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DownloadShopping on Saves is generally the mode for many players who didn’t want to overpay for Saves at the draft. But if you go that route you must be very aggressive in your continuing pursuit of adding closers.
Whether they in fact can hold the job is the secondary consideration – adding some amount of immediate saves is often more important.
Let’s look at a few situations that have emerged. I suspect that many of you rostered Alfredo Aceves especially in early drafts where we hoped he might get a spot in the Red Sox rotation. (And PS Bobby V he should have – try making the decisions on who pitches better not who makes more money or has more seniority….you could easily DL the higher paid guy to try and get him right BEFORE you run him out there and not miss out on good pitching from the better skills NOW). However if you weren’t in a huff, your potential starter turned into some save opportunities.
I don’t think that is Aceves best usage – he should be in the rotation. How much better would things look if the Red Sox had started with Aceves in the rotation and moved Daniel Bard to closer when Bailey went down. (And PSS didn’t everyone think it was a question of when not if?)
Drew Storen landing on the DL wasn’t anywhere near as predictable. Who knew he had chips in his elbow? But an immediate add of Brad Lidge or Henry Rodriguez paid dividends. BTW there is a corollary to the strategy not to overpay for closers and that should give you SP with better ratios so that you can buffer Lidge’s efforts while you collect his saves.
And now we have another opportunity with the (again not so unexpected) news that Giant’s closer Brian Wilson will have to go under the knife. Fear the Beard no more. Instead RUN don’t walk to get a San Francisco reliever who will get some saves.
Personally I think Sergio Romo will get the first shot but even Giant’s manager Bruce Bochy has said he will use both Romo and Santiago Casilla (and PPS there may be situational opportunities for Javier Lopez or Jeremy Affeldt as the committee goes forward).
I think the “shark play” assuming you have the roster spots and necessary dollars is to get BOTH Romo and Casilla and if Romo does indeed get a couple of early saves this coming week, immediately deal him off to upgrade another position and keep Casilla who I think will have more saves over the rest of the season.{jcomments on}
Frankly I wish I didn’t have to ask that question...or for that matter write this piece of advice. But we are all human – thus sometimes weak, even insecure. The best fantasy baseball advice I could give you before the season started would have been to not even look at the standings for at least the first two weeks of the season.
But heck I can’t follow that advice so I can’t blame you if you look at each of your leagues every day. But exactly WHAT is it you expect to learn after Week One? And a short week at that – teams playing only three or four games in the last ten days. YOU aren’t going to base your whole season on that are you?
I mean we are not talking replacing a DL player in your lineup – you have already done that whether it was sometime last week or yesterday or today for this week.
And those of you who had your first waiver wire run or FAAB have tried to replace the Victor Martinez, Ryan Madson, and Andrew Baileys of your fantasy teams.
And yes you should read box scores and game recaps and other fantasy relevant columns every day (or as often as you can).
But you shouldn’t be throwing your team away....it’s less than one single week of approximately TWENTY SIX. The time for real decisions about trades is IMHO at least a month away (barring the completely obvious you drafted two closers, inherited two more and lost a catcher and some guy wants to give you Wilson Ramos for your worst new closer).
But as I have written every year for the last decade…PLEASE do us both a favor and take a chill pill.
How about after you read this you forget about your fantasy teams for the rest of the day (assuming you have already set your lineups) and take your wife or significant other or best non partner friend out for dinner…or dinner and a movie...or a movie and dessert.
Let’s talk next week...maybe later this week if you like...you know where to find me.{jcomments on}
I generally see a lot of mistakes made the week before the season starts and have already seen some questions or moves that mean there are still some people out there reading a note and making a roster decision without looking at the big picture.
Don’t be the guy who saw late yesterday that Drew Pomeranz was cut by the Rockies and immediately put in a waiver claim for a lesser pitcher, dropping Pomeranz. Pomeranz has locked up a spot in the Colorado rotation but they don’t need him to start until Sunday, April 15 in Arizona, so they sent him down to the minors so he can stay on schedule to start that day. That gives them an extra spot for the first two weeks for an extra bullpen pitcher or to make a final decision on their bench.
Perhaps the same with the LA Angels Garrett Richards who is competing with Jerome Williams for the fifth spot in the Halos rotation, but that spot does not come up until April 15 and a game against the Yankees. So both Richards and Williams will continue pitching to be available that day and hope they get picked. Williams was slow coming back from a hamstring problem with his right leg but did pitch four good innings in a minor league game on Saturday. Meanwhile Richards who has been pretty good this spring pitched a solid six innings against the Cubs. This one is too close to call so don’t drop either if you have them because the fifth starter for the Angels will be a valuable pitcher. If I had a free roster spot to pick one up and hope they got the call, I would choose Richards.
In some leagues these situations may present a different opportunity if you have a minor league draft after your auction/draft and the eligibility is based on opening day rosters. Grabbing a guy like Pomeranz in an NL only league or Richards in an AL only league as a minor leaguer might give you an extra pitcher just a few weeks into the season.{jcomments on}
While many of you detest drafting catchers, they are a fact of fantasy life and are not going away. So you should learn to like drafting catchers – they can give you a big advantage over your competitors in two catcher leagues.
That doesn’t necessarily mean drafting them early. Actually I am against that unless it is a hitter who will give you solid production at the position. Mike Napoli was a fine example of that last year – headed to Texas and a superb home park hitting atmosphere and lineup. This year Napoli is I fear being drafted a little too early if you factor in a likely regression in batting average and are even remotely concerned about his ankle problems not yet being resolved. Still the power will be there.
But if you do draft Napoli and want to totally blow off drafting another catcher for most of the draft at least get yourself Yorvit Torrealba late in the game.
I also think that while the Cleveland Indians say Carlos Santana will catch all the time that Lou Marson makes a great end game or even reserve pick whether you own Santana or not. Marson can hit a little himself and if Santana has to play first base or DH for either health or lineup reasons you have a nice option.
Sadly for those who rostered Salvador Perez in early drafts, after knee surgery Perez will be out a minimum of two months, more likely a full three months. Temporarily that makes Brayan Pena a starting catcher in AL only leagues and even (as I suggested before) makes Max Ramirez assuming he makes the Royals opening day roster at least a consideration in deep leagues – especially if you own Perez and will have him coming back.
In auction leagues this makes a nice draft day play – even more so in keeper leagues. Your opponents will not be thinking about Perez so you should be able to get him for a buck or two and then replace him with Pena if not drafted or Ramirez if there is not a better option.
Here is another play for you to catch in AL only leagues (or very deep mixed leagues). You should be able to get Jarrod Saltalamacchia for much less than his scrabble value. Salty has power and this should be the year he steps up his game to solidify his position with the Red Sox. If not Ryan Lavarnway will be just a short ride away at AAA Pawtucket. BUT don’t draft the slugging Lavarnway as Saltalamacchia’s backup. That catcher would be Kelly Shoppach who is a decent run producing catcher albeit one with a poor batting average. But you can get Shoppach for a buck and then get Lavarnway in the reserves or minor league portion of your draft and have the Fenway Park home runs by catchers sewn up for a very reasonable single digit price.{jcomments on}
Fantasy baseball leagues come in all shapes and sizes - and from lots of different sources. For me there are my two “home” keeper leagues, one dual league keeper league, the industry leagues – for me LABR AL, and then whatever high stakes leagues (now only NFBC) that the bank and my schedule will allow.
This one came out of left field – both literally and figuratively as it is a twelve team, mixed, redraft, H2H points league that my friend John Duckworth had formed last year with several other fantasy football players. They were all veterans of the FFPC and decided to have some fun with baseball with each team putting in $150 so the winner would have a totally paid entry for the FFPC main event in September.
So the lure worked and I signed on to help John (aka The Yellow Line is Unofficial) win an FFPC entry we would split next fall in Las Vegas.
Now H2H is not my usual league – complicated even more by it being a weekly points matchup and not based on winning the standard roto categories. BUT who can resist a challenge with my FF buddies?
So I discussed the format with Todd – heavily weighted to pitching, especially starting pitching as we will start six SP and only two RP. A few immediate candidates for later roster spots came to mind – Daniel Bard, Neftali Feliz, and Chris Sale, all of whom would be listed as RP from last year but would be starting. Except for the very best closers, most starters would score as many points Especially in two start weeks when you would want to deploy them.
I wasn’t sure how savvy the league mates were but figured after the tremendous season Justin Verlander had last year (where on this system he outscored the best hitters by two hundred points) he was sure to go high and there might be several starters drafted in the first round.
John and I ended up with the second pick in the first round, so my plan was pretty clear – take Roy Halladay if he was available or start the hitters with Albert Pujols if Chef Paul took Doc.
Well Paul took Pujols so we started with Halladay. My plan down that path was to take the best hitter and the best pitcher on the 2/3 turn unless the pitcher run had been more vigorous and they had left me two first round hitters. However they only took three more starters – Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Cliff Lee – so we took Mark Teixeira, the last of the top first baseman at the end of the second round and when Paul went hitter/hitter on the turn were delighted to roster Dan Haren, giving us two of the top five starters for this league’s scoring.
At the end of the fourth round it was time to get the best hitters available and we selected Brandon Phillips. In the fifth round I was interested in Michael Cuddyer but Duck wisely suggested that he thought this group would leave him for a while and was more likely to take Shane Victorino in coming picks. So we took the Flying Hawaiian at the top of the fifth.
If you are wondering what happened with the pitchers, here is the recap
Four were drafted in the first as noted earlier
Only three (Felix Hernandez, CC Sabathia, and Zack Greinke) were taken in the second
After we took Haren in the third, Jered Weaver, David Price, and Tim Lincecum went in the third
In the fourth more attention was paid to them as James Shields, Yovanni Gallardo, Jon Lester, Ian Kennedy, and Matt Cain all came off the board.
The fifth round saw eight drafted and the sixth before our pick saw seven more go.
The only unusual part of this was that the team behind us (#3) had taken five straight pitchers (Verlander, Greinke, Weaver, Kennedy, and Wainwright). The “Sportsbetting Slappers” would go on to take pitchers with their first nine picks which definitely skewed the picks for those who thought they could wait on their first pitchers. Their offense is predictably below average but it will be interesting to see how many weeks they can win with the former “backwards” draft approach.
In round 6 we took Michael Young as the third base pool had captured many targets - most of who are projected to score twenty to thirty fewer points less than Young. And John was right; Cuddyer was there for us in the seventh, by now the top hitter left on the boards.
In the 8th round I drafted Cory Luebke, a pitcher unfamiliar to John, but a strong play because along with the favorable Home Park and good K/9, Luebke has dual eligibility as RP/SP. We got our catcher on the turn – not that in a twelve team league playing one catcher there was a need to rush, but by that time Miguel Montero was a strong play.
Here is the lineup for the team as drafted (round #) along with our ten reserves – as you would suspect in this kind of a points league skewed towards pitching candidates.
C – Miguel Montero (9)
1B – Mark Teixeira (2)
2B – Brandon Phillips (4)
3B – Michael Young (6)
SS – Marco Scutaro (12)
OF – Victorino (5), Cuddyer (7), and Carlos Beltran (10)
UT – Carlos Lee (14) and Corey Hart (17)
Reserves – Brennan Boesch (18), Derek Jeter (22), Angel Pagan (23), and Brent Morel (27)
SP – Halladay (1), Haren (3), Luebke (8), Jaime Garcia (11), Brandon McCarthy (15) and Matt Harrison (19)
RP – Mariano Rivera (13) and Daniel Bard (16)
Reserves – Henderson Alvarez (20), Juan Nicasio (21), Jarrod Parker (24), Trevor Bauer (25), Luis Mendoza (26…also RP), and Danny Hultzen (28).
Obviously Bauer and Hultzen were pure shots since we don’t know at this point (draft time) whether they will break with the big clubs, but they both had a lot more upside than the starters available at that point who will still be available if we need to FAAB them.
How many of you play in H2H points leagues? Let’s compare notes or questions, here or on the message boards and win lots of leagues.{jcomments on}