Spring Is In the Air, and So Are Statistics
Posted March 9, 2005

As the 2005 Major League Baseball season approaches, so does the 2005 Fantasy Baseball season. This is just another reason why March and April perennially rule. 2005 will mark my eighth season as a member of Russ’s Rotisserie Baseball League (RRBL), perhaps the premier Rotisserie baseball league in southwest Missouri. While I’ve never won the league, I’ve finished in the money four out of seven seasons, and maybe this will be my big year. By God, it’s bound to happen sometime. Throughout the 2005 season I fully intend to provide you, the gentle, unsuspecting reader, with constant updates on the 2005 version of the Roundballs, my RRBL team. Let me start with how this all works. In the RRBL, rosters consist of 24 players, which are as follows:

-2 catchers
-1 first baseman
-1 third baseman
-1 corner infielder (first or third)
-1 second baseman
-1 shortstop
-1 middle infielder (second or short)
-5 outfielders
-2 utility players (any offensive position or DH)
-9 pitchers (relief or starters)

There are 14 RRBL teams and their owners may acquire players from either the American or National League. The statistical categories used in the RRBL are as follows:

-Hitting: Batting average, home runs, runs batted in, runs scored, and stolen bases
-Pitching: Wins, earned run average, Walks + hits per nine innings pitched, strikeouts, and saves.

Teams are rewarded points for how high in the standings they are in each category. If you are first in home runs, you’ll get 14 points in that category because there are 14 teams and you are leading. If you’re second you’ll get 13 points and so on. All of your category points are added together for your total amount of points, which is what teams are ranked on.

You have a $260 salary cap (in imaginary dollars) to fill your roster. This figures to be $10.83 per player. Before the season you can declare up to nine players on your roster as “franchise players.” These players will be auctioned off in a separate draft prior to the actual free agent draft. All a team has to do to retain one of their franchise players is match the highest bid on that player. If the player’s owner thinks that the bid is too high, or simply doesn’t want to keep the player, the owner can let the player go to the highest bidder. Here’s an example: let’s say that I have Ichiro Suzuki as a franchise player. All of the members in the league want him and the highest bid is $40, which I think is too much to pay for him. I could just say that I match that bid to keep him, or say that the highest bidder can have him. This draft usually consists of around 60 players and is held two weeks before the free agent draft.

In the free agent draft you simply throw out a player and begin bidding on him. Once the bidding ends, the highest bidder gets the player. By the end of the free agent draft you must have filled all of the positions on your roster and stay under the $260 salary cap. At the conclusion of this draft you must sign all of your players to contracts, which vary in length from one to three seasons. Three year contracts are limited to nine per team, while two year deals are held to seven. One year contracts are unlimited and perhaps the most common because of the risk involved in drafting many players. The contract system is good for rewarding owners who did their homework and pick up a great player cheap, before he breaks out as a star.

With all of this said, my next piece of writing will be a breakdown of just how I did in the franchise draft. Needless to say, I’m excited. Here are the 12 players I have returning from last season, along with their contracts and salaries:

1B - Aubrey Huff, TB ($10, 2005)
3B - Mark Teixeira, TEX ($18, 2006)
2B - Alex Cintron, ARI ($4, 2006)
SS - Angel Berroa, KC ($14, 2006)
OF - Austin Kearns, CIN ($12, 2005)
OF - Milton Bradley, LA ($9, 2006)
P - Matt Clement, BOS ($16, 2005)
P - Javier Vazquez, ARI ($13, 2005)
P - Rich Harden, OAK ($8, 2006)
P - Jason Isringhausen, STL ($12, 2005)
P - Braden Looper, NYM ($1, 2005)

Before I return to draft preparation, let me say a few choice words about the dozen players I have returning this season. I have nothing but praise for the work of Teixeira, Huff, Harden, Isringhausen, and even Looper. But the rest, they have me angry at them for one reason or another. Cintron failed to do as expected last season. Berroa had the most awful sophomore slump in recent memory. Kearns breaks in half every, single May. Bradley likes to cuss, throw things, and have very little power. Clement shows signs of being dominant and then walks the earth. And as for Javier Vazquez, he apparently left his awesomeness in Montreal. With all of this said, I’m still very optimistic about my team and what I can do with the money I have left over. I have a few players up in the franchise draft and some of them (namely Vladimir Guerrero) must certainly be retained. I’ll return with analysis from my first or two drafts in 2005.