The Crane Pool Forum

So arbitration starts tomorrow, meaning you will have about a month to boost the salaries of players on other teams.

i'm already done!

There is at least one available team as of now. Any takers in the forum?

the only good thing about the lockout is that i have more time to ponder my keepers. (or is that a bad thing...?)

I think I sent you (someone?) a trade offer. I guess we can still trade at this point?? Let's trade dudes!

i think that was me. i'm pondering...

We have two open spots, if anybody wishes to jump in.

join us! you know you want to! it's both fun AND challenging!

metsmarathon wrote: ↑Wed Feb 16, 2022 3:44 pm join us! you know you want to! it's both fun AND challenging!

Sell me on it. Is there a cost to enter? What level of time commitment is required? Can someone who is pretty dim about current baseball players have any hope of being competitive?

it's $20 to enter, and right now it's the only league i pay for.

i'd say that if you're looking for a thing you can spend a few minutes on each week, and let your team run itself while you occasionally check in on it, the league probably isn't for you.

rather, if you've played your share of yahoo or espn leagues and are looking for something that rewards you for putting more time and care into it - beyond just lucking into a good draft slot - then it might be a good fit.

i think that as much as the game is about getting good plyers, it's really at least as much about getting good value out of your players.

the basics are, it's a 12-team league, auction-draft, with rotisserie scoring. this particular league is a SABR-roto 4x4 scoring system, where you get ranked by R, HR, OBP, SLG and SO, ERA, WHIP, HR/9. you have a 40-player roster to deal with, including stashing minor leaguers, and are allotted $400 to field your team. it's also a keeper league, where player salaries automatically increment $2 each year. on top of that, there's a wrinkle of arbitration, where at the end of the season, you get a handful of dollars to assign to plyers on other teams to make their salaries more fair.

so for instance, let's say i magically had juan soto this year for $2. now that the season is over, his salary went up to $4 automatically. and since he's really low-salary, many of the other hypothetical owners assigned arbitration dollars to him, so now he's up to $23. that would be a big bump in this example. but he produces maybe $60 or $70 worth of production, so he'd still be dirt cheap in this wonderful fever dream.

there are other wrinkles like, if i cut a player midseason, he still counts 50% against my salary cap until someone else picks him up.

so, if ou like your fantasy baseball to stimulate your brain and force you to think it out, you'd probably enjoy it.

one thing that i really do like, is that it doesn't really reward you for being fast. for instance, in most leagues, players are free agents until someone snaps them up. first come, first served. sucks if you wake up late after some rookie nobody comes in and no-hits the mets. he'd be snapped up before your alarm clock even thinks about beeping.

on ottoneu, if someone wanted to add him, they would start an auction for him. and every owner would have 2 days to put in a blind bid for his services. highest bidder gets him. so its as much (perhaps more) about managing your payroll than it is knowing obscure players.

its also on fangraphs, so there's plenty of resources available to dive deeper on your players.

the time commitment isn't necessarily terrrible, except for the draft. the draft takes a loooong time, especially when there are new teams filling empty rosters. but the longer you stay in it, the better the values get. the initial league draft took two days. not 48 hours, but several hours over two nights. last year was maybe 3 hours, i think...? not sure.

but after that, you can probably get by with a few minutes a day to set your lineups, check for injuries and starting pitchers, see how you're doing, maybe peruse the free agent list, and move along.

oh yeah. one nice thing about it is that since the rate stats are so important for pitchers, and because you're on the hook for players you drop, there's really no such thing as streaming, which can get real annoying in a LOT of other leagues without transaction limits.

so.. if that all sounds terrible, well, sorry! but it sounds like an interesting challenge, please, sign up. we need more mets fans!

Metsmarathon, your check is in the mail.

LOL!

seriously, this is by far the most interesting league that i'm in.

like, in regular roto, as long as you don't hose up your draft too badly, you can make a lot of hay just by having the quickest fingers on the waiver wire. snag the new rookies as they're called up before your opponents have a chance.

that can't happen here. you have to play the whole game, balance your entire team. and hell, given the past few years' results, i'm not even all that good at it! (i'm REALLY bad at sticking to my pre-draft strategies, notably) but i love it, and am always trying to figure our how i can be a better manager.

I *love* the keeper-league aspect of this, because it requires you to really think about what you value and how much it's worth to your budget. And I love the categories and how middle relievers and bit players still have some value.

The day-to-day of it can, admittedly, be a bit much for me, and I'll go for a few days forgetting to set my lineup.

i always make a point of setting my lineup - especially starting pitchers - for the week, so that at least if i forget to check back in, i'm at least not leaving too many players on the bench. beyond that it's more a matter of managing who's hot, who's not, and who's hurt.

OK, so I'm aiming for a draft on or around Wednesday the 23rd. If you have a day/time preference, please let me know. Otherwise, I will give the CPF until next Saturday the 19th to claim the two open spots before I make them public.

i should be good for the 23rd, or thereabouts. preferably after 8:30, if at all possible, on a weeknight.

c'mon, other cpfers, join us!

I'm not available until 9:30 at the absolute earliest on Wednesday nights - that's the night I host quiz.

Hey guys,

Please check Ottoneu 2022 message board about the draft. I posted a message since 3/23 is coming up, and I don't think everyone in the league visits this site..

I suggested 3/23 draft at 8pm ET...which I now see may not work for Seawolf (sorry, should have checked here first). I think 9:30 would probably work for most people since the draft should not be too long. A different night is also an option. The main thing is we need to find a time that works for everyone...hopefully within the next 2 weeks. In my other league, the Ottoneu message board reaches most people.

BTW, there is still one team left to be claimed. If you are up for the challenge of a league with daily lineups, it is $20 well spent.

Is Whizzo Butter one of us?

If there are any objections to 9:30 on Wednesday, please let me know by 10 am tomorrow morning.

PS the league link is https://ottoneu.fangraphs.com/209/home.

I have done my three and a half minutes of research LETS DO THIS

i am so ready to be disappointed in myself over many an ill-considered, brash knee-jerk bid.

I don't have enough money to overbid so I'll be like a kid in a dollar store looking for discounted stuff that's been returned.

holy shit, it's been a precipitous decline these past two weeks...

I'm in 10th! The highest I've been in months!