Tag: Strategy

Quick Tip: Keep Your DL Spots Occupied

Awhile back I wrote about “The Extra 2%” by Jonah Keri, in which he outlines many little strategies implemented by the Tampa Bay Rays that helped the team gain a competitive advantage and allowed them to turn around the struggling franchise.

The key in that sentence is the phrase “little strategies”.  “Big strategies” are obvious.  They work for a short period of time and soon enough everyone catches on.  But a conglomeration of “little strategies”, unlikely to be noticed or deemed worthwhile, can also make a tangible difference over time.

Enter a very simple tactic I always try to employ, but rarely see others use.  In a league with a specified number of DL spots, I always keep my DL spots filled.  This means actively monitoring free agents on the disabled list (ESPN has a handy feature that lets you see free agents on the DL).

DL

Who To Carry

There are almost always interesting names available.  This could be a struggling player off to an extremely slow start that went on the DL or a pitcher not expected to return from Tommy John surgery until August.  It doesn’t matter.

Try to target someone with potential.  Or someone who might be able to be traded later.  Or someone that fits a specific need on your team.  And if another more intriguing injured player comes along, grab that flavor of the month and stash him.

Why?

Why not?  If you’ve got a DL spot you might as well use it.  You can often hold a player in the DL spot even after they’ve returned from their injury, until you need to make another acquisition.  This can give you a week or so to monitor the player’s performance upon returning from the DL and weighing if they’re worth hanging onto.

It might not pan out.  You may simply end up cutting them in the end.  Or a legitimate player on your roster may end up needing to occupy the DL spot.  But this will give you the first chance to acquire the player.  You won’t be battling with others in the league, using waiver priority, or using FAAB to acquire someone.

It’s worth the risk.  There’s nothing to lose.

Go Check Your Waiver Wire

You might see names like Paul Konerko, Mike Morse, Lance Berkman, Brandon Morrow, Scott Baker, Colby Lewis, or Cory Luebke.  Stash them and see what happens.

Case Study: Ron Shandler’s Monthly League

If you’re not familiar with the name Ron Shandler, he’s been a legendary figure in the game of fantasy baseball.  He was one of the first writers to begin applying sabermetric-type thinking to fantasy baseball, he created the LIMA plan, founded BaseballHQ.com, and started the Tout Wars expert league.

And He’s At It Again

Shandler is experimenting with a new monthly league format.  One of the big selling points of the format is the ability to draft (or select) a new team each month.  Giancarlo Stanton, Curtis Granderson, Troy Tulowitzki, or Matt Kemp ruining your season?  The monthly format alleviates those concerns.  Multiple “draft days” during the season?  Sign me up.  Find a happy medium between the luck of weekly head-to-head formats and the marathon of a 162-game rotisserie format?  Perfect.

The Rules

Because of the All-Star break the contest will span five weeks.  Rotisserie scoring.  Players are selected based on a salary cap system in which salaries are assigned based upon production during the season to this point.

  • 30-team league
  • 30-man rosters made of 23 active players and 7 reserves.
  • Traditional rotisserie rosters – 2 C, 1B, 3B, Corner IF, 2B, SS, Middle IF, 5 OF, UT, 9 pitchers
  • 7 reserves can be any position
  • Salary cap is $300 for all 30 players
  • Players can be owned by multiple teams
  • 4×4 rotisserie scoring with the offensive categories of HR, SB, OBP, Runs Produced (R+RBI-HR, subtracting out HR removes “double counting” of RBI and R that occur on a home run) and pitching categories of W, Sv+Hld, K, ERA
  • No free agent pickups
  • Intra-roster moves (reserve-to-active and active-to-reserve) can be made twice weekly

The Player List

If you’re interested, the list of player salaries can be viewed here.

Thinking Through The Strategy

Because of the 30-team format, punting any category seems out of the question.  Stress needs to be put on forming a balanced team.  Being unable to pick up free agents means your team has to be constructed to absorb injuries that may arise during the month.

The ability to make moves twice a week looks like an opportunity to implement a pitching strategy.  You can’t gain much of an advantage in games played offensively, but it seems like carrying additional pitchers would allow for squeezing out a few extra starts over the month.  Alternatively, if one were to carry extra relievers with Save and Hold opportunities, you could implement a strategy of going after the Sv+Hld category while still being competitive in K and ERA.

After reviewing the rules, my strategy was to focus on building an offense with positional flexibility (to minimize the hitters necessary on my roster) and then use a volume strategy for accumulating pitching stats (more pitchers = more K and more Wins or Sv+Hld).

Finding The Value

In looking through the list of players, a number of “values” jumped out.  Players that have been injured or severely underperformed to this point in the season have extremely low values (Aaron Hill, Hanley Ramirez, etc.).

Realizing this, I needed a way to ensure I could identify all of the valuable players.  Simply combing through the list of 500+ hitters and 500+ pitchers isn’t reasonable.  I would surely miss someone valuable.

Building a Projection Tool

I used many of the principles and tactics outlined in the “Create Your Own Rankings” series.   Continue reading “Case Study: Ron Shandler’s Monthly League”