Blow Up Your Innings

You probably know the drill by now, but if you play in Yahoo leagues, there’s a Hail Mary option at the end of the season to chase wins, strikeouts, or if you’re in a miserable league like I am, points. You can whittle your innings down to precious few, even one third of an inning left on your allocation for the season — and then run five starters and two relievers out there to try and blow the roof off. It doesn’t matter if all seven guys through complete games, you’ll get credit for their stats, for better or for worse.

If you’re in a points league, there’s probably not much to lose if you have a comfortable lead over the next guy (although, there is the cautionary true tale of one owner who started Andy Pettite on the final day in 2000, netting him a -17 and costing him the league). In standard rotisserie, you probably should scan the ERA and WHIP categories and see just how vulnerable you are to losing points there. For whatever effort you’re putting in to gain in wins and strikeouts, there’s definitely high risk in ERA and WHIP with this approach.

In my experience, it probably doesn’t behoove you (yes, behoove) to plan to blow up your innings on the last day of the season. The final day is volatile. Teams clinch, teams are eliminated, and there are typically implications for starting rotations. If you can manage to stockpile ten potential starters for the 28th, then maybe you’re safe, but there’s nothing more dissatisfying than planning for five arms only to find out that three of them have been scratched. So for my purposes, I’m targeting the 27th for the big blow up.

In my bragging rights Yahoo! league, there were a multitude of options for the 27th on the waiver wire. I’ll briefly cover each one, in rough order of preference.

Derek Holland vs. Oakland

This one kind of rides on whether or not Oakland has safely secured a Wild Card slot or not. As of my current typing, they have a three game lead due to the Seattle Mariner implosion experience, and by Saturday it ought to be over. If it’s over, chances are Oakland is going to toss some scrub out there who might not even make the postseason roster in order to get their playoff plans in place. They also might rest the majority of their regular offense, in fact they ought to rest the majority of their offense after the scrap they’ve been through over the last month. If they run a lineup out there with Craig Gentry and Nick Punto hitting 3-4, expect Holland to have a field day.

Wily Peralta vs. Chicago Cubs

Milwaukee is probably going to be eliminated by Saturday, but I’d think they let Peralta go ahead and finish strong. He’s put together a solid September, pitching to a 2.36 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, and 18% K rate. The Cubs are probably going to be without Anthony Rizzo and might find themselves running a lineup out there to try and do the old proverbial “evaluate talent for 2015” thing. This merits watching, however, because Peralta is at a career high innings-wise, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they shut him down.

Jake Peavy vs. San Diego; A.J. Burnett vs. Atlanta; Dan Haren vs. Colorado

Take your pick of the old guard here. Peavy has been awfully good as a member of the Giants and he’s throwing against a pretty weak lineup not to mention his old team. The Giants are likely to have clinched a playoff spot by Saturday though, so keep an eye on Peavy’s role. My guess is he still gets the nod. For Burnett, this might be his last start — like, ever. He seems like just enough of an egomaniac to go out there and throw a complete game shutout. At a minimum, you’d have to guess he’ll be giving it his all, even when there’s nothing really to play for in this game. Haren has pretty quietly had a terrific second half. He’s had a 3.69 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, holding opponents to a .211/.260/.359 slash line. The Dodgers have the division pretty well in hand, but given their options for the playoffs, Haren will still need to get his work in on Saturday, I’d imagine. He might not go more than five or six innings, but against that Colorado lineup, that ought to be enough for a chance at an elusive win.

Alfredo Simon vs. Pittsburgh;

Pittsburgh still has lots to play for here as they’re still sniffing a division title, which given the one game playoff mess, is a pretty valuable thing. So they might not be the lineup you want to go up against. Still, Simon has had a pretty nice little season with a 3.34 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, and middling strikeout numbers. This is another candidate for a shut down, however, as Simon is far beyond career totals in innings pitched and the Cincinnati Reds have nothing to play for in 2014 — so keep an eye on this match-up.

When there are no other options and you just want to blow up your innings for the sake of giving yourself something to watch on Saturday — you could go with Wade Miley vs. St. Louis; Nathan Karns at Cleveland; Samuel Deduno at New York Mets; Felix Doubront at Milwaukee; John Danks vs. Kansas City. There are a couple other options, but, yeeeah.