So Liriano is 0-2 against Boston... that's TWO games. My point isn't that you shouldn't scout and react. If it's that obvious that a player is going to put up a doughnut, bench him. I benched Carlos Lee against Wainwright just a couple days ago (Wainwright dominates him).
My point is that you shouldn't have players on your fantasy team who need to be spot-started and benched constantly. It's a sign that they're not that good. In fantasy sports, you want players who you can blanket start without constantly having to worry who they're facing.
I think Liriano is one of those players. I think he's very good, and he has a very good offense behind him. So I'm not benching him because of two historical losses. He was due for a solid start against Boston.
pnoozi wrote:The OP hasn't said anything about an IP cap.
So Liriano is 0-2 against Boston... that's TWO games. My point isn't that you shouldn't scout and react. If it's that obvious that a player is going to put up a doughnut, bench him. I benched Carlos Lee against Wainwright just a couple days ago (Wainwright dominates him).
My point is that you shouldn't have players on your fantasy team who need to be spot-started and benched constantly. It's a sign that they're not that good. In fantasy sports, you want players who you can blanket start without constantly having to worry who they're facing.
I think Liriano is one of those players. I think he's very good, and he has a very good offense behind him. So I'm not benching him because of two historical losses. He was due for a solid start against Boston.
Historical losses? Bro, his CAREER NUMBERS against Boston were NOT good. Regardless if it was 2 games or not, history clearly was not on his side. It's not a 'scout and react' move. A lot of things go into consideration, but previous history certainly plays a role.
And I never said anything about benching guys constantly. It's week 2. My staff is very deep in my league. I can afford to sit a guy like Liriano, even if he does well.
Everyone here gets your point --- it just seems like most don't agree with it. Some managers chose to play it safe instead. It's week 2 --- I'm not too worried about it.
And again, it's very easy to come back criticize those who sat him after the fact, and especially when he did pitch well. If he did get shelled, would you still be here trying to argue?
Last edited by Tony Micelli on Thu Apr 15, 2010 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah I think the main issue is that it's only week 2.
If it were midseason, I wouldn't have Liriano rostered if I wasn't going to start him. This early though, people are still trying to whittle down their rotation and figure out who is servicable and who is not. I also have Ben Sheets. I'm not going to pitch him tonight, but I want to give him another shot or two to see what he's got. Same deal with Liriano.
I did bench Liriano today. I don't see how that is a mistake because He DID NOT HURT YOUR PITCHING. Of course it would have helped alot if i did start him lol. The point is, its liriano who had trouble with whitesox(not a very good offense. streaky) in his previous start. I had 0 reason to believe he would somehow dominate the bats of the redsox. This is hopefully a good sign for the future. I won't fear to start him next time(unless its the yanks lol)
It wasn't after the fact. I made my first reply before I knew anything about the Sox-Twins score.
Let's put it this way. I won't bench Howard when he faces Santana. I won't bench any of my starting players for any reason other than a massive, undeniable slump. I'm not naive enough to think I can outsmart the game. If any of us were, we'd be millionaires from sports betting. Any player can have a breakout game, any day, against anyone. "Any given Sunday." On a 1/162 scale, it's basically random who has a good game and who doesn't. So you just stick with the good players and hope that they fulfill their value over the course of the entire season.
Liriano had faced Boston twice in his career. If those two games were the reason you benched him, that's naive. Like I said, we operate on a 1/162 scale, not a 162-game scale. Anything can happen on a day-to-day basis. Rookies hit grand slams and bat .200 for the reason of the season. Sluggers go 0-6 and finish the season batting .320. So trying to predict what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis during a 162-game season is impossible.
Liriano had faced Boston twice in his career. If those two games were the reason you benched him, that's naive. Like I said, we operate on a 1/162 scale, not a 162-game scale. Anything can happen on a day-to-day basis. Rookies hit grand slams and bat .200 for the reason of the season. Sluggers go 0-6 and finish the season batting .320. So trying to predict what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis during a 162-game season is impossible.
You seem to be placing emphasis on the fact that it was 2 days. What if n=30? Does it matter?
Apparently not:
So trying to predict what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis during a 162-game season is impossible.
With a sample size of 2, is it difficult to predict what's going to happen with any degree of confidence? Sure, to some extent. Again, you're glossing over the reason many people chose not to start Liriano - He hasn't done anything against ANYONE, Boston or otherwise, in quite some time. He's rostered because he has upside.
Let's look at Adam Wainwright against Houston:
10 Career starts. 8-1 with a 1.72 ERA.
You're going to tell me that is not a valid statistic to make inferences from?
Of course anything can happen on any given day. But it usually doesn't, and that's how we come up with statistically significant correlations. There is a strong positive correlation between Ryan Howard batting against Right Handers and him scoring hits. The fact that he might go 0-4 against a right hander does nothing to negate this. Would you not use this statistic to your advantage when planning your lineup? Can you explain the difference between this and looking at specific pitching matchups? (There isn't any)
By placing such a big emphasis on the 162 game season, you're actually making the argument FOR averages. It's impossible to know for sure what anyone will do on any given day. The best we can do is make predictions based off observable stats.
pnoozi wrote:My point is that you shouldn't have players on your fantasy team who need to be spot-started and benched constantly. It's a sign that they're not that good. In fantasy sports, you want players who you can blanket start without constantly having to worry who they're facing.
If you play in a league where you can field an entire team of guys who you never need to babysit or spot-start and still stay competitive in the league, more power to you... but if you play in a deep league (really, any league with 12+ teams), this becomes a necessary evil if you want to compete. If every fantasy team is going to roster five starters (which is probably low), that's 60 starters rostered, not counting anyone who's on the DL.
There simply aren't that many pitchers in the majors who are capable of being "blanket started". If you do happen to have five of them (or even three really), more power to you, but I don't think you'll find that's the case with most fantasy teams. The rest of us are looking to get 100 IP out of guys like Liriano, Harden, Sheets, Strasburg, etc.... guys who will require a bit more work than "set and forget" in order to get effective numbers out of.
If you think Liriano is one of those "set and forget" guys, I guess you've got more confidence in him than I do... but history gives strong evidence that starting him against teams with lineups like NYY/TAM/BOS/TEX is probably not a good idea for long-term success.
That's my point. I get your point of view, I just don't think it's realistic to imagine having a team you can simply start "everyday" no matter who they're facing. A competitive league simply won't allow you to draft a strong enough team to do that and still put up top-shelf numbers within the league.
Liriano had faced Boston twice in his career. If those two games were the reason you benched him, that's naive. Like I said, we operate on a 1/162 scale, not a 162-game scale. Anything can happen on a day-to-day basis. Rookies hit grand slams and bat .200 for the reason of the season. Sluggers go 0-6 and finish the season batting .320. So trying to predict what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis during a 162-game season is impossible.
You seem to be placing emphasis on the fact that it was 2 days. What if n=30? Does it matter?
Apparently not:
So trying to predict what's going to happen on a day-to-day basis during a 162-game season is impossible.
I'm not sure what your point is. Obviously, you can make more educated decisions based on 30 games than you can based on 2 games. That's my point. The bigger your sample, the more educated a decision you can make. Anything can happen in 1 game. The Nationals could beat the Phillies on any given day. But not anything can happen over the course of, say 100 games. 100 games into this season, it's safe to assume (barring any disaster for the Phillies) the Phillies won't be looking up at the Nationals in the NL East.
Now, if you benched Liriano because of last year, that's understandable. That's a sample of 24 starts, in which he went 5-13 with a 5.80 ERA. But then I have to question why you have him on your team in the first place.
pnoozi wrote:My point is that you shouldn't have players on your fantasy team who need to be spot-started and benched constantly. It's a sign that they're not that good. In fantasy sports, you want players who you can blanket start without constantly having to worry who they're facing.
If you play in a league where you can field an entire team of guys who you never need to babysit or spot-start and still stay competitive in the league, more power to you... but if you play in a deep league (really, any league with 12+ teams), this becomes a necessary evil if you want to compete. If every fantasy team is going to roster five starters (which is probably low), that's 60 starters rostered, not counting anyone who's on the DL.
There simply aren't that many pitchers in the majors who are capable of being "blanket started". If you do happen to have five of them (or even three really), more power to you, but I don't think you'll find that's the case with most fantasy teams. The rest of us are looking to get 100 IP out of guys like Liriano, Harden, Sheets, Strasburg, etc.... guys who will require a bit more work than "set and forget" in order to get effective numbers out of.
If you think Liriano is one of those "set and forget" guys, I guess you've got more confidence in him than I do... but history gives strong evidence that starting him against teams with lineups like NYY/TAM/BOS/TEX is probably not a good idea for long-term success.
That's my point. I get your point of view, I just don't think it's realistic to imagine having a team you can simply start "everyday" no matter who they're facing. A competitive league simply won't allow you to draft a strong enough team to do that and still put up top-shelf numbers within the league.
That's a fair point. I'm in a 10-team league. Maybe 12-team leagues require a bit more micromanagement. I still think that it's absolutely more trouble than it's worth to constantly start and bench players. Over the course of the season, you'll probably dodge half their bad games and miss out on half their good games. You're not going to accomplish much, if anything, by trying to outsmart the randomness of day-to-day sports.
pnoozi wrote:That's a fair point. I'm in a 10-team league. Maybe 12-team leagues require a bit more micromanagement. I still think that it's absolutely more trouble than it's worth to constantly start and bench players. Over the course of the season, you'll probably dodge half their bad games and miss out on half their good games. You're not going to accomplish much, if anything, by trying to outsmart the randomness of day-to-day sports.
Ah... well, that's where our different points-of-view are coming from.
SP is deep this year. There are 80+ guys worth owning for one reason or another without dredging too far, but the bottom half of those guys are going to have many bad outings through the year. If all you're comparing is how the top 40 guys fair, then you're right, you probably don't need to be too worried about anything other than identifying who those top-40 are.
But, when you start depending on those 60-80 guys (i.e. third starters throughout the league), you're obviously not dealing with top-shelf talent. You need any advantage you can get, so you can't just simplify things by saying "probably dodge half their bad games and miss out on half their good games." Even if those ratios are 60/40, that's an edge that you need to use and definitely not "more trouble than it's worth". If you're good enough at identifying matchups to make that split 70/30, then you're getting production that's almost as good as an ace, just not over the same number of innings. That may not be realistic to get that good at predictions, but I think it's not difficult at all to dodge 60% of their bad starts without missing more than half of their good starts.
When you're looking for any edge in filling those limited innings with quality innings, it absolutely makes sense to hedge your bets and put out that small effort it takes to get those quality innings from favorable matchups and in good parks.
Just assuming that all things are equal and that the edge isn't big enough to matter is like ignoring the difference in a roulette table with one zero instead of two... small changes in the odds matter in the long run.
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by pnoozi » Thu Apr 15, 2010 3:52 pm 
