The BABL Manipulation, Part 1

With the exception of my home H2H league (where I’m currently in first place by 9.5 games) my fantasy league performance this year has been awe-uninspiring. My team has sunk to 9th place even in the BABS Baseball (BABL) exhibition, a league I designed where one would think I’d do reasonable well. Nope.

A refresher on BABL:

• 10 team mixed league
• 4×4 Rotisserie
• 50-player roster: 23 active, 27 reserves
• Draft & Hold – no free agent access
• Batting stats: HR, SB, Batting average, Plate appearances
• Pitching stats: Strikeouts, Saves+Holds, ERA, Innings pitched

I could lament my lot and drone on in self-pity, but this story is not about me. It’s about Matt.

Matt is in first place in BABL with an ever-widening lead. Kudos to Matt; his success is striking. Matt created a juggernaut with a draft strategy of eschewing one category (Saves+Holds) to pretty much guarantee good results in two others (IP and K). So it has gotten me to wondering…

– Is there a flaw in the construction of the BABL game format?

– Is Matt “gaming” the system?

– Is Matt just lucky now and the stats could still normalize over the balance of the season?

– If Matt’s tactic has given him a real advantage, is there anything the rest of us can do to put ourselves in position to win this year?

I asked the other members of the league to respond to these questions. Here are some excerpts from their replies:

Tim: Punting a category has never bothered me in 5×5. But in this configuration it seems a bit more gaming the system since bailing in one category assures a win in two other categories. You can’t change rules mid-game, so we are stuck. If you did this again, I’d either designate one or two pitchers as relievers or go to 5×5. I prefer the latter.

The only idea I can think of to fight Matt is for someone near the bottom of Sv+Hld to punt the category and I’ll give them a starter or two for a bat or two.

Brian: Perhaps Ron has created a league that uses the best of BABS, but perhaps it is not the best of leagues for those who use BABS and other fanalytic tools—if it can be gamed in this strategy. (Though if we all used the same strategy at the draft, what would happen?)

Matt is an IBM guy (literally an employee) and a grad of RIT with a good background in data analytics. He loaded up on hitting from the get go – drafting two pitchers in the first 25 rounds – and is streaming what in a 5×5 or 6×6 rotisserie league would be a subpar pitching staff, to load up on the counting stats.

I see four options:

1. We all team up to pull a Tonya Harding on Matt’s pitchers. While this might help us catch Matt, I don’t personally believe in serving jail time—and the stakes of this league will not change that attitude and it will not solve his domination of the hitting stats.
2. We could all rally around Ron, and trade him key players so he could beat Matt in his home league, but that feels like conspiracy to commit fraud, and again, I’m not into jail time.
3. Ron could hire Matt or convince a math professor at USF-St Petersburg to make a class project of creating a BABS inspired league that uses the best of BABS, RotoLab, BaseballHQ.com and the human factor to create a league format with greater variability of outcome and which cannot be dominated by a single strategy.
4. Ron can publish Matt’s technique, and league play will evolve to a draft all hitters first, then draft pitchers, which may result in something closer to what you want in game play.

That said, my Dad lives in Las Vegas and he knows some guys, if you decide to go with the Tonya Harding strategy.

Rich B.: Matt’s roster is very good but I don’t think it’s the ’76 Reds. The stats may indeed normalize enough for someone to catch him but his strategy (and execution of it) will be tough to overcome. As for what the rest of us can do… not much I’m afraid. We drafted our teams using (hopefully) the BABS process as much as we felt comfortable and now we let it play out.

Rich L.: It never even crossed my mind to punt the saves/holds category to ensure top finishes in two other categories. But mathematically it makes sense. Matt’s not gaming the system, he’s just using the format to his advantage. To expand on Tim’s suggestion, there could be designated spots for SPs and designated spots for RPs. There could be a designation for 4 SPs, 2 or 3 RPs, and 2 or 3 “swing” positions that could be either.

With about 60% of the season left, a lot can happen, but it would take a lot for someone to overtake Matt. Brian’s options might prove extremely tempting. I know some guys that know some guys in Memphis … oh never mind.

Greg: It deserves mention that Matt has 30 unused Holds & Saves on his bench! I think the real issue is the combination of fewer categories and more reserves. That would seem to increase the impact of streaming players and/or punting categories.

More ideas for tweaking the format:

• Consider a minimum number of active SP and RP slots and a maximum number of reserve SP and RP slots.
• Replace ERA with WHIP; it’s a much better qualitative ratio measure of pitcher effectiveness
• Replace HR with Total bases, which better reflects the full range of power.
• Replace BA with OBP, which includes batting Eye.

I also wonder if the combination of fewer categories and more reserves makes it harder to trade. I’ve tried to make a couple of trades over the past few weeks, but my potential trade partners and I couldn’t seem to match up our surpluses and our needs.

If all else fails, I should mention that my mother’s maiden name was Zarrillo and the family still has connections in Chicago. Just sayin’…

Dan: The rule of thumb in most roto leagues is that around 75% of the maximum point total is needed to win the league. For our league, 60 points would be the goal.  In 4×4, one way to get to 60 points is to dominate the four hitting categories and two of the counting stat pitching categories (innings pitched and strikeouts) while taking what you can in ERA and punting saves/holds. That appears to be what Matt has done.  With a well thought out draft plan (which Matt had) and some luck on the injury and playing time front (as Matt has) you can be competitive and/or win your league.

I believe Matt also got a jump on us with the draft rules. By not requiring that a team’s active 23-man roster be filled out before acquiring reserves, Matt was able to build up a roster of hitters which was high in both quality and quantity.  Halfway through the draft, Matt had filled out his 14 active hitter slots, had 2 starting pitchers and NINE hitters on reserve. After 25 rounds, the rest of us were just 2-3 players short of a full active roster. While we had been drafting lower quality pitching, Matt was stockpiling higher quality hitting. The flexibility that provides weekly as well as the added options in case of injury or slumps is where Matt’s advantage lies.

All in all, there’s a lot of season left, injuries and regression to navigate and lots of points to be had!  I’m not ready to hand the league over to Matt or anyone else yet.  With any luck, Matt will drift back in points to the mid-50s and someone will catch him.

I’m a former IBM’er from NY. If all else fails, I still have plenty of friends from the old neighborhood that may be able to assist.

Jim: I won’t threaten Matt as that has already been beaten to death. I will simply say that he has a very nice team and it would be a shame if something were to happen to it.

ON FRIDAY: Matt responds, enters the witness protection program, and I add a few final thoughts…