It has been nice waking up over the past few days and having one less item to complete, specifically setting my fantasy baseball lineups. I am going to enjoy the extra time, but not for long. The off season for fantasy baseball has begun and it means that preparation for next season needs to begin. The following are a few concepts I follow during the off season.
Winterize Keeper Teams – I talked about this concept last year and still believe in it.
The fantasy baseball season is officially over. Whether you won your league or stopped playing weeks ago, there’s a lot to take away from the past season. While wounds are still fresh for some of you, it’s always important to reflect on your fantasy team. Knowing where you went wrong, or what went right can help you formulate a winning strategy in future seasons. As you look back on your team, here are a few things to keep in mind for next season.
Personally, I hold the old-school belief that the well-rounded player with speed and defense is the best selection for the MVP hardware, but that’s of no concern until I have a vote. In the meantime, I’m left wondering what this debate means for fantasy.
We fantasy-obsessed know that this debate foreshadows a more important one: who should be the number one pick next year. Maybe the things we know about the players now can help us make that decision a little easier, but the conversation can still tell us something about the things we value in the fantasy game.
If you’re coming down to the final three days of your last head-to-head baseball matchup of the year, or your roto league is a nail-biter, and your league has innings limits, then you might be thinking about taking advantage of a loophole that allows you to pile on innings in the day your limit is reached. This is definitely an option in Yahoo, as Jeff Zimmerman pointed out.
If you’re looking at a mass stream day, then Tuesday is your man. Wednesday is such a flake.
Following the lead of my colleagues this week I’ll continue with players available to stream as your head-to-head leagues come to a close.
As opposed to our own David Wiers, I’m not afraid of streaming Murphy, especially when his ownership is down to just 30% in Yahoo! leagues. Murphy has somehow been able to shed the platoon tag that’s been placed on him his whole career. Coming into the season his OPS against southpaws was .676…it’s .856 right now with a .351 batting average. That success has enabled him to turn into a fulltime player. His performance has dipped a bit in September as compared to August (.944 OPS) but he may be helped by the Rangers playing their next five games at home where he, like every other player in baseball, does very well. The A’s have a very good pitching staff and Murphy has been held hitless the past two games, but you’re not likely to find a better option owned in fewer than 50% of leagues.
We’re almost in rear-view mirror mode. Impossible though it may be to comprehend, the season is almost over and if you’re not winning your league, you’re currently on the sliding scale of realizing you’re not going to win your league. If you find yourself in the latter group, I’m sorry for that.
With losing in mind, however, I wanted to highlight a draft that I thought was just simply ludicrous back in March. A manager punted pitching. Like, the whole thing. Not just saves — but anyone who might toe the rubber.
You might be totally familiar with this tactic, but I’d never seen it actually utilized in a money league before — and not by a manager who actually managed the whole length of the season.
This is a mixed, standard roto, 12-team league in the Yahoo! format — with a $100 buy in. I didn’t even realize it was happening during the madness of the draft. It was when I started to scan the competition that I noticed one team drafted just four relievers, all in the last handful of rounds: David Robertson, Alexi Ogando, Randy Choate, and Duane Below. Yes, Duane Below.
We’ll be doing a wrap-up of each position once the regular season comes to an official close, but for now, let’s talk about a few of the backstops who made significant contributions to fantasy teams this year, but are likely to be overvalued next season. Whether their stats regress or whether they come at a significantly higher cost than they should, either draft pick or auction dollars, some of 2012’s fantasy heroes behind the dish just won’t measure up next season. I’m sure most readers of RotoGraphs are wary of the pitfalls, but just in case you’re new to the scene, here are a few to watch out for next season. Read the rest of this entry »
I hate them. I hate head-to-head leagues. I won’t win a single one this year. And, obviously I’m not saying I had the best team in all five of those leagues, but I figured I’d win at least one of them.
Nope.
If there’s less than two weeks to go and you’re noticing you have some catching up to do in innings pitched, you best get busy. I know in two of my high-payout standard roto leagues, there are four points separated by two wins, and at least a couple points to be had in strikeouts. As much as I hate the win category, I know I’m in win-chasing mode, and to that end, I’m looking at the most favorable matchups I can find.
There are a good number of decent options on the waiver wire as you head into the weekend, but I’m going to make a few recommendations based almost exclusively off of the fact that some starters are facing lineups that have been struggling to score runs. After all, if they don’t score, you’re in darn fine shape.
It is that time of the year when fantasy teams begin to reach their pitching limits. Limits are in place to to mimic the innings thrown by a MLB team’s pitching staff over a season. Owners should dive into the leagues rules to see if a team can get a late point rush by maxing out as many pitching innings as possible.
