IS MY STRATEGY UNFAIR?????

[big shot]

when i was spot starting i was picking up one pitcher a day. i would never picking up three to 12 players a day is ridiculous, theres no way you could have a solid team. i wasnt going to do that strategy with the second baseman. i thought about it and wanted an opinion. i dont see how its any different than the other guy in my team picking up all the pitchers so i cant spot pitch or bitch pitch as he calls it. i wanted an opinion on that. i dont see how its different than any other kind of churning

[bsdo4ever]

In competitive leagues that will put a hurtin' on your ERA and WHIP. You never know what you're gonna get with your run of the mill FA SP.

[Gang Green]

Having a transaction limit for the season is the best way to stop the quantity over quality method. The guy who won it 3 years ago when we started our first league dropped and added tons of pitchers each week to win the wins, CG's and K's category in our H2H league. Once we put in the transaction limit, the same guy can't even get a sniff of first place the past 2 years.

[cardinals15]

Here's another strategy I've seen employed which almost won in standard roto 5x5!

My rookie season, some guy drafted an incredible offense and some reliever and scrub pitchers that he never planned on pitching.

Day 1, the reliever pitched 1 shut out inning and no hits. ERA 0.00, whip 0.00. Never started, or played another pitcher all year.

The league had no minimum ip, so basically he put the 10 in era, 10 in whip into his hip pocket, took the 1's in k's, wins, and saves. 23/50 in pitching.

His whole strategy hinged on his offense, which did well of course but not enough to win it. I think he probably got 45/50 for a grand total of 68/100 good enough for a respectable 2nd. It is pretty demoralizing losing to a team that doesn't do anything pitching wise all year. Anyways, lets say the guy had won, in the same light as the current discussion, is this "ethical"? or good "strategy" I never really came to a conclusion, didn't have to, but this discussion brings out some good arguments.

[BGbootha]

first off, this is one of the better threads i have ever read in this place.

One of my leagues that i have been in for a few years now ran into this problem last year and had a lenghtly discussion about it during the off season. We agree to replace K's with K/9 and W with W-L.

It hasn't really stopped those who used the strategy last year, but it is punishing them when a guy has a bad start.

Also IMO the 'art' of spot starting is quite different in aspect to a H2H league than a ROTO league. In H2H format a spot starter on monday or SUnday can be the difference either way. For instance last week my opponent picked up Jeff Weaver to pitch on sunday. Going into the sunday games i had WHIP and ERA pretty much wrapped up but we were tied in W-L and K/9 was real close. The whole of his pitching cats rested on Weaver's performance.

I don't think this was a bad strategy by him (although it didn't really work out well for him ) He would have lost K/9 and taken a tie (a tie in Pitching cats go to the better ERA) so he would have lost both, or he could gamble on Weaver and possibly take the other two. I had no problem with it. And still don't.

But personally i think it is quite different in ROTO. This can be used in ROTO especially traditional 5x5 with no penalty for losses, and easily rack up K's and W's. In ROTO i think you need a Max Innings pitched.

just my $0.02.

[big shot]

i do not like the rule putting a limit on how many changes you can make. making changes and improving your team is what makes fantasy baseball fun. What if you have alot of injuries, your screwed. you get to the point where you can not make replacements. i told the people in my leage that we should get more players to join therefore there are not decent players sitting around on the waiver wire

[PresHabib]

i do not like the rule putting a limit on how many changes you can make. making changes and improving your team is what makes fantasy baseball fun. What if you have alot of injuries, your screwed. you get to the point where you can not make replacements. i told the people in my leage that we should get more players to join therefore there are not decent players sitting around on the waiver wire

Improving your team IS the fun of fantasy baseball...at least a significant part of it. My leagues actually do not have transaction limits for this reason, but everybody also knew ahead of time that I would be freezing them temporarily if they were found to be churning or playing a quantity over quality strategy. I don't see picking up FA pitcher after FA pitcher as an attempt to improve one's team. I respond to your comment by saying that if you give your team/league a high but reasonable number of transactions that:

a) injuries will not decimate your team cuz realistically you'll have 8 or so trips to the DL per season, if that, and transaction limits should be like...35-40 or something. You should not break the bank on moves made in response to injury

b) since your argument here is in the spirit of the fun of fantasy baseball, transaction limits prevent owners from churning/quantity over quality which more than anything ruins the fun for other owners

c) transaction limits force you to carefully investigate the players you want to add/drop/trade, which is also a large part of the fun of fantasy baseball, moreso than going around and picking up people who are playing on a given day or who are just hot for a time but you know you won't be keeping them

d) transaction limits force you to draft intelligently and put strategy into it. The draft is the singlemost important day of the fantasy season, where many seasons are won or lost. The draft also makes you ask yourself "whos gonna have a bounceback year (pat burrel", "whos this years big sleeper (miguel cabrera), "whos likely to get hurt and shouldn't be drafted too high" (Troy Glaus). This research, as I just said in note C, is a large part of the fun of the game. Limitless FA's remove baseball knowledge and player research from the equation.

So there are a bunch of arguments in favor of limiting transactions. If churning/quality over quantity is a problem in someone's league, I think limits on both transactions and innings/game are very important for preserving what the game is supposed to be all about and MOST IMPORTANTLY, fun for every owner involved.

[Lofunzo]

I agree that making changes and improving your team are fun and a big part of FB. That said, when you make multiple moves daily, are you really improving your team?? You might be improving your win and K totals but not really your team. I am for a reasonable transaction amount. Nothing to handcuff the owner in case of injury or Burrellitis. Just something like 60 or so. If you need more than that, then you are either doing what we are talking about or you have no business running a FB team.

[Ntjean]

I think the main problem with this is that in the end you WIll kill some aspects of your team. I say go ahead and pick up and drop guys but i would look for guys like alvarez that could become a consistent start for you. If they do bad drop them and go to the next guy on your list. If he does well hold onto him a while

[PresHabib]

in case of injury or Burrellitis.

Burrelits...GENIUS!