Bench Positions

Cgruwell05  3/19/2015 2:15 PM

When editing the Team Settings, how do we account for Bench Positions? Because the Bench can either be Hitters or Pitchers

ken_admin  3/19/2015 8:24 PM

Bench players are considered those marked Inactive on your team.  For pitchers, most of those players can get swapped in so there's usually no bench for them.  Make sure to set your # of hitters to your active roster size and the number of pitchers to the approximate number each team will own.  This will cause the z-scores to reflect the pool of players that are typically starting each day.

Cgruwell05  3/19/2015 10:01 PM

By active roster size you mean you betters not including bench spots right? So if there was 10 bench spots you wouldnt incorporate that into the active roster size?

ken_admin  3/20/2015 11:08 AM

If you have 9 hitters and 8 pitchers with 10 bench spots.  I would assume a 50/50 split of bench and set hitters at 9 (do not include bench) and pitchers at 13 (do include bench).

descender  3/20/2015 1:41 PM

I have found it helpful in the past to account for every pitching position you intend to draft to catch the proper depth.

Ex: Your league uses 2SP, 2RP, 4P spots and you want to use 2 of your bench spots for pitching...  I would actually enter that as 10 "total pitchers".  I also never actually enter the "P" spot either, and always convert to discrete SP or RP numbers.  I would then enter this as 7SP 3RP or 6SP 4RP depending on your intentions for your roster makeup.

Sometimes I'll convert one of the bench spots to UTIL too... but usually I just leave the active batting positions the way they should be.

I just never like leaving things like that up to chance.  Does BBM to any intelligent distributions with the bench spots, or am i closer to home with my methods?

ken_admin  3/20/2015 2:20 PM

Your approach looks good to me if I have it right:

- Set hitter total to active hitter count

- Set pitcher total to active count + pitcher bench spots you'll use

tsfloyd  3/20/2015 7:01 PM

How does one set such positions?  I am doing draft with Yahoo, and it defaults to 10 hitters and 7 pitchers automatically, and I don't see how to change.

ken_admin  3/20/2015 7:11 PM

Your Yahoo! settings are 10 starting hitters and 7 starting pitchers?  How many bench players?  Once you know, you can change your settings here:

https://baseballmonster.com/LeagueSettings.aspx

tsfloyd  3/20/2015 7:18 PM

Thanks.

ken_admin  3/20/2015 7:19 PM

What are the Yahoo! settings?

tsfloyd  3/20/2015 7:32 PM

Please tell me if I am understanding this right.

Our league has 21 spots.  (2SP, 2RP, 3P starting)

Typically, teams draft 10 pitchers and 11 hitters.

Should I set like this?

#hitters 11

#pitchers10

with active roster spots the number of starters?

Though it is a snake draft, I set $53 for hitters and $47 for pitchers.

Is this what I want?

descender  3/20/2015 8:41 PM

tsfloyd - In your league I would probably set the positions to 7SP/3RP (if you use 5x5, QS, IP, etc.) or 6SP/4RP (if you use K/BB, holds, etc.) and zero "P" spots so you end up with 10 active pitchers.  This will set the "zero value" player to a more useful place than using "P" spots IMO.

I don't know if the dollar thing works outside of an auction league, that is a good question.

ken_admin  3/21/2015 12:15 PM

Setting the pitchers to 11 looks right, and then set the hitters to the # of active.  Setting $ will have no effect on the results if you're not in an auction league.

Cgruwell05  3/22/2015 11:07 AM

Hey Guys,

I have my draft tonight. My league is a keeper league and I have chosen to keep Cano, Beltre, Ellsbury, and Rendon. (FYI: We can keep for unlimited amount of seasons. So essentially the draft will be startng in the 5th Round.

Here are my League settings:

First question is, how would you set the positions in the Settings?

Second question, Is it worth trying to get Bryant with my first pick?

Last question, Should I follow DynV Column while drafting in Draft Tracker? Or follow a different strategy? 

ken_admin  3/22/2015 11:51 AM

I would set your hitters to 10 and pitchers to 11 (starters + two bench for pitchers). For the last question, I would use DynV.  It won't vary greatly from Value, but it will lead to a more balanced team since it increases the value of stats that are scarce.

For Bryant, I assume he'll go somewhere in your first round.  If you do get him, you'd have to not keep one of your four keepers next season.  Is the assumption that Beltre falls out of the 4-keepers for next season?

Cgruwell05  3/22/2015 12:42 PM

Starters + 2 Bench Positions only equals 10 right?

ken_admin  3/22/2015 1:26 PM

Yes, good point.  I was thinking 3 of 5 bench for pitching so feel free to adjust to what you plan to do.

donaldj88  3/23/2015 10:06 AM

My yahoo league has 21 players:

Active Hitters: C, 1B, 2B, SS, 3B, OF, OF, OF, UTIL

Active Pitchers: SP, SP, RP, RP, P, P

That leaves 6 bench slots.  Based on this post, my League settings should be:

# Hitters: 9

# Pitchers: 12

When I did this, the Projections ranked Kershaw and Aroldis Chapman #1 and #2, with 7 Pitchers in the top 12.  Did I screw up my settings?

ken_admin  3/23/2015 10:09 AM

I would use 9/9 unless you expect all teams to have 100% bench pitchers.  Assuming a 50/50 split of bench, it would be 9 active hitters and 6 active pitchers + 3 bench pitchers.  If Chapman is #2, your settings must be different than the standard 5x5.

donaldj88  3/23/2015 10:29 AM

Our categories:

Batting: Avg, Runs, HR, RBI, SB, OPS, K

Pitching: ERA, WHIP, Wins, Saves, K, Losses, K/9

I suppose our pitching categories favor having a bunch of relievers.

ken_admin  3/23/2015 10:31 AM

Yes, 5 of your 7 can be won with good relievers (all except wins and k).

donaldj88  3/23/2015 10:44 AM

Each week, we must have a minimum 35 innings pitched or all the pitching categories count as a loss.  Guess there isn't a way to factor that in.  Thanks for the responses, kslight!

descender  3/23/2015 11:08 AM

Your settings: 9 active batting positions, 6 "active" pitching positions (this is really irrelevant as your pitching staff has to fulfill minimum IP requirements).

I would set your league up as follows...

12 total batters, 9 active

10 total pitchers, ALL active.

Pitching positions: 6SP, 4RP

Batting Positions: Defaults.  Possibly convert one of your 3 bench bat spots to an active 4th OF or 2nd UTIL slot.  4th OF is the single most important bench spot on your team IMO (3 players worth of off-days means that the 4th OF plays alot), and either of these changes will ensure that your first bench bat is as strong as possible.  In reality I would probably set yours to 4OF and 2 UTIL (giving you 11 "active" bats) and only leave 1 bench spot unaccounted for.

35 IP minimum is only a H2H rule, and that means that you need roughly 6 starts every week.  This means you essentially need ~6-7 SP's on your roster (I bank on 6IP/start and one unexpectedly short outing per week).  You can't really rely on your RP innings to put you over that threshold, and you can't bank on having 2-start pitchers every week either.  You can't really play the "overload on RP" game in this league until later in the season because your min innings is so high.  Leagues that are set up like this... I hardly even find an excuse to have 3 bats on the bench, you can draft it that way but it isn't your end goal.  What I would in your situation is spend the entire season paring down my bench bats, so I have to strongest possible active batters, maybe leave 1 or 2 bench bats on the team and replace all of the others with more RP's.

Just my opinion here on how I have used these tools in the past (to great success).  As i had mentioned below, I really don't like leaving bench spots up to the whims of the software or website that I'm using and I would never, EVER let a "P" spot linger out there.  Know and tell it what roles you need to fill, don't let it guess.

donaldj88  3/23/2015 1:43 PM

Good points, descender.  In the past, I've usually gone with no bench hitters (unless there are injuries) and filled all the available bench spots with pitchers.  Your point about the extra OF makes sense.  Just updated the settings for:

10 total batters, 10 active (4th OF)

10 total pitchers, 10 active (6 SP, 4 RP)