Seattle Sports Insider Post from folks Pining for the Fasano Format, originally known as Grandstand Fantasy Baseball invented by Scott Axelrod.
See a word from Scott below:
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When you said, "Shame nobody wrote down that scoring system," I agreed, because it was easily the most playable fantasy game I've seen.
And your phrasing kind of made something go DING in my addled mind...
Went out to the garage and fished out a 1999 Macintosh... in it, I'd saved the 1998 Grandstand points leaders...
Was an interesting experiment trying to reconstruct the points, because GS used to publish those lists with a few columns missing :- ) such as R and GIDP... Hey, Ghost, isn't there an Excel function, or some site on the net, that could take a table like fantasy points leaders, their categories and points, and automatically extract the formula used to find the final column points?
This system created nicely proportional impacts on a weekend's matchup - for example, a Felix lockdown would give you 30 or 35 points; a closer save would give you what, 15?, and a nice hold by a Brandon League would give you 7 or 8...
A big game by a hitter might give you 10 points or so...
I'll go put this system up in the SSI Smackdown and you can see what you think of the results.
=== SABR Corner, Dept. ===
I would actually defend this system as much more sabermetric than it appears at first glance.
Baseball is about bases gained and bases lost. There is also a thumb on the scale for coordinating those bases to get the 4th base, home plate, so a little bonus for R and RBI is appropriate IMHO.
........
The SB/CS values "should" be +1 and -2, but ..... hold on. Giving "extra" points to SB's encourages you to draft fast players .... and in real life, those fast players give you hidden bases taking first to third, right?
.........
Sportswriters sniff at the concept of "Quality Starts," but MLB managers from McGraw to LaRussa have regarded QS part of the fabric of their strategy.
You get a QS on Friday night, your chances of winning approach 70%, with no other information. I call that a relevant stat.
xFIP does not capture [Quality x Quantity / Single Event-Game I/O Outcome]. QS yields useful information.
.........
Anyway, the game wasn't perfect, but played fast and smooth and the owners had a lot of confidence that UP seasons by MLB players would pay off in Grandstand championships.
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=== The Weekly Format ===
Hey Justin - we forgot -
Grandstand used to award 3 wins per series, not one: A point for pitching, a point for hitting, and an overall point.
Don't s'pose we can do that?
A big part of the playability was trying to salvage a 1-2 loss on a bad series, or trying for a big 3-0 blasting of your rival when things were rolling.
It also prevented owners from rolling out imbalanced teams.
.........
It also ran matchups from Mon-Thur and Fri-Sun, with the result that you'd have 6 (legitimate) W's and L's per week ... The 1998 regular season had MajorSlug, BABVA and Men Behaving Badly (Justin) all in the 84-51 range.
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Fun stuff,
Jemanji
Grandstand Fantasy Baseball
Scott Axelrod
9/23/11 5:59am
Hi Jemanji,
I was very excited to see that some people were still discussing the Grandstand Fantasy games. I was the creator of the baseball game you were been trying to piece together online. I was one of the founders of The Grandstand and when we sold to AOL I became their employee. You may have dealt with me, but more likly GSFS John (Da Commish)?
These posts brought back such great memories. We spent many nights piecing together what the game should look like and act like - keeping just one thing in mind - member experience. Did the game look like you were entering a something more than just a numbers game? We had the nice front page and wanted people to select their lineup by choosing their staters listed on a playing field - not a blank white page. We wanted wins and losses - so every series starts you off fresh. Most of all, we wanted a point system that made sense. We wanted there to be a reason to have a slick fielding SS - maybe he is a weak bat but his true value might be equal to someone batting 50 pts higher.
When I left AOL they brought in new people that bought in to this idea that eyeballs meant more than real cash. They wanted to create a generic game and sell a sponsor to Sears - the deal fell through. And it got worse from there....oh well.
THANK YOU for remembering this game. I loved building it as a fan and for our members - I am so happy you enjoyed it and still do.
Scott Axelrod
Stag5@aol.com - but I never use that anymore :)
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