Pick Six Strategy, Groups: The Chronicles of ottoneu
After picking six for over 20 days straight, I’ve won one day. One stinking Bobby Valentine. Perhaps I’m not the best person to turn to for strategy in this particular game. I’ll offer it up anyway.
Mimicking my general fantasy strategy, I’ve been pushing money away from pitching. There are so many good matchups every day, why not find a good, cheap pitcher against a terrible offense? Last night, I chose a $17.75 Shaun Marcum (at home against New York), but that’s about the most expensive I’ll go for a starter. I was severely tempted by a $10.75 Daniel Hudson in Pittsburgh, and even Jonathan Sanchez at home against the Nationals made sense at $6.25 (or his opponent, the $3.50 Jordan Zimmermann). Don’t spend on starting.
If you are not going to spend on starting, there’s really no reason to spend on relieving. If a starter is no guarantee to perform on any given night, at least he’s guaranteed to show up and, you know, play. The ottoneu Dark Lord Niv Shah was kind enough to give me the points per position in the Pick Six game so far. Clearly, relievers are the red-headed step-children of the game.
| Position | Average Points |
|---|---|
| C | 4.248 |
| CI | 6.271 |
| MI | 4.596 |
| OF | 5.909 |
| RP | 3.193 |
| SP | 7.091 |
After all that blabbing about not paying for pitching, it might be surprising to see that starting pitchers have the best number in this table. But the point wasn’t that pitchers are not worth spending money on, the point was that there were plenty of bargains. Niv is nothing if not eminently bug-able – he graciously gave me the points per dollar spent for each position.
| Position | Average Points Per Dollar |
|---|---|
| C | 3.096 |
| CI | 5.461 |
| MI | 4.383 |
| OF | 4.185 |
| RP | 1.873 |
| SP | 2.057 |
Ah-hah. So, even just by groping my way through the dark with intuition instead of the numbers in front of me, it looks like I stumbled onto a viable strategy. Spend where you get the most return for your dollar: non-catcher offense.
Oh, and while you are at it, join a group! Now Pick Six has groups so that you attract like-minded players easily. Oh, and with groups you might be able to put a little friendly gummy-bear wager on the thing. If you like gummy bears or whatever. I’m in #PraiseBeltran and I started RotoGraphRegulars. Pimp your group here if you want others to join in!
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
I really think we need some sort of replacement level analysis here. Is the minimum 0 points and 0 dollars? Probably not.
Maybe a simple scatter plot (or one for each position) showing points against cost for all players?
Or maybe you’d want to plot “positional entries” instead of “players”. So you might plot Matt Joyce at $2 25 times, but someone else no times.