All SP Strategy?

[Urban Cohorts]

technically you could bench everyone and have open P slots - but that's not happening (or I could ask the commish about this loophole)... I'm just not that worried about it. Let's just assume most week, owners want to start as many games as possible - and maybe verse me, they'll only want to start their best games, but they're not leaving open starter slots -

I would be worried about teams not playing a lot of pitchers against you. A good owner with average pitching is going to realize that he cannot beat you in Wins or Strikeouts, so why would he try? Why wouldn't he leave open pitching spots? Assuming another owner starts his best 1-2 pitchers and closers, why would he fill those remaining pitching spots with starters? Those extra starters are only going to make his ERA and WHIP worse. Why would a competent owner make a move that hurts him?

Just assume I'm starting 5 aces, maybe 6 - but I'd like to start 3 closers to shoot for saves... so my 5 SP's get 6-7 starts and you've got 6 starters with anywhere from 7-10 starts. You can try to take wins and k's with more starts... but my 5 guys are 10 k/9 pitchers, and 4-5 of my opponents barely scratch 140 for the year.

If you are starting 5-6 aces, why on earth would I start my whole SP staff against you? Especially if my SP aren't guys with great matches or high K/9 guys...
Why would I try to take Wins and Strikeouts? I wouldn't...
If there is no IP minimum (where it takes 1/3 of an IP to win ERA + WHIP), why wouldn't I start only my Ace(s) + closers? And if I don't have any Aces, why wouldn't I just start 1 random RP get a 0 ERA and 0-1.00 WHIP and then stop? That gives me 2 wins against you.

You can try to take wins and k's with more starts...

Unless I have a strong SP staff myself or at least close to double the amount of starts, why would I start every pitcher vs. you? This is only detrimental to my team competing in ERA and WHIP.

You haven't given me a good reason to fill up my open pitching slots. Why would any reasonable manager use all of their pitchers against you if they know they won't win Wins and Strikeouts?

[Chaos151p]

I've never seen an open pitcher slot before, I believe there's a minimum start for each position - you can't just leave an open catcher spot (if you don't want to get killed in obp and you have no better option), and for pitchers you have to play 8 every week. If that's the case you're choices are to start the least amount of games and if you have closers (most teams have 2-3 and maybe a mid reliever here or there), but guys load their benches with offense and starting pitching. So assuming these are the rules, you're team consist of 6 starters (2 closers) / 4 bench starters and maybe 1 mid reliever - which is about average, rarely do teams have 4 closers... either that or, you try to compete and take wins/k's by quantity - hope for better quality starts maybe even take era/whip.

Fast forward a little, it's the playoffs and I face off against an owner trying to sidestep - you're saying an owner is gonna risk his whole year, switching from his week in and week out roster - to implore and more mid-reliever approach (something he hasn't done once that year, or maybe ever)... and he's gonna find the 3-4 mid-relievers that put up 0's all week, compete for saves - give me wins/k's straight up while I give him homers/rbi... I'll take my chances in that scenario every time (my aces are low era/whip guys), he'd need a complete roster shake up (in the playoffs) to start all mid-relievers... I tried that all year last year, it isn't as easy as it sounds (if pitching is dicey, then mid-relievers are the golden goose of dice)

[Urban Cohorts]

I've never seen an open pitcher slot before, I believe there's a minimum start for each position - you can't just leave an open catcher spot (if you don't want to get killed in obp and you have no better option), and for pitchers you have to play 8 every week.

If those are the rules that your league uses then okay. But in a standard Yahoo league there is no rule or option to force managers to fill their active hitting/pitching spots. I've seen managers leave an open catcher spot in a league that uses 2 catchers per team. It doesn't hurt your AVG/OBP it just doesn't help you accumulate stats from that position. The league was large enough where some of the second catcher options were more detrimental to your AVG/OBP than helpful to R/HR/RBI/SB, so that spot was left open.

And I'm only basing my argument/thoughts on the information you have provided me:

technically you could bench everyone and have open P slots - but that's not happening (or I could ask the commish about this loophole)... I'm just not that worried about it.

I'm only asking why this scenario wouldn't happen and why you aren't worried about it.

Fast forward a little, it's the playoffs and I face off against an owner trying to sidestep - you're saying an owner is gonna risk his whole year, switching from his week in and week out roster - to implore and more mid-reliever approach (something he hasn't done once that year, or maybe ever)... and he's gonna find the 3-4 mid-relievers that put up 0's all week

First, lets drop the whole "mass RP strategy". That was posted in response to you saying that your league uses Losses and not Ks. Its obviously far less advantageous to run a lot of RP in a normal pitching league.

If I am in the playoffs, facing a team loaded with Ace SP, then yes. I am going to employ whichever strategy gives me the best chance of winning. It doesn't matter if that isn't how I ran my team all year. I probably would have done this versus your team in the regular season, so this isn't something new.

I like my teams to have a lot of pitching depth- in both SP and RP. This gives me the option to either play the best matchups for my SP, play all of my SP and overwhelm the other team, or run my Aces and more RP to focus on SV/ERA/WHIP. You know your fellow league mates better than I do, but I'd be shocked if there weren't at least a few managers who had this approach.

give me wins/k's straight up while I give him homers/rbi... I'll take my chances in that scenario every time (my aces are low era/whip guys), he'd need a complete roster shake up (in the playoffs) to start all mid-relievers... I tried that all year last year, it isn't as easy as it sounds (if pitching is dicey, then mid-relievers are the golden goose of dice)

That assumes that you beat his team in 3/5 hitting categories. A good hitting team (the equal to your SP, but in hitting) will have a legitimate chance to beat you in all 5 categories. Week to week stats are fickle, but SB and OBP are much more random than R/HR/RBI. And if your opponent has 1 Ace and needs only 1/3 IP to win ERA/WHIP, then chances are that he will win those. If you have 5 Aces with 7 starts you have more opportunities for a fluke outing to occur vs. a guy who only uses 1 Ace for 1 start.

[Chaos151p]

If those are the rules that your league uses then okay. But in a standard Yahoo league there is no rule or option to force managers to fill their active hitting/pitching spots.

I'm only asking why this scenario wouldn't happen and why you aren't worried about it.

Lets drop the whole "mass RP strategy". That was posted in response to you saying that your league uses Losses and not Ks. Its obviously far less advantageous to run a lot of RP in a normal pitching league.

Yeah after double checking, you'd need to start all 8 spots - but let's keep it open to other leagues and guys who may want to try it in Yahoo (mine is on CBS). That's why I wasn't concerned myself, but at the same time I'm trying to see every angle - it could happen, but like your strategy - if you have depth you'll roll out 4-5 relievers and less starters.

That assumes that you beat his team in 3/5 hitting categories. A good hitting team (the equal to your SP, but in hitting) will have a legitimate chance to beat you in all 5 categories. Week to week stats are fickle, but SB and OBP are much more random than R/HR/RBI.

Granted, I don't want to assume I'm winning any - even pitching, just because my pitchers are ranked higher doesn't mean my opponents pitchers can't have better matchups or outings and take Wins by 1 and K's by a few. All I'm saying is that if someone wants to give me wins and k's by starting less SP, I'll take it - then let's crap shoot for the rest (after I give hr/rbi away).

[Maris09]

What I got from this is that the rules keep changing, and that you say the word serp at minimum 45 times a day.

[Chaos151p]

but let's keep it open to other leagues and guys who may want to try it in Yahoo (mine is on CBS). That's why I wasn't concerned myself, but at the same time I'm trying to see every angle - it could happen, but like your strategy - if you have depth you'll roll out 4-5 relievers and less starters

Actually, the more I think about this... this strategy for my league couldn't work with other standard leagues (aside from a full auction, but even then you would need the top pitcher values to be lower than expected). Since I'm looking to get 4-5 SP and 1-2 closers in the auction rounds... while every owner is buying an average of 3... maybe 4 hitters tops. In relation to a regular "snake" draft, I'd be taking 5-7 straight rounds of pitchers, while every else takes 5-7 straight rounds of hitters - in my unique half auction/half "snake" draft... I can legitimately buy more pitchers (at low values).

With that said, I'm not 100% sold on the speed only approach to offense - There could be enough value in the mid-bottom tiers of each position to land decent stats across the board... say targeting 15+ homeruns, 70+ runs/rbis and at least 9+ steals. The balance across the roster might be enough, if a few picks got "lucky" and maybe a trade or three improve down the stretch. I'll have to see what I can get during the "snake" rounds (I don't want to just settle for say Victorino if Holliday is available).

[THE TERMINATOR]

Wins - It don't mather how good the pitchers are they can only win 1 game at a time and anyone can win this stat over you simply by starting more pitcher then you do.

Strike Outs - Some as wins, Extra starters, In fact this one is easier to pull off.

Saves - As said anyone can attack you there.

ERA and WHIP - And if someone goes after wins and strike outs with extra starters you going to have fight for those stats with less then relieable starters that can open a door here.

[Chaos151p]

Can't complain about the results, I've gotta dig deep for some offense but I picked up 5 starters and 1 closer in the first 5 rounds (auction).

Strasburg/Lee/Wainwright/Darvish/Medlen... with Reed in the pen.

[jackie hayes]

I tried a pitching-heavy approach in a h2h last year, gunning for sb, r, and avg in the hitting categories. It was up and down -- I'd often have those weeks where I managed to go 8-2 (as I hoped). But a couple bad starts early against another team that managed to pick up good relievers, and voila, 1-9.

In the end, I was in first with two weeks left, then managed to go 2-8 or 1-9 (don't remember the exact record) both weeks. Out of the playoffs. It was still fun, though.

[umphrey]

What I'm trying this year is 3 aces then a big drop to my 4 and 5. I think I can dominate 4 categories this way, and I can get 1 WW add and stream another. It's hard to pick up a Verlander but you can get 4s or 5s easy.