Starting No Catcher?

[Matthias]

If a league has a Catching spot every team should have a Catcher on the roster no doubt. Certainly can bench the guy as long as you are maintaining the roster and not getting an unfair advantage by going no catcher and say adding a pitcher.

thats my original question. why is there an unfair advantage to having a pitcher and no catcher?

Do you think there's an advantage to having 3 first basemen and no shortstop, second basemen?

[NZ Eff]

Never know until you try it, I guess. There is merits to start a catcher, but if you only have crappy choices, there is also merits to not starting one. To say it's black and white lacks much objectivity. I'm in a friendly league from a Braves forum where it's just for fun. Seems like a perfect place to give it a try and see how it works.

Actually it is black and white. If you don't start a catcher it can only potentially help you in 1 category. If you do start one it helps you in at least 4. No grey area at all. It's stupidity to even attempt it even in a 20 team league.

Ypou fail to take into account the Free Agent you'll pick up for dropping your catcher who could help you out in the other 4 cats AND AVG.

You fail to take into account that just because you don't start a catcher you also don't miraculously receive another starting roster position.

[NZ Eff]

I'm going to look into this further today by using the 2007 total stats accumulated in the 20 team league and the 26th-35th best C in 2007. If I have time, I'll try to use a few years instead of just 07.

I know it won't be perfect but at least give you an idea as to how much those lower ranked C's actually help you (or hurt you). Should be interesting.

If you use the 26-35th worst catchers that will pretty much give a worst case scenario so it's appropriate but it's a massive waste of time. Using 5x5 as a guide I can 99.9% guarantee that it will not hurt you simply by using common sense.

[Yoda]

I just ran some numbers. In my 20 team league, getting 11/20 pts in each category you need (I chose to use 11/20 pts since if we assume 20/20 pts then C's contribution is far less to the total accumulated so it will skew the numbers):
734 R, 179 HR, 717 RBI, 97 SB, .280 AVG

Looking at the 20th ranked catcher in terms of 5x5 value according to Rototimes the last two seasons:
2006 - Laird 46 R, 7 HR, 22 RBI, 3 SB, .296
2007 - Snyder 37 R, 13 HR, 47 RBI, 0 SB, 0.251

Obviously some owners carried more C's but as you go lower in the C rankings, the overall production continues to drop off from Laird and Snyder. I just used them as the baseline production.



"with Laird" shows what each of your other 8 players will need to produce in order to maintain league average (or 11/20 pts) in all the categories. "without Laird" shows what each of your other 8 players will need to produce if you didn't have him. Same applies for Snyder.

Two things:
1. In this league, the impact of a C doesn't seem that big, even AVG when looking at Snyder
2. Having an active C really only helps you in 3 categories. Outside of a handful of C's, they don't really run

So the idea that having a C to rack up countable stats is probably true in most cases. I'm just not sure that if you really ahve a strong offense that you must absolutely have a C in order to win. They don't seem to make a big difference either way.

[abrage22]

That would make my team illegal, which would give me a 0-10 every week

[Matthias]

You fail to take into account that just because you don't start a catcher you also don't miraculously receive another starting roster position.

Well, it's a no-brainer. You're not getting another starting roster position. You're getting another reserve position which you can fill with either another starting pitching (since it's a rare day when you need all of your starting slots) or with another closer/MR guy who can contribute to categories when you don't need another flexible Pitching spot. Or even use it as additional flexibility to pick up another vaunted rookie, increasing your probability of winning the jackpot if one of them pans out. Hey, you gotta play to win!

I'm not saying I agree with this but I think the potential advantages are pretty black and white.