Fantasy baseball rookie

[kalibernc]

This forum is the last one I will try to get some advice about fantasy baseball. Others have pretty much ignored my questions... I'm assuming because this is my first year participating and I have no clue about fantasy baseball. I don't think there is a dumb question that can be asked.
Anyway, I am in two leagues at Yahoo. One of the leagues has already had the draft and I think I stunk that up pretty good hahaha. I have another draft coming up next week. Both leagues are H2H. From what I have read and observed offense is what I should load up on in H2H. As far as pitchers is concerned RP, ML seem to be the best way to go. Any advice I can get about H2H would be great.
The pitching stat categories for the upcoming draft in the second league I'm in are: IP, W, SV, ER, K. Now... this one has me stuck as far as going with more SP's than RP's or vice versa. I am leaning more towards RP's in light of the SV, ER, K stats.
One note: I'm not asking anyone to draft my team. I'm doing my own player research.
Thanks.

[Arlo]

I think with IP as a category (and only cumulative categories, at that), I'd stock up on starting pitchers. The key questions, though, are how many active pitching slots you have (and how they're divided into SP/RP/P), and above all, whether you use daily or weekly lineups.

Interesting scenario - depending on your league's exact rules, there may not be one clear optimal strategy here...

[kalibernc]

2 SP, 2 RP, 1 P with many bench spots.
Daily lineups.

[bleach168]

Oh my! Daily lineups! You would be in for a rude surprise if you didn't come here for advice first! Go you!

You're in for a full season of streaming pitchers everyday. Since 4 of the 5 pitching cats are cumulative and one of them being IP (!!!) the goal is to use as many SP's per week as possible. This means picking up pitchers out of FA for a day, using them, and dropping them the next day. Then rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat for 180 or so days.

So when you draft, be ready for this and draft ONLY hitters and closers. Don't worry about the last two rounds of the draft, since those spots will be used to stream pitchers anyways.

[Arlo]

I think bleach is right - you'll probably be in for a lot of streaming. Or does your league have transaction limits or a season IP cap? Either of those would effectively block this strategy.

[kalibernc]

Here is the league settings:
Max Teams: 12
Scoring Type: Head-to-Head
Player Universe: All baseball
Max Moves: 40
Max Trades: No maximum
Trade Reject Time: 2
Trade End Date: August 22, 2004
Waiver Time: 2 days
Can't Cut List Provider: Yahoo! Sports
Trade Review: Commissioner
Post Draft Players: Follow Waiver Rules
Min Innings Pitched: 25
Weekly Deadline: Daily - Tomorrow
Start Scoring on: Week 1
Roster Positions: C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, OF, OF, OF, Util, Util, Util, SP, SP, RP, RP, P, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, DL, DL
Stat Categories: R, H, 2B, HR, RBI, SB, BB, W, SV, ER, K

sorry for the disorder of that all

[bleach168]

Max Moves: 40

Well then.. just throw out everything I just said lol

Looks like there are 6 hitting cats and 5 pitching cats. So you will want to go heavy on the hitting during draft day.

[kalibernc]

Now I'm thinking about drafting 5 SP and 4 RP.

Ok I'll go heavy on the hitters.

[emb0lus]

Wow, this is a tough league to figure out a good strategy. The 25 min inn pitched nullifies the strategy of using just a couple elite closers to take 3/5 categories in pitching. The 40 transactions prevent churning the ww.
By the way, which category does the walks belong to, batting or pitching?
Anyway, mathematically speaking I'd agree with bleach.... you have 6 (or7) offensive scoring categories and you will have 11 players on offense contributing daily. I'd probably draft closers and middle relievers and at least shoot for taking the saves and hopefully era category to add to your hitting prowess. I'd wait on the SP. You won't probably get any #1 starters but #2, #3 and even #4 starters are still good enough if they play in weak divisions.

[kalibernc]

The category the 'walks' belongs to is batting.