Over a shortened 2020 season, I suggested it might be a good idea to discount ratios, such as batting average, and buy more stable counting stats, like home runs. As such, I identified and discussed seven cheap power buys worthy of buying. The thinking was that you would get your homers, while the projected low batting averages reducing their costs would be volatile and might not necessarily finish at a negative value. Let’s see how the players ended up doing.

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The season has ended (boy was that quick!), which means it’s now time for me to go review crazy. I like to look back at all the articles I posted proclaiming this and speculating that about the upcoming season and reviewing the players discussed and my thoughts. In mid-July, a week before the season began, I published Five Starting Pitchers to Buy Cheap. Over a shortened season, I posited that the already volatile ratio categories were going to end up at surprising levels for many starting pitchers. So perhaps it might be prudent to focus more on strikeouts and almost entirely ignore ratio projections since 12 or so starts isn’t nearly enough of a sample for ratios to settle where we expect them to. That was the basis of this post, and of course taking ADP into account and targeting cheapies.

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Thursday has a much smaller slate of low-owned pitchers in CBS leagues with only six choices. So let’s discuss these six in hopes of finding streaming options. As usual, I will conclude my thoughts with a STREAM or NOT recommendation.

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Let’s continue our look at potentially streaming starting pitchers owned in 30% or fewer leagues on CBS. Today we’ll look at Wednesday’s slate as indicated by CBS. Below, I’ll discuss each stream candidate and conclude with a STREAM or NOT decision.

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As we enter the final full week of the season, streaming starting pitchers to try to maximize your wins and strikeouts might either become a viable strategy for you now or has been a strategy you have been executing for some time already. So let’s review the probable starters for Tuesday’s games that are owned on 30% or fewer teams in CBS leagues and conclude with a STREAM or NOT decision, assuming a 12-team mixed league.

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Yesterday, I discussed the teams scheduled to play eight games next week and the players widely available who might be worth a pickup, depending on your alternatives. Today, let’s identify the teams with the fewest games next week and which hitters you might consider benching, or even outright dropping, as a result. The advice here is aimed at shallower (12 teams) mixed leagues with weekly transactions.

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Next week is the last full one of the MLB season! Sheesh has the season gone quickly. We still have make-up games to be played so four teams will be playing eight games apiece. Remember that this isn’t as much of a boost as it would have been in previous seasons, as doubleheaders last just seven innings, so each extra game via doubleheader means just five more innings, rather than nine. In addition, a doubleheader might give a manager an opportunity to rest a player you think is a regular, completely canceling out the supposed advantage of the extra game(s). In fact, that could actually hurt, because the game they actually played was two innings less. Still, when you are teetering between two hitters, the extra game(s) could be the deciding factor on who to start for the week.

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After tackling the new American League regulars yesterday, let’s now dive back into the National League to discuss the hitters who are now seeing every day playing time.

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It’s only been a week since the first edition of this series, and yet there are enough new regulars to post an update. With just two weeks left in the season, playing time is paramount. Don’t get stuck starting a bench player unless you literally have no other options.

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With such a short season, playing time is even more paramount than it usually is. Instead of a missing game being just 0.6% of the season, it’s now 1.7%. That’s a significant difference. So it’s worth it to look to a team’s schedule to try to take advantage. Do this by seeking out teams scheduled to play the most games in a given week and rostering/starting those hitters. Obviously, that doesn’t mean bench a six game Mike Trout to start an eight game Brian Goodwin, but when you’re past the top couple of tiers at a position, then games scheduled should be a deciding factor.

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