Pitching Strategy

[Zethos]

I am new to fantasy baseball and am looking for some strategy help. My league's pitching catagories are W L SV H R BB K ERA WHIP. Its a H2H league. 7 inning minimum. What should my strategy be for knowing which Pitchers to start? Most guys in the league start all or most of their starters each week. So far, I have noticed that I would have won more catagories if I had only started only one starter per week, my best pitcher. That way I would win L, H, R, BB, ERA, and WHIP. I would loose W, and K. Does that make sense, should I only play one starting pitcher a week? Or is that dishonest since the other teams usually start all or most of their pitchers?

Thanks alot for the help.

[Lofunzo]

You could use something like the LIMA plan, where you go with RP and a stud SP or 2. It all depends on your roster.

[WhiteHot]

Those scoring cats are screwed up. Generally, people use 5x5 providing wins, saves, ks, whip, and era. Three of those cats are based on total number while only two are averages. Therefore, you cannot throw the majority of categories.

With your scoring system, you can easily throw 4 of them (L, BB, H, R). That's 4 out of the 9. As long as you keep ERA and WHIP under control, you could take 6 of 9 cats right there, losing only saves, wins, and ks. If you used dominant relievers like gagne and foulke, you have a shot at saves as well.

I would definitely use a LIMA strategy. Draft 1 or 2 TOP ELITE SPs and then fill-in with dominant MRs like Lidge, KRod, etc. Good closers would be awesome as well.

[PresHabib]

only starting your best pitcher is high reward if he has a good start but totally screws you if he gets lit...you try to win the majority but since you put all your eggs in one basket a bad start means you lose everything.

The best way to do it is to just look at who the pitcher is playing and check the matchups (batter vs pitcher) and take a few rules of thumb about teams not to start people against. I never start anybody against the Yankees, Angels, St. Louis, Red Sox (when healthy), and i only start my stud and tier 1-A pitchers against the chicago teams, houston, and Toronto unless they are ice cold. Other than that check to see if a teams 3-4-5-6 hitters own your starter no matter how good he is...for example...say you wnat to start Jason Schmidt against the braves but coincidently Jd Drew, Andruw Jones, Chipper Jones, Rafael Furcal, and a haelthy Marcus Giles just absolutely own him (i dont know if they do, this is just a "what if"). Then you should probably sit him. Anyway, the best strategy is to just check your matchups and make sure your guys do not suck against certain teams. Thats what I do and its working really well.

[Zethos]

I haven't heard of the LIMA strategy before. What can my team do to make this work. Here is my roster.

C: Lopez
1B: Nevin
2B: Castillo
3B: Guillen
SS: M. Young
OF: Ordonez
OF: Hidalgo
OF: Ramirez
Util: Burrel
BN: Womack
BN: Hillenbrand
DL: J. Reyes
BN: Figgins

SP: J. Vazquez
SP: K. Garcia
RP: F. Cordero
RP: Affeldt
P: C. Lee
P: Z. Day
P: Santana
BN: Pinero
BN: J. Lieber

[thetongueofire]

you can pretty much get by with only good RP there assuming your offense is above average for your league size... 7 outta those 9 pitching cats cats are lets just say... very "RP oriented" .. a team could do pretty good in that setup with a good offense and an all RP staff.

[Zethos]

What moves should I make? Do I need to get better relief pitchers? Should I try and trade some of my starting pitchers to get better middle relievers?

Thanks alot.

[Lofunzo]

What moves should I make? Do I need to get better relief pitchers? Should I try and trade some of my starting pitchers to get better middle relievers?

Thanks alot.

It's a lot easier to draft that way than it is to try and do it after you already have a team. I don't know that you have the quality SP to get it done, though.

[thetongueofire]

if u're sure that u're not gonna do well with your team... then you got your job cut out for ya... you could see of your league still values SP normally, i.e., if they haven't still realized that RP could be a lot more valuable and then start dealing off almost every single SP you have for RP and look to improve your offense at the same time... plus add some good ratio RP's from the WW if you can find 'em... there could be some pretty valuable guys out there if your leaguemates haven't gotten on to ze setup. and also generally be more selective with the SP you have.

... but dont go on my advice just yet... it'll be helpful to know league size what's available in terms of FA and WW guys...

[Zethos]

It is a 20 team league. I don't know much about relief pitchers, but some of Yahoo's top ranked in free agency are: Takatsu, Lidge, Perisho, Lima, C. Cordero. As far as I can tell none of the other teams in the league have realized that RP could be more valuable then SP. Thanks.