Provided By JasperStats

How It Works

  1. The basics

    1. What is fantasy/roto baseball?

    2. How are roto teams scored?

    3. Scoring periods: two approaches.

    4. Why a stat service?

    5. How would my league use JasperStats?

  2. The JasperStats Commissioner's Page

  3. Member's Entrance (Scoring Reports)

  4. Scouting Reports

  5. Subscription Information and Terms of Service

  6. Change Log (Official scorer's changes)

  7. Sample Report

  8. League Finder

What is fantasy/roto baseball?

Roto and fantasy ball are related games that are variations on a basic theme.

The idea is to assemble an imaginary baseball team, composed of real players, that accumulates better statistics than the imaginary teams assembled by others.

What usually happens is, two or more people decide to form a roto league. Each person will "own" a team, and each team will consist of actual major league ballplayers. Before the season starts, all the owners agree on the league's rules. The most important rules to agree on are: which statistical categories the league will use to calculate its scores?

Among the most commonly used categories are batting average, home runs, runs batted in, and stolen bases, for hitters; and wins, saves, earned run average, and WHIP ratio (walks plus hits allowed, divided by innings pitched), for pitchers.

Then, the league holds a draft. As an owner, you try to pick the real baseball players you hope will do better in those scoring categories than the players the other owners pick. And that, basically, is it. Scoring is determined by each team's ranking in each statistical category.

Six months later, you find out if you made the smartest picks, or someone else made the luckiest ones.

How are roto teams scored?

Teams are ranked according to their performance in each category, and awarded points on that basis. For example: in a league consisting of 6 teams, the team that finishes first in home runs receives 6 points, the second-place home run team gets 5 points, third place gets 4, and so on to the last place team, which gets one point. (Ties split the points, so each team in a tie for first place, for example, would get 5 and a half points.) This is repeated for each scoring category. Then each team's points in each scoring category are added together to arrive at a grand total on which league standings are based.

Scoring periods: two approaches.

Leagues permit roster changes at regular intervals, usually every week. There are two different philosophies about how they tally the points, however. In the JasperStats "How it Works" pages, these philosophies are referred to as "annual-only" (A/O) leagues and Interval Scoring (I/S) leagues.

A/O leagues tabulate their scores only once, at the end of the year. For each team in these leagues, the scores are determined by using the statistics compiled by all players for only those periods during which they were on the active roster. For these leagues, the daily updates provide a running tab of the league standings, showing who would win if the season ended that day. If you add together the points for all teams, the sum will be the same at the end of the year as it was after the first week of the year.

By contrast, I/S leagues tabulate their scores at a regular interval, usually weekly (to coincide with the roster changes), and add their scores together as the year progresses. In these leagues, scores are tabulated at the close of the first scoring period, and owners make their roster changes for the coming week. The new scoring period is considered a "clean slate": the scores that each team collects in the second scoring period will be added to the scores each team collected in the first; later, the scores collected in the third week will be added to those of the first two weeks combined; and so on, until the end of the season, when teams will be racking up scores into the hundreds or thousands. For these leagues, the daily updates provide a running tab of who is winning in the current scoring period only.

Why a stat service?

A stat service is worth looking into for anyone who's tried keeping track of the scores by hand, or who would like detailed and easy-to-use scoring reports, or who would like to be able to see their scores and standings updated daily, or who would like to use daily transactions, or would like their scoring reports archived from the beginning of the year, or would like to prepare scouting reports just for players who are not already on one of their league's rosters, or who would like direct links from each player on their roster to a number of useful tools for analyzing player performance. At seventy-three cents a week, JasperStats is even less than a subscription to USA Today's Baseball Weekly.

How would my league use JasperStats?

Your league elects a trustworthy individual to serve as commissioner. The commissioner is responsible for entering and maintaining the rosters for the entire league. This is done at JasperStats by entering the Commissioner's Page.

You can try the JasperStats Commissioner's Page for free, so you have an idea of what is involved before you send us a dime.

The JasperStats Commissioner's Page

The information in your league's scoring reports is determined by the information your commissioner supplies us via the JasperStats Commissioner's Page.

We've put a lot of effort into making the use of the Commissioner's Page as self-explanatory as possible, so for most of you the detailed explanations below will not be necessary. We didn't provide these detailed instructions in 1997, and our subscribers found their way with very little difficulty.

However, we have added the instructions below to assist our visitors in judging the ease of our system before committing any funds.

Don't be intimidated by the amount of text you see here. It is only there to provide full, step-by-step instructions, assuming the most limited experience with computer operations.

You might want to open a second browser (in the toolbar under "File", click on "new window") so you can toggle from this page to the Commissioner's Page and back.

You don't have to be a paid subscriber to enter or to try using the commissioner's page. Choose a username and password (it's up to you to remember the password!) and click on "Entrance".

[Note: Anyone can access scoring reports, but no roster changes, or any other changes that can affect the scoring reports, can be made without the commissioner's password.

Some commissioners share their password with one or more owners in order to share the commissioner's duties, but in order to keep the page secure we recommend against sharing the password.]

After entering user name and password and clicking on "Entrance," you will see five options:
League Information
Hitting Categories
Pitching Categories
Team Information
Roster Maintenance

The first four options are used to set up your league' s scoring reports, and are filled out at the beginning of the year. After that you shouldn't need to use them for the rest of the year.

League Information

This is where you tell us your league's name and its rules, specifically:

  1. How often your league tabulates its scores for the purpose of determining the standings (A/O, I/S weekly, I/S bi-weekly, I/S monthly)
  2. Type of scoring week used (this is almost always Monday-Sunday, to coincide with the MLB schedule)
  3. Which major league your roto league stocks its players with
  4. Whether your league allows the same player to be on more than one roto team
  5. For I/S leagues: whether you would like your scoring reports to include year-to-date stats for each team, for comparative purposes.

Hitting Categories and Pitching Categories

These options allow you to tell us which scoring categories your league uses. On request, we'll add categories not on the lists. (Within reason -- we might not be able to accommodate certain quadratic equations).

In addition to choosing the categories you use to calculate scores, you can also choose other "view only" categories to enhance your scoring reports. For example, if your league uses batting average as a hitting category, you can select at-bats and hits as "view only" categories; and if you use ERA as a pitching category, you can select innings pitched and earned runs as "view only" categories.

"View only" categories appear in columns off to the right of the scoring categories. Scoring categories columns are shown in boldface, while "view only" columns are in standard typeface.

Team Information

This is where you tell us each team's name, along with the owner's name. You also have the option of naming the inactive squad (some leagues treat the inactive squads as a "minor league affiliates" and give them names, too).

Roster Maintenance

This is where the commissionering really takes place!

After clicking on the Roster Maintenance bar, you will be asked which "effective date" you want the roster changes to take place. Even though effective dates for every day of the season are available, it is rare for leagues to make roster changes that take effect on dates other than Mondays.

Click on the effective date you want, then click "continue". If you are entering retroactive transactions, choose as your effective date the first day of the scoring period (or transaction period) for which you want the change to take place.

The new screen will give you five options:

Change hitters
Change pitchers
Trades
Adjust positions
Done

Change hitters and Change pitchers

This is where you tell us

  1. which players play on which team
  2. current active/inactive status of each player on the team
  3. which players are to be exchanged between a given team and the "free agent" pool of players.

After clicking on either "hitters" or "pitchers" you will be asked which team's roster you wish to stock or modify. Highlight a team and click on "continue".

The next screen may take a few moments to load, since it includes lists containing all major league ballplayers.

On the left side of the screen will appear two boxes for the members of the team you've selected. The top box is for currently active players, and the bottom box is for currently inactive players.

On the right side of the screen is a box containing a list of "free agents", or all major league players available for addition to a league roster.

To move players between the free agent pool and the team roster, click on their name(s), and then click on the appropriate "Move" bar (depending on the player's prospective active/inactive status).

To move players between the active and inactive squads, click on their name(s), and then click on the "Activate/Deactivate" bar.

Players can be exchanged between boxes, or transferred from one box to another without a reciprocal move.

After your transactions click "Done" to return to the commissioner's gateway or use the navigational selections at the bottom of the page.

The navigational selections provide short-cuts to other types of roster maintenance: changing pitchers or hitters for the same or other teams, adjusting positions for players on the same or other teams, and entering trades between teams.

Trade players

This is where you tell us which players are being traded, and between what teams.

After clicking on "trade players" you will select the two teams involved then click "GO".

Picklists containing the full rosters of each team will appear; highlight the names of the players to be traded and click on "Trade".

After your trade click "Done" to return to the commissioner's gateway or use the navigational selections at the bottom of the page.

Adjust positions

This is where you tell us what position you want to assign to each player, based on your league's eligibility rules.

After clicking on "adjust positions" you will select the team on which the player is to be adjusted; then click "Continue".

The next screen will show you that team's full roster, and the current active/inactive status of each player. From the picklists you can select whatever position you want each player to occupy. When you're ready to enter the changes, click on "Adjust".

After your adjustments click "Done" to return to the commissioner's gateway or use the navigational selections at the bottom of the page.

When all your roster maintenance is finished, you will be back at the commissioner's gateway. Click on "Done" and you'll be back at the home page.

Changes to the scoring reports not be reflected until the after the reports are updated the following morning.

We are always happy to help with and answer questions about the commissioner's page. E-mail us for a prompt, friendly, helpful response.

Member's Entrance (Scoring Reports)

This is where your scoring reports are. Each league has its own web page.

After clicking on Member's Entrance you'll select your league from the picklist. To view the scoring reports, click on "statistics". To review the current roster, or the roster as it stood for a previous scoring period, click on "rosters".

On the next screen, click on the scoring period you want to see. (Beside your current scoring report, all scoring reports for earlier periods of the season to date are archived at your league's site.)

Your scoring report contains the following components:

  1. League name
  2. Date and time (EDT) of most recent update
  3. League standings, year-to-date through most recently completed scoring period (I/S leagues only).
  4. Standings for the current scoring period, through yesterday's games, with links to individual team scoring reports.
  5. League summary report: team statistics for the current scoring period, through yesterday's games.
  6. Individual team scoring reports:
    1. Owner name
    2. Team name
    3. Individual player performance, with links to each player's year-to-date, week-by-week performance. Those reports in turn provide direct links to that player's ESPNET profile, an outstanding feature with detailed statistical breakdowns, splits, and analysis provided by STATS, Inc.
    4. Inactive squad name
    5. Inactive squad player performance, also with links. So you can see how the guys you sent down are having a career week on the bench.
    [Note: reports for A/O leagues show the current active/inactive status of players using asterisks. This is because any player in an A/O league who has spent time on both active and inactive squads during the course of the year will appear in both sections. This is so stats that he has accumulated for each status can be shown. So the asterisk is the only way to tell whether that player is active now!]

Scouting Reports

This is where you find the best players available to draft or pull out of the free agent pool. You can sort players by position and rank them by performance in the scoring category of your choice, and prepare lists that also include data on other categories for comparative purposes.

Reports are available based on full-year 1996 and 1997 statistics; toward the end of April 1998, reports will be available based on full-year 1997 and year-to-date 1998 statistics, with the 1998 statistics updated daily.

The pick lists offer you the following choices:

  1. The scoring category by which you want the players ranked. You must select only one.
    1. Whether you want the rankings listed in ascending order or descending order. (For categories such as ERA, in which the lower the number the better the score, you would want to select "ascending"; for categories such as home runs, in which the higher number is better, you'd select "descending").
    2. Minimum at-bats (for hitters) and innings pitched (for pitchers). This allows you to weed out the players who, for whatever reason, haven't seen as much playing time as you'd like to see. Or, you can leave this entry blank and get a list of all players who've seen any action.
      [Note: Instead of a scoring category, you can select "Name", which will give you a list of players arranged in alphabetical order.]

  2. Position. Choose any position. Any player who has at least one game at a given position is considered eligible for that position. The finished scouting report will tell you exactly how many games each player has at each position.
    1. Choose league.
  3. Other statistical categories to be displayed on the scouting reports, in addition to the one by which the players are to be ranked. You can select as many of these as you like. To select more than one, hold the control key down as you click on each category you select.
  4. Free agents. This feature allows you to limit your search to players not already on one of the rosters in your league. You can also choose to see all players, regardless of whether they're already on one of your league's teams.
After you've made your selections, click on "Get Hitters" or "Get Pitchers". Players listed in the resulting scouting report will be linked to the week-by-week performance reports. Those reports in turn provide direct links to that player's ESPNET profile, an outstanding feature with detailed statistical breakdowns, splits, and analysis provided by STATS, Inc.

Subscription Information and Terms of Service

For terms of service, including the JasperStats money-back guarantee, refund policy, rates for postal and fax service, and contractual restrictions on the resale of reports, click on the Subscribe Now link. Visiting the Subscribe Now page places you under no obligation to subscribe.

JasperStats accepts payment by personal check or cashier's check, payable to JasperStats.

Please send checks, along with a copy of the subscription form, signed by the commissioner, to:
JasperStats
11109 Troy Rd
Suite 2126
Rockville MD 20852

We request payment by April 1, 1998; however, leagues may subscribe after the start of the baseball season. Since JasperStats allows retroactive transactions, leagues for which rosters are not entered until after opening day may still receive a full year's worth of service.

Change Log (Official scorer's changes)

This is where we notify you of changes to previously reported statistics. Changes occur when the official scorer makes a retroactive scoring change (say, from a hit to an error), or when statistics provided to JasperStats by STATS, Inc. originally contained errors.

JasperStats automatically recalculates all scores for every scoring change notification we receive. The Change Log is provided as a courtesy, to allow subscribers to see if any changes may have affected their league standings.

Sample Report

This is an example of what your scoring reports will look like.

[Note: in some cases, you may wish to adjust the fixed font size. For best results, we recommend a fixed font of 11 or 12. If you need to adjust your font size, check your browser documentation. You shouldn't need to adjust the variable font.]

Your scoring report will contain the following components:

  1. League name
  2. Date and time (EDT) of most recent update
  3. League standings, year-to-date through most recently completed scoring period (fantasy leagues only).
  4. Standings for the current scoring period, through yesterday's games, with links to individual team scoring reports.
  5. League summary report: team statistics for the current scoring period, through yesterday's games.
  6. Individual team scoring reports:
    1. Owner name
    2. Team name
    3. Individual player performance, with links to each player's year-to-date, week-by-week performance. Those reports in turn provide direct links to that player's ESPNET profile, an outstanding feature with detailed statistical breakdowns, splits, and analysis provided by STATS, Inc.
    4. Inactive squad name
    5. Inactive squad player performance, also with links. So you can see how the guys you sent down are lighting it up on the bench.

League Finder

If you're a player in search of a league, try the JasperStats League Finder. You can leave your e-mail address and a brief message for other JasperStats visitors to see.

This feature is provided as a courtesy to our visitors. Leagues formed via the JasperStats League Finder are under no obligation to subscribe to JasperStats. But we sure won't turn them away.