SP Planning Down the Stretch

Welcome to the final two weeks of the season. Or close to it, anyway. When games wrap up Sunday afternoon and evening, we will officially have 14 days remaining before the regular season wraps up on September 27.

With the end so near, sit/start calls for your rotation have changed. Maybe in your head-to-head league, things are pretty normal – you max out innings and games played; if you have a limit on games started by your pitching staff, you try to identify the best starts that fit under that limit. The stakes are higher, but the process might be the same.

But in season-long leagues, there are some nuances that should change your typical thought process.

There are basically two things that stand out, for me, in planning my starting pitchers moving forward: categories and innings limits.

The former is something roto players think about often (points leagues managers, feel free to skip ahead). In May, you are starting your best available SP and trying to improve your stats across all categories. Today? That may not be the case.

How I’m Addressing Categories

I play in a 5×5 dynasty league that uses ERA, WHIP, strikeouts, saves+holds and “wins and quality appearances 3” (WQA3) as our five pitching categories.  Four of those, you know. The fifth, WQA3, is actually pretty straight forward. You get credit for both wins (you know, traditional, old school, wins) and Quality Appearance 3’s, which are defined as outings of 5+ innings with an ERA of 4.50 or lower. That’s not important right now. What is important right now is that these are our pitching standings:

That’s my team highlighted in green, the Yuba City Honkers. I am third in pitching, fourth in hitting, and third overall. I am three points clear of fourth but 19 points out of second. So I am trying to protect that hold on a podium finish. And I can only do that in certain pitching categories.

In strikeouts, I rank third, but I am nearly 300 strikeouts behind second and more than 150 above fourth. There is really no way to gain or lose points there. In WQA3, I am also in third, and in this case 26 out of second and 26 clear of fourth. Changes here are really unlikely.

I am a little lower down in WHIP and a little higher up in ERA, and there is a bit more hanging in the balance on those. In ERA, my 3.52 is second, with a team at 3.57 behind me. That’s a gap that can be made up in a couple of weeks, if things go poorly for me and well for him. In WHIP, I am .023 out of fourth and .009 ahead of sixth. It might be hard to move up, but I need to protect myself there.

And then we get to saves and holds. I have 146, which is a decent number, good enough for fifth in this league. The team behind me has 130, so I have no risk here. But the teams ahead of me have 147, 149, and 155. All three of those are, at least theoretically, within reach.

As a result, starting today, I am going to do some aggressive bullpen churning. My goal is to scour the wire daily for relievers who a) have some saves and/or holds this year, b) haven’t pitched in a day or two, and c) have a decent chance for their team to get a win. Ideally, I can find some SP-eligible relievers, as well. We start 4 SP, 4 RP, and 1 P daily. If I can get to six, seven or even eight RP in my lineup, I can increase my odds to add saves or holds and try to gain a few points to protect myself in the standings.

This is going to really hamper my team in WQA3 and would have been a bad strategy in May. It should help my ERA, but maybe not my WHIP. It is definitely not the best path to getting strikeouts. But it’ll help where I need help.

What You Should Do to Address Categories

Take five minutes to check out your standings and see where you need help. In that league, I need saves and holds. In Ottoneu League 1, I need K, have a chance to gain in HR/9, and need to protect my WHIP. The decisions I make there will be very different. I might be okay running out a low HR/9 SP in a good pitchers park even if I don’t love the matchup. I am going to need to max out innings to get those strikeouts.

I can’t tell you what you need, but go check and stop making decisions based on who is the best overall pitcher and instead based on who helps you most where it still matters.

How I’m Addressing Innings Caps

The other late-season game changer is impending innings limits. All of my Ottoneu season-long leagues and a couple of other leagues I play in cap innings at anywhere from 1500 to 1800 innings. I generally try to run ahead of the innings pace through the All Star Break and then get pickier about who I start down the stretch.

Now, with just about two weeks left in the season, two of my Ottoneu teams are at 1372.1 IP and 1403.2 IP. Over the season, those teams (both 4×4 teams) have been getting just under 2 IP per day from relievers. As of today, there are 17 days left in the season, leaving me with something like 30-34 relief innings still to come.

That leaves me needing about 100 innings from starters in one league and about 70 in the other. Those two teams have been getting just over 5.2 IP per start from starters this year, which means I have about 12 starts in one league and about 18 in the other to use. Those teams roster 11 starters each. With teams 14-16 games remaining (mostly 15-16) most starting pitchers are lined up for three more starts.

However, you can’t assume all of those pitchers will make all of those starts, nor that they will all make “full” starts. I have Yoshinobu Yamamoto on one of those teams and Tyler Glasnow on the other. I suspect both will make starts the last week of the season to get work in before the Dodgers’ bye, but I don’t expect either to go particularly deep into those starts. Meanwhile, Walbert Ureña or Kade Anderson might just get shut down.

So I am taking a moment now to figure out what starts I want to use. For example, the team with around 12 starts remaining has this rotation:

• Chris Sale
• Tyler Glasnow
• Gavin Williams
• Parker Messick
• Cade Cavalli
• Michael King
• Tyler Mahle
• Kyle Bradish
• Walbert Ureña
• Jake Bennett
• Justin Wrobleski

That’s roughly in the order I want to use those guys, based on the categories I need help in. You could quibble with that order based on what you need, but I need to pile up strikeouts on an innings limit while limiting HR/9 and ideally helping my WHIP. I think that’s roughly the right order.

And I could stop here, assume I get two more each from Sale, Glasnow, Williams, Messick, Cavalli, and King. That would be a reasonable plan. If someone misses a start, someone else will get a third (Williams, Messick, and King, for example, are likely going to make every start they can given the playoff picture). But I could also look at matchups, as well.

• Chris Sale – vs. PHI, at HOU, at MIA
• Tyler Glasnow – at MIA, vs SF, at SF
• Gavin Williams – at MIN, vs. ATH, at BOS
• Parker Messick – at MIN, vs CWS, at BOS
• Cade Cavalli – vs LAA, vs PHI, at DET
• Michael King – at SF, at COL, at LAD
• Tyler Mahle – vs PHI, at HOU, at MIA
• Kyle Bradish – at TOR, vs MIL, vs TOR
• Walbert Ureña – at WAS, vs MIN, at ATH
• Jake Bennett – at TEX, vs CLE, vs CHC
• Justin Wrobleski – Maybe not starting?

How much does that change things? Glasnow and Sale are both pretty easy “starts” and those last starts being Friday night could help. Philly could push Atlanta enough to make that last Sale start matter. The Dodgers could be playing for home field and Glasnow could be more than a week away from his next start.

Williams and Messick at Boston are both slightly concerning matchups, and it might be better to avoid those, if possible. Cavalli vs. the Phillies is also questionable. King is a no-brainer at San Francisco but Coors and Dodger Stadium? Uh, no thank you. Mahle’s next two are rough, but at Miami is great and I don’t see any reason he should be limited for that one.

Among the other four SP on my list, Bennet vs. Cleveland is the only start that really stands out as interesting, but that might depend how Bennett looks at Texas.

With all of that info, what are my 12-ish starts? Probably Sale x3, Glasnow x3, and then two each from Williams, Messick and Cavalli. I will also start King at SF. If no one misses a start between now and the end of the season, that might push me over the limit sooner than planned, but with Glasnow and Sale both going Friday 9/25, maybe I can squeeze them both in, anyway.

If something does go wrong – someone gets hurt, Cavalli is shut down, etc., Williams or Messick at Boston in games that might not matter to the Red Sox, King against a depleted and resting Dodgers lineup, Bennet vs. Cleveland, or Mahle at Miami can all help out, as well.

What You Should Do to Address Innings Limits

At the very least, do the first part of what I did above. Figure out how many starts you need to make, rank your SP based on how much they can help your team, and assume 2-3 starts per guy. Then start who you need to start and bench who you don’t. Or go the next step and look at specific matchups and pick the ones that work best for you. Either way, be aware of what you need and don’t waste a start on the wrong guy.