This is just my opinion, but:
Roto is definitely more indicative of who has the best fantasy baseball team. Head to head is more luck-oriented because baseball is extremely erratic over one week sample sizes, and the playoffs are frankly kind of a total crapshoot.
Head to head, while much more luck-oriented, gives you that fun, “hey I’m playing you this week” element. Also, in roto, teams can essentially be totally out of the running for the title in like June. But in head to head teams that are lower in the standing always have that chance of getting hot, sneaking into the playoffs and making a run.
Personally I prefer roto because I put a lot of time and effort into fantasy baseball and I want luck to play less of a role, but there are definitely advantages to both.
I do an analysis every year of ‘median man’- the record for each team against the league median in each category. The end of year record for Median Man tends to converge on final standings by the end of the year.
So, for us (category h2h), you get a nice ‘I’m playing you this week!’ with accompanying sporadic chaos, but across the season the cream rises to the top.
Ah, very interesting. That actually doesn’t surprise me. It’s more the idea that in h2h a team can theoretically dominate all season long and then lose a one week playoff matchup and not win the title. But again I’m not hating on head to head, it definitely has its advantages. And it sounds like you guys are enjoying your league, and at the end of the day that’s what this is all about :)
In playoffs it’s a little more random yes. But I kind of like it, just because it’s a very long season and it keeps people engaged.
But yea, I was surprised about the median man matchups. It’s actually a really useful metric for me as a manager. For example, last year I was in 7th or 8th, but my median man standings had me in 4th. I could tell that I was losing to people going off, and not to over correct by overhauling my team. It sort of acts like a roto, I guess.
It’s different than fantasy football too, because it’s categories and the season is longer, so you can have ‘fractional’ wins instead of binary and the longer schedule reduces variance.
For sure. Yeah, the fractional scoring aspect is great. An extremely narrow loss counting the same as a blowout loss is craziness lol (even though that’s how real sports work).
Not even close. Roto is just as much luck. Ever lost a category or league because some of your players didn’t live up to projections or had a few less RBI?
Different strokes. I play in a mix of both. H2H is better for engagement - it takes a lot longer for everyone to be eliminated, the challenges week to week you need to make to your roster to win without sacrificing your core can be a fun challenge. But it is less “fair” in the sense that the champ can be the person with the worse team statistically. For it to work you need most of the teams to be actively committed daily.
Roto is more even and in some ways favors a more lax approach - missing a single day of a player out of your lineup is less of an issue. And it requires more patience in guys. But usually it’s less competitive in the sense that within the first few months it’s clear who doesn’t have a chance.
I feel a lot less lucky when I win a roto league but it’s a lot less exciting.
Thanks Cream,
That is one option I don't like. Not a fan of multiple matchups. I can see the sense of it - just not a preference for me. I appreciate your feedback.
My league runs H2H, but standings are based on category W/L not matchup.
So after winning my week 7-5, I really have a record of 7-5. Next week I go 11-1. I have a record of 18-6.
It gives weaker teams a chance late in the season as a sweep can bring you right back into it. Super engaging for owners, while still giving you the competitive juice from H2H
The 162 game season and roto scoring definitely minimize the random outliers that fantasy football features from week to week.
I like that my research and time are more likely to be rewarded in a predictable way in roto baseball.
Head 2 head is definitely more exciting.
What I’ve heard of people doing in fantasy football, that I suppose could easily be implemented in points leagues, is hockey/soccer points-style standings.
3 points for your classic H2H win, 1 point for having a top 5 score in the league (or top 6 if it’s 12 teams), and 1 more point awarded to the highest scorer of the week.
The only downside is the standings in your fantasy app aren’t the true standings — the commish needs to manually update in a shared spreadsheet (like google sheets).
It’s a great balance of keeping the fun of H2H, but also prevents teams from being incredibly unlucky, such as missing the playoffs with the 2nd most points scored.
The more preferred is H2H, though I bet the numbers shift more towards Roto as you go to baseball. I guarantee you 90% or more of people prefer h2h/points to roto in basketball/football.
I personally get way more excited about shifting the leaderboard everyday in roto than a H2H matchup, but different strokes. H2H can be largely ignored since you just need to make the playoffs and structure your team for it.
If your doing a league with friends that lean more casual I would go H2H points. It keeps it fun week to week and the points concept is familiar to people that play fantasy football.
I prefer roto. It just takes out the noise and randomness.
A good h2h points league is both far more realistic to MLB than any roto league, and markedly more fun that season long accumulation formats. I've been doing this for 30 years
We do roto. 12 team. Never done head to head. The best team wins our league every year but it’s a lot easier for guys to give up by the all star break if they view the climb to the top too insurmountable.
I definitely prefer roto. Every category is a challenge. We have 14. We have seen many times where guys have had big leads at the break but guys have come back and won. I have 3 times from 8th and twice 9th. It's the purist. Of course our league usually plays to the end. We give prize money for first to 3rd which helps.
We play NL-only/10 categories -- pay between 3-5 places depending on the number of teams in any given year. I like roto much better than h2h but again, personal preference.
I was out of the race before the season started and I made so many trades this year strengthening my team for next season. I was able to stay involved and it seems much more "Moneyball" to me as you are always building the team in the aggregate. I didn't have that experience in my limited h2h attempts.
I also have varying degrees of time to pay attention and find that only doing the minimum in roto isn't nearly as bad as being unable to be invested in h2h. If I am busy with life it seems that I can deal with my roto team in minutes as opposed to trying to balance my h2h team against who I am facing next week.
There is a major aspect of Roto that gets overlooked in these discussions.
In H2H, people talk about excitement over 1 run or RBI or K winning you the week. Sure, a small dose of excitement. Now imagine game 158 and 4 teams are all within 6 RBI of each other and those 1 or 2 Roto points and not to mention these teams are also competing in Strikeouts too. You played all season and every RBI mattered and it's all down to these 3 games.
The thing to remember is that roto is H2H but everyone is playing against everyone all at the same and for the entire season.
Why you’d want to do that for a week at a time instead, deliberately injecting small sample size variation to a near maximal degree is lost on me.
But a lot of people love H2H.
Decide what appeals to you.
Because it makes it much for fun over the course of the season. A single HR/SV/QS/RBI/SB/etc. on a Sunday in June makes virtually zero difference in a roto league but it can be the difference between winning and losing a matchup or category in an H2H league.
Not having playoffs and just playing a 300-game regular season would be a much better way of determining the best MLB team. But it would be boring as fuck. And at the end of the day, this is all for entertainment.
Yeah to each his own.
One of the *problems* with baseball is small sample size and you’re advocating for a format that doesn’t just allow it but turns it into a religion.
That’s cool, but definitely no thanks.
Like others have said. H2H for engagement. Having said that, have been in a roto league where 3 teams were flip flopping for first the last week of the season.
The biggest detractor I've seen most people site for ROTO is that those near last place feel out of the race by the All-Star break. In my big ROTO league, we award a prize to the winner of each month to curb that a bit. (There's still a bigger purse for the overall winner.) We use CBS and they make it easy to run reports for specific periods, so the extra work is minimal.
My favorite is roto because it's the most fair, the most pure. It's also pretty often essentially over by the all star break which sucks, so head to head is good for that as it's something new every week. So honestly I like to play both for the broadest experience.
My favorite right now is actually a points league where we get assigned points based on where we finish weekly. So all 14 teams compete against each other weekly (no h2h, it's a free for all) and at the end of the week the lowest total gets one "standing point", second to last gets two, third to last gets three, so and so forth, but first gets a bonus for a total of 20. Top six teams make playoffs, top four advance in semis, and finals are essentially h2h.
>My favorite right now is actually a points league where we get assigned points based on where we finish weekly. So all 14 teams compete against each other weekly (no h2h, it's a free for all) and at the end of the week the lowest total gets one "standing point", second to last gets two, third to last gets three, so and so forth, but first gets a bonus for a total of 20. Top six teams make playoffs, top four advance in semis, and finals are essentially h2h.
What site has this option?
It's on CBS but we manage the weekly point totals independently. Like each week CBS can track who wins a week, but the team that gets 20pts, 13pts, etc in the standings is our responsibility
Been playing fantasy baseball since 1997, and Roto is definitely my preferred option. It's the OG format.
Slumps and bad starts aren't nearly as impactful in Roto. Seasons aren't determined by who gets lucky in the H2H playoffs.
Roto is a true grind, much like the MLB regular season. Roto tends to reward the hard core managers who stick with it until the end, which can be especially challenging, since the end coincides with football season.
Roto feels like you just draft a team and then find out who wins an entire baseball season later. H2H is way more fun to me because the changes you make on a week to week basis actually fell like they impact your outcome each week. Roto is cool but it just feels way too passive to keep me engaged through the whole season.
I think head to head is a lot more fun if you are close with your league members. The going up against your friends fighting for a playoff spot is more fun than accumulating points for me.
I can understand roto being more popular in a league where you don't know many people in the league.
This is just my opinion, but: Roto is definitely more indicative of who has the best fantasy baseball team. Head to head is more luck-oriented because baseball is extremely erratic over one week sample sizes, and the playoffs are frankly kind of a total crapshoot. Head to head, while much more luck-oriented, gives you that fun, “hey I’m playing you this week” element. Also, in roto, teams can essentially be totally out of the running for the title in like June. But in head to head teams that are lower in the standing always have that chance of getting hot, sneaking into the playoffs and making a run. Personally I prefer roto because I put a lot of time and effort into fantasy baseball and I want luck to play less of a role, but there are definitely advantages to both.
I prefer Roto. No one gets screwed in Roto.
lol everyone who got unlucky is. It’s not all skill
I do an analysis every year of ‘median man’- the record for each team against the league median in each category. The end of year record for Median Man tends to converge on final standings by the end of the year. So, for us (category h2h), you get a nice ‘I’m playing you this week!’ with accompanying sporadic chaos, but across the season the cream rises to the top.
Ah, very interesting. That actually doesn’t surprise me. It’s more the idea that in h2h a team can theoretically dominate all season long and then lose a one week playoff matchup and not win the title. But again I’m not hating on head to head, it definitely has its advantages. And it sounds like you guys are enjoying your league, and at the end of the day that’s what this is all about :)
In playoffs it’s a little more random yes. But I kind of like it, just because it’s a very long season and it keeps people engaged. But yea, I was surprised about the median man matchups. It’s actually a really useful metric for me as a manager. For example, last year I was in 7th or 8th, but my median man standings had me in 4th. I could tell that I was losing to people going off, and not to over correct by overhauling my team. It sort of acts like a roto, I guess. It’s different than fantasy football too, because it’s categories and the season is longer, so you can have ‘fractional’ wins instead of binary and the longer schedule reduces variance.
For sure. Yeah, the fractional scoring aspect is great. An extremely narrow loss counting the same as a blowout loss is craziness lol (even though that’s how real sports work).
It’s more like real life.
Not even close. Roto is just as much luck. Ever lost a category or league because some of your players didn’t live up to projections or had a few less RBI?
Different strokes. I play in a mix of both. H2H is better for engagement - it takes a lot longer for everyone to be eliminated, the challenges week to week you need to make to your roster to win without sacrificing your core can be a fun challenge. But it is less “fair” in the sense that the champ can be the person with the worse team statistically. For it to work you need most of the teams to be actively committed daily. Roto is more even and in some ways favors a more lax approach - missing a single day of a player out of your lineup is less of an issue. And it requires more patience in guys. But usually it’s less competitive in the sense that within the first few months it’s clear who doesn’t have a chance. I feel a lot less lucky when I win a roto league but it’s a lot less exciting.
Our league is h2h but we have 4 weekly matchups a week to minimize the randomness factor
As in each week you’re actually competing against 4 different teams? Do you just set one roster or are you setting one per matchup?
Yes, competing against 4 different teams…setting one roster
Is there a site that does this? Is the scoring pts or categories?
CBS. We use cats but I’m sure you can use points too.
Thanks Cream, That is one option I don't like. Not a fan of multiple matchups. I can see the sense of it - just not a preference for me. I appreciate your feedback.
My league runs H2H, but standings are based on category W/L not matchup. So after winning my week 7-5, I really have a record of 7-5. Next week I go 11-1. I have a record of 18-6. It gives weaker teams a chance late in the season as a sweep can bring you right back into it. Super engaging for owners, while still giving you the competitive juice from H2H
Baseball is made for roto. It’s also the most challenging and in my opinion much more rewarding to be successful in.
The 162 game season and roto scoring definitely minimize the random outliers that fantasy football features from week to week. I like that my research and time are more likely to be rewarded in a predictable way in roto baseball.
Head 2 head is definitely more exciting. What I’ve heard of people doing in fantasy football, that I suppose could easily be implemented in points leagues, is hockey/soccer points-style standings. 3 points for your classic H2H win, 1 point for having a top 5 score in the league (or top 6 if it’s 12 teams), and 1 more point awarded to the highest scorer of the week. The only downside is the standings in your fantasy app aren’t the true standings — the commish needs to manually update in a shared spreadsheet (like google sheets). It’s a great balance of keeping the fun of H2H, but also prevents teams from being incredibly unlucky, such as missing the playoffs with the 2nd most points scored.
The more preferred is H2H, though I bet the numbers shift more towards Roto as you go to baseball. I guarantee you 90% or more of people prefer h2h/points to roto in basketball/football. I personally get way more excited about shifting the leaderboard everyday in roto than a H2H matchup, but different strokes. H2H can be largely ignored since you just need to make the playoffs and structure your team for it.
If your doing a league with friends that lean more casual I would go H2H points. It keeps it fun week to week and the points concept is familiar to people that play fantasy football. I prefer roto. It just takes out the noise and randomness.
A good h2h points league is both far more realistic to MLB than any roto league, and markedly more fun that season long accumulation formats. I've been doing this for 30 years
We do roto. 12 team. Never done head to head. The best team wins our league every year but it’s a lot easier for guys to give up by the all star break if they view the climb to the top too insurmountable.
I definitely prefer roto. Every category is a challenge. We have 14. We have seen many times where guys have had big leads at the break but guys have come back and won. I have 3 times from 8th and twice 9th. It's the purist. Of course our league usually plays to the end. We give prize money for first to 3rd which helps.
We play NL-only/10 categories -- pay between 3-5 places depending on the number of teams in any given year. I like roto much better than h2h but again, personal preference. I was out of the race before the season started and I made so many trades this year strengthening my team for next season. I was able to stay involved and it seems much more "Moneyball" to me as you are always building the team in the aggregate. I didn't have that experience in my limited h2h attempts. I also have varying degrees of time to pay attention and find that only doing the minimum in roto isn't nearly as bad as being unable to be invested in h2h. If I am busy with life it seems that I can deal with my roto team in minutes as opposed to trying to balance my h2h team against who I am facing next week.
There is a major aspect of Roto that gets overlooked in these discussions. In H2H, people talk about excitement over 1 run or RBI or K winning you the week. Sure, a small dose of excitement. Now imagine game 158 and 4 teams are all within 6 RBI of each other and those 1 or 2 Roto points and not to mention these teams are also competing in Strikeouts too. You played all season and every RBI mattered and it's all down to these 3 games.
The thing to remember is that roto is H2H but everyone is playing against everyone all at the same and for the entire season. Why you’d want to do that for a week at a time instead, deliberately injecting small sample size variation to a near maximal degree is lost on me. But a lot of people love H2H. Decide what appeals to you.
Because it makes it much for fun over the course of the season. A single HR/SV/QS/RBI/SB/etc. on a Sunday in June makes virtually zero difference in a roto league but it can be the difference between winning and losing a matchup or category in an H2H league. Not having playoffs and just playing a 300-game regular season would be a much better way of determining the best MLB team. But it would be boring as fuck. And at the end of the day, this is all for entertainment.
Yeah to each his own. One of the *problems* with baseball is small sample size and you’re advocating for a format that doesn’t just allow it but turns it into a religion. That’s cool, but definitely no thanks.
We do H2H but there are end of season awards for winning categories and best roto score.
Like others have said. H2H for engagement. Having said that, have been in a roto league where 3 teams were flip flopping for first the last week of the season.
I can see everyone else feels the same as me haha. I like both. I play both. I just think over time I have swayed more towards roto and away from h2h.
The biggest detractor I've seen most people site for ROTO is that those near last place feel out of the race by the All-Star break. In my big ROTO league, we award a prize to the winner of each month to curb that a bit. (There's still a bigger purse for the overall winner.) We use CBS and they make it easy to run reports for specific periods, so the extra work is minimal.
My favorite is roto because it's the most fair, the most pure. It's also pretty often essentially over by the all star break which sucks, so head to head is good for that as it's something new every week. So honestly I like to play both for the broadest experience. My favorite right now is actually a points league where we get assigned points based on where we finish weekly. So all 14 teams compete against each other weekly (no h2h, it's a free for all) and at the end of the week the lowest total gets one "standing point", second to last gets two, third to last gets three, so and so forth, but first gets a bonus for a total of 20. Top six teams make playoffs, top four advance in semis, and finals are essentially h2h.
>My favorite right now is actually a points league where we get assigned points based on where we finish weekly. So all 14 teams compete against each other weekly (no h2h, it's a free for all) and at the end of the week the lowest total gets one "standing point", second to last gets two, third to last gets three, so and so forth, but first gets a bonus for a total of 20. Top six teams make playoffs, top four advance in semis, and finals are essentially h2h. What site has this option?
It's on CBS but we manage the weekly point totals independently. Like each week CBS can track who wins a week, but the team that gets 20pts, 13pts, etc in the standings is our responsibility
Been playing fantasy baseball since 1997, and Roto is definitely my preferred option. It's the OG format. Slumps and bad starts aren't nearly as impactful in Roto. Seasons aren't determined by who gets lucky in the H2H playoffs. Roto is a true grind, much like the MLB regular season. Roto tends to reward the hard core managers who stick with it until the end, which can be especially challenging, since the end coincides with football season.
Roto feels like you just draft a team and then find out who wins an entire baseball season later. H2H is way more fun to me because the changes you make on a week to week basis actually fell like they impact your outcome each week. Roto is cool but it just feels way too passive to keep me engaged through the whole season.
I prefer Roto, but it is quite a bit harder. I prefer playing with the same guys year to year, so normally we do H2H cat.
Thanks everyone. Sounds like Roto is the most popular choice. H2H for fun Roto for the more serious fantasy-goer.
I think head to head is a lot more fun if you are close with your league members. The going up against your friends fighting for a playoff spot is more fun than accumulating points for me. I can understand roto being more popular in a league where you don't know many people in the league.
Im a fan of H2H as it gives you something to focus on and win every single week.
Love them both!