No Innings Max for Sportsline? Seriously?

[rainman23]

Thought I'd check out a Sportsline pay league this year. I love H2H, but steered away from it in this public league, because I assumed somebody would abuse the unlimited innings policy. But now it looks like there is no innings cap in my Roto league either. Am I crazy?

[rainman23]

No help here? Nobody can pat me on the head, "there there rainman, it'll be all right"? Ok, I'll pat my own head...but...dammit...now I can't pat my stomach. Savant, my ass..

[-Slap-]

They have minimums for IP and ABs, for obvious reasons, but no maximum for either category. Some people punt saves and try to max out the wins and strikeout cetegories by rotating in multiple two-start pitchers in each scoring period. I consider this a viable desperation strategy, but a terrible gameplan for the beginning of a season, because you're playing Russian Roulette with your ratios.

[rainman23]

Unfortunately, not realizing there was no innings cap, I set it up as a Daily moves league. So someone could pile enough pitchers in there to pretty much ensure that their ratios won't be terrible. Not great, for sure, but not horrendous.

I'm thinking the people that have been doing this for a while won't necessarily be punting saves. If I was drafting with this plan in mind I would definitely grab some closers.

I'm bumming about this. I guess I'll draft pretty much as planned, and accept the fact that anyone adopting this strategy has a chance for a strong offense than I do. And maybe follow the throngs if they actually pursue the strategy. Can't just give these guys my $30...

[tmlfan4ever]

Listen, for the typical pitcher there are two counting categories (Wins, K's) and two ratios (ERA, WHIP). If someone wants to risk two in favor of the others, let them do that. Baseball HQ has actually done some research suggesting that streaming pitchers actually hurts your team more than helps because of the damage it does to the ratios and the unpredictability of wins.

[-Slap-]

I play too many leagues to keep up with a daily moves format.

[-Slap-]

I selectively pick my spots with waiver wire pitchers. I don't think you can win strikeouts or wins in my leagues without cherry picking the wire for a favorable two-start option at least few times during the year. Certainly not with the work-in-progress pitching staffs I'm left with after my typically offense heavy drafts. Like I said, I would never punt any category to start a season, but it's a viable fallback strategy. I've done modified punts and then there are times, late in the year, when you just resign yourself to a certain number of points in a particular category. Why keep chasing saves in September if the guy in front of you has a ten save lead and you have a similar cushion on the guy behind you? Go get some Ks or some ratio help instead.

Last year, after spending the first half of the season trying to catch up in wins and strikeouts - without grabbing every two-start bum on the schedule - I finally gave up and punted both categories. I won saves and took 19 out of 20 points in the ratio categories. I combined that with a 45 point offense to squeak out first place, but it's a strategy I would never recommend. I'm just glad I was flexible enough to give it a shot. No way I would have even stayed in contention without doing something drastic.

Even extreme punting strategies can succeed, but the margin of error is very slim. Two years ago, some guy punted SBs and saves on draft day and he pulled out the league by finishing first or second in everything else.

[DeadWinterDay]

Well, I pretty much punted saves and rotated 7 or 8 pitchers all year long in my CBS league last year....I had the best ERA, Best WHIP, most Ks, 2nd most Ws, and I waiver wired a bunch of closers throughout the year to come up with the 6th spot in saves. I also raked offensively and just utterly dominated the league (which happened to be ALL friends of mine....not anymore after the season haha).

20 Team H2H League:


STACKED
IP 1576.0 (2nd)
GS 221 (4th)
QS 125 (3rd)
W 107 (2nd)
L 65
S 74 (6th)
K 1284 (1st)
ERA 3.77 (1st)
WHIP 1.24 (1st)


heres my player service time....take out Saunders and Miller and I'd be way better so it did have a set back but I overcame it:


STACKED Players 2007 MLB Standard Stats
Player INN GS QS CG W L S BS K BBI HA ERA WHIP
Accardo, Jeremy RP TOR 67.3 0 0 0 4 4 30 5 57 24 51 2.14 1.11
Gregg, Kevin RP FLA 84.0 0 0 0 0 5 32 4 87 40 63 3.54 1.23
Hamels, Cole SP PHI 183.3 28 16 2 15 5 0 0 177 43 163 3.39 1.12
Kennedy, Ian SP NYY 19.0 3 2 0 1 0 0 0 15 9 13 1.89 1.16
Lilly, Ted SP CHC 207.0 34 20 0 15 8 0 0 174 55 181 3.83 1.14
Maddux, Greg SP SD 198.0 34 18 1 14 11 0 0 104 25 221 4.14 1.24
Miller, Adam SP CLE 0.0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 N/A N/A
Miller, Andrew SP FLA 64.0 13 4 0 5 5 0 0 56 39 73 5.62 1.75
Saunders, Joe SP ANA 107.3 18 8 0 8 5 0 0 69 34 129 4.44 1.52
Shields, James SP TB 215.0 31 20 1 12 8 0 0 184 36 202 3.85 1.11
Verlander, Justin SP DET 201.7 32 21 1 18 6 0 0 183 67 181 3.66 1.23
Weaver, Jered SP ANA 161.0 28 16 0 13 7 0 0 115 45 178 3.91 1.39
Wilson, C.J. RP TEX 68.3 0 0 0 2 1 12 2 63 33 50 3.03 1.21
TOTALS 1576.0 221 125 5 107 65 74 11 1284 450 1505 3.77 1.24