So a couple people in my league have been streaming pitchers and some other people think it might be a tad unsportsmanlike. I personally don't have a problem with it but I think that an added category (QS) this year might make it a little unfair. In our pitching categories we use ERA, WHIP, Wins, Strikeouts, and QS. Obviously streaming pitchers doesn't help with ERA and WHIP but it does help in the other three making it uneven. Meaning you could completely punt ERA and WHIP and just try and get as many starts per week to win QS, wins, and strikeouts. Is my league flawed?
As commish, I feel it's probably too late too change the rules but I do wish that I added a maximum moves made number to my settings at the beginning of the year. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Do I have my league set up so that the number of pitchers used trumps the quality of a staff?
IMO you do have a slightly flawed league. If you're making an extra stat for pitching you always have to make it work against pitching more innings somehow, or have strict weekly (if HTH) maximums.
There's nothing wrong with these managers doing it (they are playing by the rules that were set) and you can't change rules or put maximums on now, just plan on making a little change next week and tell everyone they just have to strategize against it. The best way I've seen is to pick up a lot of the decent starts a couple days to a week prior and limit the streamer's pool and/or use them yourself. Not impossible to beat a streamer, just makes you play a little differently and I don't enjoy it as much.
We were concerned regarding the same thing in our league, Instead of pitching a stat cat where almost any warm body has a good chance of contributing in, we went with k/bb, and capped the max number of innings.
hot4tx wrote:IMO you do have a slightly flawed league. If you're making an extra stat for pitching you always have to make it work against pitching more innings somehow, or have strict weekly (if HTH) maximums.
There's nothing wrong with these managers doing it (they are playing by the rules that were set) and you can't change rules or put maximums on now, just plan on making a little change next week and tell everyone they just have to strategize against it. The best way I've seen is to pick up a lot of the decent starts a couple days to a week prior and limit the streamer's pool and/or use them yourself. Not impossible to beat a streamer, just makes you play a little differently and I don't enjoy it as much.
Next week? Try next year. No one should you be able to change up the rules in the middle of the year. You guys had a rule set in place and these owners are exploiting it. If you dont like it then you'll have to wait until next year to fix it. With that said, its not that hard to beat streamers. Every strategy in fantasy baseball has its flaws and can be beaten, thats what makes it so awesome!
I employed a new strategy this year. I have an open spot on my roster which I use to keep all 2 start pitchers on waivers. It requires alot of work but I am tired of the awesome pitching I drafted getting owned by Mark Hendrickson and Joey Devine.
hot4tx wrote:IMO you do have a slightly flawed league. If you're making an extra stat for pitching you always have to make it work against pitching more innings somehow, or have strict weekly (if HTH) maximums.
There's nothing wrong with these managers doing it (they are playing by the rules that were set) and you can't change rules or put maximums on now, just plan on making a little change next week and tell everyone they just have to strategize against it. The best way I've seen is to pick up a lot of the decent starts a couple days to a week prior and limit the streamer's pool and/or use them yourself. Not impossible to beat a streamer, just makes you play a little differently and I don't enjoy it as much.
Oh I'd also like to throw up that picking up a player for the sole reason of impeding another owner from picking them up is considered cheating by yahoo's rules. Unless you plan on actually streaming those pitchers yourself I wouldn't suggest this route...
LostInTheSauce wrote:I employed a new strategy this year. I have an open spot on my roster which I use to keep all 2 start pitchers on waivers. It requires alot of work but I am tired of the awesome pitching I drafted getting owned by Mark Hendrickson and Joey Devine.
I'm in the anti-streaming camp, but I can sympathize with the "all's fair" crowd. The important thing is somehow keeping these two groups of people apart. It's a long season, and you want to have fun with it. Which is damned hard to do if you're being beaten by techniques that you don't respect. Or if you're being prevented from or criticized for using methods you think are perfectly valid. There are lots of things you can do to battle the tactic if you don't like it -- innings limits, moves limits, move costs, counter-balancing categories, weekly lineup setting -- but I think it's most important to play with people who share your views on the subject. Get it straight before the season starts, make sure it's not going to be an issue, and then forget about it.
Yeah, not really useful advice at this point, huh?
Seriously though, I don't think I'll ever play in another unbalanced H2H league. Without several measures taken to prevent unfair strategies, there's always a couple guys who think they can outsmart the league, when really the only person their outsmarting is the commish. More averaging stats, max moves, max/min innings, etc, etc... whatever. I'd prefer more restrictions than less when it comes to this scenario.
Can't say I hold it against any of the owners who do it... I hold it more against the inexperienced commish who does nothing to stop it. But, I agree, once the season has started the rules are the rules... no changing rules in the middle of the season.
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by TheGhost » Tue May 06, 2008 12:16 pm 
Try next year. No one should you be able to change up the rules in the middle of the year. You guys had a rule set in place and these owners are exploiting it. If you dont like it then you'll have to wait until next year to fix it. With that said, its not that hard to beat streamers. Every strategy in fantasy baseball has its flaws and can be beaten, thats what makes it so awesome! 
