Week 13 has some interesting matchups on the docket. I feel you've gotta start with that Oakland Squirrels at Detroit Deacons matchup. But the Los Angeles Condors at New York Blackbirds is pretty interesting too. And I'm here for the Minnesota Gemini at Tampa Bay Turtles.

Week 15! Chicago and Memphis! Detroit and Montreal! And Tampa Bay and Oklahoma City! Let's do this! More Exclamation Points!!!!

Week 17 is going to come at you with: Los Angeles at Tampa Bay, Oklahoma City at Detroit, and Chicago at Boston could be a game!

Hey folks,

I'm going to take a pause on the schedule release because I want to take some time to go over the tiebreakers that we all had voted for. So in taking a look at what Fantrax can do, when it comes to regular season tiebreakers, the lone option Fantrax provides is "Home Team". And whereas in real life, home field advantage is a big deal, in the world of fantasy, it feels like a lousy way to take a loss, something based solely on how the schedule balanced out. So I collaborated with Gritty, and we wanted to re-open the discussions and vote on the AltLB Tiebreakers, what the options are, and have a vote for which way we'll proceed for this season.

Option 1: Exactly what we voted for. This option would see the continuation of the category based matchup results, and any results that end in a tie would see the home team rewarded with a win, and the away team rewarded with a loss. I can verify that the schedule will see all teams with a balance of 11 home and 11 road games, so you'll have an equal chance of getting the tiebreaker advantage.

Positives: We retain the category based scoring we had last year and we add in the tiebreaker, as was the most popular in the initial league meetings vote.

Negatives: A tie will result in a win/loss being given on something completely out of your team's control.

Option 2: We retain the Category based results and go without the tiebreaker.

Positives: We retain the Category based results that we voted on, it will retain familiarity due to it being the same as last year. A tie result counts as half a win and half a loss when it comes to results.

Negatives: We can, and will, still have ties, which feels very "un-baseball". Category based scoring doesn't reward a team for winning a category by a lot (10 HR to 2 HR is still one category win).

Option 3: Points based scoring.

Positives: Will make ties nearly non-existent, like the other Alt leagues we run, ties have happened, but are very infrequent. Brings scoring more in line with other Alt leagues.

Negatives: No Category based scoring, which Points Based scoring did not pass the vote in January league meetings.


Points based scoring and no tiebreaker have been brought back as an option as the Home Team tiebreaker may not be something people would want to see. This will be a ranked choice option, with 5 points to your Most Preferred, 3 points for the Second Option, and 1 point for your Least Preferred. I will leave this open until noon Eastern Time on Friday, February 24th.

Click this link to place your vote

Last edited by Dan O'Mac (2/20/2023 12:49 pm)

Following the vote on the Tiebreakers, we have a fairly definitive decision. As a reminder, this was a ranked choice vote with the "Most Preferred" option receiving 5 points, "Second Preference" receiving 3 points, and the "Least Preferred" option receiving 1 point. We had 13 responses from the 16 owners, however the three that did not respond would not have changed the outcome.

61 points - Points Based Scoring
37 points - Category scoring with no tiebreakers
19 points - Category scoring with home team tiebreakers

In this vote, the Points Based Scoring was the most preferred option on 11 of the 13 responses, with the other two going to the Category scoring with no tiebreakers. Category scoring with home team tiebreakers was the Least Preferred option on 10 of the 13 responses.

So how does this affect the league scoring? Well, it will be point based, obviously. We'll be rewarded for all the same things as last season, plus a couple extra things. This will include walks and hit by pitches, so the voted upon option of OBP will still be represented in the points based scoring. Additionally, pitchers will earn points for a Quality Start. A Quality Start is a game in which the starter completes at least 6 innings and permits no more than three earned runs. So a great way to reward those pitchers who pitch well, but then have the relievers lose the lead.

Here's the overall scoring:


This balances out that over the course of the season, the top hitters and top pitchers should be relatively similar in their points (the pitchers obviously have higher point numbers because they don't pitch as often as hitters play). If you have any comments or suggestions, please do not hesitate to message me here on the boards or on Discord.

Keepers are still due March 18th at noon eastern time. The sheet can be found HERE. If you get them in before, and things change, you can make updates up until the deadline. Draft is still planned for 8pm Eastern on March 25th.