I'm no rocket scientist, but pitching is half the battle in Fantasy. In Rotisserie 5x5 play, it's exactly half! In Head-to-Head play, a lot depends on your starters each week, so pitching might be two-thirds of your team one week -- but only one-third the following week.
Am I getting too stat heavy yet?
One trend in Fantasy Baseball is that teams begin to bulk up on starting pitchers early in the season. Personally, I like to work on my rotation with my April adds. In my opinion, it's more unlikely for a hot sleeper pitcher to cool down than a hot sleeper hitter (Chris Shelton anyone?) And if I have just two closers getting saves for me, keeping me near the bottom of the category, but within earshot of the middle, I can live with that. I'll certainly keep my eye out for some good waiver-wire closers over the early months, but for the most part, I'm eyeballing starting pitchers.
Looking back before we look forward
If you followed most of our columns throughout the spring, you know that we recommended waiting a few rounds into the middle stages of your Rotisserie draft before filling up your rotations. Pitching is not as reliable as hitting for the most part because injuries are much more common and debilitating for a pitcher than a hitter. Also, you have a much better chance of picking a sleeper pitcher late in the draft and picking up good free agents once the season starts than you have of picking sleeper hitters or finding free agent studs at the plate.
And if you picked hitters earlier in your draft to fill your lineups, you are less apt to replace them earlier in the season, allowing them more time than pitchers you picked later, thus invested much less in.
Look at this past couple weeks of "transaction action" (we'll use the Tout Wars Mixed League as a standard for comparisons). Note that this is mixed league talk, where pitchers and hitters are plentiful on the waiver wires. In AL- or NL-only leagues, rotations usually don't make as many changes that aren't injury-induced. You usually live or die by whatever crazy ideas you had about pitchers in March.
In the reserve draft of this league, 26 of the 66 draft picks were starting pitchers, so teams have more roster wiggle room among their reserve hitters than they do their starting rotation.
At the end of Week 1, Carlos Silva ($2), Ryan Dempster ($1), Joe Saunders ($2), Jake Westbrook ($1) and Todd Wellemeyer ($1) were picked up for Fantasy rotations. Among the relievers, Jon Rauch ($5), Mark Lowe ($1) and David Riske ($1) were the only pickups. And there were seven hitters among the signings: Scott Hairston ($1), John Buck ($1), Jeff Keppinger ($1), Xavier Nady ($5), Angel Pagan ($1), Garrett Anderson ($2) and Geoff Jenkins ($0). So of the 15 adds, five were starters, three relievers and seven were hitters. More than half added were pitchers, despite Rotisserie lineups having 50-percent more hitters than pitchers (nine pitchers, 14 hitters).
In the 12 Week 2 pickups, it's even more of a difference. Five starters went: Dana Eveland ($9), Micah Owings ($13), Nick Blackburn ($2), Edwin Jackson ($1) and Jonathan Sanchez ($1). Two relief pitchers again: Peter Moylan ($20) and Scot Shields ($1). Then only five hitters: David Murphy ($1), Jose Lopez ($1), Maicer Izturis ($1), Ben Broussard ($1), Jason Kendall ($0).
And look at the prices of the pitchers. Of the 10 starters picked up in the past two weeks, five were bid on by more than one owner. Only three of the 12 hitters drew bids by two or more owners.
So what's my point? Pitching, specifically starting pitching, has taken on much more importance early on in the season than hitting. It's the opposite of the strategy you used entering your draft.
Get pitching while you can!
There are only two kinds of pitchers in Fantasy Baseball: Those that are injured, and those that aren't injured ... yet.
And remember that as teams begin to fall out of the playoff races, they begin to shut down some of their big commodities in hopes of saving them for the next season (like Scott Kazmir in '06 and Erik Bedard in '07).
Then there's always the wonderful world of six-man rotations once teams call up their prospects after the minor-league season ends on Sept. 1.
You have to make hay while the sun shines, folks -- and building up your team on pitching in April, May and June will pay dividends well into August and September.
By building up your cumulative pitching stats, like wins and strikeouts, early on, you can work on dropping your ERA and WHIP later in the season in a few ways:
- Trading any of your high-strikeout stars (Javier Vazquez, Daisuke Matsuzaka, etc...) for boring (low ERA/low Ks) pitchers like Tim Hudson, Roy Oswalt and Brad Penny.
- Moving one or both of your top starters for reliable closers, thus building up the saves you neglected early on.
- Dropping or trading your fourth and fifth starting pitchers for upper-echelon middle relievers like Heath Bell, Ryan Franklin and Hideki Okajima. That would help you drop both your ERA and WHIP, with occasional relief wins and saves to boot.
Take a chance on some younger unknowns in the early parts of summer, then move them before the end of the season. By doing this you can take advantage of teams not familiar with them early on, then hurt your opponents when teams start crushing him after seeing him for the second and third time later in the summer. And young pitchers wear down as the season grows long, which has a rising effect on their ERA.
| | |||
| Rookie, Team | April stats | Sept. stats | |
| 1. | Daisuke Matsuzaka, BOS | 3-2, 4.36 ERA, 5 app, 5 Games | 2-1, 7.62, 5, 5 |
| 2. | Jason Hirsh, COL | 2-2, 3.41, 5, 5 | DL (leg) in August |
| 3. | Chris Sampson, HOU | 3-1, 3.55, 5, 4 | DL (elbow) in August |
| 4. | Dustin Moseley, LAA | 2-0, 1.17, 5, 2 | 0-1, 4.50, 6, 1 |
| 5. | Micah Owings, ARI | 1-1, 2.93, 3, 3 | 2-1, 3.00, 4, 4 |
Now is a better time than any to get six or even seven starting pitchers in your starting lineup, building up your wins and strikeouts. You'll have a much easier time making up the difference in saves, ERA and WHIP later in the season than April and May.
2008 Tout Wars
- Main website
- Tout Wars: Mixed Standings and Rosters
- Tout Wars: AL-only Standings and Rosters
- Tout Wars: NL-only Standings and Rosters
Starting this week, we're going to give you a peek into the brains of the Tout Wars owners. They're going to start sending in their thoughts and strategies on their transactions. The links above will show you the current standings for each league, as well as the rosters and transactions.
Tout Wars: AL-only Standings and Rosters
Jed Latkin, (the movie version of Sam Walker for FantasyLand): I was amazed at how much Sean Casey and Mark Lowe went for. Also, Denard Span for $15!?! Are we not expecting any big trades this year from the NL? Each Friday, I have spent several hours going over all the permutations and have made a point of not spending any FAAB just yet. I put in a money bid on Shawn Riggans and Sean Casey this week to force Rick Wilton and Jeff Erickson to pay up for them. Part of the strategy is just to play the hot middle reliever hands each week. So far it has worked with Randor Bierd and Brian Wolfe, but was not so successful with LaTroy Hawkins. My mistake was not bidding more on Matt Tolbert, as I could definitely use him over Tony F. Pena, at least for the time being.
Tout Wars: NL-only Standings and Rosters
Jason Collette, RotoJunkie.com: My pitching is currently going thru its worst-case scenario right now. I took a risk on Andrew Miller based on playing time and strikeout potential. The strikeouts have come, but at the cost of serious WHIP and ERA damage. Aaron Heilman has been awful as well, which has not helped because I drafted him to help offset that. As you know in Tout, there is not a ton of early help on the wire so the pickings have been slim. I have tried to start acquiring the middle relievers I had targeted at the draft to replace my Marlins. I got Manny Acosta two weeks ago and that might work well if he can pick up a few saves. Jared Burton was another guy who I wanted because he has quietly been producing quality MR production. Of course, it was not as quiet as I thought as Cory Schwartz beat my $3 bid by one dollar. I am encouraged by Jonathan O. Sanchez's growth this year although his ERA is masking that production. Moving forward, I will need to find some help in the win column. My goal was to hit 50 of the 60 points in hitting and get 30 points in pitching. If manager Joe Torre would actually play Matt Kemp, I might be successful with my strategy.
Phil Hertz: One issue when you're in a league this deep is that replacing people who are hurt can be a difficult chore. I lost both Ty Wigginton (who I'm using at 2nd base) and Michael Barrett last week. Replacement choices were few, especially at catcher, where I had about five awful choices and wound up taking a flier on Colt Morton.
Tout Wars: Mixed Standings and Rosters
Larry Schechter, SandlotShrink.com (Gonos note: This guy's the three-time defending champion ... and while I would never wish injury upon him, I definitely hope his pc gets hit by a bus): Here's a thought on my getting Peter Moylan on FAAB: We haven't heard anything specific about Rafael Soriano's current injury, and given his history of arm troubles, I wouldn't be shocked if he's out for an extended time. Moylan's not a lock to be the lone closer, but considering Moylan's been pretty good at set-up, and should have the first shot to close, it's well worth the risk. If Soriano is back in two weeks, it won't be good. But if Soriano's out for months and Moylan keeps the job, it'll be a steal.
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