Summary of New per matchup GS Cap league option for 2019 season

Ottoneu Fantasy Baseball
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For the 2019 season, we have introduced a per matchup GS cap for pitchers in H2H leagues and for playoff matchups.

This is a league-specific option and should be set by league commissioners for both regular season and playoffs before the MLB regular season begins.

This cap will ensure that teams have up to 5 slots available for SP on any given day. However if a team has less than 5 games left against their per-matchup cap, they will only have enough slots on their lineup page to hit their cap. For example, in a 8 GS cap league, every team will have 5 SP slots on Monday. If a team puts a starting pitcher in each of their 5 slots and all 5 of those pitchers pitch on Monday, then on Tuesday they will only have 3 SP slots available to put pitchers in.

This makes the GS cap a hard cap that should not be exploitable in the ways that soft caps can be.

For the longer matchup weeks in the regular season (beginning of the season, around the All-Star Break), the GS cap applies for the whole matchup and is not changed even though those matchups cover more than 7 days of the MLB regular season.

Playoff settings do not inherit from regular season settings - commissioners must set each GS cap separately. For 2-week playoff matchups and 2-week playoff matchup only, the cap applies separately to each week of the matchup. For example, in an league with a per-matchup cap of 8 GS, teams have up to 8 starts available in week 1 and 8 starts available in week 2. They cannot carry over unused starts from week 1 into week 2.

Please use this thread if you have any other questions about how the per-matchup GS cap will be implemented.

3 Likes
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Had to read it twice to understand the details but it’s an interesting approach and a big improvement (thanks for developing).

Question: it’s implied that 5 slots for SP is the max, is that right or is this also a variable set by commish? I don’t get in the example of the 8 GS league why there wouldn’t be 8 slots on Monday.

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5 slots is the max and that number cannot currently be changed.

The goal of the per matchup GS is to keep a reasonable GS limit while allowing owners to start more than 2 pitchers on a given day. That is the extent of the scope of this feature.

So there are two reasons to keep it at 5 SP slots max:

  1. It maintains a requirement to make choices about who to start, while easing the restriction of only 2 SP slots on a given day.
  2. It simplifies the question of what this feature is trying to address

If you have 8 starting pitchers on a given day, having to make a choice on who to start is, to me, part of the strategy of fantasy baseball. Having to choose only 2 of those pitchers was a problem, but there has to be some limit on how many SPs can be played in a week lest SPs become too valuable in H2H. So, this allows you to choose your top 5 on that day instead of only your top 2. This feature was never meant to completely remove the need to make a choice in these scenarios, only to make it come up less and make it less painful when it does come up.

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An important note:

If on a given day it turns out that you have more SPs in your lineup than the per matchup GS cap allows, pitchers on your team will be moved to the bench.

In implementing this feature, I will explore ways to favor moving pitchers who have recently started to the bench, but owners should note that this feature will result in the platform changing your lineup for you in specific situations.

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Fair enough, just wanted clarity on the matter. Thanks.

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If I’m reading this right, you’re implementing the automation of setting lineups? This would be good to support teams that don’t get a lot of TLC from their owners when it comes to consistently setting lineups. Yet automation sounds risky considering some edge cases like double headers and Ottoneu not realizing SP moving up in the rotation (I was a burned a few times last season solely relying on the ˆ mark for a start when it turned out a non-marked pitched was moved up in their rotation causing me to miss getting him into the SP slot off the bench). Could automation be optional so an owner could disable? Or am I missing what it is you’re implementing?

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No, it is a much simpler system than that.

When you set your lineup, your initial lineup is carried over from the previous day. In a non-H2H league, it’d carry all your SPs over from the previous day, but since slots can “disappear” in a H2H GS cap league, the situation will be different. If you don’t have enough SP slots (due to the GS cap) to carry over your SPs from the previous day, the system will have to bench some of your SPs for you.

I think both your questions are somewhat related, because they both speak to minimizing the need to set lineups. The team building / roster construction parts of Ottoneu Fantasy Baseball are so interesting that this theme of minimizing or removing the day to day managerial aspects comes up from time to time. I think that’s a conversation worth having for what its worth, but probably in a Wishlist item.

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Got it and that makes total sense now. Looking forward to playing H2H with these new details! Thanks.

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Development Update, January 2019

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Just curious as to what specifically qualifies as a Game Started? Is it truly when a pitcher throws the first pitch in an MLB game? Or is it any pitcher in a SP slot who pitches on a given day? For example, if an MLB team uses its 5th starter in long relief in a blowout game, and that pitcher is in my SP slot on that day, would that count as a Game Started? Conversely, if a pitcher is used as an “opener” and pitches to only two batters and is in my SP slot on that day, would that also count as a Game Started?

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A GS is an official MLB stat based on whoever throws the first pitch. This is the stat we use when giving credit to players in SP slots and is the stat that will be used against the GS Cap.

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What happens when a relief pitcher is in an RP slot but is used as an opener by his MLB club and is credited with a GS? Would that count toward the weekly GS Cap?

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No, his stats won’t count, because you used him in the wrong role. Openers are starters.

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Not sure its working. Our league is set to 9 max but lineup page is only showing 2 SP for March 20.

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The lineup page stuff has not been implemented yet, but will be very soon.

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For those of you in H2H leagues with GS caps set, your lineup pages should now show 5 SP slots instead of 2.

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I am in a new head-to-head points league with a 10 player GS cap. This only applies to starting pitchers … right? Not RPs?

Also, doesn’t apply to hitters… right? Are there any caps for hitters?

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  1. Only SPs, not RPs.
  2. H2H does not have any hitting caps.

This is covered in section IV of the rules: