In the draft, I prioritized getting speed.

Here's last years stolen base numbers:
Michael Bourn: 61
Coco Crisp: 49
B.J. Upton: 36
Dustin Pedroia: 26
Chris Young: 22
Justin Upton: 21

In all, ESPN had me projected for 241 Stolen Bases. Easily the #1 team in the league.

Now, as the first matchup comes to a close, I take a look at my team to see the leader in stolen bases. It's Aramis Ramirez, who after last night has a total of 18 steals in his 15 year MLB career.

Seriously guys?

I'm #1 in the category for now! Which is odd, because that's never been something I get a lot of.

"Down for the count?" As far as I know, he's going to be gone for 1-2 months unless he had serious tissue damage. It svcks, but we should be able to hold up without him for the time being.
My stealers are Pedroia, Bonifacio, Jeter (meh), Melky Cabrera, Chris Young, and B.J. Upton. I did have Castro who had the most steals on my roster, but traded him. I've been considering picking up Jennings, but don't feel like he's worth replacing anyone on my roster.

On the other hand, I took over first place yesterday with absolutely monster performances from Cain, Beckett, and a couple of my relievers. I've only gotten one save (from Marmol, no less), though, which is really annoying. The most any team in my league has is 10 .

I'm really really amazed at how close my matchup is. Every category will be up for grabs tomorrow.

Going to be a good finish sbr.

No kidding. I just looked at my team and saw that my hitters were having a great day 9-3-9-0-1.050) then saw that you were having an even better day (9-4-13-3-.957)

I want to use the word parity, but I don't think it's appropriate in the first week. Just an exciting first week all around then.

Wow, that's crazy. I'm in 1st place by 8 points (roto) and only trail in RBIs, strikeouts, saves and ERA. It would be kind of nice for the league to be more of a nail-biter right now, but I can't complain with being in 1st .

In other news, I'm adding Jim Johnson from waivers in exchange for Johnny Venters (provided nobody outbids me). I figure I'd rather have an extra 35+ saves than an extra 30+ strikeouts, I should be able to make up a bunch of strikeouts since I have an extra starter on the bench now.

Well, check this out. We are H2H, Category:

R: 58-58
HR: 16-15
RBI: 50-49
SB: 6-6
OPS: .8295-.7763
K: 71-63
W: 6-3
SV: 3-4
ERA: 3.440-3.148
WHIP: 1.263-1.090

We both have one starter going tomorrow. (I have Jiminez, he has Westbrook).

Sounds exciting. Make sure to post what happens. Here are my stats:

Runs: 67 (lead)
HR: 18 (lead)
RBI: 58 (2nd)
SB: 15 (lead)
BA: .325 (lead)
K: 75 (T-2nd)
W: 8 (lead)
SV: 1 (6th, dead last )
ERA: 4.30 (5th)
WHIP: 1.16 (1st)

I'm also first in innings pitched (which gives extra weight to my bloated ERA) and tied for 2nd in games started. Without Castro I expect my steals to regress a little bit, but I'm sure I'll still be in the top 2 by the end of the season. I really just need my closers' teams to start getting some save opportunities. They've been performing pretty well (my friend who dropped Marmol also has Wilson who'll be out for the season soon; he really got screwed there) but just haven't gotten many chances.

Alright, since I had some time on my hands I present to you the first match up's top player from each team.

Top Players:

Gauchos:
Josh Willingham 7/4/7/1/1.384 (18.7 RAW)

Rockers:
Josh Hamilton 10/4/6/0/1.137 (17.1 RAW)

Drinkers:
Roy Halladay 8/2/0/0.60/0.53 (17.1 RAW)

Infection:
Cameron Maybin 8/1/2/3/0.567 (11.3 RAW)

Giraffes:
David Freese 6/3/11/0/1.112 (15.0 RAW)

Warriors:
Corey Hart 7/4/8/0/1.314 (17.1 RAW)

NinjaFish:
Chad Billingsley 15/2/0/0.63/0.63 (19.3 RAW)

Braves:
Andre Either 5/3/15/0/1.030 (16.3 RAW)

Chowdah:
Matt Kemp 13/6/16/1/1.548 (30.2 RAW)

Horkers:
Chris Young 6/4/11/2/1.293 (21.6 RAW)

Rams:
Starlin Castro 6/0/7/6/0.831 (17.6 RAW)

XII:
Javy Guerra 5/1/5/0.00/0.67 (23.8 RAW)

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RAtwar-Wins (or RAW for short) is an all encompassing stat to compare players. The short explanation is that larger is better. The long explanation is to take a statistics class. The medium explanation is as follows:

(Player 1 RAW - Player 2 RAW)/20*(Number of Match ups played) = Number of Wins Player One is worth relative to Player 2.

For example:
Matt Kemp is worth 30.2 RAW
Chris Young is worth 21.6 RAW
We're one match up into the season

(30.2-21.6)/20*1 = .43

So Matt Kemp has been worth .43 wins in the standings more than Chris Young.

Neat.

Now lets compare where those players were drafted. I got mine in the 20th round.

EDIT: Post fail. Sorry

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You created a stat that's basically WAR solely for our league? You are my hero.

Someone stole Jim Johnson out from right under my nose last night . I had a bid of $10 on him, and the other guy had $15.

I also had a $2 bid on Carlos Pena to replace Freddie Freeman (who has done NOTHING this season), but was outbid with a $20 shot. I'm not so upset about that, since there are a few other guys who haven't been picked up that are pretty comparable to Pena (I've been thinking Lind, though I'm just waiting for him to rebound a bit).

How does this work? Like gaining points etc?

If it's points based, then each statistical category is given a certain point total. For instance, a home run would be worth 5 points.

In our league, it's whoever wins each category. Example: I have 2 HR's at the end of a match, but my opponent has 1. I win that category. The team that wins the most categories out of the ten, wins the match-up.

All of the days stats are based on real-time player stats. So, if Matt Kemp goes 4/4, 2 R 1 HR 4 RBI 4SB. He would have a pretty good .OPS, but my math isn't coming out right I don't think. Anyway, all of those stats go towards your cumulative totals for each respective category.

Basically what Thadeus said. We have Runs, HR, RBI, Stolen Bases, OPS on the offensive side, and Strikeouts, Wins, Saves, ERA, and WHIP on the pitching side. We each drafted a team of players, and those players stats in each category are added up over the course of a week. At the end of the week, if you're leading in a category you get a win, if you're losing in a category you get a loss, and if you tie then you get a tie. For example, I led in 4 out of the 10 categories this week, so I'm currently 4-6-0.

I won 6-4 but it was a very close match-up the whole week. It could have gone either way going into Sunday.

Siv and I were both 4-6 against the league average.

League averages for week 1:

Runs: 60.25
HR: 14.8
RBI: 54.5
SB: 8.8
OPS: 0.764
K: 77.6
Wins: 5.2
Saves: 4.75
ERA: 3.73
WHIP: 1.24

The Gauchos were the best team against the average at 8-2. 2 teams were 6-4, 2 teams were 5-5, 4 teams were 4-6, 2 teams 3-7 and one at 2-8.

"Man, I screwed the Pooch in my first 19 Picks, but boy did I really nail the 20th!"


As long as you're okay with a lack of statistical rigor and no real definition of the value of a replacement then sure.

If you're wondering a very very general estimate for a 'Replacement' player would be 5.0 RAW.

You know it.

Also, I edited my post above, I screwed up the average forumla in the spreadsheet giving me the wrong numbers.

I was just using WAR as a comparison because they both accomplish the goal of valuing players.

It was very much inspired by WAR (hence the name RAW), and I am hoping to get a value for replacement players to make it even more similar. Though I am afraid to admit that the lack of statistical rigor will remain indefinitely.

It seems to me that it would be much harder to nail down for a fantasy league, but then I'm no expert.

As much as I hate rooting for the Yankees, Jeter's been killing it to start the season and has been a more than adequate replacement for Castro (even though I had them both before I traded the latter).

Also, Freeman has been a total bust for me...I need to drop him.