BABS in Leagues with Alternative Rules

BABS provides a different way of thinking about roster management in fantasy leagues, but it’s virtually impossible for one system to be all things to all formats. Leagues with alternative rules or hybrid structures are going to require a bit of tweaking. However, there are some underlying facts that are important to know.

(First, an important distinction to remember: Ratings are the BABS indicators for the Asset and Liability categories. Rankings are the order in which the groups of like-skilled players are presented in the BABS spreadsheet.)

BABS is all about skill and risk. We break these down into some broad categories, but these categories are not intended to correlate directly with any particular fantasy statistical category.

So, while BABS measures power, that is not just about home runs. It’s also about doubles and triples (for those leagues that use those), and by extension, the Runs and RBIs that are driven by those power stats.

BABS measures speed, but that includes stolen bases, triples and even runs scored. The rating also includes how often a runner gets a green light and how often he steals successfully, making it a more encompassing evaluator.

The batting average rating is a bit of a misnomer and I think I am going to change the name soon. More accurately, it might be called “batting tool” because it measures each batter’s ability to make contact – which includes his batting eye – and how hard he makes contact. Yes, we can use this as a proxy for batting average, but it also affects just about every other offensive statistic.

Similarly, the ER rating is not just ERA but more of an overall “pitching tool” metric. It includes strikeouts and walks (a measure of control, dominance and command) as well as a normal distribution of what should happen when an opposing bat hits a ball. While it may not seem like BABS has WHIP covered, it does, though more indirectly.

The strikeout rating does measure just strikeouts, but in a more nuanced manner because it also includes swinging strikes and first pitch strikes. Since strikeouts prevent baserunners, which in turn prevent runs, you can also say that this has an indirect effect on ERA and WHIP as well.

Saves, well… are just saves, in all their volatile glory.

The BABS skills ratings are good proxies for overall skill regardless of the exact categories. While they include the elements of standard 5×5 roto statistics, they are also fine for leagues that use similar stats, such as doubles, triples, slugging average, SB-CS, K/9 and others. For those leagues that use a stat like at-bats or innings, the full/mid/part-timer indicators are as best as you can do for that.

The ranking of these skills elements are relative to their impact on overall run scoring and very loosely tied to 5×5 roto. Since there is no real one-to-one correlation of a BABS rating to a fantasy stat, the weights that your league’s format require might need to be adjusted.

For instance, if you are in a league (roto, H2H, points, whatever) that awards value to both HRs and slugging average (or its components), that extra emphasis on power skills is not going to be reflected by the current BABS rankings. You are going to have to elevate power hitters higher on the ranking list. The rankings for any skill that is measured by redundant stat categories or given greater weight will need to be adjusted.

Those Other Stats

Okay, BABS doesn’t cover everything. There are two stats that are not an intrinsic part of the skills ratings. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there are many leagues that use them.

Holds: I don’t particularly like this category from a baseball perspective, but it serves a useful purpose in fantasy as it expands the value of many relief pitchers.

The challenge with Holds, like Saves, is it’s role-based, not skill-based. You first have to identify which pitchers will have the role that puts them in position to get Holds. Then, you project each pitcher’s number of holds using a comprehensive, integrated multi-disciplinary system called Blind Dart-Throwing.

Feel free to add an indicator to BABS to identify who these pitchers might be. As for the “how many?” question, I’d default to the skills/risk ratings for guidance. In the end, it’s always “Draft Skills, Not Roles,” right? Now, where did I hear that before?

On Base Average: Of all the offensive skills that BABS captures, the one that she has been most remiss about is the base on balls. There are no two ways about it, BABS ignores walks.

So we have to fix that.

I am hoping to get a BABS update out later this week, which would be for AL/NL-only leagues. In it, there will be an indicator for hitters more adept at drawing walks and another for those who have the plate patience of a hyperactive flea. So…

For players with a walk rate of at least 10 percent, there will be a “+” sign along with their AV rating. You will see players with “AV+” (that’s the best) and “a+”. You will also see hitters with just a “+” in that column; these have a below average “hit tool” but still manage to walk at least 10 percent of the time.

On the flipside, we’ll also add a “-” on the Liabilities side for those hitters who walk less than 5 percent of the time. I’ve changed the “-AV” indicator to just “AV” and now added the walk adjustment so it looks like this: “AV-” There will also be some players with just a “-” in that column; they have a slightly below average “hit tool” and also don’t walk.

League Sizes and Targets

Many of the questions I’ve received regarding alternative leagues involve adjusting the targets based on league size. There is no magic here. All the current targets are based on how deep a particular league drafts into the talent pool. If your league’s draft penetration is similar to one of the three sets of benchmarks I’ve set up, feel free to use them. For those that are different, pro-rate the targets so they’re close.

Format           #Tms  x Roster = Depth  Pool  Penetration
=============    ====    ======   =====  ====  ===========
12-team mixed     12   x  23    =  276   750    37%
15-team mixed     15   x  23    =  345   750    46%
12-team AL/NL     12   x  23    =  276   375    74%
Your league       ??   x  ??    =  ???   ???    ???

Multiply the number of teams in your league by your active roster size. That gives you the number of players drafted in your league. Then divide that by the total population of players you are drafting out of. If it’s an AL/NL-only league, that number is 375. If it’s a mixed league, that number is 750. If you are in a hybrid league that includes some teams from one league and some from another, you can do that math. Then divide your draft pool by the total population to get your penetration percentage.

If that percentage is within 10 percent or so of one of the above standards, just use those same targets. If your percentage is significantly different from the above, pro-rate the targets. If the penetration percent is smaller, increase the number of players required to meet the BABS Asset minimums, and decrease the number of Liability limits. And vice versa if your percentage is higher than one of the standards.

I would not futz with the individual Asset and Liability targets within each level. Remember that it’s not about the stats but the overall skill and how deep you’re drafting into the player pool.

Alternative Formats

There is a world outside of Rotisserie but I don’t think I would make too many changes to accommodate other formats. Since it’s all about the skills and risk (there that is again) and not about specific categories, most every format can benefit from how BABS expresses those variables. A few tweaks, perhaps:

Scoresheet Baseball / Simulations: The saves category is superfluous here but these sim games have always been about skills in lieu of roles. We don’t capture any defensive metrics but that is a common deficiency of most other systems. The modification to include walk rate adds an important element that sim gamers need.

Points games: Games that are driven by counting stats and have no ratio categories are served quite well by BABS’s Asset/Liability ratings. For example, BABS’s Power rating incorporates doubles and triples so it serves the points gamer particularly well. However, since it doesn’t matter where those points come from, look toward the overall Asset target and not necessarily the individual skills targets. Of course, if your league parameters give special weight to certain skills, do focus on those.

You might need to make adjustments in the rankings. Since starting pitchers potentially have elevated value in these games, you are going to want to elevate your most dominant starters on the BABS spreadsheet.

Head-to-Head: Depending upon whether your H2H rules use points or roto categories, focus on any tweaks required by those formats. The best H2H players are those who are consistent, week-to-week, but that’s tough to project so I’d still just focus on the skills. I could suggest lowering the Liability limits for injury-prone players since that potentially affects consistency, but really, that advice could apply to any format.

In H2H leagues, some owners employ the strategy of ignoring certain categories, especially those that accumulate few counting stats on a weekly basis. The weekly volatility of saves, or possibly steals, for instance, provide great benefit to the lucky. If you decide to do this, just ignore those ratings, and possibly adjust the rankings. In all, just use your judgment. Nothing here is a hard and fast rule. BABS is all about nuance. That’s what I love about her.

Salary Cap: Depending upon which game you play, you would have to enter the fixed salaries into BABS and look for players where their salary doesn’t match up with their skill/risk profile. It’s the same exercise we do now for auction leagues except that the salaries are assigned beforehand.

This opens up an entire discussion about daily fantasy baseball, which also uses the salary cap structure. I have a few articles planned about DFS in April, and not just rants; I have some real “this is how you might want to consider attacking this” stuff. I have ideas that could spark interest for those who haven’t played, improve the performance for those who have, keep things in perspective for everyone and even make you some money.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.