Salary Capped Fantasy Baseball League 2012

[SaberSox]

I don't know about you, but I love fantasy baseball. It's the best of the fantasy sports because it requires the most skill, research, strategy, and commitment.

But there are many things about fantasy baseball that can be improved. And, being a numbers guy, I set out to find improvements on how it's played.

The folks over at BaseballHQ started a format last year called Roto500 which is a great format. My leauge is a variation on that format.

This is a paid, live draft (I hate online drafts, so I'm going to keep this local), 10-team 4x4 roto league (in Chicago) with a salary cap on your SLU and a budget for the year.

Tentative draft date: Sunday, April 1st at Noon in the city.

If you're intested in participating and serious about the commitment, read on!

The first feature of the league are the 4x4 stat categories. They are as follows:

Batters:
OBP
HR
SB
Runs Produced (RBI + R - HR)

First off, OBP is a much better gague of a hitter's skill than average. You can't score runs if you can't get on base. "Runs Produced" fairly counts HR's, because in standard leagues where the categories are HR, R, & RBI, home runs are counted THREE times.

Pitchers:
ERA
K
SV
QS

I hate the "Win" stat. It is easily the worst "major" stat in baseball since the W is so very much dependent on the pitcher's offense and the defense behind him. I mean, a pitcher going 8 and losing 1-0 is still a pretty damn good outing, don't you think? While you may or may not agree on how it's measured, "Quality Start" is a much better measure of how a pitcher performed.

Here is some more info on the leauge. If you're interested in all the nitty gritty details, shoot me a message and I will email you the League's Constitution.

You have a budget for the entire year. This goes to pay for your starting line up, taxi players, trades, acquisitions, whatever. When your budget is gone, you cannot make any more moves.

Roster: 39 players; 22 Starters, 17 Taxi (C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, UT, 5xOF, 7xSP, 2xRP). At the draft, you don't have to draft all your Taxi spots. That is up to you on what your strategy is and how much of your budget you want to spend on the draft.

Starting Line Up has a salary cap and at no time can the total salary of your SLU go above the cap.

Vickery FAAB process for waivers.

[SaberSox]

I have a few spots left. Let me know if you're interested.