baseball? Is it a game based on the sport we love, but not necessarily intended to reflect its true value? Because that, I guess, is what your standard roto competition does. Don’t get me wrong, I like playing roto. It’s the original game, as the kids say (citation needed). However, if you’re of a certain age, you might remember the days when Billy Hamilton was drafted pretty high year after year, even though he wasn’t very good when it came to things like “hitting the baseball” and “not getting out.” Because he provided such a big advantage with those sweet, sweet stems, his fantasy value far exceeded his real-life value. Imagine Chandler Simpson, minus 50 points batting average, going into Round 5. (Those were dark days in 2015, folks.) Sure, things aren’t quite as drastic anymore, but fantasy baseball may still not always accurately reflect who Actually good or bad in baseball. At least on the offensive side of it.
That’s where points competitions come into play. They increase the value of guys who may not average a lot, but make a lot of walks. They suppress the value of those specialists from one category. And they reward guys who may not have swings optimized for the long ball, but benefit from line drives to the gap. To age myself again, I enjoyed taking Nick Markakis in points competitions. He was a fairly mediocre roto option due to his lack of home runs, but he was sneaky good and bordered on elite at times in these leagues as all those doubles added up.
And like it or not, we live in a fantasy sports world dominated by football. And, much more than roto competitions, points competitions offer a similar feeling, because you only have to worry about earning points and not about balancing individual categories. (That said, Rudy’s Draft Rooms offers a ton of help doing that when drafting your more standard leagues. You should subscribe!)
So points leagues are Fantasy Baseball Easy Mode?
That’s not what I said!
While it can certainly be argued that they are not as intellectually challenging as a team of 15, they are not without their own quirks, strategies and sources of fun. But at the same time… yes. She Doing are more like fantasy football. But is that a bad thing? In a season-long roto league, you can be out of contention before May is over. But when you’re competing week to week for a spot in the playoffs, there’s a little more grace, and with that grace comes more reason for more people to stay invested in the dog days of summer. That’s not nothing!
Okay, so how does scoring work in these things?
Ah. Yes. That.
Roto competitions and competitions in mutual categories occasionally exchange one category for the other. But for the most part, they’re pretty standard. That means that when it comes to drafting and roster management, you can find pretty much anyone’s rank (although I recommend Grey’s, and not just because I’m a #CompanyMan) and go from there. For points competitions, however, it’s a little trickier. That’s because even outside of individual leagues that do their own thing here and there, no two providers use the same score. And then, to even things out more complicated, some sites have Best Ball Leagues (ahem) that are points based, but use a completely different scoring system. In short, all this makes my work here a bit messy. But that’s okay!
Does the difference in score really matter?
Yes! It matters lot! It is imperative that you familiarize yourself with your league’s scoring system before drafting.
Each site has its own quirks, and you need to know what to expect from each site so that you can appropriately raise or lower certain players in terms of how you rank them. In the coming weeks we’ll look a bit more at how the value of some specific players is affected from one to the other, but for now I’ll give a (perhaps overly) rough and ready look at the differences between the three sites’ scoring systems. (Those sites are ESPN, CBS, and Fantrax. I’m ignoring Yahoo! because their points league settings are weird, and I honestly don’t have a good understanding of them.)
Hitter strikeouts
First, ESPN’s default rating for batters is -1 per strikeout, while CBS’s is -0.5 and Fantrax’s is 0.
What that means is over at ESPN, especially contact is king. Your guys who really mix and/or match their tastes with a multitude of hikes (think Kyle Schwarber) are still excellent choices. However, the Oneil Cruzes of the world become almost unplayable.
On the other hand, a guy like Luis Arraez was a desperate act who made you sad to use him as your 1B in roto, but he was a completely serviceable top-10 1B option on ESPN because he was simply never Ks.
At CBS, a hitter with a high K-rate isn’t ideal, but they aren’t punished nearly as severely, so you can tolerate those types more easily.
And at Fantrax? Wave away, kings! Boys who drop out at Many things will hurt you just because they don’t produce enough positive results, but there is no outright punishment for swinging and missing.
Stolen bases
At ESPN, steals count for 1 point. This makes the Chandler Simpsons of the world much less appealing. The world leader wants you to want guys who rake, not run.
At CBS and Fantrax, steals count for 2 points. It’s not enough to make zeros with the high-end options off the bat, but it makes a significant difference.
So what do these effects look like together? For example, Elly de la Cruz was ESPN’s seventh SS last season, scoring a total of 388 points. At CBS he came 4th with 509.5.
Like I said, know your league’s point settings.
Pitching
Oh, pitching. I can’t get away from you, right?
This is where the biggest differences emerge. I’ll dive into it a bit more in the future as we look at how to approach your draft and roster construction, but for now let’s broadly characterize what each site prioritizes for this position.
ESPN: Run prevention is the name of the game. You need volume because every inning pitched is 3 points, but every run allowed is -2. That hurts. Wins and losses are important, but not as important as on the other sites. Innings, Ks and keeping runs off the board are what you are looking for.
CBS: It’s all about volume. Losses are penalized more heavily than ESPN (-5 vs. -2), but wins are rewarded more (7 vs. 2). Guys who can go more than 6 innings are also rewarded with 3 points for a quality start, which is nice. Control is also important, as strikeouts are worth only 0.5 points, while walks cost you -1. Their leagues are big on maximizing points through two-start weapons who might be able to get a few wins, but guys on bad teams who walk everyone won’t be worth it.
Fantrax: Wins and K’s. That’s actually it. Control doesn’t matter because there is no penalty for walking free. They also only give you 1 point for each inning pitched. But it’s a whopping 10 points for a win, 3 for a quality start, and 1 for each K. The losses are -5, but without a walk penalty, I don’t think I care. Even more than the other sites, charge your pitching and win via cheap SPs and streaming. Something about that approach sounds familiar for some reason…
Anyway, see you next week!
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