Strategy Question

[wrveres]

Balks? .. is that really a category? how do you prepare for that? Might as well add unassited triple plays too.. Balks... ???? That very interesting.

[Jivedude]

My other keepers are Foulke, Pujols, Garciaparra, Sexson and Preston Wilson. Granted, Foulke is no Gagne, but I would have plenty of roster spots avaliable to draft some additional closers to increase my saves. Last season 120 saves won the league. I figure if I can pull out 3 more decent closers I can come close to that.

Well Foulke may not be Gagne but I bet he'll put up some pretty nice numbers when he signs with Boston!

[wrveres]

My other keepers are Foulke, Pujols, Garciaparra, Sexson and Preston Wilson. Granted, Foulke is no Gagne, but I would have plenty of roster spots avaliable to draft some additional closers to increase my saves. Last season 120 saves won the league. I figure if I can pull out 3 more decent closers I can come close to that.

Well Foulke may not be Gagne but I bet he'll put up some pretty nice numbers when he signs with Boston!

and if he doesn't, they will certainly have his head

[grammysboy]

I would suggest no less than at least 3 starters. You will have to have some points in wins/innings/CG's/SHO. If you don't get points in those catagories, it will kill you.

Look at it this way, say you win the other 11 catagories and only get 2 points apiece in the 4 that you are going to punt. 9 teams in the league so first in a catagory is 9 points and last is 1 point.

11x9=99
4x2=08

That's a total of 107 points.

Now let's say that someone gets 2nd in all 15 catagories.

15x8=120

That's 13 points that they beat you by and they could actually have some 3rd or 4th place finishes in a couple of catagories and still beat you.

Bottom line: Never punt a catagory.

The nice thing about Mad is you can always trust him to think things through then give a thorough, analytical response. If you're looking for a couple of relievers who didn't play much last year, check out Bob Wickman who will get a chance to close for the Indians and didn't play in the Majors at all last season.

[LBJackal]

I have tried a similar method to this in a points league that gave some ridiculous amount to saves (more than wins) and I don't remember if K's were even a stat. I loaded up on all closers and easily won. Points leagues are very easy to exploit however.

[Madison]

I have tried a similar method to this in a points league that gave some ridiculous amount to saves (more than wins) and I don't remember if K's were even a stat. I loaded up on all closers and easily won. Points leagues are very easy to exploit however.

I agree on points leagues. I've seen them set up some crazy ways and "all reliever" can work in those.

In roto, it's death.

[Arlo]

Lots of good thoughts already, and not much to add. In particular, I agree with Madison that you're very likely to finish near the top with this strategy, but winning might be tough.

I think we're really talking about two questions: not only whether to go all-reliever, but how many IP you're aiming for. As ramble pointed out, all-reliever and 1250 IP might not be mutually exclusive, but that's presumably not the point of this strategy.

In any case, with the categories you're using, this plan seems like it's worth a shot. I'd probably keep Prior, though, if only to give you a bit more flexibilty. Just a few quick questions:

There are fifteen hitting categories too, right? Maybe I missed that...

Are you using daily or weekly roster changes?

The biggest question is probably whether the owners in your league are roughly equal in fantasy experience (or ability, or whatever you want to call it)? If not, you might run into trouble; nothing kills an all-reliever strategy like a sharks vs. minnows league. (It's even worse when you have inactive owners.)

[Apex]

Well, I have a motto and it's "Never punt a catagory!"

With that said, the amount of catagories makes it an interesting situation. Personally, I've seen the "all reliever" strategy many, many times, and I've never seen it work. Most of the time, the person doing it was it the top portion of the league, but not one of them actually won any of them.

With 15 catagories, it's an interesting situation, but I would suggest no less than at least 3 starters. You will have to have some points in wins/innings/CG's/SHO. If you don't get points in those catagories, it will kill you.

Look at it this way, say you win the other 11 catagories and only get 2 points apiece in the 4 that you are going to punt. 9 teams in the league so first in a catagory is 9 points and last is 1 point.

11x9=99
4x2=08

That's a total of 107 points.

Now let's say that someone gets 2nd in all 15 catagories.

15x8=120

That's 13 points that they beat you by and they could actually have some 3rd or 4th place finishes in a couple of catagories and still beat you.

Bottom line: Never punt a catagory.

Sorry it took so long to get back. I was off-line through the Thanksgiving holiday. Thanks everyone for the input so far!

I appreciate your analysis, Madison. I'd just like to make a few comments, since I may not have been clear in a few of my initial posts. There are 15 offensive categories as well (R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, CS, E, GIDP, BB, K, AVG, OBP, SLG). So, my overall strategy is to maximize my position on the pitching side without spending a lot of draft picks.

I looked at the final standings for last season, and they looked like this (with points given for offense, pitching and total):

First -- 89 + 86 = 175
Second -- 73 + 99 = 172
Third -- 111 + 57 = 168

Using the numbers Madison gave, and assuming no one else in the league uses my strategy, I'm looking at more than 100 points in pitching with a raft of draft picks available for hitting. Using the standing from my league from last season, and inflating them to provide a cushion, I could get just 6 points per category (90 points) on the hitting side and finish with 190+ points for the season. That puts me more than 15 points ahead of the 2003 league winner.

With a starting 4 of Pujols, Sexson, Garciaparra and Preston Wilson, and draft picks to go after 3B, 2B and C in the early rounds, I feel pretty good about being able to exceed the 6 points/category threshhold by a wide margin.

Again, looking at last year's standings (and these were far and away the three best teams in the league), the leader had a balanced team, while the second and third place finishers had very unbalanced teams each way. I'm looking to have a very unbalanced team with the offense being very strong, but with a weak pitching staff that gives me 90-100+ points.

I'm still looking for fatal flaws in this strategy, so I would appreciate any comments. Thanks!

[Apex]

Balks? .. is that really a category? how do you prepare for that? Might as well add unassited triple plays too.. Balks... ???? That very interesting.

You're right. Balks is a strange category for a fantasy league like this. It's such a squirrelly category that it throws the randomness factor into everything. I wouldn't have the first idea of how to account for that, other than what I'm proposing.

This other issue was having IP as a category and having a maximum number of innings. Most didn't recognize this flaw until after the season, but I lead an attack on the last weekend in which I brought my innings up to 1245 or so and then loaded up on every available starter for the last Saturday of the season. The way it worked was that all of the statistics counted for the day you exceeded 1250 innings, and I ended up with something like 1275-1280 innings.

[ramble2]

Balks? .. is that really a category? how do you prepare for that? Might as well add unassited triple plays too.. Balks... ???? That very interesting.

You're right. Balks is a strange category for a fantasy league like this. It's such a squirrelly category that it throws the randomness factor into everything. I wouldn't have the first idea of how to account for that, other than what I'm proposing.

This other issue was having IP as a category and having a maximum number of innings. Most didn't recognize this flaw until after the season, but I lead an attack on the last weekend in which I brought my innings up to 1245 or so and then loaded up on every available starter for the last Saturday of the season. The way it worked was that all of the statistics counted for the day you exceeded 1250 innings, and I ended up with something like 1275-1280 innings.

I wouldn't count on nobody else noticing this flaw again. Though I have to admit, it seems kind of dumb to have IP as a category while also having an IP max (especially one so low).

I'm still a little confused. With a 1250 IP max, you don't need to punt as many pitching categories as you think:

My thought is that while I'll finish in last lace in IP, W, CG and Shut-Outs, I'll finish at or near the top in the rest of the categories. (I should point out that we have a maximum of 1250 innings, but no minimum.)

As you pointed out, you don't have to finish last in IP. You can get there with 2 or 3 starters and a bunch of relievers, and then pick up a bunch of scrap starters the day you go over 1250.

You don't have to finish last in Wins. After you get your closers, look for set-up guys that have a high W/IP ratio.

Okay, complete games and shut-outs are unlikely to pan out. Although Prior is as good a bet as anyone this side of Schilling or Halladay to get some CGs and shut-outs. How many CGs or shut-outs typically win (or score points) in these categories? Aren't these kind of a crapshoot categories anyways?

I say go for your reliever strategy. Although I gotta say, the categories in your league are a bit screwy.