Q&A: Little Big League Fantasy

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people is that fantasy baseball takes too much time. And while that's exactly why some people like it - the thrill of keeping up everyday with the constantly changing world of baseball - for some people it's a barrier to playing. That's one of the reasons I decided to try something new this year and start a fantasy baseball league that would require a minimal amount of time. Here's a Q&A explaining how this league, titled "Little Big League Fantasy," works.

Q: How many players are on a team?

A: Each team has a total of 8 roster spots: 5 starters and 3 bench warmers. In case of injuries, up to 3 disabled list (DL) slots may be used.

Q: Which positions are used?

A: Among the hitters, there are slots for 1 infielder, 1 outfielder, and 1 utility (any position). Among the pitchers, there is a slot for 1 starting pitcher and 1 relief pitcher.

Q: Which stats are kept?

A: The hitting stats are: runs (R), home runs (HR), runs batted in (RBI), stolen bases (SB), on-base percentage (OBP), and slugging percentage (SLG). The pitching stats are: wins (W), earned run average (ERA), strikeouts (K), and saves (S).

Q: Why are there more hitting stats than pitching stats?

A: The primary goal was to come up with a small game that was still fun. It just made sense that 3 hitters and 2 pitchers would be about as small as you could get and still have a fun game. So with 3 of the 5 starters being hitters, it makes sense that 6 of the 10 stats would be for hitting. The game is slightly weighted toward hitting, but pitching is still important.

Q: What's the scoring format?

A: It's head-to-head. Each week you compete against a different team. Your team's points and your opponent's points are added up at the end of the week. Whoever wins more categories get the "win" for the week. If both teams win the same number of categories, then the week ends in a tie.

Q: How often can you make roster changes?

A: Once a week. It's basically like fantasy football in that regard.

Q: So if one of my starters breaks his leg on Tuesday, I can't get him out of my lineup until the following Monday?

A: That's correct.

Q: That stinks.

A: Only if it happens to your team. If it happens to someone else's team, it's actually pretty funny. And besides, you're only supposed to be asking me questions.

On a serious note, I can see why some people would be frustrated with this rule of only changing rosters once a week. But this gets back to keeping the game small and simple. Rather than juggling a daily roster and constantly reacting to slumps and injuries, in this league you just set your roster once a week and that's it.

So that's the Little Big League Fantasy in a nutshell. There are still some openings in the league, so if you'd like to give it a try, feel free to email me. Being the first season, it will be a work in progress. But I think it will be fun. 

Playing for Keeps: What Would You Do?

Earlier this week I received an email from a reader named Travis. He's looking for some advice on his fantasy baseball team for this upcoming season. Here's a shortened version of his question:

I am playing in a 10 team, 5x5, 6 player keeper league. I picked up a team half way through the season last year since my buddy is in the league and one of the players wasn't managing his [team]. I finished in second to last place, which was really a miracle considering how far back I was, and traded a number of hot players (Corey Hart, etc.) for draft picks this year. I currently have Miguel Cabrera, Tim Lincecum, Jayson Werth, Andre Ethier, Zobrist and Rickie Weeks as my keepers and have picked up an additional 7, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 16 draft picks. I traded away my 18-24 draft picks to pick up those as well as the type of players I just mentioned, 

Basically, I have two choices next year, I can keep the guys I have and go into the draft with a clear advantage over everyone else (most of the guys are still picking up the idea of trading picks and don't have many extra ones to use) and try to compete this year based on my draft and good waiver wire play. Or I could trade for some studs and give up many of my early round picks. 

Any thoughts on what I should do are appreciated. 

-Travis

Thanks for your email, Travis. With Miguel Cabrera and Tim Lincecum, you have two top players that any manager would want. If I were you, I'd hang onto them.

As for how to handle your extra draft picks, in general, I would value proven major league talent over unproven prospects. That might seem obvious, but lots of managers constantly trade away proven major league talent for "top prospects." But oftentimes these top prospects, despite hopes of becoming All-Stars, never even become solid major leaguers.

In looking at your team, Rickie Weeks is coming off his best season and his value might never be higher. He's had a long history of injuries and honestly, I wouldn't view him as a building block for a championship team. However, since 2B is a relatively week position, someone in your league might really want Weeks. At the very least it couldn't hurt to ask around. Maybe you can package Weeks with a few draft picks and land an elite top 30 player in return. I'd also look into trading Werth and Zobrist, but I doubt you can get as much in return for them.

So to answer your question, I'd lean toward using some of those extra draft picks as trade throw-ins to try and land proven, elite players in return. It might be a long shot, but that should be Plan A.

UPL Wrap-Up: Where I Went Wrong

The UPL baseball season wrapped up earlier this month. Here are the final standings:

I went back and looked at what the standings were during the All-Star break and there wasn't much movement for the most part. Although, that's not to say that the season didn't have a dramatic finish. On the final day Phatsnapper managed to sneak past Hats for Bats to take the crown. I don't think we've ever had that happen on the last day in UPL Baseball before. (One year we did have a tie, though.)

Congratulations to Rupert (Phatsnapper) on his championship season! And I also should point out that both Pauly (Hats for Bats) and CJ (JimmyDix) both had remarkable turnaround seasons. Pauly's team played well enough to take the crown, but it just wasn't meant to be.

After my 6th place finish, I'm left trying to pick up the pieces. Going into this season, I listed most of my strategy for this keeper league. But there was one 800-pound gorilla in the room that I didn't want to talk about. I might as well talk about that now.

If you look at the history of warfare, armies have a tendency to fight the "previous war." Basically, military planners most carefully study the past war, what went wrong and what went right - and more importantly, what they could have done better. And so what happens is that when a new war breaks out, a seemingly solid strategy is to see how your current environment is similar to a past environment, then apply what was learned from that experience in order to best perform in the current war. It's not a bad strategy. In fact, it's probably a necessary component to any great strategy. But if you rely too much on what would have been a seemingly perfect strategy for the previous war, you can end up in big trouble.

In the UPL, we get to keep 18 players from season to season. For a team at the top of the pack, this sounds like a great deal. But it's really a double-edged sword. Things can change quite a bit from season to season, and in a non-keeper format you can change your roster swiftly with the times. When you have to keep 18 players, it can sort of feel like you're stuck in a quagmire.

Granted, my team had plenty of talent heading into this season. And I made some blunders along the way. But if I look at my top 4 picks from 2009, three of them heading into 2010 wouldn't have rated worthy of top 4 picks in my book (Carlos Beltran, Aramis Ramirez, Manny Ramirez) due to their problems with missing significant playing time the previous season. If we had done a complete re-draft, I think there would have been many opportunities to upgrade my team.

But I can't complain. I knew the rules ahead of time and made my own bed. Here are my top three regrets for this season, and they all boil down to not being aggressive enough:
1) Not getting more value for the #3 pick (in essentially the 19th round). I drafted Octavio Dotel to address my closer situation, but in hindsight, there was more league-wide demand for Aroldis Chapman than I realized. I had assumed that after Jason Heyward and Stephen Strasburg, there weren't any rookies who people were willing to trade away value to get. But I think I was wrong there. Had I drafted Chapman (or just  traded away the pick pre-draft), I could have probably gotten something better than Dotel.
2) Not addressing shortstop. I went into the year hoping that Jason Bartlett would have a .390 OBP with 30 steals. That would have been nice. But it didn't happen, and my backup plans for SS didn't work out either. At one point I thought about trying to trade for Troy Tulowitzki, and maybe I should have. But I kept thinking that a viable option at SS would just fall into my lap. It never happened.
3) Not fixing my starting rotation sooner. Part of this is bad luck. I mean, my starting pitchers were absolutely brutal the first month of the season. It's impossible to predict something like that. However, I could have done a better job of holding pitchers out of the lineup and searching the waiver wire for better short-term, and possibly long-term, solutions.

My goal was to win the league again this year, but at the very least I wanted to finish on the podium. So a 6th place finish is disappointing. The past 5 or so years I've been bouncing between first and middle of the pack. I still have a long way to go if I'm to field a contender year in and year out. The Chairman (O.N. Thugs) has made a habit of this, and really, so has C-Lauff (IamJabrone).

It was a fun season. Looking ahead to next year, I'll have to refine my strategy a bit. But then again, that part never ends.

Crocodile Tears: CryBabies League Wrap-Up

Back in April I blogged about the head-to-head CryBabies League that I had joined for fantasy baseball. At the time I was in 6th place and had been destroyed in Week 1 by the Mush Heads. Here's how I ended that post:

We'll see how things go. Right now I've circled Week 8 on the calendar. That's when I can get my revenge against the Mush Heads.

Sadly, things didn't turn out the way I had hoped. Yes, I somehow managed to get my team into first place for one magical week in late June or early July, but then the wheels fell off. A bunch of my players slumped and/or got hurt, including pitchers Stephen Strasburg, Ricky Nolasco, and Josh Johnson. But the worst part was that I Iost all four regular season matchups with the Mush Heads -- and he knocked me out for good in the first round of the playoffs. That means I was 0-for-5 on the season against the Mush Heads. That was brutal! 

If it's any consolation to me, the Mush Heads went on to win the championship. So congratulations are in order for Michael Hayes and his Mush Heads' season of glory. I also should give props to Steroid to Heaven, who won the regular season and finished runner-up in the tournament to the Mush Heads.

Despite my poor performance, it was still a fun season. I'll leave you with this video that perfectly illustrates how confident I was going into the season -- and then what happened when reality hit.

The 2010 Razzballies

If you haven't checked out the year-end awards over at Razzball yet, well, you should. Here's a taste:

Player You Traded For That You Most Regretted – Did Pablo Sandoval really just hit .250 on my team with 7 extra base hits in three months?

Ouch. That one struck a little too close to home.

The Most Interesting Man in the World Is Decidedly Mediocre at Fantasy Baseball

You might know him as the suave actor who plays "The Most Interesting Man in the World" in the wildly popular Dos Equis beer commercials. But behind this carefully crafted image is a regular joe named Jonathan Goldsmith. And, just like most fantasy baseball managers, he's struggling to figure out what went wrong with his team this season.

"It's frustrating," says Goldsmith. "My team got out of the gates fine, but then we started to slump. I made things worse with some moves that backfired, and then the injuries started to pile up. By August I wasn't running a fantasy team, I was running a MASH unit."

Goldsmith's team, The Two-Bit Actors, is currently running 8th in the 12-team Beer Guys League. It's his 14th season playing fantasy baseball, with his best finish being fifth place all the way back in 1998. "It's hard to believe that after all these years I'm still trying to recreate the magic of that 1998 season when I finished fifth," admits Goldsmith. "Although, in fairness, our league only had 6 teams that season -- and one of them was run by the Budweiser Frogs."

So who is winning the Beer Guys League this season? Goldsmith bristles at the question. "Oh, it's one of those Miller Lite bartender chicks," he says with the wave of a hand. "Turns out she's not just hot, she's also smart. And too cool for school. I tried to get her phone number, but she told me point blank that she prefers athletes."

Pictured above: Goldsmith gets scolded by a colleague. "Uh, Jonathan, you do realize you can't smoke that filthy thing in here, right?"

Looking ahead to next season, Goldsmith is already getting excited. He vows not to repeat the mistake he made back in June when he traded away Jose Bautista for Stephen Strasburg. In fact, he likes the idea of taking Bautista in the first round. "I wouldn't pass up on 50 home runs a second time, would you?"

When asked if he could say something interesting about fantasy baseball just like his character in the Dos Equis commercials, Goldsmith thought for an uncomfortable seven seconds before finally admitting that he'd need someone from the ad agency to write the line. He then declined further comment.

Stay thirsty for first, my friend.

Book Review: Fantasyland

In honor of Book Blogger Appreciation Week, I figured it was time to write a book review here. Pauly has recommended Fantasyland to me a few times, and I finally read it this past April.

Sam Walker's Fantasyland traces his first season playing fantasy baseball. As a senior sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal, Walker had been reluctant to take any interest in fantasy baseball for the longest time. But when he finally decided to play, he was going all in. He managed to pull some strings and found himself in the unique position of being completely new to fantasy baseball, yet playing in the most competitive league on the planet: Tout Wars.

While Walker was a fantasy baseball newbie, he was by no means new to baseball. In fact, with his media credentials for inside access and sources throughout the MLB, Walker was a bona fide baseball expert. The trick would be to parlay that traditional baseball knowledge into fantasy baseball success. As this book illustrates, that's no easy task. But Walker wasn't going down without a fight. He turned fantasy baseball into his full-time job and hired two employees--an intern who researched players' personal traits and a NASA scientist who wrote a computer program to crunch all the stats. Together, the three of them embarked on a season-long journey that was often humorous, sometimes maddening, even thrilling, but never dull.

Fantasyland is a funny book, with one of my favorite parts being when Walker goes into the locker room mid-season and informs Doug Mientkiewicz that he's planning to trade him off his fantasy team; and Mientkiewicz agrees with that plan. If that's not laugh-out-loud humor, I don't know what is. But this book is more than just a comedy. Walker explores the colliding worlds of old school baseball men and new school baseball geeks. He also takes an in-depth look at each of his competitors in Tout Wars. Some of the stories are reflective, others light-hearted, and one is very poignant. Also, from an interesting historical perspective, Matthew Berry was one of the competitors in this league; and this book was written before he became ESPN's "The Talented Mr. Roto."

I thoroughly enjoyed Fantasyland. It's a must-read for anyone who plays fantasy baseball, and I would also recommend it to anyone who is curious about the culture of fantasy baseball.

Hit Parade: 7/25 - 7/31

MAYBE THEY'RE NUTS: Why don't more MLB players wear cups? (And if Huston Street doesn't wear one, will he change his mind?)

WHAT'S WITH ALL THE NO-HITTERS this year? Uh, not much, really. Joe Sheehan's article from a few weeks ago still holds up today: "This isn't actually that unusual, even in modern baseball history. Back in 1990 there were four no-hitters in June alone, capped by Dave Stewart and Fernando Valenzuela each tossing one on June 29. A year later, there were five no-hitters in a two-month stretch starting just before the All-Star break, including two combined no-hitters and a perfect game by Dennis Martinez. Those two seasons, '90 and '91, are tied for second place all-time in number of no-hitters thrown at seven, and they hold the modern record."

ARE THE WHITE SOX running into trouble? (Personally, I buy into the 70% theory.)

NEW BULLS' FORWARD Kyle Korver demonstrated how not to throw the first pitch at a Cub game this past weekend.

HAWK IN THE HALL: "I never knew what it felt like to be loved by a city until I arrived in Chicago. You are the reason I kept playing the game. I can't thank you enough for what you gave to me. You were the winds beneath the Hawk's wings." (Congrats to Andre Dawson!)

REPORT CARDS: Chairman Gau is handing out grades for the first half of the UPL fantasy baseball season.

ADVANCED FANTASY BASEBALL: Post All-Star Break Prospects to Watch. (I was disappointed a few days ago to discover that Domonic Brown is not available in the UPL. Blast you, CJ! Fortunately, this article goes way beyond Brown.)

CARLOS QUESTIONABLE: This is for all you Sox fans and Carlos Quentin fantasy owners out there:

HT: Carl Skanberg's Smells Like Mascot.

Memo to Drew Storen

To Mr. Drew Storen:

You might not be aware of this, but you are a member of my fantasy baseball team, the '90 Reds. In other words, I "own" you.

It has recently come to my attention via Mark Titus, Club Trillion founder, that you have a Twitter account. As part of my responsibilities to ensure that the '90 Reds and its players are always performing at an optimal level, I have taken to monitoring your tweeting activities.

Yesterday, mere hours before your night game against the Milwaukee Brewers, you were tweeting about your upcoming Bobblehead Night in August. This shameless act of self-promotion wouldn't normally be a problem for me, except that when you entered a tie ballgame in the 9th inning later that night, you didn't get the job done and took the loss.

What was wrong with you? Were you thinking about how cool it will be to have a Bobblehead Night in August? Perhaps you were pondering what you'd tweet after the game? Or maybe you were wondering when you'll get your 5,000th follower on Twitter?

Here's the problem. My '90 Reds fantasy team is in a dogfight trying to get back in the Urbana Premier League (UPL) race. For a while there we were in 5th, trying to claw our way into 4th and then maybe higher. But now we've fallen back to 6th. When I look at your last six outings, four of them have been stinkers. I don't expect you to be perfect, but I do expect you to have a laser focus on getting batters out. This laser focus comes into question when I see you on game day tinkering with your iPhone to tweet your peeps about Bobblehead dolls.

I'm your biggest fan, Mr. Storen. I used my #1 waiver priority to scoop you off the waiver wire the day you were called up to the bigs. So I have a lot invested in you, especially considering that the UPL is a keeper league. But I also want you to know that by using my #1 waiver priority on you, it cost me a shot at Buster Posey, who has turned out to be one of this season's best young hitters. So that's the benchmark you'll be measured against. And, if you let me down, I won't hesitate to trade you to UPL's last place team.

Sincerely,
Your Fantasy Boss
Owner, '90 Reds fantasy baseball team

UPL Update: Be Careful What You Wish For

This time of year I like to give an update on the UPL Baseball standings. Last season at this time I was admiring the view from above. But, while I didn't admit it at the time, my mind briefly entertained thoughts of a different challenge. Rather than going for first, what would it be like to have a fixer-upper? You know... to rebuild. It actually sounded kind of fun to me. Take over a depleted roster and then, slowly but surely, make moves to get better. For a moment I actually kinda wished for that. But just for a moment.

Unfortunately, I'm now reminded that sometimes you need to be careful for what you wish for. After stumbling out of the gate this season, my '90 Reds have been "rebuilding" all season without any results:

1. O.N. Thugs                  124.5     
2. Hats for Bats                118.5    
3. Phatsnapper                  116    
4. JimmyDix'sSmallballs     90.5    
4. IamJabrone                   90.5    
6. SuckMyknuckleballs       87    
7. '90 Reds                        82.5    
8. Benver Droncos            78.5    
8. Black Sox                     78.5    
10.Westy's Sluggers          74    
11.Cheeseheads                64    
12.Muddy Mush Heads      57.5    
13.Chicago Zamboneheads 30

Pauly's Hats for Bats have been one of the biggest UPL stories this year, going from second-worst record in 2009 to second-best record at the break. Furthermore, they look like a legit contender to battle all the way into October.

The Thugs seem to be toying with the idea of finally leaving their comfort zone in the UPL Museum and actually coming out to compete. This could be a good thing, because I literally can't remember the last time the Chairman won a UPL championship.

We'll see how the second half goes. I'm not conceding anything yet.

Pauly Gets the Call

Okay, so I have some fun news. Pauly, a Charlie Hustle Award Winner and fellow UPL manager, has been called up to greener blogging pastures at Advanced Fantasy Baseball. His first article is already up: "10 Guys Available in 80% (or more) of ESPN Leagues that are Worth a Look."

It seems like just yesterday that Pauly officially started blogging about baseball. But he's been a baseball fan his whole life and is a great addition for the Advanced Fantasy Baseball blog, where the tagline is "Advice on who to keep and who to chase in your league."

You can check out Pauly's first article here. And I'll be looking forward to what he comes up with next.

Congrats, Pauly!

UPL Update: Where's the Genius Now?

Frankenstein is alive and well. I know this because he can run like a deer and has super-strong hands which are currently strangling my neck...

What a difference a year makes. Last season at this time I was sitting pretty in the UPL, blogging about my plans to win. But this year has gotten off to quite a different start. After losing my best closer (Joe Nathan) to injury for the year, I tried to patch up my bullpen with a "Frankenstein strategy" that consisted of lower-end closers like Octavio Dotel, Matt Capps, Matt Lindstrom, and Franklin Morales. Neither that strategy nor any others that I've tried this year have worked. Here's a look at where my '90 Reds fit into the UPL standings thus far:

1. SuckMyknuckleballs 110
2. TheJimmyDixLongballs 105.5
3. Benver Droncos 103
4. Phatsnapper 100
5. IamJabrone 98.5
6. O.N. Thugs 97
7. Cheeseheads 96.5
8. Black Sox 86
9. Hats for Bats 84.5
10. Westy's Sluggers 58.5
11. '90 Reds 57
12. Big Papi Smear 52.5
13. Muddy Mush Heads 43

It's been frustrating, especially when I was watching the Sox-Royals game earlier this week and saw the Royals' bullpen ERA on the season is the worst in the American League, but still better than my team's ERA. At one point this week I looked at my team's stats for the day and started laughing. (It was either that or cry.)

I'm just going to pretend that my team has finished a tough road trip and is coming home. Kind of like when Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals came home for Game 3, down 2-0 to the Knicks, after having just suffered the indignity of John Starks dunking on us at the end of Game 2. It's time to regroup, make some adjustments, get energized, and hopefully catch some breaks.

Trade Wars

Earlier this week in the UPL we had the following trade: 1B Justin Smoak and SS Marco Scutaro of Pauly's Hats for Bats were to be shipped to CJ's JimmyDix Longballs for SP Jered Weaver and OF prospect Mike Stanton. On the surface, there doesn't appear to be anything earth-shaking about this deal. Except that the thugs in the commissioner's office auto-vetoed the deal--and then that set off Pauly. I won't reproduce the transcript of Pauly's message board rants (and yes, there was more than one rant), but I will give you a visual representation. First we had this:

And then some of this:

Finally, Pauly had to be restrained like this:

Honestly, I can't blame Pauly for being upset. Both he and CJ watch a lot of the MLB, have their own strategies for fantasy baseball, and had negotiated a deal that they each thought helped their own ball club. And while CJ later admitted it was OK for the deal to be nixed, Pauly was bouncing off the walls in frustration at the autoveto, reminiscent of Rupert's frustration with last year's Mauer/Lester for Holliday/Berkman deal that was autovetoed.

The resulting discussion on the UPL message board seems to be heading in the direction of ending the "autoveto" era as we know it. While it's hard to say what the new rules for trades will end up being, it looks like there is growing momentum to give managers more control over their own teams.

Last year I blogged about the challenges of deciding what's "fair" in fantasy baseball trades. Here's an excerpt from that post:

And what makes for a "reasonable" or "fair" trade anyway? I suppose in a non-keeper league certain things can be measured, such as how a player had done in the past and, if relevant, how that player has done so far that year. So in that case, you're trying to estimate how the players involved in the trade will do over the next 2 to 6 months.

But what about a keeper league? Doesn't the fact that you can keep players for the next year (and possibly for 5, 10, or 15 years) drastically change the equation? Isn't it possible you could propose a trade that the majority of owners will see as "obviously unfair to you," only to discover 5 years later that it was unfair to the other guy? (Except for the fact the trade was voted down and never happened. Lucky for the other guy...)

In fact, ever since the UPL first considered going to a keeper format, we've had discussions about how valuing trades might be affected. For example, in a non-keeper format, if you try to trade a top 50 player for a top prospect who likely won't see the field until September, the trade likely gets vetoed or voted down as unfair. But in a keeper league, trading away a top 50 player for a minor leaguer might be a key deal to set yourself up for a dynasty that starts in three seasons. Who knows?

On October 17, 2008, the Chairman first proposed taking UPL Baseball into the keeper era. At the time, in the comments section I warned about the difficulty in evaluating trades involving veterans for prospects. However, only now do I realize that I hadn't quite done a good enough job explaining my proposed solution. (I thought it really hard in my head, but I didn't type the words on my keyboard.) Here's what I proposed:

If it's a keeper league, I'd be in favor of putting restrictions on trades and waiver wire moves. For instance, a team could make no more than two trades in a year and the trades would have to be limited to at most two players for two players.

What I meant to add was this: By putting restrictions on the type (up to two players for two players) and number (two per year) of trades, we would give managers the right to make ANY trade they want without any possibility of it being voted down or vetoed. Period.

My thinking was that if we're going to give managers more control over the risks they're willing to take in trades (i.e., give up proven major league talent for top prospects), then there would need to be an associated cost: cap the number of trades in a season. Some people don't like the idea of fewer trades, and I can see their point. But capping the number of trades might increase the quality of trades by making people pick their spots better as to when to make a trade (such as right before the draft or right before the trading deadline).

Regardless, the key here is to somehow find the right balance between letting managers have fun making their own decisions and still keeping the integrity of the game intact for the league. If anyone out there has a solution to share with regard to how their league handles trades, I'd like to hear it.

The League of Extraordinary CryBabies

If I had Photoshop skills, I'd replace "Gentlemen" with "CryBabies" and put baby bonnets and pacifiers on everyone. Oh well.

Earlier I mentioned that I'm playing in the CryBabies League. Here's the rundown. It's head-to-head in the following categories:

• Offense/Defense (10 categories) - runs, hits, home runs, runs batted in, stolen bases, assists, batting average, OPS, outfield assists 
• Pitching (7 categories) - wins, losses, saves, strikeouts, earned run average, WHIP, quality starts

Each week you're competing against one team. What has surprised me is that it's not like fantasy football, which is a "winner take all" matchup every week. But in this H2H league, you divvy up the categories that you win, lose, or tie. For example, during Week 1, the Mush Heads beat me in 12 categories, I won 4 categories, and we tied in 1 category. So after Week 1, my record was 4-12-1.

There are eight teams in the league, and the top six make the playoffs. So it's nice if you can get one of the top two playoff seeds and earn yourself a first round bye. Speaking of playoffs, after 3 weeks completed, if the playoffs started today I would barely make it:

1. Mush Heads                 29-16-6
2. Apple Sucks                 28-17-6
3. Hemroids                     23-22-6
4. Steroid to Heaven         24-24-3
5. NoMeat                       22-25-4 
6. Vindictive Separists      21-26-4
7. tballchamps                  20-25-6
8. ALL STARS!!!!!!!!!!!  18-30-3

And here's my roster:

C - Miguel Olivo

1B - Pablo Sandoval

2B - Ben Zobrist

3B - Alex Rodriguez

SS - Rafael Furcal

OF - Matt Holliday

OF - Carlos Quentin

OF - Adam Dunn

Util - David Wright

Bench - Shane Victorino

Bench - Chris Coghlan

Bench - Carlos Pena

Bench - Kurt Suzuki

DL - Miguel Montero

DL - Carlos Beltran

SP - Dan Haren

SP - Josh Johnson

RP - Jonathan Broxton

RP - Joakim Soria

P - Carlos Marmol

P - John Lackey

P - Matt Capps

Bench - Stephen Strasburg

In terms of pitching, you need to have your pitchers go at least 20 innings for the week in order to have pitching stats count for your team. Also, you're only allowed 5 transactions per week, so that limits streaming to some degree.

I'm still trying to get a better feel for the math side of this league. One thing I've noticed is that outfield assists (OFA) seems to be a category that teams usually get zero for the week. So I suppose that if you can add an outfielder or two who hits well AND tends to get many outfield assists, that might get you an advantage.

However, you might be better off trying to chase assists (infield assists). And actually, my team might be in a good position to do that. Both Zobrist and Dunn play the infield, but they have outfield eligibility. So if I play both those guys in my outfield, I might be able to gain an advantage in assists compared to a team that's playing 3 regular outfielders.

We'll see how things go. Right now I've circled Week 8 on the calendar. That's when I can get my revenge against the Mush Heads.

My strategy: End game (Part 7 of 7)

This is the final post in a seven-part series documenting my fantasy baseball strategy. We've focused on winning now as opposed to the future, formulated a system to accumulate points, filled our roster with quality hitters and pitchers through the draft, and have made good trades and waiver wire pickups to safely navigate the league's rough waters for much of the season. We're in contention for a championship. Now it's time to seal the deal and bring it home.

Growing up, I was a big Ohio State football fan. (Okay, so I was a skinny Ohio State football fan, but you know what I mean.) In 1993, the Buckeyes started 8-0, and for the first time in years their fans were buzzing about a possible Rose Bowl berth. Next on their schedule were the Wisconsin Badgers, and I'll never forget reading this quote from OSU's star running back at the time, Raymont Harris: "I can smell a faint smell of roses. But right now I smell Badgers. And the roses smell a lot better." Unfortunately, the Buckeyes went on to only get a tie against the Badgers. Then after a win against Indiana, OSU finished their season with a 28-0 loss at the hands of their archrival, Michigan. No Rose Bowl for the Buckeyes.

During the 2009 UPL baseball season, my '90 Reds were in first place for much of May, June, July, and August. When the calendar had turned to September, I was feeling good about my chances. But the defending champ, C-Lauff's Team IamJabrone, was still close behind and eager to play the spoiler. I couldn't help but have flashbacks to 1993 and thinking like Raymont Harris: "I can smell the faint smell of a championship. But right now I smell Jabrones. And the championship smells a lot better."

Motivated to avoid the same type of collapse that had cost Harris and the Buckeyes a Rose Bowl trip 16 years earlier, I was now obsessing about the end game.

The start of the end

In any roto baseball league, my end game thinking starts shortly before the trading deadline. In the UPL, this deadline tends to be about the middle of August. So in late July I'm taking a hard look at how the categories are playing out league-wide and what types of trades could help my team. (Obviously, in a keeper league, if you feel that you have no shot at winning the championship, your focus at the trade deadline should be to do whatever best sets up your team for the next season.)

The end game in theory

And down the stretch they come! Just remember, if you're not willing to furiously whip your horse for extra performance at the end, somebody else will.

In March and April of a fantasy baseball season, I'm primarily picking players who I think will perform the best over the long run (6-month season). But by late July, two big changes have occurred.

• We've collected 3+ months of real data on players. Thus it's slightly easier to project how a player will perform over the final 10 weeks of the season when making that projection in July, as opposed to March. 
• We've also collected 3+ months of data on our team as well as our opponents' teams. So now we have a slightly better idea as to which categories will be most critical down the stretch.

In other words, early in the season I'm looking to acquire players who, given time, will perform the best during a 6-month season. But once it's down to the end game, I'm looking to acquire players who have the best chance to put up big numbers in the critical categories that I'll need to win the championship.

Back in part two, I wrote at length about the importance of team balance and trying to win all of the categories. And while it would be nice to win all of the categories, come late July you'll have a more realistic view of the scoreboard and what your team can actually accomplish. I wouldn't punt on any categories in late July or early August, but I would be willing to start emphasizing some categories over others for the purposes of making a trade.

For instance, in 2007 I was willing to trade the reigning AL MVP Justin Morneau (power) for Carl Crawford (steals) at the trade deadline because I saw that SB was the one category that I could gain the most ground on my main opponent (O.N. Thugs). And since I still had plenty of power on my team, the trade worked out as I closed the gap and finished in a tie for first with the Thugs.

As we move deeper into September, the end game comes into sharper focus in terms of which categories will be crucial. And here we can employ some strategies that would be crazy in June, but just might be necessary in September and October.

End gaming the system

Last August (2009) my team was sputtering. We weren't hitting or pitching particularly well, and while I wasn't going to panic, I knew that I needed to make a move. My main opponents were likely to make deadline deals to get better, and I had to do the same. So what move would best improve my team?

As I explored many trade possibilities last August, one thing started to become clear. I had an injured Carlos Beltran who likely would provide no further production in my quest for victory in 2009. And yet he still had some decent trade value for what he could likely do in 2010 and beyond. In looking at which players might be available in a trade, the fact that future Hall of Famer Chipper Jones had batted .400/.500 (OBP/SLG) over the past month with 6 homers really caught my attention. If Chipper could do anything close to that over the final 6 weeks of the season, he could help me in five categories (R, RBI, HR, OBP, and SLG). So Phatsnapper and I made that deadline deal in mid-August.

As the 2009 season winded down, many categories stayed in play. But on the offensive side, one category did start to stand out as especially important: steals. Over the final few weeks, I took every available opportuntiy to borrow a speedy guy from the waiver wire and place him in my lineup for a shot at an extra steal. And in the final week of the season, I was still looking at potentially +/- 2 points (4 point swing) in the steals category alone. With much smaller and much less likely possible point swings in the categories of HR, RBI, OBP, and SLG, I played Michael Bourn over Manny Ramirez at every chance. The reason being that Manny hitting 2 homers and 6 RBI in a single game might not raise my team point total at all. But Bourn getting 3 steals in a game could be the difference between losing two points or gaining two points in the standings. (Note: My other outfielders were Justin Upton and Carlos Gonzalez, so Manny was the only one in that group who wasn't much of a threat to steal.)

On the pitching side of things, I employed many spot starts over the past month or so of the season. I picked up and dropped several different pitchers, such as Pedro Martinez, Doug Fister, Barry Zito, and Andy Pettitte, and put them in games where I thought they had good matchups. Overall, this worked out okay for me. Not great, but okay.

Where things got interesting, though, was the morning of the second-to-last day of the season. My team was nursing a slim lead when I looked at the pitching stats and saw the following:

• Can't go up in W points
• Could take 3 losses and go down 2.5 in L points
• Could gain or lose a half point in saves
• Unlikely to see movement in any other pitching categories

In terms of likely pitching outcomes, by playing my pitchers I was looking at anywhere from gaining a half point to losing 3 points that otherwise wouldn't have happened. After examining all the scenarios, I determined that my best move was to bench all of my pitchers for the remainder of the season (Saturday and Sunday). That was Plan A. I also had a Plan B. Depending on what happened on Saturday, I might change my mind on Sunday out of a need to play my pitchers. One possibility was that somehow Westy's Sluggers would get a surprising number of W's and catch me in that category. Another unlikely event would be for IamJabrone to get way more K's than I expected. So on Saturday morning I not only benched all of my pitchers, I also picked up two likely Sunday starters, Homer Bailey and Chris Narveson, just in case I needed to make a miracle comeback that would include wins and K's on the final day.  

 Sometimes you need a Plan B to win. This holds true for most things in life, but especially for feel-good sports movies.

 
As we now know, the Beltran-for-Chipper deal didn't really work out for me. Chipper had some nagging injuries and slumped a bit. Although, he still gave my team more than Beltran would have in September. Time will tell if that deal hurts me in 2010, but I can't second guess it. At the time, I was looking to be aggressive and win in 2009. Chipper was swinging a hot bat at the time of the trade, and so I went for it.

Fortunately, Chipper aside, my offense did step up down the stretch, and on the pitching side, I didn't have to bring in my pitchers on the final Sunday. In fact, you could say that things came up roses for the '90 Reds.

Thank you for reading this series about my fantasy baseball strategy in the UPL. I've had fun pondering and documenting my various tactics, and of course, I'm still open to new ideas. I enjoy the discussions with other players, and my hope is to keep learning.

The Vindictive Separatists

So, for the first time ever, I'm in two fantasy baseball leagues. I'm still playing in the UPL, and I've now added the CryBabies League into the mix.

Mr. Hayes (of Mush Heads' UPL fame) is the commissioner of the CryBabies League, which is a head-to-head format. There are only eight teams, so each team is loaded with talent. The most important thing is to make sure your team is hitting on all cylinders the last few weeks of the season.

The Mush Heads gave me a rude awakening in Week 1, drubbing me so badly across the categories that I found myself in last place. After Week 2, I climbed from 8th to 7th. So technically, even though I'm doing terrible in the UPL, I'm doing even worse in the CryBabies League. (Side note: I was a hypocrite and didn't take my own drafting advice, instead settling for an autodraft that saddled me with my top two picks being 3Bs: Alex Rodriguez and David Wright. I'll likely have to make a trade at some point.)

But the CryBabies League is fun. One thing I've noticed is that there's no shortage of entertaining team names, such as "Hemroids," "Apple Sucks," "tballchamps," and my personal favorite, "Steroid to Heaven."

In order to come up with my own team name, I went to Razzball's Fantasy Baseball Team Name Generator. I selected an "agitated adjective" for category 1, and then a "war term" for catgory 2. And voila! "Vindictive Separatists" was my randomly generated team name. Works for me.

I think it's OK to pick a team name by random. The problems come when you try to pick players at random. We'll see if I can dig myself out of the cellar by season's end.

My strategy: Roster moves (Part 6 of 7)

This is the sixth in a seven-part series documenting my fantasy baseball strategy. In part five we discussed some ideas for drafting players. Now we'll examine some basic principles I follow when considering trades and waiver wire moves.

On May 10, 2009, I looked at Joe Saunders' season stats and was very pleased with my 18th round pick: He was 5-1 with a 2.66 ERA. Better yet, he was fresh off a complete game shutout victory over Zack Greinke and the Royals. But my celebration didn't last long. It was time for me to quickly get Saunders off my team--even if it meant flat out dropping him.

So how could this be? Joe Saunders had gone 17-7 in 2008, and so far in 2009 he was 5-1 with a 2.66 ERA. Why would anyone be in a rush to trade him, let alone drop him? Well, the answer is quite simple: In my world, he was no longer a "championship piece."

To trade or not to trade, that is the question

In theory, if you can develop a good system and then find the right personnel to implement that system, you can have a good team. The only problem, of course, is that this is easier said than done. You're going to have players who slump and guys who get injured, so there will be many times during a 6-month fantasy baseball season when you need to make roster moves, either finding guys on the waiver wire or making trades.

And really, we can simplify this a bit further. Every roster move you make is actually a trade. Either you're trading players with Mr. Other Manager, or you're trading players with Mr. Waiver Wire. I prefer to trade with Mr. Waiver Wire because I can usually rip him off.

There are several solid strategies for approaching roster moves. And I imagine that, at some level, most managers consider value over replacement player (VORP) whether they realize it or not. The Chairman has also posted about VORP. Essentially, with roster moves, you're expecting to add more stats to your team than you lose, and you want to factor in position scarcity to be more efficient in where you gain those stats. (For example, it's silly to trade your best 2B for another guy's best 3B when you have no other good options at 2B and a nearly-as-good 3B was already sitting on the waiver wire.)

Over the years, I've tried to add another wrinkle to my thinking when it comes to roster moves. I'm not sure if it's revolutionary, unconventional, or just plain reckless, but some seasons it seems to work okay. I call it the "champioinship pieces" philosophy.

Championship pieces

Back in part two, I explained the framework in which I try to accumulate points. Here's an excerpt from that previous post to give you a window into my thinking:

Every player on my team needs to have a clear purpose for being there. Even players on the bench. Players who start for my team are expected to produce now. Players on my bench are expected to produce when a starter can't go. Period.

Every manager wants his starters to produce now. That's nothing new. But I tend to put more emphasis on balance, and this includes having the strongest bench that I possibly can. Aside from the fact that it can lessen the damage done by injuries, a strong bench also gives me more opportunities to play platoons. 

In the excerpt above I also mention that "every player on my team needs to have a clear purpose for being there." When things are going very well, most players on my team are contributing in a big way, and the rest are at least contributing in a small way. It's rare to have this happen, but when it does, that's when my roster is completely filled with championship pieces.

What exactly is a championship piece? Well, it's hard to explain. I'm reminded of Justice Potter Stewart's famous quote from a 1964 Supreme Court ruling, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

But unlike Justice Stewart, I will try to further define championship pieces. Here goes:

1. I want my team to put up great numbers
2. I want my team to be balanced
3. Any player proving to be a key contributor to either (1) or (2) is, in my mind, a championshp piece

Another important thing to keep in mind regarding the championship pieces philosophy is that it gains steam as the season unfolds. After all, early on it's anyone's guess as to how players and teams will perform. And if June 1 rolls around with my team mired in 9th place, I'm not exactly going to be viewing my players as championship pieces. However, if June 1 rolls around and my team is in the top 3 battling for a title, then I'm definitely viewing each player with one question in mind: Is he a championship piece or not?

If my team is going well in May, let's say in 1st or 2nd place, I might look at my roster and identify 16 or 17 guys as championship pieces. My goal is then to see if I can get up to 18, then 19 and so on. The main idea here is to not go backward. If someone offers to trade me a perceived championship piece, but I would have to give up a championship piece in return, then what has my team gained?

Let's take last season for example. If I had had the first pick of the 2009 UPL Baseball Draft, I would have taken Albert Pujols. (I ended up with the 8th pick and took Ryan Howard.) However, after my team bubbled to the top of the standings and my 17th-round pick Pablo Sandoval showed signs of becoming a good MLB hitter, an interesting development occured. If I had been offered Pujols for Sandoval, I likely wouldn't have done the deal. Why? Two reasons. 1) Sandoval added tremendous balance to my team with position eligibility at C, 1B, and 3B. 2) Pujols would have been a bit redundant, since I already had Howard. So yes, Pujols would have increased my team's talent level, but he wouldn't have improved its balance.

My modus operandi

In the Urbana Premier League (UPL) where I play fantasy baseball, I make relatively few trades with other managers. Here's why:

1. Greater margins to improve my team exist on the waiver wire (I can more easily "rip off" the waiver wire than another manager)
2. I want to be careful that any trade I make will fit into my team's overall system
3. In general, I don't want to directly participate in making my opponents' teams better

Let me elaborate on that last point with an analogy. If you're on fire in the UPL, and I have a glass of water, and you're looking at me for help, then I'm probably just going to drink that glass of water.

Oh, I'm sorry, is that your house on fire? Welcome to the UPL, my friend.

Back in part four I opined that saves are a more reliable bet than win-loss ratio. As such, this can explain why I tend to favor trading starters for closers. It also explains why last season I cheered when the Thugs traded away Brian Fuentes for Clayton Kershaw--and then I cursed when he traded Tommy Hunter and Phil Hughes for Andrew Bailey. (Side note: My feeling is that the Bailey deal helped the Thugs' point total in 2009, but the Kershaw deal not so much. From a keeper standpoint, it will be interesting to see how this pair of trades looks in 2010 and the years ahead.)

Here's another example. In 2007, I had a healthy Brandon Webb pitching at a high level. However, I had a full staff of quality SPs, and as such, I started to question whether Brandon Webb was a championship piece or a redundant part with excellent trade value to help me land a real championship piece. After doing my homework on Jonathan Papelbon (including his full injury history, how he was managing his health, and watching interviews of him in the media), the Jabrones and I agreed to a deal: Webb for Papelbon. The Jabrones got what they wanted: One of the best starting pitchers in baseball. But in my estimation, Papelbon with his saves and rate stats would balance out my team better and I could win a championship without Webb. Fortunately, that year I tied for first, and yes, Papelbon's saves were critical.

What I Reallly Thought About Joe Saunders

Earlier I alluded to my Joe Saunders dilemma. He was 5-1 with a 2.66 ERA on May 10, 2009, but I wanted him off my team--even if it meant dropping him. So how did I reach this point? Easy. Saunders has a paltry K/9 rate, and it's hard to compete in that category with him on your team. Plus his only redeeming quality is his W-L ratio, which I've already stated isn't a very reliable stat. And finally, once I had determined he was no longer a championship piece, I started looking for championship pieces elsewhere. Time was of the essence, and I didn't want to waste it with Saunders being a drag on my roster.

And there was something else at play here. In the days leading up to May 10, my OF Manny Ramirez was suspended 50 games, and my 3B Aramis Ramirez landed on the 60-day DL. I needed to add a bat to my lineup. So I worked out a deal for Mike Cameron, who at the time had put up better numbers than Manny Ramirez over the first 5 weeks of the season. Granted, I didn't expect Cameron to keep it up, but I did hope he would be good enough to be my 4th OF and work him into my lineup a few times a week. In that regard, I did hope he would become a championship piece, and I did believe he was better than anyone on the waiver wire. (Those of you with good memories will recall that shortly after this deal was made during the week of May 10, both Saunders and Cameron went into a tailspin, so nobody "won" this trade. Although, it did win an unofficial UPL award for "most meaningless trade.")

Okay, now we're getting down to the end of this series. Next time in part seven we'll talk about the end game, where sometimes you need to chuck everything you know and just do whatever it takes to win.

My strategy: Drafting players (Part 5 of 7)

This is the fifth in a seven-part series documenting my fantasy baseball strategy. Last time in part four we discussed pitcher evaluation. Now we'll examine how I approached the 2009 Urbana Premier League Baseball Draft and assembled the core of my championship team.

I tend to be wary of general draft advice. After all, draft strategies should vary greatly from league to league. An 8-team league is going to have a vastly different draft from a 16-team league. Also, much depends on the type of managers in your league. If most guys in your league live in Chicago, then you have to expect a high number of Cubs/Sox players will go off the board earlier than they really should. Whereas MLB players on other teams around the country might be hidden gems who fall further in the draft than they should. Each league tends to have its own biases and blind spots.

I can only speak to my own experience. I've never participated in an auction draft, so that's not what this post is about. In the UPL where I play, up until this season we've always had a basic snake draft with all MLB players available. Now 2010 will be the first time we have just a small 8-round draft to fill in our keeper teams. However, here I'll focus on the traditional snake draft for a 12-team league, which is what we had in the UPL for 2009.

The basic principles that I apply to drafting players are the same ones already laid out in the first four posts of this series:

• Focus on winning now. Don't get caught up on players who might be good in the 2nd half of this season or next season. Try to get the guys who will produce right away.
• Build a balanced team. If possible, have multiple players available at each position in order to foster competition and maximize roster flexibility.
• Pick high-OBP power hitters early. Predicting which players will perform the best is hard, but hitters with a track record for high OBP and power numbers tend to be the most reliable bets.
• Target pitchers with low WHIPs and high Ks. Drafting pitchers is risky by nature, so here you can afford to take more risks by drafting them in later rounds.

Now let's see if I took my own advice. Here are the picks of my team, the '90 Reds, from the 2009 UPL Draft:

Round 1 - Ryan Howard, 1B (8th pick overall)
Round 2 - Carlos Beltran, OF (17)
Round 3 - Manny Ramirez, OF (32)
Round 4 - Aramis Ramirez, 3B (41)

What do all four of these players have in common? They're all hitters who had put up big-time numbers for at least the past three seasons (2006, 2007, 2008). Beltran, Manny, and A-Ram all typically go .400/.500 (OBP/SLG), and Howard has simply been the most reliable power guy since 2006. Yes, Howard's OBP isn't as high as I like, but he's been so consistent in a championship-caliber Philly lineup that I just couldn't pass on him. I have no regrets taking Howard over Fielder or Braun, mainly because Howard has been doing it for longer.

Sure, Beltran and A-Ram both got hurt, and Manny got suspended for 50 games, but these were still good picks. After all, when those guys were in the lineup, they produced. That's so much better than having a guy in the lineup who doesn't get the job done.

2010 Outlook: I'd keep Howard rated about the same. But yeah, you have to downgrade Beltran, Manny, and A-Ram based on their disappointing results last season.

Round 5 - Dan Haren, SP (56)

Season after season Haren has low WHIPs and high Ks. Plus he's had a relatively clean medical history. Somewhat early in the draft I like to get at least one bona fide ace starting pitcher to anchor my staff. I was a little surprised that Haren was still available at #56, so I was happy to take him.

2010 Outlook: I'd keep Haren rated about the same heading into 2010 as he was for 2009.

Round 6 - Victor Martinez, C, 1B (65)

V-Mart was my favorite pick of the draft. Why? Because no other pick showcased my strategy better than this one. I admittedly struggled when I was on the clock here, mainly because I was also considering Adam Dunn. The way I saw it, my choice was between the best hitter available (Adam Dunn, who you can pencil in for .400/.500 and 40 homers every season) or the guy who could best balance out my team (Victor Martinez, who also goes .400/.500 with decent power at a scarce position, catcher, plus he has 1B eligibility and thus could backup Howard in an emergency).

Like V-Mart, Dunn also had dual eligibility (OF/1B) and could have backed up Howard. But I already had 2 OFs, and having V-Mart at catcher would have been amazing value if he could stay healthy and go .400/.500. Not only is V-Mart a better hitter than almost every other catcher in the league, but I had read that his manager (for the Indians) was going to make sure his bat was in the lineup every day, even when he wasn't catching (most catchers take at least 1 game off per week). In V-Mart, I saw a way for my team to potentially dominate the position of catcher both in terms of quality and quantity, so I snatched him. Fortunately, he stayed healthy and, as I had hoped, proved to be a key difference for my team.

2010 Outlook: Since V-Mart actually stayed healthy last year, his rating goes up for 2010. But don't look for his overall numbers to be better in 2010 than they were in 2009. 

Round 7 - Joe Nathan, RP (80)

Nathan was 34 going into last season, and some people would have stayed away from him in a keeper league. (Maybe worried that he'd hurt his elbow and miss the season with Tommy John surgery or something.) But I just saw a guy who was among the best in the business. He had a relatively clean medical history, and since I also like to get at least one bona fide elite closer relatively early in the draft, I went for Nathan. Fortunately, he went on to have a career year in 2009 with 47 saves.

2010 Outlook: Okay, so I guess all those people who were worried about Nathan's age can gloat now. He's out for the year with that Tommy John surgery. But this is another pick that I'm not going to second guess.

The core

I was really happy with my first seven picks. I had five hitters who, if healthy, were great bets to produce at or near .900 OPS levels. Four of my five hitters were coming off at least three straight great seasons. And with Victor Martinez, I had potentially found an elite player at a scarce position, C, who could also serve as an emergency backup for my top pick Ryan Howard at 1B if he went down with an injury.

Also in those top seven picks I managed to take an ace SP, Dan Haren, and an All-Star closer, Joe Nathan. By this point, many of my opponents had a head start with pitchers, but my plan was to try to catch up in pitching either through the latter part of the draft or through free agency. For now, I was happy to stock up on top hitters.

For anyone interested in my picks from Rounds 8 to 24, I've posted them in the comments below. I didn't always take my own advice, but for the most part there was a method to my madness. Perhaps I can learn more from my mistakes than from my successes.

Now that the draft is over, it's time to let the games begin. In part six we'll look at making roster moves during the season.

My strategy: Pitcher evaluation (Part 4 of 7)

This is the fourth in a seven-part series documenting my fantasy baseball strategy. Part three discussed how I evaluate hitters. Now we'll flip the script and look at pitchers.

Last spring, Edwin Jackson likely went undrafted in every fantasy league outside of Detroit. But on April 7, 2009, he tossed 7.1 strong innings of one-run ball in his first start for the Tigers. Suddenly he was on many fantasy baseball managers' radars as someone who was worth considering for a roster spot. However, if you were in the Urbana Premier League (UPL), Edwin Jackson was already long gone.

So what's my secret? Do I really have a special method for evaluating pitchers, or did I just get lucky last year with Dan Haren, Javier Vazquez, Wandy Rodriguez, Edwin Jackson, Joe Nathan, Brian Wilson, Dan Qualls, and J.P. Howell? Well, I've always admitted that luck is a significant part of fantasy baseball. But when we're talking about accumulating stats over a 6-month period, I also think you need to put yourself in position to be lucky.

As mentioned in my keeper theory post, it's easier to predict how players will perform this season than next season. Something similar can be said when comparing hitters to pitchers. While it's difficult to predict how hitters will perform in any given season, it's even tougher to predict pitchers. 

But picking pitchers is still 50% of roto baseball, so we need to have a strategy for it. In the UPL where I play, there are six pitching categories: W, L, K, S, ERA, and WHIP. Below is how I study the categories when evaluating a pitcher. 

Walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP)

When I study a pitcher's stats, I begin with WHIP. A pitcher is supposed to make it hard for batters to even reach base, and WHIP is the best measure we have in this department. Really, my WHIP strategy isn't complicated. I tend to look for guys who I think can have a season WHIP of 1.20 or less. 

Strikeouts (K)

After WHIP, I look at strikeouts per nine innings (K/9). My thought here is that a pitcher with a high K/9 can be more than good. He can be dominant. After all, when you strike out a batter, the batter has no chance of reaching base (barring a swing at a pass ball or wild pitch). But even a weak grounder to the pitcher gives the batter a chance.

One thing to keep in mind is that pitchers with high K/9 ratios tend to throw more pitches and suffer more wear and tear. Just think how each strikeout requires at least three pitches, whereas a groundout could happen on the first pitch. However, I don't worry about this too much unless a pitcher has already shown some significant history of injuries. (For example, I wouldn't be too interested in Ben Sheets or Rich Harden at this point. But if either of them were converted to a closer, like Kerry Wood, then that could be a different story.)

In terms of K/9 ratio, I like to see at least 8 K's per 9 innings for a pitcher. Anything less than 7K/9 usually gets me thinking about a replacement.

Saves (S)

I place a high value on saves, mainly because this stat is not quite as difficult to predict as some of the others. If you know that a pitcher is the established closer for a team, then presumably if he stays healthy he'll rack up some saves.

By now it should be self-evident why I also value dominant setup men. First off, they can help out with WHIP and K's. Second, they're potentially in line to become a closer and hence pick up saves as well.

Earned run average (ERA)

Honestly, if a pitcher has a low WHIP, then I'm not too concerned about his ERA. The only exception is if I notice that the pitcher gives up a high number of home runs. In that case, a pitcher could have a low WHIP and still sustain a high ERA, which would be troubling in the long run.

Wins and losses (W/L)

Do you want to know a dirty little secret about the UPL? Wins and losses are garbage categories. This is true for any league that counts W's and L's instead of quality starts (QS).

I find W and L so hard to predict that I've taken to ignoring them. They're basically just luck. I would have argued for getting rid of these categories, but then I realized that the middle of the UPL Baseball scoreboard is kind of a fun place to have a roulette wheel.

Some people get caught up in whether a pitcher is on a good team or not. Part of the thinking here is that if a pitcher is on a good team then he'll pick up more wins, or if he's on a bad team he'll pick up more L's. I try to avoid that thinking. I'm more focused on whether the pitcher has a low WHIP, high K/9, and then perhaps if he's in a hitter-friendly park or not. Whether his team is slated to win 60 or 100 games doesn't really concern me too much.

American League vs. National League

Yes, I tend to favor NL starting pitchers over AL starting pitchers. If everything else is equal, then I have to believe that NL starters getting a weak-hitting pitcher at the plate once every nine at-bats instead of a talented DH makes a difference over the course of a season. However, this isn't a primary consideration.

I also pay attention to the division that a starting pitcher plays in. Will he being going up against elite offenses on a regular basis, or is he in a division with relatively weak offenses and pitcher-friendly parks? Again, this is only a minor consideration; and it's not a factor when thinking about closers.

About that Edwin Jackson pickup

After last season's UPL draft in March 2009, I got curious about the waiver wire and which players had gone undrafted. In doing some research, I came across a controversial article written by Michael Salfino. In it, he compared a 24-year-old Edwin Jackson to a 24-year-old Bob Gibson. He then went on to say that Edwin Jackson might come out of relative obscurity to have a breakout year similar to the way Cliff Lee did in 2008 or Esteban Loaiza in 2003.

Even now, people would look at you weird if you mentioned Edwin Jackson in the same sentence as Bob Gibson. Heck, even comparing Jackson to Cliff Lee would put you on shaky ground in most fantasy baseball circles. But can you imagine if I had gone around telling people back in March 2009 that I had read some article comparing Edwin Jackson to Bob Gibson, so now I'm going to pick him up because I think he'll have a breakout year? Yeah, I would have been mocked to say the least. Troy Patterson over at Roto Savants could give you a taste of the criticism I would have received.

But here's what the critics missed. Salfino's article wasn't trying to say that Edwin Jackson will be as good as Bob Gibson or Cliff Lee (although admittedly the Yahoo article title was a bit misleading). The article was simply reminding readers that Edwin Jackson is still young and talented. Its main message: There's still hope for Jackson to develop into a much better pitcher.

Furthermore, when I looked at Jackson's numbers for myself back in March 2009, I noticed that his WHIP from 2006 to 2008 was 1.84, 1.76, and 1.51. Those numbers were bad, but they were steadily going in the right direction. So I took a flier on him before the season even started, not in hopes that he would be Bob Gibson or Cliff Lee, but in hopes that he'd be a solid fantasy starter for my team in 2009.

Looking back on what Edwin Jackson did in 2009, for the first half he was an All-Star and then in the second half he tailed off. Overall, I'd say he was simply a solid fantasy starter for my team. That's all I wanted.

Closing time and final thoughts

Of course you want pitchers with low WHIP and high K/9. Everyone does. But where I differ is that I don't go after the "brand name" pitchers. That's because, compared to hitters, it's very tough to predict which pitchers will really perform the best from year to year, especially when you factor in injuries.

The key for me isn't so much where I focus, but where I don't. I tend to ignore W/L, quality of team, and the big names. This frees me up to focus on WHIP, K, and who I think is really ready to perform now--whether he's a steady veteran or a blooming prospect.

So far in this series we've discussed my keeper theory, my framework for accumulating points, and how I evaluate hitters and pitchers. I'd say we're ready to draft. That's next time in part five.