Game Caps, H2H, and the playoffs for the 2019 season

Breaking this out into its own FAQ post. There is a positional game cap for H2H for the 2019 season. It will probably go away or turn into something else (weekly positional caps?) for 2020; that is yet to be determined.

Game caps are not considered during the playoffs, no matter what your regular season scoring format is.

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There also will probably be a scaled cap for playoff leagues that have points/roto regular seasons in 2020. Something like 135 games per position.

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I think having it go away is a good solution. Any number under 7 would require sitting star players, and having a cap set at 7 is kinda redundant. If the cap was set a 6 for instance, I bet a lot of folks would just end up missing out on Sunday scoring since many owners don’t ever move their best players out of their primary position.

For H2H this year, with the cap set at 162 games per position and the regular season being 160 days, the cap really doesn’t seem to matter. I think…

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I agree with @Leif. A positional cap doesn’t seem to be needed for H2H. I’ve never been in a H2H league (other than here) that had positional caps. I don’t think I’ve ever seen streaming hitters work out as a winning strategy (unliking the pitching hoarding that can happen). But I’d be interested to hear about folks who advocate for a H2H positional cap- what was the benefit?

If there needs to be one- for consistency in Ottoneu, I guess- I’d support a weekly cap similar to the SP cap. But, again, why?

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Good feedback, thank you!

Actually, to reconsider, I think I’d rather support the same 162 positional cap as the rest of Ottoneu but do make it enforceable in the playoffs. I think that is better than a weekly cap (given the good stepping through by @Leif). It would allow for some strategy determinations for benching/rotating players and positions in weeks that you have the match in hand. And thereby possibly allowing a weaker (in that week anyway) team to catch up a bit. It’s like the old MarioKart last place assist.

And this is coming from someone who literally lost his league championship on the final day of the playoffs due to the caps being enforced (in error?) last year.

I personally don’t see need for position player caps in H2H, and I really really don’t see the need for a MarioKart-like last place assist in fantasy baseball. Each week, beat on each other until you have a winner, and then reset the next week. Let the best players play as much as they do in real life. Plus, I imagine tied records are fairly common, so the season-total points will come into play quite a bit.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Points + Playoffs League

Please do this. It makes the most sense. Something like 132 GP and 1,250ish innings for non H2H leagues that switch to playoffs makes the most sense and seems like an easy adjustment for everybody. The system was great before, now it just needs to be pro-rated to adjust for a month of playoffs.

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Any updates on this for 2020? Will there be weekly hitting caps or reduced regular season positional caps?

I would like to see a weekly GP per position option for H2H. I think from a strategic standpoint this is the best/most fair way to do it. Any limit on full season GP for H2H leagues introduces a strategy where you could manipulate games played in certain weeks to give you advantages.

I’ve become convinced that this is the correct approach, maybe make 6 or 7 starts per week per position a league choice similar to how SP GS/week are now?

H2H leagues and playoff matchups currently have no game limits, other than SP GS caps. There are no plans to change this in 2020.

Non-H2H leagues with playoffs enabled will have a reduced positional game cap and reduced IP cap compared to non-H2H leagues without playoffs. I’ll make a formal announcement about that on Monday. These reduced caps will only affect the regular season for 4x4, 5x5, and season-long points formats.

Let me clarify: any positional game caps for H2H leagues will be removed entirely for the 2020 season and will not be replaced with any weekly cap.

I’ll write out a full post in a new thread Monday.

I’d say the downside to GP and GS caps in H2H is that it will probably drive up the value of star players and limit the value of the masses. With benches that are 20+ deep, a higher percentage of the player pool should have some level of value, its brings more strategy and team management into play.

Theoretically, yes. But I am not convinced that most leagues would see this. However, I do think that the strategy of weekly caps for positional players fits in with the overall goal of weekly H2H better than season caps. And I should add that I’m in favor of caps in as much as I’m in favor of any changes that introduce more strategy to the weekly game. That’s way I play weekly H2H instead of other formats.

And scrolling up… I see that I’ve reversed my position on this twice now. lol

I stand by my most recent assertion that more strategy weekly is better for weekly battles.

I think. :wink: