Fantasy Baseball Verdict: Points Leagues are far superior to Rotisserie

I've been playing in a relatively "fun", non-competitive Head to Head Points (H2H Points) fantasy baseball league for a few years now.  It's a "points league", where players get points for things they do.  Our points are pretty standard.  For a batter, one point per base earned on a hit (so a triple is 3 points), 1 point for a walk, 1 for a steal.  Also, one point for the more traditional categories of run scored and RBI.  I find it completely reasonable and fairly sabremetric.  A single followed by a steal is worth 2 points, same as a double - makes sense, right?  While it doesn't directly track OPS, it more or less does.  Note that a home run is worth 6 points, and a stolen base only 1.  One could argue about that 6:1 ratio, but, in real baseball, a home run is clearly worth much more than a stolen base.  Pitchers gain points per out recorded, and an extra point per strikeout.  They lose points for giving up a hit or a walk, and two points per earned run.  A win or save is worth 5 points, a loss is -5.  Less sabremetric than the hitting, but pretty reasonable, since wins, which are partly out of that pitcher's control, are relatively unimportant.

Most leagues set limits on the number of games pitchers can start, and the number of "moves" (switching players) a manager can do per week.  Our league has a pretty standard limit of 12 starts per week, and a fairly low limit of 5 moves per week.  In a ten team league it's hard to find great starting pitching for your 12 starts, so one is constantly working to find good starting pitching.  Just like real baseball.  Closers and relievers are less important than starters, just like (for the most part) real baseball.  With a limit of 5 moves per week, teams cannot be constantly bouncing players back and forth, like real baseball.

Also, we have weekly "head to head" matches.  You are matched up with one other team, and most points for that week wins.  Then you move on.  This brings excitement that builds through the week as you track your progress, and often feverishly follow your players on Sunday.  One year I had Dallas Braden's perfect game give me a come from behind victory.  There is a weekly scoreboard with spaces to "chat" or "talk smack" at each other if you want to be social.  Then, whether you got slaughtered, or barely eeked out a victory, you move on to the next game.  Much like real baseball.  Some teams get unlucky and lose a lot of close matches, or lucky and win a lot, just like real baseball.  A good (but not great) team can get hot at the end of the year and make a big run through the playoffs, just like real baseball.

All in all, I know that H2H Points is still a game and not completely realistic.  But it at least "feels" fairly realistic.

This year, a friend invited me to help him with his Rotisserie 5x5 league.  This is the more "standard" fantasy league.  It's interesting, but I find the experience pales in comparison to points.  First, you are accumulating stats over the entire year, not weekly.  So it's hard to know when to get excited.  There is no weekly scoreboard or central place to chat.  If somebody runs up a huge lead, you are unlikely to make a comeback in the last month.

I find the scoring semi-absurd.  Your hitters are ranked by runs scored, home runs, RBI, stolen bases and batting average.  These are all ancient, non-sabremetric stats.  Batting average is far inferior to OPS as a way to measure hitting.  Runs scored and RBI have more to do with what your teammates did, not what you did.   In this system, a stolen base is just as important as a home run!  And a single and a stolen base is twice as good as a double.  Clearly wrong.  A patient batter drawing walks, running up the opposing pitcher's pitch count, is worthless.

Pitchers are rated by Strikeouts, Wins, Saves, ERA and WHIP.  At least the system is better than for hitters.  But the big emphasis on wins and saves distorts things horribly.  In our draft, there was a big run on closers, and Grant Balfour was taken number 122.  Now, he's a decent closer for my beloved Oakland As, but no sane person would rate him the 122th best player in baseball with a lifetime WAR of 5.  Few would rate him as the 250th best player in baseball.

The steals thing is absurd too.  Dee Gordon is a star player in Rotiserie due to his speed and steals.  In reality, he's a replacement lever player with a WAR at 0.  The very fact that the expert fantasy columnists even mention Dee Gordon or Juan Pierre as "good players to get" proves the distorted system.

Added 8 May 2012.  More evidence that Dee Gordon is a bad player.  Also here.

This league has a fairly low maximum of 180 games started for the year.  So, managers are gaming the system by looking for wins (and saves) from non-starting pitchers, i.e., late inning relievers.  Aroldis Chapman is a superb example of the pitcher you'd be looking for.  Now he's a great pitcher, pitching in high leverage situations, but he is there for his wins.  And, for the most part, his wins do not come from his skill.  They come from his teammates scoring runs off the other team's pitcher.  And they are fairly random.  Every week the Hardball Times has a column "THT Awards" documenting pitchers who undeservedly miss out on wins, or undeservedly gain wins.  Wins are partly due to pitcher skill, and largely a crap shoot.

This league allows for infinite moves.  So teams are constantly "streaming" in pitchers.  Some of our teams have zero starting pitchers on their roster.  Zip, zero, nada.  Completely unrealistic.  Now, I do some streaming in the points league.  But most of the expert picks for streaming in pitchers is really about picking their opponent.  Many picked Phillip Humber vs. the Mariners.  Not because Humber can be mistaken for Justin Verlander, but because Humber is a pretty good pitcher and the Mariners can't hit very well.  In effect, in streaming, you are often choosing your opponent.  Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but in real baseball you don't get to pick your opponents!  In effect, the fantasy teams are constantly calling up starters for one game, then sending them back to the minors in between.  Real teams can't do this.

With infinite moves, managers will swap players on a daily basis depending on matchups.  Or, if one team has the day off and another has a double header, they will swap for a hitter who will get more at bats.  Not very realistic.

I find that Rotiserie is much more "how to game the system" than "how to pick and follow good baseball players".  And, as you read the expert columnists and daily picks (Hardball Times also has a good column, the "Daily Grind", for ideas on streaming in players) I think you'll see that is the case too.