H2H Satellite League for 2009

Baseball Furies · Post by **Baseball Furies** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:24 pm

Since H2H is the fastest growing category in Fantasy, I'm sure there would be huge interest in at least a Satellite League ($1300? $650?)next year. Perhaps it could be considered for a "pilot" program. Who would be into this type of format?

baggler · Post by **baggler** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 11:25 pm

H2H leads to too much micromanaging. I think most of the board would agree that we all do enough managing in the NFBC.

As you can see with your multiple posts on this issue and not much posting by the regulars. It's a dead issue. And I believe Greg basically said that there are other sites that could help you.

I wish you luck in your H2H pursuit but that format will never fly here.

Baseball Furies · Post by **Baseball Furies** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 5:48 pm

Thanks for your reply, but I have to respectfully disagree, particularly having to do with the "too much micro managing" concern. In using a FAAB system, with no trades, and weekly line-up changes, I do not see how there's so much more involved with this format than 5x5. Please help me out here. Look, I understand that the traditionalists have their issues with H2H, but it is the future of FBB. It does have a lot to offer that 5x5 does not, and therefore merits consideration especially from the NFBC which seemingly is the premiere organization for national fantasy baseball competition. People would pay for this and in large numbers if it were promoted as an option.

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:08 pm

A couple thoughts on that last post.

1) It's cool how some folks (maybe better/more experienced posters) actually click the "sad face" button to express the tone of the post.

2) H2H in football is more realistic. Football plays once a week...fantasy football plays once a week. The season is very short, and it's the only proven way to play it.

3) Baseball is 6 months long...one week means **** ! To try to create a game where one week really means something in baseball is not a desired way to play. It would benefit the lucky, more than the consistent...matchups could destroy the best team...etc.

4) I think "rotisserie" football could become a bigger hit than H2H baseball.

~Lance

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:09 pm

You can't bitch about any rotisserie league gypping you out of your dough...there are no playoffs, and you have the entire regular season to work your magic!

~Lance

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:19 pm

Looking over your posts...I'd feel much more comfortable knowing you were in fact, a player...and not a competitive company...if you posted on other topics.

5 post...all H2H...but I do give you credit for being new to the MB, and nice in you posts.

I'm most likely over-reacting.

~Lance

sportsbettingman · Post by **sportsbettingman** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 6:25 pm

Originally posted by Baseball Furies:

Thanks for your reply, but I have to respectfully disagree, particularly having to do with the "too much micro managing" concern. In using a FAAB system, with no trades, and weekly line-up changes, I do not see how there's so much more involved with this format than 5x5. Please help me out here. Look, I understand that the traditionalists have their issues with H2H, but it is the future of FBB. It does have a lot to offer that 5x5 does not, and therefore merits consideration especially from the NFBC which seemingly is the premiere organization for national fantasy baseball competition. People would pay for this and in large numbers if it were promoted as an option. When you are playing "everyone"...you simply put out your best starting lineup.

When playing a different team each week...you need to look deeply at his roster...his matchups...and how you can exploit it.

Much more bull crap, IMO.

For what? An imaginary win for a week?

~Lance

Lunatic · Post by **Lunatic** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 12:34 am

HTH is becoming the most popular form of fantasy baseball? You better expand your horizon....

Bruce in FL · Post by **Bruce in FL** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 1:37 am

I have played in H2H leagues even before I came here 4 years ago. We had 12X12 at first (not knowing any better), and this year, finally cut it down to 5X5. We had 50 min IP each week (with daily lineups). We had teams 50 games out of first place, and clearly then , give up, and then any team that plays them, would win 22-1 or whatever, giving them a huge jump in the standings. Now the trick is to choose players that would at least put in lineups even if out of the playoffs. Also, the payouts were 50% regular season, and 50% playoff champion. For the most part, the regular season champs have been the best teams, with the playoffs getting some teams that were maybe 2nd or 3rd best a win in the playoffs (which , lets face it, the hottest teams in baseball, not necessarily the best teams, win it all at the end). Plus, then you compete each week against a different player. I like both H2H and this roto style. We do H2H because it is basically guys we know for bragging rights, etc. Bruce

bjoak · Post by **bjoak** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 3:45 am

Yeah, the problem here would be that teams would drop out and let their teams fill up with DL cases, creating an unfair advantage for owners who face them toward the end of the season. I commish a h2h and you have to be very selective about choosing people that you know will do their part.

I will say the doomin' gloomers on here ought to play it some time and quit complaining.

Sheep · Post by **Sheep** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:26 am

My home league is an 18 team head to head, auction league. Entry fee includes paying each matchup winner every week and in ties the money goes to our parties (All-star game and 1st weekend game of World Series). It keeps teams involved, we also have required new teams to be sponsored, so an expierenced team will have to take over for an inactive member. This will be the first year that we have had two teams turn over - one for inactivity (The commish managed his team, his wife had medical issues) and one for going to Florida (missing the draft for the third year). The guy in Florida is actually sharing a team with one of the existing teams. A couple of us are willing to share with the inactive owner, who wrote his Masters Thesis on Catchers in the Hall of Fame and why a young (pre-MVP season) Pudge Rodriguez would get in.

IMO it is better game then the season long marathon to rankings. It does have more "luck" (like football) as you can go 0-10 vs this weeks opponent when you would have went 10-0 against anyone else.

Like real baseball, four teams, three divison winners and a wild card make the playoffs.

Also we play each team in our division twice and the others once. Lots of MB chatter - as each week you have a team to root against.

I agree that it isn't a national format, but I think many of you would enjoy it if you tried it. I have been trying to recruit some of them to play NFBC, but most of our league (20+ years) members only play head to head, now.

If anyone is interest in the our Head to Head by laws just PM me.

Spyhunter · Post by **Spyhunter** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:56 am

Personally, I hate H2H as it typically leads to streaming SPs, but, I do think that it is premature to write this off. If KJ can come up with a NFBC Keeper approach, I am sure that Greg will pilot this at some point. Probably the limiting factor is more around STATS capabilities.

there seems to be lots of interesting formats out there in the NFBC satellites, this is a more common format than most of those.

Spy

Baseball Furies · Post by **Baseball Furies** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:15 pm

Okay, where to begin. First off, thanks for all the "spirited" responses. To address sportsbettingman, no, I'm not some company that has a hidden agenda, I'm just passionate about the format because it's how I got into the game several years back. I will endeavor to add other posts when the season starts and I get down off my soapbox. As for realism, c'mon boys...you can't possibly argue that throwing 30 guys out there for a week trying amass the most points in stat categories against everyone all the time is "realistic". Head-to-head play pits you against an opponent each week, mano a mano, and you have to be able consider how to best utilize a limited number of your players that will potentially match up best against your opponent not simply for the sake of piling up stat categories with some players that would never be playing if it weren't for the ability for instance to pile up a few steals for the week. Yes it's a long season, but don't the games count each week in real baseball? So why couldn't they or shouldn't they count in FBB? Luck plays as much a role in 5x5 as it does H2H, just in different ways which I won't get into here. A weekly (or even daily with some adjustments) H2H format would be no more difficult to manage than the other formats. The use of an effective FAAB system, and some other good ideas presented on this forum, would eliminate or at least minimize the "streaming" of pitchers; and the argument that owners would simply "drop out" or bag it if they were losing doesn't give a lot of credit to those of us who shell out 1300 bucks for the NFBC's standard 5x5 format. Is that what we're expected to do should we fall hopelessly behind in this format? Simply bag it despite the money we laid out and sit back without trying each week and let the front-runners run away with it? I don't know who'd do this, but I can't see the fanatics that participate in this tournament doing so. Bagging it in the 5x5 format is just as possible and unfair in many ways as well. Even so, there are checks and balances to prevent this as well which I would gladly share with the powers that be should they look into giving this format a chance. As you can see, there is interest in this format and I agree that it shouldn't be written off as Spyhunter so eloquently alluded to in his post referencing the other types of NFBC Satellite Leagues. Hate to break it to you, Lunatic, but if you go and research it (or you can ask Ron Shandler), H2H is indeed becoming the most popular form of FBB and is growing every year. You guys all need to lighten up a bit, it's not like this is life and death...on second thought, I take that back...for most of us doing this, it is. Good luck to all Saturday, and feel free to look this troublesome newbie up in NYC as I beat you at your own game this year!

-Mike

Baseball Furies · Post by **Baseball Furies** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:17 pm

Oh, and one other thing. Let's not forget that there is no better format for rivalries, making new friends, trash-talking, and the like than H2H.

Ronald Esq · Post by **Ronald Esq** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:29 am

Originally posted by Baseball Furies:

Oh, and one other thing. Let's not forget that there is no better format for rivalries, making new friends, trash-talking, and the like than H2H. There are a lot of pluses to H2H leagues, but there are problems with using a H2H format in a large scale, big money league like this.

First off, the overall scoring is harder to do, especially if you want to use a H2H scoring format. You aren't going to play an Overall Schedule, you'd stick to matchups within your league only. You can't do just record fot the overall prize, since some leagues are going to be weaker than others, there would have to be some other type of overall rank that wouldn't be H2H. The H2H format promotes dumping categories to maximum potential to win a simple majority of the scoring categories. It's better to dump a category (or 2) to be stronger in the remaining categories, since all you need to do is be better in more than half the categories as your opponent. This is contrary to rotisserie where you really need to be strong across the board, or at least balanced enough to get some points in every category. Since I mentioned there is really no way to do the overall standings, aside from the current Roto standing format, the league H2H and the overall Roto standings would require different roster setups to be strong in. A balanced team would finish higher in the overall Roto standings, than a team that dumped a category or two who finished with a better H2H record.

Second, there's a lot more volatility in H2H. A player can hit .320 with 26 homers and 130 rbis over the course of a 26 week season. That's an average of .320, 1 hr, 5 rbis per week, however in a week-to-week, head-to-head format league there are going be weeks were that player hits .400 with 3 hr and 10 rbis and there's gonna be weeks where that player hits .200 with 0 hr and 2 rbi. This variance will cause you to win or lose matchups depending on the outcome of your other players in similar situations. In an overall Roto league, all the stats are cumulative and are normalized over a 26 week period.

Lastly, the previous item will come about by just pure deviation in players statistics, but it'll also come about due to schedule balance. In the NFL, everyone plays 1 game per week. In the NBA everyone plays 3 or 4 games per week (with some mixed 2 games on lighter scheduled weeks). These leagues setup better for H2H than baseball were a lot of weeks some teams will play 5 games and the same weeks a lot of teams will play 7 games. This 2 game difference doesn't affect hitting a whole lot (but it's helpful with the extra games), but the extra 2 games for pitchers is usually a large deal. When a team plays 5 games, there's probably about a 5% chance a pitcher gets 2 starts for the team that week, but when a team plays 7 games, there's probably a 95% chance TWO pitchers on that team get 2 starts. It evens out over the course of the full season, but week-to-week a 2 start pitcher is going to out perform a 1 start pitcher most of the time.

Although I enjoy H2H leagues, when this much money is potentially on the line, it's just not a good format. Single leagues would be fine to run, but I don't think a H2H large money, overall league would work.

RedRum · Post by **RedRum** » Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:29 am

Originally posted by Baseball Furies:

Since H2H is the fastest growing category in Fantasy, I'm sure there would be huge interest in at least a Satellite League ($1300? $650?)next year. Perhaps it could be considered for a "pilot" program. Who would be into this type of format? Id never ever play H2H for $..

Big waste of time..Its not meant for BASEBALL..

Waaay to much LUCK involved.

[ March 15, 2008, 07:30 AM: Message edited by: RedRum ]