C - J.P. Arencibia 1B - M. Cabrera 2B - H. Kendrick 3B - A. Beltre SS - E. Andrus OF - A. McCutchen OF - S. Victorino OF - J. Willingham UT - see Bench UT - see Bench
Bench - J. Heyward - OF , P. Bourjos - OF, M. Gamel - 3B, Z. Cozart - SS, A. LaRoche - 1B, A. Hill - 2B
Pitchers - W, K, SV, ERA, WHIP
SP - M. Latos SP - M. Bumgarner RP - J. Valverde RP - J. Walden P - S. Santos P - J. Santana P - C. Luebke
Bench - E. Santana
We are limited to 8 starts per week. Daily lineup changes. Limit of 35 acquisitions during the season.
You're weak at catcher. Arencibia rolls with a sub .300 OBP which is going to be a drain all season. I can see the appeal of having some bench bats in a H2H league with daily lineup changes, but you have too many. You have 4 guys that aren't going to play every day and aren't going to contribute much to your team. Your SP is also very, very shallow. After Latos/Bumgarner - both good but not aces, not yet - you have Luebke, Johan Santana and Ervin Santana. If you're limited to only 8 starts a week, it's all about the quality of the innings. I would not want to be giving the Santanas 20+ innings a week.
lane_anasazi2 wrote:You're weak at catcher. Arencibia rolls with a sub .300 OBP which is going to be a drain all season. I can see the appeal of having some bench bats in a H2H league with daily lineup changes, but you have too many. You have 4 guys that aren't going to play every day and aren't going to contribute much to your team. Your SP is also very, very shallow. After Latos/Bumgarner - both good but not aces, not yet - you have Luebke, Johan Santana and Ervin Santana. If you're limited to only 8 starts a week, it's all about the quality of the innings. I would not want to be giving the Santanas 20+ innings a week.
I was thinking about picking up Doumit to address catcher issue.
What do you suggest I do with my bench spots? Pick up a couple more SPs and just play matchups? I prefer having a deep bench of hitters because it allows for me to play with a full, or mostly full, lineup everyday, which is preferable since it gives an advantage in three categories - HR, RBI, and SB, while only possibly negatively affecting AVG and OBP.
lane_anasazi2 wrote:You're weak at catcher. Arencibia rolls with a sub .300 OBP which is going to be a drain all season. I can see the appeal of having some bench bats in a H2H league with daily lineup changes, but you have too many. You have 4 guys that aren't going to play every day and aren't going to contribute much to your team. Your SP is also very, very shallow. After Latos/Bumgarner - both good but not aces, not yet - you have Luebke, Johan Santana and Ervin Santana. If you're limited to only 8 starts a week, it's all about the quality of the innings. I would not want to be giving the Santanas 20+ innings a week.
I agree with this for sure: too many bench bats and not enough pitching depth.
In a H2H league if you're able to get more starts than the other guy, you can really pick up an advantage in W and K, while benching guys who don't have solid matchups to stabilize the ERA and WHIP when you have to. Much of the pitching strategy has to do with looking at the other guy's pitchers / matchups for the week ahead of time and realizing where your guys can beat him... sometimes this can be by streaming the FA pitchers and getting more starts than him to beat him in Ks and Ws and sometimes it can be to only pitch a few of your SP and rely on your relievers to keep the ERA and WHIP down to beat him there.
The starting pitching isn't quite good enough for me: I think Bumgarner can actually be a legitimate fantasy top 10 starter this year but after him I think you have a lot of question marks. You don't need nearly the pitching depth that you need in a roto league for the reasons I explained, but I still don't think your staff is quite deep enough. Definitely keep your eyes peeled on the FA and consider dropping a bench bat or two to give someone who's having a hot start a chance. Guys I would consider giving a look at this point could be Bedard and Samardzija
As far as your starting lineup goes, it looks pretty good to me. It makes sense that the lineup is this good considering that the pitching isn't quite up to par, but you should do perfectly fine with this lineup. Arencbia is obviously the weak point in terms of your starters, but I do like most of the options that you have for UTIL and Bench. If I had this team, I would probably drop Aaron Hill and Adam LaRoche: in a 10 team league, guys who put up these type of numbers will be available all year if someone gets hurt and you need a fill-in. There's a ton of power, speed, run, and RBI potential in this lineup and I don't see an issue outside of catcher. Doumit is a reasonable watch-list guy to see how he starts out. I think the way the rest of your team is, you're really just looking for someone who won't hurt you more than anything at this spot.
lane_anasazi2 wrote:You're weak at catcher. Arencibia rolls with a sub .300 OBP which is going to be a drain all season. I can see the appeal of having some bench bats in a H2H league with daily lineup changes, but you have too many. You have 4 guys that aren't going to play every day and aren't going to contribute much to your team. Your SP is also very, very shallow. After Latos/Bumgarner - both good but not aces, not yet - you have Luebke, Johan Santana and Ervin Santana. If you're limited to only 8 starts a week, it's all about the quality of the innings. I would not want to be giving the Santanas 20+ innings a week.
I agree with this for sure: too many bench bats and not enough pitching depth.
In a H2H league if you're able to get more starts than the other guy, you can really pick up an advantage in W and K, while benching guys who don't have solid matchups to stabilize the ERA and WHIP when you have to. Much of the pitching strategy has to do with looking at the other guy's pitchers / matchups for the week ahead of time and realizing where your guys can beat him... sometimes this can be by streaming the FA pitchers and getting more starts than him to beat him in Ks and Ws and sometimes it can be to only pitch a few of your SP and rely on your relievers to keep the ERA and WHIP down to beat him there.
The starting pitching isn't quite good enough for me: I think Bumgarner can actually be a legitimate fantasy top 10 starter this year but after him I think you have a lot of question marks. You don't need nearly the pitching depth that you need in a roto league for the reasons I explained, but I still don't think your staff is quite deep enough. Definitely keep your eyes peeled on the FA and consider dropping a bench bat or two to give someone who's having a hot start a chance. Guys I would consider giving a look at this point could be Bedard and Samardzija
As far as your starting lineup goes, it looks pretty good to me. It makes sense that the lineup is this good considering that the pitching isn't quite up to par, but you should do perfectly fine with this lineup. Arencbia is obviously the weak point in terms of your starters, but I do like most of the options that you have for UTIL and Bench. If I had this team, I would probably drop Aaron Hill and Adam LaRoche: in a 10 team league, guys who put up these type of numbers will be available all year if someone gets hurt and you need a fill-in. There's a ton of power, speed, run, and RBI potential in this lineup and I don't see an issue outside of catcher. Doumit is a reasonable watch-list guy to see how he starts out. I think the way the rest of your team is, you're really just looking for someone who won't hurt you more than anything at this spot.
Its a 12 team league, not 10, so the FA pool isn't as deep. I like having a deep bench for the hitters because it allows me to start nearly a full lineup everyday and also allows me better flexibility in trades, especially if some of the younger players and sleepers actually produce. Consistent reliable hitters at certain positions are far harder to acquire via FA during the season than SP.
I'm going to wait and see on getting another SP from FA, but will attempt to acquire one through a trade.
Ah this makes much more sense - sorry that I missed the fact that this is a 12 team league and not 10... that obviously makes a fairly big difference. To adjust what I said in my previous post, the offense is REALLY good for a 12 team league, but in my opinion, you can still afford to drop a bench hitter or two, and catcher is obviously a weak point.
I understand that there won't be as many opportunities to pick up offensive players on the FA in a 12 team league but I think carrying this many offensive players puts you at a bit of a disadvantage especially because with your offense you're not going to need THAT much of a boost in the cumulative offensive categories. I think you can count on your starting lineup to put your team toward the top each week...
I think that the 8 start limit really emphasizes the fact that you need another quality starter outside of Bumgarner.... Packaging a few young guys to possibly go get another starter will help you out a lot. Having that many bench hitters when you can take chances on starting pitchers trying to land one that can give you lots of quality starts is a must in my opinion.
Going without a catcher is really not a good idea... Maximizing your ABs is very important for the counting categories on offense. It's not AS big a deal in a H2H league, but I think you have to focus on getting ABs from your offensive players so that you can keep up in the counting categories.
I only did it for the time being because I looked forward to the games this week and did some math. Because of my deep bench, even without a catcher, due to off days, I have more hitters starting this week than my opponent. He can't sub in bench players for his starting hitters who don't have games this monday or thursday.
Again, we have limited acquisitions allowed so I can't really afford to pick up a mediocre catcher. Buccholz got dropped, its too early in the season to write him off, I needed another starting pitcher, and arencibia is by far the worst player on my roster.
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by disasterisk » Mon Apr 09, 2012 4:37 pm 
