Should we reintroduce wins for pitchers?

Prior to the start of the 2021 season, FBUK’s pitching scoring system was altered after consultation with fantasy team managers. It was felt that scoring was weighted too much in favour of pitchers compared to hitters. The details are on the ‘Change to pitching points’ forum thread but the biggest change was to completely remove wins, which had previously awarded 20 points to starters or 10 points for a relief win.

Here is the current scoring system

After two seasons using the updated system, and following recent feedback from some managers, it is possible the scoring is now weighted too much towards hitters! Looking at the top fantasy performers by total points for the completed 2022 season, only two pitchers appear in the Top 20 (seven in the Top 40); the vast majority are hitters.

A couple of simple suggestions to create a better balance between the value of hitters and starting pitchers would be:

• Either reintroduce wins as a scoring category but set much lower than before, e.g. 8 points, and limited to starters (if technically possible)
• Or award a bonus for a ‘quality start’, e.g. 5 points (a QS is defined in MLB as a
  starter who pitches at least six innings and gives up fewer than three runs)

Either of those amendments would have increased the number of pitchers in this season’s Top 20 from two to seven.

Please let me know what you think via the forum poll above and in the comments section below. As ever, the poll results are not binding!

Thanks,

Tim

• This topic was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by FBUK.

[Redbaron 07 @redbaron-07]

I played around with the points for a “win”…….and it seems that 7 or 8 points for a “win” works best, It would mean that the top 20 FL scorers between hitters & starters would be split more evenly. 10 points would be too much….and would see the top-20 mostly populated by Starters.

I can see several advantages

1) Fairer system between hitters & starters in terms of their value.

2) More attractive to select lower ranked & low strike-out Starters playing on good teams with more chances of a “win” (e.g Tyler Anderson, Max Fried, Miles Mikolas, Jordan Montgomery etc etc)

3) Providing a balance between the value for hitters & starters, might encourage more “trading”. It was hard to suggest trading for a Starter who was likely to score 600 – 700+ pts over the season for a decent hitter that would end up scoring 700 – 800+ pts. Their relative values were too lop-sided in favour of hitters.

 

 

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Redbaron 07.

[Jonathan @jonathan]

I’m not in favour of win points for starters, there are a number of situations where a good pitching performance doesn’t result in a “deserved” win. Examples include bullpen implosion, no run support, error prone or substandard defence. The idea of rewarding Quality Starts is a better option in my view.

Despite a distinctly average performance by my team I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this fantasy season. A big lesson was to prepare better for the draft, some poor / unfortunate choices blighted the whole season….. I’d be interested to see others’ comments!

Jonathan (Weebles)

[Stuart Burnett @stuart_burnett]

I agree with Jonathan that Quality Start is a much better stat for the performance of a pitcher, and also much less frustrating for a fantasy manager.

We could also consider removing the point penalty for walking a batter (especially for ‘intentional walks’ which are nothing to do with pitcher performance). Walks are obviously bad news for a pitcher, but to some extent that is factored into the contribution they make to potential earned runs.

Some other ideas for levelling the field between pitchers and hitters could be to penalise hitters who are ‘caught stealing’, or who ‘ground into double plays’ (maybe -1 point for each).

There is also some logic in reducing the home run score from 5 points to 4, which would then equate to 1 point per base (in line with singles, doubles and triples).

 

A final unrelated suggestion, not sure if it is technically possible, but for hitters, it would be good if the ‘Games Played’ limit could be a ‘Games Started’ limit. It is frustrating when you lose a whole game played to a pinch hit appearance from a player on a ‘rest’ day.

Otherwise, despite back-to-back second place finishes, the game is great fun to play and I’ll be back next year.

Thanks for all you do in running the game.

[Redbaron 07 @redbaron-07]

I could also live 5 pts for a “Quality Start”…..Johnny Cueto (CWS) would have done really well this season!  😉

[gregor @gregor]

I would agree that awarding points for quality starts is a good idea.  It would create a bigger differential between moderate pitchers who strike out a few hitters in 4 or 5 innings & the top dogs regularly going 7 or 8 innings while levelling up hitting & piching points. (Nothing to do with me drafting 4 of the top 15 scoring pitchers & having a total season-long injury nightmare with my hitters this year!!)

I don’t like the idea of awarding points for wins because that often has less to do with the starting pitcher & more to do with having a weak bullpen and/or strong opposition.

Thanks as ever for running the games!

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by gregor.

[FBUKCommissionerTopic Author @fbuk]

I did some more number crunching based on the 2022 final stats:

• Using the existing system, there is only one pitcher in the top 20 highest-scoring players (Sandy Alcantara)
• If 5 points were awarded per quality start, it would have increased to seven pitchers sprinkled throughout the top 20
• As per one of the other suggestions above, if we also reduced home runs from 5 to 4 points as well as awarding QS to pitchers, that would have created an almost 50/50 split: nine pitchers and 11 hitters in the top 20

[Redbaron 07 @redbaron-07]

FBUK wrote:

I did some more number crunching based on the 2022 final stats:

• Using the existing system, there is only one pitcher in the top 20 highest-scoring players (Sandy Alcantara)
• If 5 points were awarded per quality start, it would have increased to seven pitchers sprinkled throughout the top 20
• As per one of the other suggestions above, if we also reduced home runs from 5 to 4 points as well as awarding QS to pitchers, that would have created an almost 50/50 split: nine pitchers and 11 hitters in the top 20

 

I would go with the option of 5 pts for a quality start and leave HR untouched…..after all there are far more positional players than Starters+ Closers in MLB baseball