These are the current settings that I am using for my college league right now. Hours of testing, balancing, and reading went into these, so its not like I picked numbers out of a hat.  Because of ESPN’s Fantasy Baseball Commissioner product limitations everything was rounded to the nearest tenth of a point, and house rules have to be used.

First off here are how points are scored:

Hitters: (in points)

At Bats: -0.2
Singles: 2.0
Doubles: 2.7
Triples: 3.3
Home Runs: 4.1
Walks 1.7
Hit By Pitch: 1.7
Stolen Bases: 1.0
Caught Stealing: -1.5
Grounding in Double Plays: -0.2

Pitchers: (in points)

Innings Pitched: 2.4 (0.8 per out)
Walks Issued: -0.8
Hit Batsmen: -0.8
Home Runs Allowed: -3.5
Strikeouts: 0.5
Saves: 5
Holds: 5
Blown Saves: -10

The House Rules:

• Each team is allowed 7 games started per week. Because starting pitchers acquire so many points by getting outs, this forces owners to choose the right starters, and returns the focus to quality over quantity.
• Each team is only allowed one waiver wire or free agent pickup per week, unless a player qualifies for the DL, then another addition can be made. This also forces owners to utilize their bench more efficiently, and again focuses the league on quality players over quantity of stats acquired.
• Relievers that qualify for the SP slot cannot be used in the SP slot to relieve games. This became an issue quickly and was resolved for obvious reasons.

For those familiar with wOBA and FIP you can see the linear weighted formulas in the statistic.  For hitters some may worry that hitters get penalized for having an at bat, but all the hits (singles, doubles, etc.) include the 0.2 added back into the player’s total to balance that out. wOBA and FIP were balanced out to fit a 12-16 team league  where hitting and pitchers were equally weighted.

Saves, holds, and blown saves were added in as ESPN does not allow us to place an importance on the inning pitched. In a more perfect world we would be able to score outs recorded in the 1st inning differently than outs recorded in the 9th inning. This would add value to pitchers who are able to pitch deep into games, and give us the opportunity to remove saves from the league. This has been suggested to ESPN several times, but since nobody does this (as far as I’m aware of in the fantasy world) we’re out of luck.

I would also like to take a more tRA approach to the pitching model based on the formula by Stat Corner. However hits are not separated in fantasy either (hits allowed are not equal), leaving us with the FIP formula as the best option.

This setup is not overly complex, but its not simple either. Its designed to setup a fantasy baseball league that focuses on overall quality of a fantasy team’s production. Its based in a head to head setup, so sometimes a team can play poorly and win, or play really well and still lose, and that’s part of the beauty of baseball. The league is a great balance of required attention spent to it, as there’s no need to scout the waiver wires daily, but there are reason to scout match-ups during the week.

I am always working on this setup, and would love to see other peoples criticisms on it. Anyone is more than welcome to copy the setup for their own personal league use. If you have any questions feel free to email me: jordan@fantasybythebook.com or comment on this page.