MeFi Fantasy Baseball 2017: Dynasty Edition

February 14, 2017 3:22 PM

Major League Baseball Spring training starts this week, and I was wondering if there might be some interest in starting a fantasy baseball dynasty league. I've participated in cgk's redraft league for a few years, and it's been a lot of fun, but I thought the addition of a dynasty element might appeal to some of the more seasoned spreadsheet athletes out there. Details below.

For those who aren't aware: a dynasty league means you carry over your entire roster (or as much of it as you want) from season to season, which allows for an element of somewhat long-term planning with your roster. If you have some bad luck and you're buried in the standings by July, you can load up on high-upside prospects and try to build a team to contend for the next season.

Of course, with rosters carrying over from year-to-year, there would be an expectation (or at least a hope!) that everyone would try to commit to remaining in the league beyond the 2017 season. Of course there's no way of enforcing this, and if someone does have to leave, we'd look for a new owner to take the team over the following season.

Aside from keeping players from year-to-year, there would be few differences from the redraft league that many of us played in last year, so it should be familiar to those who played before. The one exception is that I would like to move from that 5x6 format (with holds as the 6th category) to a more standard 5x5 setup with "net saves plus holds" -- in other words (saves) - (blown saves) + (holds) -- replacing the usual saves category. The justification for that is that closers are a giant pain in the butt to find in a lot of leagues, so it makes sense to expand the pool of useful relievers for the league a bit.

I was planning to host it on Yahoo and shoot for something in the 10-14 team range if possible, but that depends on interest of course, which is why I'm posting here. We can talk about the details -- draft time, any other format question, etc. once we get a headcount of who's interested.

(I tried to reach out to cgk over MeMail a few weeks ago but didn't get a response, so cgk, if you're out there, I hope you're cool with this!)

posted by tonycpsu to MetaFilter-Related at 3:22 PM (8 comments total)

I think I'd prefer the current limited-keeper setup with the deep league setup we have now. Dynasty leagues require a length of commitment that I don't think I have.

But if that's where the league goes, I guess I'd roll with it at least for a year or two. I cannot promise any longer.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:26 AM on February 15, 2017

If we only have 10-12 teams, there will be plenty of closers. It's when we get deeper that you run out.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:28 AM on February 15, 2017

I was really just looking at the dynasty element as a way to keep people engaged if they have a bad season. I just thought that there have been enough folks returning to the redraft league year after year that it may be fun to try something different. If it's too much, we can try something more modest.

Anyway, the lack of response so far suggests that we might have to wait until later in the spring before people start thinking about baseball again. We can have more detailed discussions about formats/scoring then.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:14 AM on February 16, 2017

Just chiming in to say a dynasty league is probably beyond my own level of commitment (or expertise, to be more precise). Anyway, I'm not sure participation in the redraft league is as strong as the numbers suggest - wasn't it commented a few months ago that nearly half the field were only checking every few weeks if at all?
posted by macdara at 3:19 AM on February 18, 2017

I'll play in a dynasty league, or a redraft league again. But I think you are right: it might be early for baseball for some people who, unlike me, haven't been counting down the days just to when pitchers and catchers reported.
posted by synecdoche at 8:34 AM on February 18, 2017

I played in cgk's redraft last year (as Taijuan Skywalkers). I've never played a dynasty league but would be pretty excited to try one out.
posted by john-a-dreams at 5:28 PM on February 21, 2017

He's reactivated the league. As someone with good keepers, I'm 100% on board with proceeding as-is. I also am in 4 leagues this season, so I'm not sure if I could commit to another league, if you want to go ahead with the dynasty option.

We could definitely run 2 leagues in parallel, though. Kind of surprised we don't already.

And: SPEAKING OF LEAGUES. I run 1 league (roto auction) and participate in another (head to head snake draft) that could use a couple of extra players. Both leagues originated with the USENET group rec.sport.football.college, so we are a bunch of cavemen, but at least we're old cavemen. MeMail me if you're interested in either.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:20 AM on March 2, 2017

Yeah, nice to see signs of life with the MeFi league, but I don't know that we do have enough players to support a 16-team redraft plus another 10-team league, dynasty or otherwise, especially given how many folks tuned out by mid-season last year.

I'd rather we just committed to the one league where we get a higher level of participation, even if it meant dropping the size of the league down to 12 teams or fewer. And it doesn't seem like there's enough interest in doing dynasty, so I'll just await word from cgk on what the plan is for this season.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:30 AM on March 2, 2017