IS MY STRATEGY UNFAIR?????

[federo]

PresHabib,

You said you are against spot-starting - does that mean all spot-starting? Not even one or two a week? What about spot-starting for hitters?

For hitters...well I don't really see the point of rotating hitters in and out...pretty much all hitters play 6 days a week anyway so adding or subtracting guys to your lineup isn't really THAT big a deal I guess...I don't think its SMART because all the good hitters, matchups are not, are gonna be off waivers anyway so you're likely just giving yourself a handful of 0-fers.

I've found that there are always relatively good hitters available in FA. There have been times when spot-starting one or two of those hitters on Thursdays and Mondays has won me one of R, RBI, SB or HR. This week I tied runs because of a spot start last Monday. It can lose you BA or any other ratio for hitters that your league may count, but in general I think it is an effective strategy.

>>> The fundamental difference between spot starting hitters/pitchers is that with pitchers, you can't really compete with a guy whos got dozens, maybe even hundres more innings than you...<<<

I think you can compete. Anyone who is throwing that many innings runs a high risk of losing ERA and WHIP and only going 2-2 in the 4 standard SP cats. If that team doesn't have a good offense and several closers, it can easily lose. If someone threw a bunch of spot-starters at me I would do the same thing to him, try to beat him at his own game and hopefully win all 4 SP cats.

[Lofunzo]

Since there are always gonna be churners and spot-starters, I would recommend choosing some cats such as:

Losses
BB
ER

These should help make people at least think about doing this.

[Madison]

Spot starting=Occasionally picking up a pitcher for a given start. "Occasionally" meaning not often enough that you are throwing a ridiculous amount of innings every week.

Churning=Adding and dropping pitchers without using them simply to prevent the "quantity over quality" tactic by placing them on waivers.

Quantity over quality=Starting as many people as you can or at least enough to win the countables. That includes picking up a pitcher on Sunday specifically to win something like k's if you are down one and your opponent doesn't have a starter going.

Finally, some real, solid definitions. For future reference, these terms should be placed in the FBC glossary.

I used to believe that "spot starting" was OK, but now I'm not so sure. The other two are definitely unethical IMO.

Glad to help.

Like I've said, I'm not against spot starting on occasion. It's the "quantity over quality" tactic that is the problem. "Churning" occurs to stop the "quantity over quality" tactic and while I don't support doing it, if someone uses it to prevent someone else from using the "quantity over quality" tactic, then so be it.

Federo, you mentioned in the other league that you were averaged 5 extra starts per week? 30+ extra innings per week on average? Yes, that falls under "quantity over quality" in my book. With the scoring cats you listed, you did walk a fine line and took some big gambles doing it. Yes, it was successful for you and that's cool (I've never said that you didn't know how to play, just that the vast majority of "quantity over quality" people typically do not have that much knowledge) but it's was a flaw in the scoring system. Win %, era, whip, Save% and K/9 would stop that from happening. Knock out the countables and make the innings be quality innings instead of counting who can throw the most. That would require each owner to have a quality staff instead of just picking up whoever was availiable in order to win the countables.

[wrveres]

Win %, era, whip, Save% and K/9 would stop that from happening. Knock out the countables and make the innings be quality innings instead of counting who can throw the most. That would require each owner to have a quality staff instead of just picking up whoever was availiable in order to win the countables.

or a max IP .

[Madison]

Win %, era, whip, Save% and K/9 would stop that from happening. Knock out the countables and make the innings be quality innings instead of counting who can throw the most. That would require each owner to have a quality staff instead of just picking up whoever was availiable in order to win the countables.

or a max IP .

Agreed.

Max innings is my personal choice to solve the problem, but there are quite a few owners who don't like that solution. In Federo's example they had k's and wins (countables) so changing them to K/9 and win% would stop the tactic.

Just giving some other alternatives, after all, I'm just here to help.

[federo]

Spot starting=Occasionally picking up a pitcher for a given start. "Occasionally" meaning not often enough that you are throwing a ridiculous amount of innings every week.

Churning=Adding and dropping pitchers without using them simply to prevent the "quantity over quality" tactic by placing them on waivers.

Quantity over quality=Starting as many people as you can or at least enough to win the countables. That includes picking up a pitcher on Sunday specifically to win something like k's if you are down one and your opponent doesn't have a starter going.

Finally, some real, solid definitions. For future reference, these terms should be placed in the FBC glossary.

I used to believe that "spot starting" was OK, but now I'm not so sure. The other two are definitely unethical IMO.

Glad to help.

Like I've said, I'm not against spot starting on occasion. It's the "quantity over quality" tactic that is the problem. "Churning" occurs to stop the "quantity over quality" tactic and while I don't support doing it, if someone uses it to prevent someone else from using the "quantity over quality" tactic, then so be it.

Federo, you mentioned in the other league that you were averaged 5 extra starts per week? 30+ extra innings per week on average? Yes, that falls under "quantity over quality" in my book. With the scoring cats you listed, you did walk a fine line and took some big gambles doing it. Yes, it was successful for you and that's cool (I've never said that you didn't know how to play, just that the vast majority of "quantity over quality" people typically do not have that much knowledge) but it's was a flaw in the scoring system. Win %, era, whip, Save% and K/9 would stop that from happening. Knock out the countables and make the innings be quality innings instead of counting who can throw the most. That would require each owner to have a quality staff instead of just picking up whoever was availiable in order to win the countables.

Thanks for answering. I do agree btw that there is a flaw in the standard Yahoo H2H system that gives an inherent advantage to managers who spot start a lot if they sacrifice SPs for offense and closers. So to eliminate the advantage I set up a league with ERA, WHIP, ER, IP, SV, H. 50 IP minimum to prevent RPs from dominating. No advantage for totals and no inherent advantage for spot starters, and I'd say I am still starting 4-5 FA pitchers a week. Since I am doing it solely for quality what's your take on that?

[Madison]

Thanks for answering. I do agree btw that there is a flaw in the standard Yahoo H2H system that gives an inherent advantage to managers who spot start a lot if they sacrifice SPs for offense and closers. So to eliminate the advantage I set up a league with ERA, WHIP, ER, IP, SV, H. 50 IP minimum to prevent RPs from dominating. No advantage for totals and no inherent advantage for spot starters, and I'd say I am still starting 4-5 FA pitchers a week. Since I am doing it solely for quality what's your take on that?

No problem, it's been an interesting discussion.

The only countable is IP, but it's offset by ER. Odds are that you will win IP and lose ER, but not a guarantee of winning or losing either one. Interesting league and tough for me to say since I haven't played a league set up that way. Definitely different and looks reasonably fair. The only drawback I see is that it still allows an owner to draft hitters and relievers and then worry about SP's. 6 pitching cats, so 6 hitting ones as well? The only real sacrifice would be era/whip/er, so owners are drafting for 9 cats and sacrificing the other 3. Still allows for manipulation, but not "quantity over quality". People punt cats all the time, especially in H2H leagues, so I would say that "quantity over quality" probably would not work very well in this league. I'm not positive since I haven't played a league set up like that, but I do believe it would help stop the problem.

[matmat]

so I've read the latest additions to this thread and some interesting poitns have been made. Once again, let me state that I am totally anti-churning, pro spot-starting and if the rules allow it, not anti-quantity/quality ( I wouldn't do it).

I have some questions/comments about what was written above.

1) preshabib -- are you against spot-starting hitters in roto leagues with game limits? (or just in H2H)

2) a solution to all of this that I have not seen mentioned above could be to allow for daily lineup changes but only permit weekly roster changes. (with possible exceptions if someone goes on the DL)

3) also, if you are going to change the categories to prevent quantity/quality starts a good idea would be to have all offsetting categories to reward high quality performances and penalize quantity ones.

something along the lines of:
hitters:
RBI+R OUTS
HR K
SB CS
SH+SF GIDP

pitchers
OUTS ER
K BB+H
SV BS
W L

notice: no ratios.
(again, the above aren't perfect, they might not even be good, but they should give you a rough idea of what I am talking about).

4) I would think if you start a private league with your friends (and if they are reasonable people) then things like this would not happen...

[PresHabib]

I have some questions/comments about what was written above.

1) preshabib -- are you against spot-starting hitters in roto leagues with game limits? (or just in H2H)

I am not against spot starting hitters in roto leagues with game limits. Everybody is set to reach the same amount of games so if someone wants to waste their games on free agents while their studs are sitting, so be it. I think the relative ineffectiveness of a strategy is enough to offset the fact that I don't particularly care for it. I.e. if someone wants to start omar vizquel on the days Miguel Tejada has off, terrfic, one less game played by Miguel Tejada for my opponent is fantastic news for me!

I suppose I should also say that, though I still don't think its a good strategy, spot starting in innings limit roto leagues isn't too bad either, for the same reason. My starters include Schillng, Beckett, Beurhle, Harden, and a few others. Those guys start all the time and they, along with my relievers and my other starters (who are always on my roster but only play when the matchup is good) shuold carry me up to my innings limit just fine. So, if someone else had my staff and they decided that none of their guys were starting and they wanted to pick up Crappy McCraperson to get a start, they would be sacrificing innings that would be thrown by the likes of Schilling and Beckett...if everybody has the same amount of innings to throw and everybody will get that limit (i.e. its not 4000) then I believe its up to the owner to decide how to spend them. I'll just make my charge in September when the other guys can't pitch anymore

I suppose I need to re-affix my objection to spot-starting/quantity over quality. In roto leagues with limits everybody has the same number of innings and game starts...if someone wants to use those early and be done by late august early september, power to them...i knew all season I had X-hundred innings to throw and if I choose not to, thats my own stupid fault. At the same time, somebody throwing all those innings early HURTS them (or should) because they prevent their staff aces from getting 30 starts and they fall behind others in the league who used all of their innings on good/great pitchers. In head to head leagues I do not like it because it's almost impossible to compete with a guy who has significantly more innings (20-30) than you do. Even with ratios, unless all my guys pitch well, one 4 run in 6 inning performance can annhialate me in ERA, likewise for WHIP. So I don't like it in H2H because it gives you an advantage, while in an innings limit roto league it does not.

4) I would think if you start a private league with your friends (and if they are reasonable people) then things like this would not happen...

I agree, this is what I do. I know everybody, I like everybody, or I at least know somebody in the league who knows the other people so that nothing shady goes down. I also think its more fun because half of the fun I'm having in my roto league is because I had all my friends do it who have never done fantasy baseball before so they're always askin me questions like should I trade this guy, should I pick up that guy. We talk about it all the time and a have a good time with it, the advantage to the private league

I like the minimum IP/week solution. My friend and I were talking about possible solutions to avoid this threads three strategies in question (and to ensure also that a guy getting good scheduling and having all his pitchers go twice didn't screw you either). The min/IP/week solution was something we came up with, but we also said to put a max/IP/week too. Haha, the only problem with your minimum of 50, federo, is that I didn't have fifty IP in my H2H league last week Wood got hurt, Miller left early, and I had some bad matchups (Brown vs. Anaheim, check out his splits against Vlad/Glaus, etc ) so i only wound up with like 43 innings this week. Still, something like everybody throwing at least 45 innings but no more than 57 or 58 should be pretty effective

I too appreciate the tone of this thread and I'm enjoying discussing this stuff. I'm happy to agree to disagree throughout this debate despite how against the strategy I am. This is all great stuff [/quote]

[ironman]

The easiest way I see to fix that issue without having to overhaul your scoring is to just set a maximum transactions limit. Nothing extreme but if it were 50-60 moves all season it would definitely put that method to rest.

Roster churning is the equivalent of using the "Noseguard Trick" in Tecmo Super Bowl. Sure it works, but it makes things less fun for everyone else.