A View Inside My Fantasy Baseball League

Ronnie Jones is currently planning to take Chewbacca
with his first round pick.

When it comes to fantasy sports, baseball is the one true king. With this in mind, I've decided to make my main baseball league viewable to the public, and I will also post weekly updates, analysis, standings, etc on this blog. Before we get into the description of the league, let's take a look at why fantasy baseball reigns supreme.

Fantasy football may be the most popular version, but it also focuses on the lowest common denominator of fan. Once you draft, there is very little incentive to check your team more than once or twice a week. Most importantly, the head to head format and small rosters cause luck to be the most important factor in deciding who takes home the hardware. In fact, it isn't uncommon for teams on auto-pilot to make the playoffs or even win the championship. The best team over the course of the season rarely wins the championship, and that has soured me on fantasy football.

Fantasy baseball is the exact opposite. The truly knowledgeable competitors will find that their skills and intelligence are fully rewarded over the course of a 162 game season. I'm comfortable stating that it is impossible for a team on auto-pilot to win a normal fantasy baseball league. Fantasy baseball requires owners to check their teams and make transactions almost daily to stay competitive. The draft is only the beginning, and in many cases, it is much less important than working the waiver wire and adjusting your roster throughout the season. I've noticed that my baseball teams look drastically different at the end of the year than they did after the draft due to trades and other transactions. With the default Rotisserie scoring system (explained below), fantasy baseball successfully removes 99% of the luck from the equation. Whereas football rewards the best team over the last two weeks or so, baseball rewards the best team over the entire season.

Rotisserie baseball separates team performance into categories. The most common version is 5x5 in which there are five hitting categories (Average, HRs, Runs, RBI, and SB) and five pitching categories (Wins, ERA, WHIP, K's, and Saves). Points are awarded based on the final standings in each category (In a ten person league, ten points for first place in that category and one point for last place), and whichever team totals the most points wins. 

Now onto the Grads and Scrubs league details....

Our league's scoring system is 7x7 Rotisserie with deep rosters and six keepers (Each team designated six players they want to keep on their roster for the next year) per year. The categories are:

Hitting	Pitching
Batting Average	Wins
On-Base Percentage	Quality Starts
Slugging Percentage	Strikeouts
HRs	Holds
Runs	Saves
RBI	ERA
SB	WHIP

The two past champions are Team Daugherty and Team Koojo. Best of all, Ronnie Jones holds the record for quickest waving of the white flag (Mid-May), though he claims that this year will be different. 

Here are the players being kept for each team:

TEAM DAUGHERTY  (John Daugherty) PLAYER POS Hanley Ramirez, Fla SS Roy Halladay, Phi SP Matt Kemp, LAD CF Justin Upton, Ari RF Chase Utley, Phi 2B Jay Bruce, Cin RF	JUST WAIT (Ronnie Jones)  PLAYER POS Albert Pujols, StL 1B Domonic Brown, Phi RF Troy Tulowitzki, Col SS Felix Hernandez, Sea SP Andrew McCutchen, Pit CF Carlos Santana, Cle C	BUCKHEAD BASHERS (Lath Guyer)   PLAYER POS CC Sabathia, NYY SP Carl Crawford, Bos LF Evan Longoria, TB 3B Kendry Morales, LAA 1B Shin-Soo Choo, Cle RF Tim Lincecum, SF SP
TEAM CERVERO  (Mark Cervero) PLAYER POS B.J. Upton, TB CF Adrian Gonzalez, Bos 1B Matt Cain, SF SP Dustin Pedroia, Bos 2B Jose Bautista, Tor 3B Andre Ethier, LAD RF	WALKING WOUNDED (Kyle Bedrosian) PLAYER POS Adrian Beltre, Tex 3B Jose Reyes, NYM SS Matt Holliday, StL LF Jon Lester, Bos SP Justin Morneau, Min 1B Ian Kinsler, Tex 2B	TEAM BEAULIER  (Scott Beaulier) PLAYER POS Cliff Lee, Phi SP Zack Greinke, Mil SP Joey Votto, Cin 1B Nelson Cruz, Tex RF Cole Hamels, Phi SP Jonathan Sanchez, SF SP
BIG MIKE  (Mike Armstrong) PLAYER POS Kevin Youkilis, Bos 1B Clayton Kershaw, LAD SP Dan Uggla, Atl 2B Mat Latos, SD SP Delmon Young, Min LF Colby Rasmus, StL CF	SHAUG'S SQUAD  (Billy Shaugnessy) PLAYER POS Tommy Hanson, Atl SP Jason Heyward, Atl RF Miguel Cabrera, Det 1B Mike Stanton, Fla RF Joe Mauer, Min C David Wright, NYM 3B	TEAM WINKER  (Joey Winker) PLAYER POS Josh Hamilton, Tex CF Chad Billingsley, LAD SP Michael Young, Tex 3B Matt Garza, ChC SP Tim Hudson, Atl SP Rickie Weeks, Mil 2B
TEAM BENTLEY  (Richard Bentley) PLAYER POS Mark Teixeira, NYY 1B Ryan Zimmerman, Was 3B Ubaldo Jimenez, Col SP Buster Posey, SF C Robinson Cano, NYY 2B Carlos Marmol, ChC RP	TEAM KOOJO  (Kyle Johnston) PLAYER POS Ryan Braun, Mil LF Alex Rodriguez, NYY 3B Prince Fielder, Mil 1B Brian McCann, Atl C Justin Verlander, Det SP David Price, TB SP	TEAM DIMAURO  (Nick DiMauro) PLAYER POS Ryan Howard, Phi 1B Adam Dunn, CWS 1B Ichiro Suzuki, Sea RF Carlos Gonzalez, Col LF Jayson Werth, Was RF Josh Johnson, Fla SP

As you can see, the league is very balanced heading into the draft. I look forward to having a very competitive year, and the transparency should provide some solid motivation to not finish at the bottom. I hope everyone will join me in analyzing the league as the season progresses. Feel free to heckle or praise any team or owner in the comments section. If it all works out right, this experiment should prove to be a lot of fun.

Click here to view our league homepage.