Barring Injuries, I'll go undefeated 5X5...u agree?

[scott8534]

left out a "should".....

Your team should be rewarded for dominance not mediocrity.....I'm sure you got the point

[raysfan4life]

left out a "should".....

Your team should be rewarded for dominance not mediocrity.....I'm sure you got the point

It's a standard ESPN 5X5 Head to Head league, and there's tens of thousands of people who use this system. If the league were based on margin of victory, I would obviously use a different strategy.

I did not create the league or the rules - I am simply trying to leverage the rules as they are set. Your opinion on the way the rules are set up does not matter. I am asking for feedback about this strategy within the context of these rules.

[raysfan4life]

Wow - just finished. I know there are SP limits, and SPs are fickle, blah blah blah. Bottom line, I drafted about 275 projected SBs on offense, and here is my pitching staff (only regret is I only got 3 closers)

SPs
Johan Santana
Tim Lincecum
Roy Halladay
Cliff Lee
Dice-K Matsuzaka
James Shields
Chad Billingsley
Ervin Santana
Max Scherzer

CPs
Jonathan Papelbon
Mariano Rivera
Joakim Soria

[Padres Fan]

Good luck getting all those pitchers, especially both Lincecum and Santana on the same team, from what I learned in drafts is that Pitchers and Closers usually go in streaks, people see a couple good pitchers go in row then they start to get whats left, so they don't get assed out, same situation with closers.

To win with your strategy you need your speed guys to be consitent hitters all around, 90% of speed guys are very streaky hitters, and all of the non-streaky ones I guarantee will be gone by the 5th round.

[raysfan4life]

Good luck getting all those pitchers, especially both Lincecum and Santana on the same team, from what I learned in drafts is that Pitchers and Closers usually go in streaks, people see a couple good pitchers go in row then they start to get whats left, so they don't get assed out, same situation with closers.

To win with your strategy you need your speed guys to be consitent hitters all around, 90% of speed guys are very streaky hitters, and all of the non-streaky ones I guarantee will be gone by the 5th round.

Actually, this is my drafted pitching staff - I got all these guys.

[hawaiistfball]

I also tried your strategy but focused on getting just RPs. I am thinking that each week that I will have R, SB, AVG, S, ERA, WHIP on lock down. I may have a chance to win maybe RBI or W depending on the week.

C Bengie Molina, C
1B Mark Teixeira, 1B
2B Placido Polanco, 2B
3B Ryan Zimmerman, 3B
SS Jhonny Peralta, SS
2B/SS Mike Aviles, 2B, SS
1B/3B Justin Morneau, 1B
OF Ichiro Suzuki, OF
OF Carl Crawford, OF
OF Jacoby Ellsbury, OF
OF Cameron Maybin, OF
OF Shin-Soo Choo, OF
UTIL Orlando Cabrera, SS
Bench Randy Winn, OF

P Jonathan Papelbon, RP
P Joe Nathan, RP
P Brad Lidge, RP
P Jose Valverde, RP
P Kerry Wood, RP
P Matt Capps, RP
P Francisco Cordero, RP
P Brian Wilson, RP
P Joey Devine, RP
Bench Matt Lindstrom, RP
Bench J.J. Putz, RP

[Jetsfan]

Well...I have been keeping tabs on this post since it started and this strategy was very intriguing to me so I decided to utilize it in my draft last night. However, I did a few things differently....I made sure my pitching was taken care of in the first 3-4 rounds of the draft, got SB's and AVG covered for the most part. Absolutely no power or RBI wins in sight though...


C Víctor Martínez
1B James Loney
2B Kazuo Matsui
3B Chone Figgins
SS Ryan Theriot
OF Matt Kemp
OF Lastings Milledge
OF Johnny Damon
Util Jayson Werth
BN Cameron Maybin
BN Juan Pierre
BN Travis Ishikawa


SP Johan Santana
SP Tim Lincecum
RP Mariano Rivera
RP Brad Lidge
P Brandon Webb
P Jonathan Broxton
P Zack Greinke
BN Chris Carpenter
BN Tommy Hanson


Personally I think this strategy has a serious chance....but then again, I only tested this in a public league.

[Tarquin]

I think the general consensus is that on a week-to-week basis in Head-To-Head, Pitching categories in general are less consistent than hitting categories, and SB's/AVG are less consistent than HR's, RBI, Runs.

Assume the average stolen bases in your league are 6 and the average homeruns in your league are 10 (Per week per team). Assume that in any given week, stolen bases can vary as much as 66% above or below your team average, while homeruns can vary as much as 33% above or below your team average.

So average team range: 2-10 stolen bases, 6.66 - 13.33 homeruns (the average team in the league will get between these values on a week-to-week basis)
If you dominate SB's (1.5 times the league average): SB range 3 - 15 stolen bases
If you dominate HR's (1.5 times the league average): HR range 10 - 20 Home Runs

There is much greater overlap between the average stolen base team and the dominating stolen base team compared to the homerun teams. What this means if that if you dominate stolen bases there is a greater chance you will lose that category anyways compared to if you dominate homeruns. Thus to guarantee winning stolen bases you have to get more than 1.5 times the league average (dominate by more).

Obviously this is simplified and it assumes that dominating homeruns is as easy or as hard as dominating SB's, but in general I want to show why trying to be around the league average in less consistent categories and dominating more consistent categories is a better strategy than the opposite in my opinion.

[lachlanoddy]

Without reading all the responses, and being sure that someone mentioned this, your strategy wioll become obvious to the other drafters, pretty early on, and while I doubt they will react by grabbing speed to compete with you, I do think that a buynch of them will (or at least SHOULD) start grabbing pitching early, and you'll be hosed with only half of what you need to get the job done...?

Please look at mine;
viewtopic.php?t=375641

[raysfan4life]

Wow, last three or four posts have been absolutely GREAT!!! Thanks for all the input. Regarding most recent post, agreed - everyone in the league did figure out my strategy pretty early when I drafted Santana, Lincecum, Halladay 1-2-3...but by then it didn't make sense for them to draft an SP, because their talent tiers didn't justify it. In other words, they were planning on getting Halladay in th 4th or so, and he wasn't there, so they took the best offensive player.

In general, everyone tries to stick with their own strategy - no one drafts to try and beat my strategy.

Regarding the post about variance in inconsistent categories, I completely agree. Problem is, there is no way I can corner the market on a category like HR's the way I did SB's for one major reason - trying to get all those HR's would cost early draft picks, negating my pitching quality - doesn't work. Strategy of SB's may be flawed, but it was the only offensive category I could leverage while spending the majority of my first picks on pitching.

We'll see...and to the guy who drafted all relievers - wow. Did you get a hell of a staff. I may try that route next year, because if it isn't working early, RP's always have better trade value than SP's and you could rebuild your team through trades mid-season!

Good luck to all!!! I wil continue this post as I move through the season.