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TDS-MN · by **TDS-MN** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 3:57 pm

Hey All,

Just found the forum, in my quest to learn about fantasy baseball.
This year I joined in a league thru Yahoo. Never done this before, but I am a fan of the sport, and figure I ought to be able to figure it out.

I'm curious about a little bit of strategy. Our league did an auto-pick draft, and I was fortunate enough to get several of the position players that I was hoping for. (Maybe because they were ranked too low, I dunno. But anyway. . . )

The pitching part of this is the area that I'm A little unsure about.

What type of mix would be ideal? I looked at my starting pitchers, and their spot in their respective team's rotation. I have 2 number 1's, 3 number 2's, a number 3, and a number 5 starter. I'm looking for ideas on how to maximize my roster. One tip I was given was to be sure and have the pitcher active on the day that they are pitching. OK, that much makes sense, but what about a day when maybe none are, or is that so unlikely that I shouldn't worry?

I'd love to hear any tips that you all might have. I am looking forward to playing this game, and simply don't want to look absolutely clueless once it starts.

I'm not looking for any player recomendations just yet, so please don't feel that you need to keep secrets from me, heh heh!!

Thanks for reading!

by **Chopper** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:19 pm

Hope this indirect answer isn't too inconvenient, but there's a ton of info archived throughout this forum.
I suggest using the 'Search' tool with a couple combinations of words: 'beginner' and/or 'strategy' and/or 'newbie' and/or H2H / Roto, etc. If you are willing to dig a bit there's a lot of good advice in here. As another 'noob', I can attest that once you formulate more specific questions, there will be no shortage of help. For example, I'm pretty sure you won't get much valuable pitching strategy help until you define whether the league is H2H or Roto; Min Innings/Max Innings; Roster mix of SP/RP/BN, etc....

by **Mighty Monks** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:20 pm

welcome to the care, there is a huge amount of info here so you came to the right place. But before we can help you some, a little more info would be good. The biggestthing is what type of league are you in? h2h, roto, pointS? There are very different strategies for each of these. Also, how many teams? Again, welcome and we will do our best to help ;-D

TDS-MN · by **TDS-MN** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:32 pm

Thanks for the replies. I am reading what I can from the searches, but so far haven't found much that I understand. Lots more to look at though, that's for sure.

From what I can tell, my league is head to head scoring, and we have 8 teams. Minimum innings pitched is 7, and the roster has "SP" (3 of those), "RP"(2), "P"(2), and "BN"(3). Does that seem to make sense? All these terms are new to me, so that doen't make reading the old posts too helpful yet, but I am trying.

by **Chopper** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 5:11 pm

Couple more important questions:
What are your scoring categories? (This can drastically impact your strategy for pitchers, e.g., 'Holds' as a scoring cat will mean you have to consider a whole bunch of middle relievers that you might not otherwise)
Is the line-up set daily or weekly? (There's a lot of discussions about unorthodox utilization of starting pitchers, aka 'churning', if you have daily-set roster with no max innings.)

SP is Starting Pitchers
RP is Relief Pitchers
P is any Pitcher
BN is Bench player who won't count for your scoring that day

Be careful with the seemingly arbitrary designation of any one pitcher....there are guys closing this year that only started last year, so are SP for now, and vice versa

On search, try searching on 'strategy pitching h2h' using the option to include all search terms...there's a couple dozen good discussions about pitching employment

TDS-MN · by **TDS-MN** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 5:29 pm

Roster sets daily the way I understand it.

Pitching will be scored by these criteria:

W, L, SHO, SV, BB, K, SB, ERA, WHIP

I'm learning some just by answering these questions, and I thank you for your patience with me!

by **Cornbread Maxwell** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:00 pm

tom - welcome to the cafe.

One strategy that needs to be mentioned is your RPs. Because of your system, you should have close to 5 open spots for RPs every day (RP, RP, P, P, P). Obviously when a SP is starting you insert him into an active spot. That being said - it doesnt make much sense to leave those spots open when RPs can play every day and help contribute to your team. Ideally, in standard Yahoo leagues you want 10 Ps - 5 RPs, 5 SPs.

Good luck, and once again - welcome.

TDS-MN · by **TDS-MN** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 6:47 pm

Oh, now THAT is gonna be helpful. I got 7 SP and 3 RP from the auto-pick.

Looks like it's time to move a couple players already. Gotta go check the competition and see if anyone's in need of starters I guess.

by **Amazinz** » Thu Mar 25, 2004 8:14 pm

I agree with Cornbread. In a default Yahoo league with 21-man rosters I usually run 11 bats and 10 pitchers. 5 SP, 5 RP is a nice balance if there are enough quality closers available. In an 8-man league there will probably be some talent available on waivers. If your starting rotation is a little weak I wouldn't hesitate to carry 6 SPs.

TDS-MN · by **TDS-MN** » Fri Mar 26, 2004 1:00 pm

Well, I feel that I have a pretty nice list of starters, so I need to decide which ones I sacrifice for the sake of relief pitching. It seems from reading here, that odds are better that relief pitching will get me better numbers than starters.

Would I be correct in that thinking?

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