The Fantasy Baseball Sherpa

An old baseball cliche describes the season as “a marathon, not a sprint”, and for most of the season, that comparison is appropriate. The baseball season has 26 weeks, a marathon is just over 26 miles, and surviving both requires a combination of pacing and persistence.

However, that comparison goes out the window in the final week of the baseball season for those managing a fantasy baseball team. With just a handful of games left on the schedule, there’s no time left to “pace yourself”. Those in head-to-head leagues are slugging it out for the league championship, a consolation round, or just for pride. Those in rotisserie leagues are scouring the standings, looking for opportunities to eke out a final precious point or two.

Regardless of which format your league uses, here are some helpful tips to keep in mind heading into the final week of the season:

1. Beware of injuries, especially to star players. If you still have the likes of Hideki Matsui, Carlos Guillen, or Yunel Escobar in your lineup (just to name a few), remove them from your lineup immediately! Don’t expect the Marlins to rush Hanley Ramirez back either. Teams will often shut down injured players early, especially if they’re out of the standings. Don’t get stuck with one of them in your lineup for the last week, or you may spend the entire off-season regretting it.
2. Maximize Games Played and Innings Pitched. If you’re trying to decide between two players of roughly similar ability for a spot in your final week’s lineup, remember to consider any differences in games played. Manny Ramirez may post better fantasy numbers over the course of a season than Carlos Beltran, but if the Mets play seven games in the final week of the season and the Dodgers play six, I’d go with Beltran in leagues that require you to set your lineup at the beginning of the week. The same goes for Middle Relievers and Closers.
3. Be careful in selecting 2-start Pitchers. Johan Santana is listed as a two-start pitcher this week. That means he has to be in your weekly lineup, right? Maybe not. Of course, I’d still rather have one start from Johan Santana than two starts from most pitchers in the league. However, if I’m chasing Wins or Strikeouts at this point and am fairly locked into a place in the ERA and WHIP categories, I’d be looking for other options. If the Mets are already locked into a playoff spot (either as the division winner or the wild card) heading into the weekend, there’s a good chance they’ll skip Santana’s second start so that he’ll be available to pitch twice in a five-game playoff series. Remember, MLB teams could care less about how their decisions impact our fantasy rosters!
4. Keep up to date on recent Closer changes. Maybe the other owners in your league have stopped paying attention if they’re no longer in contention. Maybe the other owners are all happy with their current Closers. Whatever the reason, check to see whether recently annointed Closers such as Chad Qualls and Matt Lindstrom are available in your league.
5. Assume that playoff-bound teams will rest players. It’s a safe bet that teams like the Cubs and Angels will go easy on their Starting Pitchers and give their everyday players at least one or two games off during the last week of the season since they have nothing to play for. Since both these teams have seven games this week, I wouldn’t count on the everyday players starting more than five games.
6. Start players on teams that still have something to play for. The Mets are Exhibit A here, since they’re still in the running for both their division crown and the NL wild card. The Diamondbacks are another team with 7 games this week that still has something to play for. Although the Brewers have just 6 games this week, the Mets’ bullpen figures to keep them in the wild card race at least until the start of the weekend. The White Sox/Twins race will likely be decided before the weekend, as will the Rays/Red Sox race, so expect those teams to rest players once the races are decided.
7. Watch for other fantasy teams’ discards. The final week of the season usually gives rise to some interesting, if not downright questionable moves on the part of fantasy team owners. The vast majority of these moves are not the result of collusion; rather, they are the result of fantasy team owners assessing which categories they can still make up ground in, then acting on that assessment. However, this can create some great opportunities for the vigilant owner. Perhaps another team has dropped a Stolen Base guy or two (e.g. Willy Taveras, Michael Bourn) in an effort to pick up a few more Home Runs the last week of the season. If you need Stolen Bases, be prepared to pounce.

Good luck the rest of the way!

The Sherpa

With just 2 1/2 weeks to go in the baseball season it’s obviously a lot harder to make up ground in your league’s standings than it was just last month. While the early stages of the baseball season can give rise to seismic shifts in the standings (seemingly on a daily basis), daily swings in the standings at this point in the season are usually confined to a couple of points in either direction.

However, that’s no excuse for throwing in the towel at this point. Everyone has something to play for at this point in the season. Maybe you’re running away with your league and want to see if you can break your league’s record for best single season. Maybe you’re in a tight race for first or to finish “in the money” or to avoid last place. Whatever your motivation, there’s still a lot of baseball left to be played and time to move up in the standings!

Here’s the process I go through at this point in the season in an effort to maximize my points in a rotisserie league:

1. Start with a current copy of your league’s standings. Go through the standings category by category and determine how many points you can potentially gain or lose in each category (it’s very important not to overlook the latter possibility!)
2. Determine your potential point swing in each category - at this point in the season I’d suggest using a one-week timeframe (i.e. - how much ground could I realistically gain/lose in the next week?). For instance, if you could potentially gain 1 point and lose 3 points in a given category, then your potential point swing for that category is 4.
3. Identify the 1-2 Hitting categories and the 1-2 Pitching categories with the biggest potential point swings.
4. Evaluate all potential roster moves by gauging their impact on the priority categories you’ve identified in Steps 1-3.

One caveat - be aware of correlations between categories when identifying your priority categories and evaluating your potential transactions. If you decide to prioritize a counting category (e.g. - AVG, OBP), be sure that you’re not benching your 3 best home run hitters for the upcoming week. Conversely, if you decide to prioritize an average-based category (e.g. - ERA, WHIP), make sure that you’re not benching all of your Starting Pitchers and giving up more ground than you’d anticipated in Wins and Strikeouts.

I’d suggest repeating these steps weekly, shortly before your league’s weekly transaction deadline (if applicable). By following this straightforward process, you’ll know that you gave yourself the best possible chance to maximize your points at the end of the season. Who wants to spend all Winter kicking themselves about the points that got away?

Until next time,

The Sherpa

Hard to believe, but we’re into the final three weeks of the baseball season! If you’re in a head-to-head league, you’re either in the middle of your league’s playoff schedule or just about to start it. For those of you in rotisserie leagues there isn’t as much change in the daily standings as there was earlier in the season, but there’s still time to maximize your team’s point total and climb in the standings.

One often overlooked way to accomplish just that is through the use of Set-up men & Middle Relievers. For the most part I’m referring to set-up man, although there are several teams with pitchers in both roles who can help your team down the stretch (e.g. - the Chicago White Sox’ Octavio Dotel and Matt Thornton).

Such a strategy requires tradeoffs. Using a Set-up man or Middle Reliever instead of a Starting Pitcher will reduce your ability to accumulate Wins, although substituting a Set-up man or Middle Reliever from a good team for a Starting Pitcher on a bad team will often mitigate this impact. One of the two Starting Pitchers receives the victory in approximately 70% of all games, which leaves Long Relievers, Middle Relievers, Set-up men, and Closers to fight over the other 30%. Since they typically pitch 30-40% of the number of innings as Starting Pitchers, Middle Relievers and Set-up men also rack up fewer Strikeouts, although their strikeout rates per inning (or 9 innings, if you prefer) are often higher than those for Starting Pitchers.

The biggest advantage in using above average Set-up men & Middle Relievers over mediocre to sub-par Starting Pitchers comes in the ERA and WHIP categories, which are often overlooked, if not outright ignored by fantasy owners. Unlike the counting categories such as Wins and Strikeouts, a fantasy team’s ERA and WHIP can move in either direction. Obviously, you have little or no control over other owners’ lineup decisions, but I’ve found that at this point in the season, owners will often make questionable decisions with respect to Starting Pitchers in an effort to maximize Wins. These questionable decisions often come back to haunt the owners who make them - the Starting Pitcher fails to win the game and does long-term damage to his owner’s ERA and WHIP in the process.

While it may be tempting to go with a highly-touted September call-up as a Starting Pitcher (particularly if he has two starts in a given week), you’ll usually be better off going with a top-flight Set-up man or Middle Reliever if your goal is to improve your place in the standings. Just be aware of your league’s Minimum Innings Pitched requirement (if any) and make sure you’re likely to satisfy it before you decide to employ this strategy.

Here’s a list of some Set-up men and Middle Relievers who may be currently available in your league:

NL: Jon Rauch, Will Ohman, Carlos Marmol, Jeff Samardzija, Jared Burton, Joe Nelson, Arthur Rhodes, Hong-Chih Kuo, Brian Stokes, Joe Smith, J.C. Romero, and Heath Bell.

AL: Scot Shields, Jose Arredondo, Hideki Okajima, Octavio Dotel, Matt Thornton, Rafael Perez, Ramon Ramirez, Joba Chamberlain, Edwar Ramirez, Huston Street, Dan Wheeler, Grant Balfour, and Scott Downs.

Until next time,

The Sherpa

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that Fantasy Baseball Sherpa received some great coverage this week in an article written by fantasy sports columnist Steve Gardner that appears in the Sept 3-9 edition of USA Today Sports Weekly! The full-page article features my recommended Keepers by position heading into the 2009 season.

Enjoy!

The Sherpa