A Call To (Trans)Action

[Saltydog]

Roughly two weeks to go in the MLB season, the second guessing has been hammering away for a few months.

Why did I drop Sale when the CWS were nervous about a balky elbow?
Why did I AGAIN fall for Evan Longoria early in the draft?
Why did I think Cespedes/Moustakas was worth CJ Wilson?

I went back and plugged my entire team from draft night and played out their numbers as if I made ZERO transactions.

Keeping in mind that losing Longoria, Votto, Beachy, J. Garcia for significant periods would hurt any team, I rolled with it anyways.

Here's the data:

Drafted offensive stats- .258 BA, 892 R, 249 HR, 866 RBI, 124 SB
Actual offensive stats- .265 BA, 982 R, 264 HR, 950 RBI, 175 SB

Drafted pitching stats- 118 W, 3.715 ERA, 1.268 WHIP, 1582 K, 44 SV
Actual pitching stats- 90 W, 3.496 ERA, 1.200 WHIP, 1250 K, 63 SV

Roto Points if I'd kept entire drafted team- 59 points (would place me in 5th)
Roto Points currently- 81.5 points (2nd place)

Now... I think I may have set a league record for transactions this season. My question is, where do you think you'd be if you were not allowed ANY transactions. No FA pickups, no trades, just pure results from your drafting ability.

Ron Shandler touched upon this topic in his recent Forecaster. His reasoning is that it would be the only pure way to judge drafting ability.

Are you a transaction troll or do you exhibit moderate patience?

[Skin Blues]

I usually don't make many moves. Most of my leagues use FAAB with no $0 bids, so I have to be selective. Usually I'll overspend on flavour of the week closers, especially in a mixed league, and then find cheap injury replacements as necessary. I'll spend a buck here and there on starting pitchers if I think they have long term potential. Going 5 bucks more than everybody else on all the closers has turned out to be beneficial for me, as I've landed Casey Janssen, Gregerson and Frieri this year (and Downs...) and if a couple of those hit, which they did, the return is huge. I was able to trade away League before he imploded, and Kenley before his heart exploded, and get a nice return, while still staying near the top in saves. Closers are the universal currency, everybody needs another one. My hitters remain largely unchanged from draft day.

I'm also in one league with a bunch of guys from the Cafe, and there's a 100 move limit (which is a ton... nobody should ever come close to that, but there's benefits of doing it so you have to keep up with the Joneses), daily transactions, and no GP limits, so it's kind of a free-for-all. It's more a game of who can add the most players and tweak their rosters every day to maximize GP. I'm not so much a fan of that. I much prefer designated FAAB periods where teams can make thought-out decisions rather than everybody racing to the wire to grab the next big thing. I'm also going to finish no better than 5th out of 14 in that league so maybe I'm just grumpy.

[J35J]

I'm also in one league with a bunch of guys from the Cafe, and there's a 100 move limit (which is a ton... nobody should ever come close to that, but there's benefits of doing it so you have to keep up with the Joneses), daily transactions, and no GP limits, so it's kind of a free-for-all. It's more a game of who can add the most players and tweak their rosters every day to maximize GP. I'm not so much a fan of that. I much prefer designated FAAB periods where teams can make thought-out decisions rather than everybody racing to the wire to grab the next big thing. I'm also going to finish no better than 5th out of 14 in that league so maybe I'm just grumpy.

+1

[Thursday]

I'm also in one league with a bunch of guys from the Cafe, and there's a 100 move limit (which is a ton... nobody should ever come close to that, but there's benefits of doing it so you have to keep up with the Joneses)

I made 177 moves in my h2h this year....


At any rate, i don't want to go back and second-guess myself. That's the kind of stuff that'll truly keep me up at night. I lost in the opening round of my playoffs - no point in reflecting back now.

[OBPlover]

In my opinion 90% of fantasy leagues allow too many transactions.

In my main (office) league, 5 moved were allowed per week with NO limit to the number of total transactions. As a result, there was constant streaming of pitchers and acquiring any hitter that was "Hot" at the time.

I think leagues should only allow replacement if there is injury and then that player must be dropped when the injured player comes back.

On the other hand I think benches should be expanded and teams should be allowed to carry 10 extra bench players

If I look at the various teams from around my league, only a few original players are left on each team.

[Izenhart]

In my opinion 90% of fantasy leagues allow too many transactions.

In my main (office) league, 5 moved were allowed per week with NO limit to the number of total transactions. As a result, there was constant streaming of pitchers and acquiring any hitter that was "Hot" at the time.

I think leagues should only allow replacement if there is injury and then that player must be dropped when the injured player comes back.

On the other hand I think benches should be expanded and teams should be allowed to carry 10 extra bench players

If I look at the various teams from around my league, only a few original players are left on each team.

Depth would help fix the streaming and hot player problem. But either you need to manage too many players or the league is too big... I think if the Yahoo format were expanded to cover 16 teams instead of 12 things would be more interesting in leagues that had a weekly cap.

Also, in baseball, jumping on the hot player or the guy who has found playing time is the way it is in every league that has a free agent market. Its the deeper AL and NL only leagues that draft every starter, nearly every bench player, and also minor league guys that take the most skill to play.