Hello all,
My league may switch from season long Fangraph points to weekly H2H Fangraph points next year. Any advice on the best way to manage schedule and playoffs? Also thoughts on capping pitcher starts? Seems like there are few options to choose from.
Also are there any good articles to read about H2H Ottoneu strategy. I recall reading one a while ago, but can’t remember where from?
I think that one of subtle benefits of a H2H format is that while it introduces more variability to the outcomes (i.e. the best team from a total points perspective does not always have the best H2H record), it also significantly encourages league engagement. For instance, in our H2H league 8 of the 12 teams were in contention for a playoff spot for most of the season. If our league was a season-long points league there would have been only two teams with a realistic chance for a championship, but the H2H format resulted in many more teams having an opportunity. This provides incentive to keep owners engaged and changes the supply/demand balance in buyer/seller trades.
I don’t have any free resources handy (BBHQ has some, but they’re behind a paywall; also The Process by Jeff Zimmerman and Tanner Bell is also a very good resource that has some suggested H2H strategies but it’s about $18). But the main difference is that week-to-week consistency should command a premium in a H2H.
I don’t play H2H anymore, but back when I did I calculated standard deviations by month as an estimate for the volatility of players (ideally I would do it by week, but the monthly splits were more readily available). There are some guys who are total feast or famine players (e.g., Mondesi; he has a .340ish career wOBA in Sept/Oct but a .280 career wOBA in other months–just looked it up today).
FWIW, I try to take a portfolio management approach to my teams; that is, I try to maximize risk-adjusted returns by balancing expected projection with their variance. As an aside, Ariel Cohen’s InterSD (which premiered this year) is a great resource for risk-adjusted returns. In season long leagues, I’m just concerned with the mean and variance of the projections while in H2H I took into account their past monthly volatility as well and adjust the denominator accordingly.
For example, Mondesi is a high variance player (4.14 InterSD per ATC), both in terms of projections as well as month-to-month volatility. So I would be willing to pay a bit more for him in a season long league than I would a H2H. On the other hand, his teammate Merrifield is relatively low variance (1.36 InterSD) and his month-to-month volatility is also relatively low (don’t have the specific number handy). By ATC projection, both were projected as ~$30 players (in 5x5) heading into the season, but I would have needed a significant discount to pay for the more volatile Mondesi. Note that you need to do this adjustment in two stages: discount everyone for their risk and then adjust values back up so that total values sum to $3,120 (i.e., 65% of $400x12). For example, off the top of my head, I’d probably adjust Mondesi down by about $5 and be willing to pay a $2-3 premium for the more consistent Merrifield. So $30 projections but significant difference after making risk adjustments. Plus in a H2H, I’d make an adjustment to the standard deviation to account for the month-to-month volatility, so difference might be more like $22 versus $34 in a H2H 5x5 compared to $25 versus $32 in a season long 5x5 (i.e., $12 difference in H2H rather than $7).
You don’t have to actually construct a spreadsheet to do the math (although doing so can be quite helpful), but I think it’s beneficial to have a basic grasp on the concept of risk-adjusted returns, for both season-long and especially H2H, as well as some idea of how players compare in terms of week-to-week or month-to-month volatility.
Capping pitcher starts in H2H is a travesty. Essentially all it does is limit the player pool and limit potential strategies.
2 GS per day is the most important rule in Ottoneu, in my opinion. Having 2 SP spots a day creates gameplay that is very similar to GM/Manager simulation. That’s what this is all about…right?
Limiting GS per week makes the gameplay and player valuations more similar to other fantasy websites (ESPN) and is done because people like what they are familiar with…
Folks squawk loudly when they have 3+ SP going on the same day and have to make a tough decision. But managing a team is about decisions.
The silliest part of limiting GS per week is that Ottoneu has 20 man benches and $400 budget. Almost every SP should have value, they do in real life.
I like a GS cap for pitchers. I find that if you don’t have one in a points league you lock everyone into chasing SP all season. Even a mediocre pitcher going 5-6 innings gets you 17.5-21 points (3.5 points per inning) so the difference between being deep enough at SP to get 2 starts every single day and having ~9-10 pitchers who get you 10-11 starts is 52.5 to 84 points per week. That’s enough to swing a lot of matchups. It also puts a premium on streaming SP to fill in gaps in the week, which IMO runs counter to the best parts of Ottoneu. My H2H leagues use 9 GS which I think is pretty reasonable. It creates a lot of strategic decision making (if my starters have 12 starts this week, which three do I skip? How much do I want to rely on a Sunday start knowing that rain outs or injuries or rotation shuffling could mess that up? Do I carry a deep rotation to have lots of choice and only use my best starts or do I go shallow and just plan to use every guy every week? Etc) which I find lacking from the no-cap scenario (I start my two best daily and I carry enough SP to ensure I have two daily).
I have a suspicion that H2H also slightly increases the utility of multi-positional eligibility because of the lack of positional games-played limits in H2H. It is typically advantageous to fill your lineup each day as much as possible. An otherwise marginal player that typically avoids 0/4 days and is eligible has many positions can be a cheap source of points for what might otherwise be an empty lineup slot. Call it the “Ramon Urias Principal.”
This general topic might make for an interesting discussion on a future Ottobot Podcast (hint hint @vibbot). 