Possible NFBC Cutline Championship In 2014

[Greg Ambrosius]

This year in our football contest we created a new national contest that turned out to be very successful and the format has us wondering if a similar success story could happen here in baseball. We're looking into this possible game now and seeing what is needed to spend the time to program this and create this if we decide to go forward. That's where you folks come into play: I want your feedback here.

NFFC Cutline Championship: We created this game in football as an entry-level contest to try to get more new users to play with us. It was based on a game that had been successful before and thus there was a history here with some of our players. The format was simple:

10-team leagues, $125 entry fee
9 week regular season
Only 3 free agent moves per season
1 league prize only: $250 for 1st place
Top 2 teams advance to Championship Round, 3 other teams enter a Consolation Round

What happens after that is teams in the Championship Round need to finish above the cutline to advance and each week a team or two from the Consolation Round can move up to the Championship Round. This becomes almost like a survivor contest each week in the playoffs with only 12 teams surviving by Week 16 and playing for the $50,000 grand prize. We believe the "cutline" aspect of this will make the playoffs very enjoyable and a rush in real-time scoring for those owners who have a shot at the $50,000 grand prize.

Despite not unveiling this contest until July 13th, we finished with 1,850 teams or 185 leagues in under 60 draft days. It was a huge success as we brought in many first-time players and the in-season management for our die-hard players has been so minimal that folks wish we had more games with only 3 in-season FAAB moves. There's no doubt that we are planning for a $75,000 or even $100,000 grand prize next year.

We know there are millions of fantasy baseball players who compete in 10-team leagues and we know that many of them play for much lower stakes than we normally offer here in our national contests. So is there a way to attract more new players to the NFBC with a low-level entry fee that still has a very nice grand prize? Well, hopefully there is.

We've been kicking some ideas around and just creating a 10-team, $125 entry fee national contest with regular weekly in-season moves doesn't seem to move the needle for us. FAAB in 10-team leagues would be even more work than deeper leagues because there would be so many good players available each week. So while that might appeal to some new users, we're not sure if we could reach the levels needed for a worthy overall prize pool because it would turn off many of our top players.

Plus we like the Cutline idea where owners have to survive to move on while having minimal in-season management. We think there's a brand to build here and if done creatively it could work in baseball, too. So here's the concept for a potential new game and we'd like your feedback on the prospects and suggestions for any rules tweaks. Some of the features include:

* It's a Best Ball format: The computer picks your optimal scoring lineup each week; you never set a lineup.
* Scoring has to be points based in order for the computer to pick the optimal scoring lineup.
* There are only 3 in-season FAAB periods
* Only 2 of 10 teams advance to the Championship Round; but maybe we'll create a Consolation Round like we have in football, giving those teams a chance to move up to the Championship Round.
* Drafts are 10 teams, 45 rounds to approximate depth of NFBC 15-team leagues. Drafts should take 3+ hours.
* Much of the prize money is in the overall prize pool, paying Top 10 finishers.

NFBC Cutline Championship

OVERVIEW
The Cutline Championship is a points-based league designed to approximate the relative contribution value of batter and pitcher outcomes in standard NFBC rotisserie leagues. The Cutline Championship has a regular season, which concludes just prior to the MLB All-Star Break, and a championship playoff which runs for 9 weeks beginning in the week of the All-Star Break and ending in mid-September.

A starting lineup will consist of 14 hitters and 9 pitchers, with the same positions and position eligiblity of standard NFBC leagues. Scoring is automatic, with each team’s highest scoring players assigned to the available starting lineup slots at the end of each week. Accordingly, each week a team’s highest scoring lineup of 2 catchers, 1 1b, 1 2b, 1 3b, 1 ss, 1 mi, 1 ci, 5 outfielders, 1 utility hitter and 9 pitchers will count towards that team’s points.

DRAFT AND FREE AGENTS
Each league will consist of 10 teams participating in a 45-round draft.

Each team will have a free agent acquisition budget of $1000, but there will be only 3 free agent periods during the regular season and none during the championship playoff. The first free agent period will be at the end of the 4th full week of the baseball season, the second after the 8th full week and the final period after the 12th full week.

CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFF
The top two teams in each league will advance to the Championship Playoff. The Playoff will consist of 3 rounds, each round will be 3 weeks in duration.

Round 1 – Each advancing team from the regular season will begin this round with their weekly average point total from the season, which will be combined with their 3-week playoff total, for a Round 1 Total Score.

Round 2 – The highest scoring 50% of teams from Round 1 will advance to this round, while the remaining teams will be eliminated from the playoffs. Each team will begin this round with 25% of their Round 1 Total Score, which will be added to their total of the next 3 weeks for a Round 2 Total Score.

Round 3 – The highest scoring 50% of teams from Round 2 will advance to this final playoff round, while the remaining teams will be eliminated from the playoffs. Each team will begin this round with 25% of their Round 2 Total Score, which will be added to their total of the next 3 weeks for a Final Playoff Score.

PLAYER SCORING
Batter Scoring:
HR or SB +6 pts
Hit +4 pts
Run or RBI +2 pts
AB -1 pt

Pitcher Scoring:
Win +6 pts
Save +6 pts
Inning Pitched +3 pt
Strikeout +1 pt
Hit or Walk Allowed -1 pt
Earned Run Allowed -2 pt

ENTRY FEE & PRIZE STRUCTURE
The Entry fee will be either $125 or $150.
The highest scoring team in each 10-team league will be awarded a league prize of $250 (or $300 if entry is $150).
The two highest scoring teams in each 10-team league will compete in the Championship Playoff.

CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYOFF PRIZES
1st Place – $50,000
2nd Place – $25,000
3rd Place – $10,000
4th Place – $6,000
5th Place – $4,000
6th-10th Place – $1,000 each


Thoughts on this new concept?? Thanks for any and all feedback and we'll plan accordingly on this game over the next month. We are always looking to expand our offerings and to bring in new customers to our online and live events. Innovation is needed in the pay-to-play games space and we think this game has a chance to work. We look forward to hearing from all of you.

[Glenneration X]

My questions:

- Why best ball? In the football version, we set lineups.
- Which leads to why points?
- Why have 3-week playoff rounds before cuts are made? Why not each week?

[Quahogs]

You want this to take off ? Make it 30 rounds and have every player count. Have 1 FAAB in the middle of the season.

I thought the 26rd 10 tm football drafts were close to 3 hours. I could be wrong there. If 45rds approach 4 hours I think that will be a problem.

It has a fun daily game point score tilt which is perfect. I just think it needs to be a FAST draft and done (aside from the one faab period) in order to entice the $$ players.

[KJ Duke]

You want this to take off ? Make it 30 rounds and have every player count. Have 1 FAAB in the middle of the season.

I thought the 26rd 10 tm football drafts were close to 3 hours. I could be wrong there. If 45rds approach 4 hours I think that will be a problem.

It has a fun daily game point score tilt which is perfect. I just think it needs to be a FAST draft and done (aside from the one faab period) in order to entice the $$ players.

45x10 is the same number of players as 30-rd 15-teamer, they don't go 4 hrs, or do they?

[BK METS]

Don't like the points scoring at all so unless we can work out a way to set it up roto style, I wouldn't play it. You can maybe use the cutline by our current overall scoring, somehow... just a thought.

[Greg Ambrosius]

You want this to take off ? Make it 30 rounds and have every player count. Have 1 FAAB in the middle of the season.

I thought the 26rd 10 tm football drafts were close to 3 hours. I could be wrong there. If 45rds approach 4 hours I think that will be a problem.

It has a fun daily game point score tilt which is perfect. I just think it needs to be a FAST draft and done (aside from the one faab period) in order to entice the $$ players.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I didn't say I had the rules perfect; just like in football you guys helped tweak it to perfection.

Football drafts got done in 2 hours; 2 hours and 15 minutes at most. Those 10-teamers cruised. Sure, 10 teams and 30 rounds would be faster, but 450 players with 10 teams won't be much longer than 3 hours.

I like the daily fun aspect to it. Let's keep tweaking.

If you have 30 rounds and all players count with only 1 FAAB, won't you have a ton of injuries and a lot of zeros??

[ALL-IN JD]

We set lineups in cutline so I do not see why would not in baseball cutline. I am okay with what Steve proposed with thirty rounds (or maybe 35) with three FAAB along the way. With only 10 teams many teams will be deep and stacked anyways. Just my two cents.



Jeff

[Greg Ambrosius]

My questions:

- Why best ball? In the football version, we set lineups.
- Which leads to why points?
- Why have 3-week playoff rounds before cuts are made? Why not each week?

Points is only needed if we do Best Ball because the computer wouldn't know what an optimal scoring lineup is based on Roto categories. Is a second baseman with 4 HRs and 10 RBIs more valuable than a second baseball with 4 SBs and 10 Runs? Points defines the better player.

If we had you set your lineup each week then we could stick with Roto like we have it now.

You would like cutlines each week of the playoffs?? We just felt it wasn't a long enough body of work to know which team was strongest in the playoffs. You might not get enough starts from your top pitchers to win in any given week. Three weeks seemed like a longer test of strength. Is that too long? Are there too few cutlines?

Keep the suggestions coming. Again, we're looking for input. I agree with Steve, we're looking for quick drafts, minimal in-season work and a daily fun factor to watch the stats. Then in the playoffs the thrill of surviving the cutline into the money rounds should take over. If the Best Ball idea isn't the way to go then we'll definitely consider giving you more control of your lineup and going to our more familiar Roto setup. Do we keep a 5x5 Roto overall ranking like we do now and advance the top 50%, etc.??

Let us know. Thanks for the input so far.

[ToddZ]

If the idea is to draw in a new audience, 10-team points is the perfect means. There's a HUGE contingent that play this style. I personally feel the design should be to draw as much new blood as possible, not to come up with a points game palatable to the current NFBC populace. We hook them with the cutline and they broaden their horizons.

The downside to that is many of those to which I refer are used to daily (at worst weekly) moves. This is obviously not feasible in a national contest for the reasons Greg already described.

I like the original plan though I make tweak the scoring a little, especially hitting.

I like

1B = 1 pt
2B = 2 pt
3B = 3 pt
HR = 4 pt
RBI = 1 pt
Run = 1pt
BB = 1 pt
SB = 2 pt
CS = -1 pt
AB = -.5 pt
K = -.5 pt

I have to do some playing around with pitching to make it somewhat comparable to the hitting.

[Greg Ambrosius]

We set lineups in cutline so I do not see why would not in baseball cutline. I am okay with what Steve proposed with thirty rounds (or maybe 35) with three FAAB along the way. With only 10 teams many teams will be deep and stacked anyways. Just my two cents.

Jeff

Again, I'm cool with that over Best Ball and it makes it easier on us with the Roto setup. But remember, Steve's suggestion is starting ALL 30 of your players, so you really wouldn't be setting any lineup. He's saying your entire roster scores for you each week, which is pretty unique and could be fun.

Do you like that setup?

[Greg Ambrosius]

If the idea is to draw in a new audience, 10-team points is the perfect means. There's a HUGE contingent that play this style. I personally feel the design should be to draw as much new blood as possible, not to come up with a points game palatable to the current NFBC populace. We hook them with the cutline and they broaden their horizons.

The downside to that is many of those to which I refer are used to daily (at worst weekly) moves. This is obviously not feasible in a national contest for the reasons Greg already described.

I like the original plan though I make tweak the scoring a little, especially hitting.

I like

1B = 1 pt
2B = 2 pt
3B = 3 pt
HR = 4 pt
RBI = 1 pt
Run = 1pt
BB = 1 pt
SB = 2 pt
CS = -1 pt
AB = -.5 pt
K = -.5 pt

I have to do some playing around with pitching to make it somewhat comparable to the hitting.

Thanks Todd. That was the original idea, that there's this massive audience playing weekly games and other contests who are very familiar with point system leagues. This isn't foreign to most of those people we are trying to attract. Your offensive scoring is pretty familiar with what I used to play in a points based game.

I think Steve is right that we need a game that makes you want to enjoy box scores every day and see good movement each day in the standings. Then we need to make sure the cutline portion is fun and unique as owners try to survive from week to week with minimal in-season roster management.

We have enough smart minds here to figure it out. That's how we got to a nice format with the NFFC Cutline Championship and we'd like to do it in baseball as well. Thanks for the early feedback all.

[KJ Duke]

I would not be intereted in an "all players count" concept; winners would be dominated by simply the healthiest team.

[ALL-IN JD]

Agree with KJ and sorry for the confusion Greg but I meant I agree with Steve on the 30 round (maybe 35 round) draft. I do think we still set out lineup with our 14/9 like always.

[KJ Duke]

... tweak the scoring a little, especially hitting.

I like

1B = 1 pt
2B = 2 pt
3B = 3 pt
HR = 4 pt
RBI = 1 pt
Run = 1pt
BB = 1 pt
SB = 2 pt
CS = -1 pt
AB = -.5 pt
K = -.5 pt

I have to do some playing around with pitching to make it somewhat comparable to the hitting.

Todd, scoring as Greg proposed mimics the value of player scoring in the NFBC 5x5 format, as opposed to daily game style scoring. BB's don't count in 5x5 roto, neither to K's or CS. As proposed, if you run your projections for a standard NFBC league, the relative value of players stays the same for this contest. If you switch to a daily scoring style as you've suggested it requires a different set of player values and additional projection work for other categories.

Likewise, as proposed, ADPs would be valuable since we'd be drafting the same number of players (450) as in a standard 15-team league, with comparable player values.

So the question is, should scoring resemble a best-ball version of the NFBC and does anyone care about ADPs and using these leagues as NFBC prep, or should this instead be more like a season-long version of a daily game?

[BK METS]

I would not be intereted in an "all players count" concept; winners would be dominated by simply the healthiest team.

All players count scoring would be a nightmare... The only way that would work, in my opinion, would be to increase the amount of FAAB periods, to allow for switching out injured players, and then it becomes even more complicated...

I say, it should be setup similar to the Cutline in football, where you set your lineups, but also similar to the DC format in baseball, where we use roto scoring. The big difference would be smaller leagues and the cutline and that is up to the masses as far as when the cutlines take place.

I don't believe the notion that offering a points based scoring is going to appeal to the masses, but maybe I am wrong. You are already appealing to the masses by offering a cheaper product, limited transactions, and a large grand prize. Points based scoring is just not that interesting, in my opinion, and if you are going to appeal to these so called masses to switch over to the big NFBC games, by luring them in with a points based system, then they are going to expect points based high stakes games, which I would hope we would not turn to.

[Quahogs]

I would not be intereted in an "all players count" concept; winners would be dominated by simply the healthiest team.

best ball if viable would have the same effect for me : do NOT want to lord over roster decisions

[ToddZ]

Todd, scoring as Greg proposed mimics the value of player scoring in the NFBC 5x5 format, as opposed to daily game style scoring. BB's don't count in 5x5 roto, neither to K's or CS. As proposed, if you run your projections for a standard NFBC league, the relative value of players stays the same for this contest. If you switch to a daily scoring style as you've suggested it requires a different set of player values and additional projection work for other categories.

Likewise, as proposed, ADPs would be valuable since we'd be drafting the same number of players (450) as in a standard 15-team league, with comparable player values.

Understood KJ - just that

a. I don't think we need to mimic 5x5 values
b. a familiar scoring system would be comfortable for those making the transition
c. the strategy - hence ADP of a 10-team best ball with deep rosters and limited FAAB is likely to be different from that of a 15-team 5x5 league with weekly FAAB, Friday hitting moves etc.

[ToddZ]

I don't believe the notion that offering a points based scoring is going to appeal to the masses, but maybe I am wrong.

The number of people playing 10 team points leagues is staggering, as I am constantly reminded by my ESPN editors when I am too roto-centric.

[KJ Duke]

I don't believe the notion that offering a points based scoring is going to appeal to the masses, but maybe I am wrong.

The number of people playing 10 team points leagues is staggering, as I am constantly reminded by my ESPN editors when I am too roto-centric.

This walks the line between two worlds - a points-based league, but one in which points per stat is worth roughly the same as it is in a 5x5 roto.

[BK METS]

I don't believe the notion that offering a points based scoring is going to appeal to the masses, but maybe I am wrong.

The number of people playing 10 team points leagues is staggering, as I am constantly reminded by my ESPN editors when I am too roto-centric.

ESPN and CBS have H2H leagues and Roto leagues. We are talking another completely different combination of the two and going into it with limited FAAB, obviously no trading, and an all play format, this is a radical idea that would need to appeal to the NFBC population, at the very least. Maybe it does... just offering my opinion..

[ToddZ]

This walks the line between two worlds - a points-based league, but one in which points per stat is worth roughly the same as it is in a 5x5 roto.

I definitely see the advantage to a system that mimics the conventional 5x5 scoring.

"X" Yahoo/ESPN/CBS people join the NFBC

"Y" NFBC players add the cutline to their repertoire.

X is drawing from millions

Y is drawing from thousands

What format maximizes X+Y?

OTOH, there needs to be some level of loyalty extended to Y.

Whatever the final result, they'll be a need for a relatively inexpensive source of projections that can be easily manipulated. If only there was someone that produced such a product....

[ToddZ]

ESPN and CBS have H2H leagues and Roto leagues. We are talking another completely different combination of the two and going into it with limited FAAB, obviously no trading, and an all play format, this is a radical idea that would need to appeal to the NFBC population, at the very least. Maybe it does... just offering my opinion..

Why? It's been stated that the driving force for the cutline is to bring in new blood to the NFBC, not to try to get the present NFBC players to spend even more money (though I'm sure they'd take it )

[DOUGHBOYS]

This sort of contest should be with new folks in mind.
Making it 10 teams and points based is right up their alley. Not ours.
Steve's idea needs to be a different contest with the NFBC player in mind.

[Quahogs]

We set lineups in cutline so I do not see why would not in baseball cutline. I am okay with what Steve proposed with thirty rounds (or maybe 35) with three FAAB along the way. With only 10 teams many teams will be deep and stacked anyways. Just my two cents.

Jeff

Again, I'm cool with that over Best Ball and it makes it easier on us with the Roto setup. But remember, Steve's suggestion is starting ALL 30 of your players, so you really wouldn't be setting any lineup. He's saying your entire roster scores for you each week, which is pretty unique and could be fun.

Do you like that setup?

My take on this Greg is that it's NOT like the rotisserie style game we currently play. FAAB, roster decisions, etc is a big part of the season longs. This new cutline should be played fast and loose. Will it be a healthiest teams wins in all play ? Maybe but with 1 FAAB and cutline it WON'T be a massive stat accumulating only contest. Maybe the last 3 weeks of cutline you eliminate the all play and cut it down to roster managed.

Do we really want to be "managing" these $150 teams while we have Ultimates and ME and Diamonds and Supers to manage also ??? Just keep it simple. Make it a "lottery ticket" type contest. Make it so you want 10 and watch from the sidelines instead of drafting one and managing it like a ME.

[ALL-IN JD]

After to disagree with my some time partner. I think all play format is not a great idea for baseball, in my humble opinion. As for all of that "time consuming" work, I am not sure that setting a lineup every Monday for a Cutline team constitutes "time consuming" !!