2009 Fantasy Baseball -- Catch-All Advice Thread

The Game Room
1

(Forgive me if I’ve missed an already-existing thread on this topic.)

I figured I’d start a thread for whatever day-to-day roster dilemmas posters might want to air throughout the season about their fantasy baseball teams. We did something similar for fantasy football last fall, and it was really helpful.

Anyway, I’ll start:

I’m in a head-to-head eight-team Yahoo! league with the following pitching categories:

IP, W, L, SV, H, BB, K, and ERA

My current roster of pitchers is:

Chad Billingsley
Felix Hernandez
Jered Weaver
Joba Chamberlain
Max Scherzer
Edinson Volquez
Erik Bedard
Carlos Zambrano
B.J. Ryan

Teams get three SP slots, two RP slots, and two P slots to fill, and there’s no maximum innings count for the season. Scherzer and Chamberlain have RP eligibility, and given B.J. Ryan’s troubles and the fact that most of the pitching categories are weighted towards counting stats rather than rate stats, I’m seriously toying with the idea of dropping Ryan to pick up an additional SP to rotate through the lineup, thus punting on SV but giving myself the best chance with IP, W, and K (while allowing greater flexibility to sit starters depending on their matchups).

Specifically, I’m looking at Mark Buerhle and Gil Meche.* Anyone have any strong preferences as to which one I should pick up (or about the wisdom of this strategy in general)?

Buerhle
Through two starts this year, Buerhle is 1-0 with 11.1 IP, 8 K, 3 BB, and a 2.38 ERA. He’s cleared 200 IP each of the last two years with ERAs of 3.63 and 3.79 and a K/BB ratio of 2.63.

Meche
Through two starts, Meche is 0-0 with 12 K, 2 BB, and a 3.21 ERA. He’s also cleared 200 IP in both 2007 and 2008, with ERAs of 3.67 and 3.98 and a K/BB ratio of 2.51.

Buerhle is on a stronger team than Meche and is likely to pick up more wins as a result, but Meche’s Ks have historically been higher. I’m also a little concerned with Buerhle’s durability.

Finally, over the next couple of weeks, Meche and the Royals will play on the road against Cleveland and Texas, and at home against Cleveland, Detroit, and Toronto. Buerhle and the White Sox play on the road against Detroit, Tampa Bay, and Baltimore, and at home against Toronto and Seattle.

Thoughts?

  • Other possibilities are Jarrod Washburn, Kyle Lohse, Jair Jurrjens, or Johnny Cueto, among others.
2

Not quite the way to look at it.

IP: SP heavy
W: SP heavy
L: RP heavy
SV: RP heavy
H: RP heavy
BB: RP heavy
K: SP heavy
ERA: push

4-3-1 in favor of relievers.

3

However, with that said, you shouldn’t hold a fire sale for relievers. In your position, I would look to upgrade your hitters to the point where all you need are a few categories in pitching to win.

You mention no IP cap - but is there an IP minimum? Starting zero pitchers gives you three wins off the bat - losses, hits and walks. Getting one inning of no earned runs gets you four wins with ERA adding to the mix.

4

True, and I framed my position more sloppily than I should have. How about this:

…All right, I started typing a long and convoluted post about positional scarcity and the marginal value of replacement-level SP talent in an eight-team league compared to replacement-level RP talent, but something urgent-ish and work-related came up, so I’ll just say that I agree that if I had two good-to-great RPs, I should use them there, but since I have one mediocre-to-good RP and would have to trawl the waiver wire to fill the other slot, I think I’m better off just using SPs with RP eligibility (especially given the rotational flexibility that affords me, matchup-wise).

I may return to my longer post when I have more time, though, since it had the potential to be interesting, and it’s entirely likely that I’m thinking about this thing the wrong way.

There’s a required minimum of 7 IP per week.

5

Well, that’s nothing.

I think you have a number of options. I would spend considerable effort acquiring some top closers. Not average guys who are going to rack up saves, but guys who are going to post fantastic ERA and WHIP numbers. Papelbon will be over-priced for this - but Soria should be your number one target, followed by Nathan. Is Marmol available? He’s perfect for this. In an 8 team league, he might be available. He won’t get you saves, but he’ll get some very risk-free innings at the beginning of the week.

Your strategy is this: Get 7 high quality innings from relievers as early in the week as possible and wait for your opponent to screw up. If he doesn’t (i.e. gets great outings from his starters), then you unleash your wave of SPs. Otherwise, you’ll take the majority of pitching categories. I don’t think you’ll need more than 4 elite guys (and don’t discount middle relievers here - Linebrink, Dotel, Wuertz, etc. are valuable for you).

What are the offensive stats in this league?

6

In the other SDMB fantasy league, I just dropped Huston Street and picked up Trevor Hoffman even though I don’t have a DL spot. Webb is using the DL spot and I’m not dropping him.

Crazy? I figure with Street losing the closer role he won’t be of much use and Hoffman should be back soon.

7

Not crazy. Hoffman will do fine. Street, even as a closer, still plays half his games in Coors and isn’t that great at inducing ground balls. I think that Corpas is going to secure the role soon.

8

The Rockies formally announced Corpas as the new closer on Friday. Pick him up if you can.