What are your thoughts on "Spot Starting" Pitchers?

[CBMGreatOne]

Churning is cheating, but they can't police it. There is clear language against it in the fair play and sportsmanship section. I don't mess with H2H baseball so I churning isn't as relevant as it is to some of you, but I think it is clear enough that it is definitely cheating.

As for spot-starting... if you aren't spot-starting, you aren't really playing. Why choose from only 9 matchups each week when you can choose from 45 or more?

Because your 5 pitchers are so much better than the 40 or 50 in FA that they will have better matchups than all those guys.

Roster size is only temporary. Use your player pool.

[DVauthrin]

Is there anything from yahoo that says churning is cheating? One of my friends in our leagues has been doing it for a long time. The worse part is that innings pitched is a category, plus theres 27 roster spots. He adds and drops 4 SP's that are starting the next day, plus he has 5 SP's he actually keeps on his team. There's no max innings or tranactions, so he's on pace to get about 500 transactions for the year. So basically he's won in Wins, Innings Pitched, and K's every week. This has to be cheating right...

You gotta beat him to the guys you want to add.

or you put a limit on transactions and don't have IP as a cat.

[ukrneal]

There will probably always be some element of spot starting. But when someone can churn 4 pitchers in and out every day, that tells me the league is too shallow and/or the rules too liberal.

Fantasy was never about spot starting. Imagine you had to keep track with paper and pencil!

Personally, I detest this strategy. It requires little knowledge if you are picking up Olsen, Vargas, Bonser and the like. In a deeper league, these types of guys would never be available and the remaining quality so questionable that the strategy would be truly risky.

[itodd]

if you're in Roto, having 3 dominating MR > middle-of-the-road-spot-starting, so I think its a bad strategy


if you're in Head-To-Head and can do daily changes, you should be fielding as many players as possible, so I don't see the crime in spot starting.

[TDS-MN]

I think there's adifference between 'churning' and 'spot starting'.

I don't like to mess with my pitching roster much during the season typically. I'll make a few moves as required, but the way things have worked for me, once playoffs come around, you really need a way to add stats, and if you don't have any Sp's going that day, it's of to the FA pool to find someone that is, and looks like they have a favorable matchup.

I've read of people that pick up players, and them drop them to waivers, just so they won't be available for others to use. That, IMO is poor sportsmanship. I've been fortunate to not have seen that happen in my leagues so far. I guess I see it as a "do to others as you'd have done to you" deal.

[Fritzenhammer]

Churning = weak.

Spot starting, on the other hand, makes you look like a genius when successful - who wouldn't like that?

FH

[Dice]

My ratios were shot early on anyway, so I spot started in one of my leagues. Spot starts I've had this year:

Jarrod Washburn 1 GS 6.1 IP 8 H 1 ER 1 BB 2 K 1 W 1.42 ERA 1.42 WHIP
Shawn Hill 1 GS 6 IP 6 H 2 ER 3 BB 3 K 0 W 3.00 ERA 1.50 WHIP
Paul Byrd 1 GS 6.2 IP 6 H 1 ER 0 BB 3 K 0 W 1.35 ERA 0.90 WHIP
Matt Belisle 1 GS 7 IP 6 H 0 ER 1 BB 7 K 0 W 0.00 ERA 1.00 WHIP

Plus I've had multiple starts from Jon Garland, Kyle Lohse, and Sergio Mitre off the waiver wire. Every one but Lohse has been beneficial. I've been lucky.

The only research I do is to go to the
team offense stats to make sure their opponent is near the bottom third.[/url]

[shawngee03]

is there a different term used for A. starting certain pitchers w favorable matchups and B. starting every available SP just to rack up stats?

and does anyone object to either? and i personally think churning is wrong, but i might start implimenting it due to my teams sucking asss right now(bc we all know winning is more important than morals )

[bravesfan42]

It's a good strategy if you do it right, but of course it can go wrong just like any other strategy.

[PlayingWithFire]

It can get annoying if you look up a pitcher you intend to pick up and then see that he's on the Waiver(instead of FA) because of spot starting. And it's especially frustrating in the playoffs.

In roto it's totally fair game, in H2H I only do it if the opponent is spot starting. Even if he's just doing a little bit of it on Monday, I'll sure show him by spot starting 2 guys every day and dominate K. In playoff weeks, I wouldn't even mind staying up a bit to pick up guys as early as possible. Sure, I have no life, but you can't kill who which have no life(south park quote, episode 1006)