My problem with holds: you can pitch miserably in what turns out to be a losing effort, and as long as your teams still has the lead when you skulk off the mound, you get the hold.

Unlike a lot of people. I like Quality Starts: simple and very much to the point. A 4.50 ERA may not be much to brag about, but if you throw nothing but Quality Starts, your ERA will be much better than that.

But isn't the quality of a start already reflected in two categories?

Mike's inherited baserunners idea is intriguing. Would it be a sixth category? That would be exciting.

And then maybe RBI percentage for hitters?

Change is good. Experiments, if nothing else, are educational. Let's figure out a way to improve, if not befuddle, the XFL!

I have no serious issues with a modified wins category but don't like the concept of holds and saves holding equivalent values. My thoughts on holds as a component of an all-encompassing relief pitcher category are well documented and after using RPI (saves +holds/2) in my home league for years it not only works, but works very well. How many save opportunities are there each season? How many hold opportunities? Should the contributions of the 6th inning middle reliever be held to the same value as the guy who gets the 27th out? I do believe the saves category in its current configuration is weighted to high in the overall category mix in a 5x5 format but introducing holds at an equivalent value will create the exact opposite situation. Hope that helps Alex!

So in 2014 values would shift some to starters (who are of course the only pitchers who can get a QS), and then in 2015 they would shift "back" some to increase the values of middle relievers and setup men.

I think the former is more defensible than the latter -- I think holds are far more bogus than even saves as a stat. If you want to increase the value of relievers apart from saves, maybe inherited runners percentage would be a better gauge than holds.

Long indeed!

The XFL, which to some extent is meant to be a lab league, is right now voting on two proposals from Ron Shandler.

> add Quality Starts to Wins as a category, starting in 2014

> add Holds to Saves as a category, starting in 2015

Thoughts?

I think it's Stage 4 withdrawal that you automatically click In-Progress to check your league's stats even though the season ended a week ago.

It's a long six months.

Would anybody be interested in checking my work on Doubt Wars before I post it? I've spot checked, but it would help to have some fresh eyes. If you're interested please email me at [email protected] and I'll email you the spreadsheet.

I think the winners are:

AL: Glenn Colton and Rick Wolf, with Andre Pappas first civilian.
Mixed: Tim George
NL: Jeremy Pelletier (who finished last in the AL)

Looking back at my roster I see Ryan Braun on it, no need to look further!

Next year we'll have daily updates, I'm pretty sure. This year I jumped in with both feet and landed in muck up to my knees.

I just posted the spreadsheet, which are the standings through September 3rd, so you can see all the teams. By Monday I'll post about who was taken most, and if that was a good idea or not.

I don't think Peter is doing daily updates. I've looked at my own team periodically and compared it to my two leagues to get an idea of how I'm performing. Peter is definitely a few days behind the actual standings with his update, so I'm hopeful that I can just over the one Doubt Wars roster ahead of me and maybe even the team that got each of its players for $1 cheaper than I did too and leads actual Tout Wars.

That NL bunch in middle of the NL Doubt looks eerily familiar as PCL names.

Eugene, is there an actual race, that is, daily standings, to watch in the AL Doubt?