Fantasy Baseball Cafe Forums

by **Frappy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:22 am

Hello cafe, this is a 5x5 12 team standard Roto league. Im in first place by 4.0 points over 2nd and 4.5 over 3rd. The 3rd place team has a hail-mary 6 pitcher set-up but currently benched. The 2nd place team is just throwing out 3 of his drafted starters.

****The 2nd place team has the realistic shot at gaining 4.5 points but would need an amazing day spread out among all 10 categories.

****The 3rd place team can get 1 point offensively tommorow but that would take 3 steals (Assuming the team he trails doesnt get a SB). Pitching wise is where it gets interesting. I dont see why he would "hail Mary" here.. the best it could do for him is gain 1 point in wins unless all of his 6 FA pitchers have Great games and drop his ERA by .10 to gain 2 points there. Also, If he "hail mary"ed he'd be punting saves for the day, an area in which he is 1-2 saves away from both losing 1.5 points and gaining 1.5 points. Let's also not forget that the hail mary can hurt his ERA and whip and drop him a very realistic 1.5 to 2.5 points.

So now that I gave you the 2nd and 3rd place team's situations Ill give you mine. Offensively I can lose 1 point at best but its a far shot. Im wondering If I should "Hail Mary", Semi "Hail Mary", or hold my pitching staff and hope:
-I can gain 2 points in wins with 2 wins because Im 1 win behind two teams. 1 win would give me 1 point.
-Im trailing a team by 10 K's. He has 4 starters going tommorow (3 high K guys). I have 6 guys that CAN go tommorow.
- Nothing to lose or gain in saves so benching my closers makes no difference.
- ERA poses the only realistic problem with a hail mary. Im in 2nd ERA but two teams trail me by .08 and .07 ERA respectively. It would take an implosion of every pitcher to lose 2 points here. but a team today "hail mary"ed and droped .13 ERA today (It was absolutely ridiculous how 4 of his 6 pitchers got through 1 inning with like 5-7 ER each).
-I can lose .5 in WHIP, but once again it would take a pretty terrible performance.

Here's the 6 I got going for tommorow:
D.Willis vs. PHI
J.Smoltz vs. HOU
S.Trachsel @ WAS
S.Youman vs. CIN
M.Belisle @ PIT
R. Tejeda @ SEA

D-Train and Smoltzy are two automatic ins if I decide not to hold back my pitching.
Trachsel has been pitching well as of recently and is better away (Much better at RFK). He also has a good shot at a win if NYM doesnt start their bench.
R.Tejeda has the better offense behind him and has been the best ERA pitcher in september. He also has a 2.85 ERA on the road. Good shot at win.
S.Youman and M.Belisle are the two true "hail-mary"-esq starts here. Both can get pretty roughed up here or have quality starts. They are facing each other so you like your shot at 1 win here.

Im trying to decide over whether or not to start Youman/Belisle. 1 win tommorow would put both teams out of realistic range of catching me. 2 wins would all but seal it.

Right now Im thinking about starting the 4 w/o Youman/belisle. This would also enable me to get Heilman/Wickman/Todd Jones into the relief spots.

This is huge for me, my team made a huge last half of september run (as a part of a 2nd half resurgance) to get into 1st despite D.Lee missing alot of 06'. This is my first fantasy league and it's a money league.

I learned a TON from the cafe, you guys taught me how to be a good manager. If you've read all of this then you could see Im doing my best to make the decision myself with the facts I see and not just coming out and asking without thinking. Now it all comes down to one last question.. Thanks for EVERYTHING cafe members!

by **Frappy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 1:53 am

Tracshel out for personal reasons - this changes the scenario a bit. Pick up Perez? Leave it as it is (Smoltz, Willis, Tejeda)? Start Youman/Belisle now?

by **bleach168** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 2:02 am

In your situation, normally I would advise you to wait and see what happens in the early games before deciding to use your starting pitchers.

But too bad all but one of your pitchers start early in the day.

I would probably start Smoltz and Willis only. If things looks bad, then start Tejeda if necessary.

Don't hail mary. Play prevent defense. ;-D

edit: pick up Woods and Woody Williams if you can.

by **Frappy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 12:20 pm

Ive decided to start Smoltz, Willis, and R. Tejeda. Like the above poster mentioned, Ill wait and see if I need to start tejeda. If I get a win from smoltz and willis then I bench my pitching staff. I only wish the youman belisle game was later. THanks.

by **Frappy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:52 pm

Well, I actually ended up starting Willis,smoltz, and Youman. Those 3 combined for 14.1 shutout innings and 1 win. Im going to start Tejeda now because I can no longer lose points if I do but I could still gain an extra point.

The Smoltz win got me a point and put me 5 points over 2nd and 6 over 3rd. 3rd's hail mary imploded - It's all but over.

by **George_Foreman** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 4:09 pm

Hope the Cafe was able to help! ;-D

by **Frappy** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 5:52 pm

Yeah george, summing up the last few paragraphs of my first post about how the cafe taught me : "hell yeah".

Its only a couple of hours before I officially have 1st place. A resurging offense in the 2nd half lifted me into the top 3 but an amazing outburst in the final 2 weeks but me in first. it's great to win in a competitive money league with plenty of very good managers in my rookie fantasy baseball season. Thanks cafe!