Id be interested in AL and NL only leagues, not mixed.

Snake drafts are quicker, simpler, and just more common.
Hard to get an entire league to agree to switch to an auction, even though i do think they are better.

For YPros, the current available auction times just dont fit into my work schedule. Seems like they are all tailored to east coast times. Im hoping they offer more time slots as we get into spring training.

I also always thought it was kind of dumb to have an auction draft, but no in-season salary cap.

Practicing snake drafts makes a lot more sense with mocks, since computer drafting after inevitable drops is far more tolerable than computer auctioning.

Agree, auction mocks in my experience are rarely good worthwhile practice.

they are quicker and simpler for sure. but the draft is arguably the highlight of the entire season - what you will spend the next 6 months playing. should you really optimize on quick and simple, or should you spend an extra hour and do something far better / more skilled / more fun?

agree this is a challenge. you just need to sell how much better it is - no league that goes auction ever goes back to snake. once you experience it you realize how superior it is

that's debatable, and it depends on keeper rules, your philosophy on tanking / loading up for future years, etc, but anyways my league does have an in-season cap (minimum and maximum)

Dont get me wrong, I love auctions. Im just listing reasons why they are not as popular.
My favorite and most competeive league is a year round, 20 team dynasty auction league, with in-season cap and contracts, so its not like i'm playing strictly snakes given the choice.

I usually play around 3 competitive leagues with friends that i focus most of my time on, and the rest (mostly YPros) I dont invest nearly as much time and energy. for those I generally do choose snake drafts because the prep is much easier since they are way more predictable.

Np, you were right & I was a bit too defensive. Staying up all night just to find out if Carlos Boozer is going to grow a pair & play ball will do that to a person. Lol... I feel like I know a lot about baseball, but it's good to have a place to come & talk and debate because otherwise you don't stay sharp. I can read every article that Fangraphs publishes & listen to every podcast that Prospectus releases, but I can't interact with those guys very well.

Last year, I bet baseball. You want to learn how much you think you know. Try & beat Vegas at it, Lol. So if you can accept that I'm opinionated, a lot of that being derived from learning the hard way & doing exhaustive research to identify my mistakes & spots to take advantage of Vegas' lines, then I think we can both learn a lot from each other.

Closers is a tricky topic. Some closers have more job security than others, but truthfully, there's only 2 or 3 closers who have a lock on the job. Kimbrell... man actually maybe just one. I'd feel good about Uehara, Perkins, and Chapman too. Uehara in particular, because Farrell has let on that he feels Tawaza is more comfortable with the set up role & has indicated that his other middle relievers are still being considered as potential back end starters. So, Uehara would have to tank badly to lose his gig.

I looked at closers extensively last year & found a few things that were surprising to me. Uehara for example, his LOB% is no mistake & that's another reason I have him labeled as an elite closer... I guess what I decided is that when it comes to fantasy closers that I'm not going to roster a guy like Kevin Gregg or Addison Reed. I don't want a guy that's going to give me 15-20 saves with awful ratios to accompany those saves & then he winds up losing his job, anyways. I figure since there is only one guy that truly has a lock on the closer's job, you draft Kimbrel early. Then you take a mid value guy like Janssen in the mid rounds & look for the closers/set up guys with outstanding peripherals & component stats and hope that the club is seeing the same thing that you are stick with your guy from the job. If I do lose a closer, I want a guy that's been helping my ratios during that stretch.

That's my argument for Janssen over Papelbon. I'll concede that Papelbon is more entrenched in his role, for salary purposes alone, although Manuel isn't calling the shots this year, so if Papelbon struggles his leash is shorter I think. Here's a case in point too. Look at a guy like Steve Cishek, he's not going to overwhelm anybody, which is why he's one of the last closers to go off of the board. And while the Marlins hurt Cishek's save opportunities, he still finished with 34 saves, which was good for 15th in mlb (just 2 behind Glen Perkins who most would call elite & only 4 behind Chapman/Romo/Balfour who everyone would call elite). I use to look at guys who had Cishek types on their roster & think they were stupid. Cishek is pretty sneaky good, though; it's no accident that he's held onto the closer's role since Heath Bell faltered. Over the last 3 years his gb rate is 54%, which is elite, and consequently his 0.36 hr/9 rate is elite also. 16% ld rate is elite. & his .233 wOBA vs rhb is outstanding as well. Sure he benefits from pitching at Marlins park, but he's had more bad luck than any other closer in the past 3 seasons 62 runs allowed, but only 52 of those runs were earned. I should stipulate that this research was done in late August of last season, so some of the numbers are slightly off.

Long & short of that is that I would rather bargain shop for my 2nd closer in the mid to late rounds & find an undervalued guy like Janssen or Cishek that may lose their job, but probably won't because the club sees what I'm seeing over a more highly thought of closer. Also, I have to get an elite closer up front. My personal preference is Kimbrel, even if I hate to take him in the 3rd round, really. I would hate to do that, but he's too important to my overall strategy to pass on. Plus say I pick up Kenley Jansen & the Dodgers use him as a set up guy again (I know that's unlikely, but wtf was Mattingly doing last year having League close over him?).

I hear what you're saying about Kipnis & it makes sense. I guess I haven't looked at him, specifically, as closely as I need to. Then again if I'm paying for upside in the 3rd round, I'm going Wil Myers i.e. someone with MVP type potential. Plus, I think my mindset is pick up Zobrist in the 8th round & no matter how good Kipnis is I'm not getting killed by having Zobrist. Another big consideration here is to draft players with multi-position consideration. I love a guy like Napoli for that reason.

I agree with you on Pedroia. I think if he shows pop in spring training that his ADP will rise, but if he were there in the mid to late 3rd round, I'm pretty sure I'd have to pull the trigger on him. Outside of power last year, he gave you top 25 production. The power comes back this year, which in the previous 5 seasons, he's hit 15 or more HRs 4 out of those 5 seasons, and the only time he didn't he hit 12 HRs in 75 games. Stands to reason that with a healthy left thumb the power will come back.

Looking for some help on league settings. I've run a league the past 5 or so years and we have weekly roster moves. The league is on yahoo. It's a 6x6 H2H league. I would like to make it so teams are indifferent as to how many starts they get from their pitchers in a given week. Obviously in a league that has 4 positive counting stats and two ratios it's a huge advantage to have 10 starts and face an opponent with 5. Ideally I'd just have 6 ratios - 3 that higher is better and 3 that lower is better but yahoo seems rather limited there. The last couple of years I've been running with W,TB against (higher is worse counting stats), K, QS (higher is better counting stats), ERA, WHIP. Any suggestions on how I can improve it? I'm not opposed to changing from 6x6 if necessary. I will not be adding in any sort of save/hold/win stat. This IMO slightly favors a lower number of innings which I've tried to somewhat offset by a min innings cap of 30 essentially forcing each team to have at least 6 starts - and even just planning for 6 is risky due to rain out possibilities. I'm not opposed to raising or lowering this number either.

Re: Uehera - there is also a large misconception that he came out of nowhere last year. but his peripherals have been elite for years now. also, he is a postseason hero which gives him that much more job security.

Kimbrel is the clear #1, but after that it's Koji

agree that's fine to overpay by Kimbrel by a bit than pay "fair value" for a 2nd tier guy. Kimbrel only loses his job if he gets hurt, his skills are that good. nothing worse than paying $15 for a closer for half a year. far prefer to pay $22 for Kimbrel

Jansen/Aroldis have the skills but their job situations are wonky enough that they are just below Koji.

Disagree with this. Koji just threw 87.2 innings at 38 years old after totals of 66.2 (2009), 44 (2010) 66.1 (2011) and 37 (2012). Think there's a legitimately high chance of arm issues with that kind of increased workload and age. I'm inclined to rank Kimbrel, Chapman, Kenley and Holland over Koji.

Also have to say that while I'm not the guy who ever going to get Kimbrel anyway, for the kind of investment you're talking about, the decline in his peripherals would scare the hell out of me.

IMO its far better to just set a limit on the # of starts each manager can make per week. Anywhere in the 7-10 range is fine depending on league depth.
Yahoo does not oversee this obviously, but make penalty that really deters managers from not paying attention to their # of starts and going over, (such as freezing their roster the following week and awarding 10% of their FAAB budget to the manager they were playing - in Yahoo commish can edit FAAB at any time), and you wont have an issue.

I play in 2 Yahoo leagues (totaling 5 seasons), that use a max starts/week rule with similar penalties, and owners have gone over a only 3 times ever.
Only 3 instances in 5 seasons seems perfectly acceptable.
I figure if an owner is going to intentionally break the rule, or not pay attention to the point where he lets it occur multiple times, then Im going to kick him out of the league anyway.

This is my only concern with him as well and while I dont think he is a major risk, I think there are safer, cheaper guys who will be nearly as valuable. Ive been on the Koji train for years as a dominant MR and was glad to see him have his day in the sun. I cashed in on several shares last year, but likely will not have any this year.

Lets discuss some holds guys.
Ive been eyeballing non-closer RP's for my leagues that count SV+Hold as a single stat or just Holds independently.

In leagues that use SV+Hold as a single category there are several elite MR's that I will draft ahead of bottom tier "closers" that are low K and/or kill your ratios such as Hawkins/Street/Axford/Veras.
In SV+H leagues MR's who are the obvious handcuff to the closer also get a bump in value - even though there are many more hold opps than save opps per team, on average the number of save chances for any individua closer are much higher than the number of hold opps for any individual MR.
I prefer high K's, low hits/walks allowed, lots of innings pitched.


The top of my holds list looks like this:

Feliz (if he does not win closer job)
Benoit
Melancon
Brothers
Martinez
Farquhar
Allen
Peralta
Hochevar
Delebar
McGee
Clippard
Kelley
Tazawa
Cook
Crain
Strop

I know my list is mising quite a few names, who am I forgetting that belongs?
Any guys above you dont like?

The thing with Uehara is that he's never thrown hard. Via brooksbaseball.net Uehara's 4 seamer sat at 87.4 mph over the 2009 & 2010 seasons. From 2012 to 2013 it actually increased to 89 mph. Plus who was the last primary split-finger pitcher that you know of who had major arm issues? I just don't see it with him. I see him being more Maddux like with tremendous control & not necessarily overwhelming power. He's a pitcher doing unnatural things to his arm, so there's always a mild concern, but I don't think there's cause for unusual concern with Koji.

trying to predict injuries is pretty critical for sure - but I think the research on this is still pretty new.

my understanding is that the pitchers with the best chance of getting an elbow or shoulder injury are simply the guys who had an elbow or shoulder injury last year, or the year before. there is something to the 'injury prone' label.

The Verducci Effect has been debunked. and while increased pitches (year over year) is a factor that can predict injuries, innings totals don't really matter too much. in other words, it's the efficiency that may matter the most. guys throwing 25-30 pitches an inning (on even low totals) are in the danger zone, while 250 innings at 8 pitches/inning is on the opposite end of the spectrum

finally there is the age factor. older guys are slightly more likely to get hurt, however there are some old guys who have figured out how to pitch and not get hurt. stress again matters a lot here I think.

FYI, ESPN mocks are up. Jose Abreu is missing from the player pool, but people will bitch and they'll catch it soon. Anyone interested in organizing a 2p2 mock?

right. that sounds pretty close to my league.

yeah, I have my main league + a work league, which is snake.

the difference between

my main league, with auction + keepers + contracts + daily transactions

vs.

my work league, with snake + no keepers + weekly transactions

is definitely like chess vs checkers

I'm mostly trying to evangelize here, and sort of wish there was more talk around auction leagues.

I also think that even if you only do snakes, your prep should include putting $ values against every player. forcing yourself to learn how to do that will really help your snake drafting, 100x so if you play in something different than 5x5. in fact if you play in something like a 7x6 snake league, I have no idea how you would prepare for the draft without doing auction values.

My issue with fixed dollar totals is they depend on your co-drafters co-operating to an extent. There's usually at least one ass who'll go $10 too high for the Trouts of the world to start the draft, which leaves the math on the total player pool off if you adhere to pre-draft rankings.

well that's the rub. you need to know how to adjust. where there is inflation, etc.

also what you described is great. in a snake draft it's hard for any competent person to screw up really bad. your pick comes up, you select a guy.

in an auction draft figuring out how to spend efficiently is half of the fun. it's harder than you would think to get your money good in all spots, and not be left with $10 at the end that you just spew b/c you have it. or to not get become involved in bidding wars above what you planned. but if you really love a guy, he's yours! there is no luck of the draw.

and you can be potentially involved in every single pick - there is no waiting around for 20 minutes for the draft to snake around with you just scratching off names.

it's almost like craps vs blackjack. in blackjack you sort of just watch as stuff happens to the table and you grunt and groan when stuff happens. in craps you throw your money out wherever you want, the action is crazy - it's just a lot more fun. but you may go broke real fast in craps, while in blackjack you're just flipping coins. same same.

ive never done a baseball auction, but just did my first football auctions this past season and much like everyone says, once you go auction you never go back.

baseball seems like it would be that much more intense because the player pool is so much deeper. i might try a yahoo pro $20 auction just for fun

I'm in

yeah, I mean fantasy football is sort of a silly thing to begin with. I play, but compared to fantasy baseball it's a pretty simple game. hope to run good with touchdowns, get a couple great RB's, ez game. trading isn't really a big factor.

but, the auction is still preferable to the snake draft in football b/c you eliminate the luck of the draw, and just b/c the format is more fun to take part in.

for baseball the advantage is really magnified. you can decide which categories you want, which positions, where you think the spew will be, etc.

dont have to convince me that fantasy baseball > fantasy football, we just need to convince the rest of the world

Any casual fan can win their fantasy football league. Fantasy baseball the edge is so much greater for experts.

I came 2nd in my NFL pool this year. I can name maybe 15 players in the league.