2012 Fantasy Baseball For Stakes And The Troops

[JenksAnejo]

Anyone wanna move up and let me move down? lol

[JenksAnejo]

It's a snaking randomized draft. The order is posted right now, so everyone can plan their strategy.
I got the first pick and 20th pick. As God is my witness, I didn't cheat. I just about puked when I saw I drew first pick, I've never drafted above third.

I believe you, even if you did cheat by all means please take the first pick!

[shilala]

Originally Posted by JenksAnejo

I believe you, even if you did cheat by all means please take the first pick!

That's a painful, painful spot.

[JenksAnejo]

Who ya takin' Scott?

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by JenksAnejo

Who ya takin' Scott?

My money is on Andy Van Slyke.

[jonumberone]

Just got in from vacation
Trying to register, getting error message that the league is locked and I can't join.
Help please!

[Coach Deg]

Scott I still can't sign in son. I talked to Dom he might be trying now also.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by shilala

Guys, I'm going to have to finalize our team list in order for our draft to go off.
Since Mike's boy is covered and I can't get in touch with Dom, as much as it pains me I have to push the button.
Sorry!!!

Originally Posted by shilala

I just locked the teams and started the draft.

Originally Posted by jonumberone

Just got in from vacation
Trying to register, getting error message that the league is locked and I can't join.
Help please!

Originally Posted by Coach Deg

Scott I still can't sign in son. I talked to Dom he might be trying now also.

I think Scott already locked the league.

[jonumberone]

Oh well, guess I'm S.O.L.
Have fun boys, and remember to take it easy on Scott!

[shilala]

Sorry Dom and Mike. I had to lock the league so the draft would populate. If I didn't do it I'd have had to change the draft date.
Dom, Hugh has a league set up, too. I know they need bodies, hopefully you can help him out.

[jonumberone]

Thanks Scottie!
I'll head over to Hughs league
Like I said have fun boys!

[Mattso3000]

Good draft all! Too bad we had a couple guys miss out there but it should be a good year!

[Stephen]

Favorite pick (my team): Probably Ryan Roberts. Similar stats to Howie Kendrick (save 35 points in BA) and I got him 15 rounds later.

Least Favorite pick (my team): Without a doubt it was Daniel Hudson. I meant to select Aramis Ramirez but after moving Hudson to my que he was still highlighted when I hit the draft button.

Favorite pick (other team): David Ortiz (137th). Being able to get a guy who's going to hit at or around .300/30/100 in the 14th round? Crazy. I had him all queued up and ready to go, but was taken two spots before my pick.

Least Favorite pick (other team): Not counting the two closers that were draft who are on the shelf for the year (I STOLE him!), I'm going to have to go with Stephen Strasburg (42). In my opinion it's a culmination of things:

1. First three picks were already starting pitching (Verlander/Halladay/Haren)
2. There were still a couple of bats on the board that represented good value (Hamilton/Beltre/Wright) where Strasburg was selected
3. It's likely that Strasburg would've fallen to the team's next pick

It's not that I don't like Strasburg, I just don't think it was the best pick for this team at that time.

[shilala]

Stephen, I had 4 of your starting pitchers in my rotation last year at one time or another. I try to minimize my starting pitchers by using as few as possible through the week because they will blow the era and whip right out of the water and produce few K's per 9 innings.
I sacrifice W, CG, and SHO to take the other 7 categories in pitching by using closers and middle relief. Some weeks a middle relief guy comes in and blows up. That's the breaks, and it's a bad week.

My least favorite pick is Aramis Ramirez. He scares me.
My favorite picks were Granderson at 20 and Reyes at 21.
Kimbrel, Axford and Papelbon at 60, 61, and 80 made me smile. Putz at 120 shocked me. I never thought I'd grab a fourth closer.
I was bummed that I missed Michael Young. He played into my lineup heavily and I almost went after him earlier but he wasn't worth the weight where I'd have had to take him.
I got tons of power, which is what I was after, and even picked up some speed in Reyes, Granderson and Young. That's something I usually have to sacrifice.
I really couldn't be more pleased with my team.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by shilala

Stephen, I had 4 of your starting pitchers in my rotation last year at one time or another. I try to minimize my starting pitchers by using as few as possible through the week because they will blow the era and whip right out of the water and produce few K's per 9 innings.
I sacrifice W, CG, and SHO to take the other 7 categories in pitching by using closers and middle relief. Some weeks a middle relief guy comes in and blows up. That's the breaks, and it's a bad week.

K/9 isn't a category in this league, Scott. Another thing to consider is that you sacrifice total outs when going reliever heavy, which IS a category in this league. The way the league is set up I really don't see an advantage to going reliever heavy. Also worth noting that the way the league is set up I don't really see an advantage to going starter heavy, either. That, and the way the league is set up the best you can hope for is a 50/50 split of starters/relievers.

[shilala]

Guys, check this.
It covers how week one will be scored.
Week One will run from March 28th to April 8th to cover the two games in Tokyo and the short week that starts the season on April 4.

[shilala]

K's are, brother. I didn't mean to give the impression there was a k/9 category. My point was that middle relief and closers will yield far more k's than starters on a per inning average.

On the rest, we agree exactly. You can't go after all 20 categories on a regular basis or you end up mediocre in all of them.
The goal is to go .560. .500 will get you in the playoffs.
If I can regularly take 12 of 20, that's .600 ball. It's more than enough to win the season and get a shot at the playoffs. If I make it to the playoffs, it's a whole new season with a whole new cache of players either producing or not. Thats when a guy can make the changes he needs and watch daily matchups to get an edge.

Take a minute and break down what you're likely to get in each scenario. Reliever heavy, Closeer heavy, Starter heavy, Starter/middle relief heavy, etc.
I've found that it's best to go light on starters, normal on middle relief and heavy on closers. That's because I'll likely earn more than 5/10 categories per week, it's far easier to manage, and I can sit/swap out a starter who's blowing up.
I don't believe in a pitcher having a "bad game", for the most part. Seldom do they have one bad game, you can watch their stats and see something is wrong. I feel it's almost always injury. It doesn't take much of an injury to wreck mechanics because a guy will change his delivery to guard the injury, even if it's minor. Once he's gotten used to that different delivery, it takes hell for coaches to correct it, especially if they don't have enough accurate pre-analysis via film, slo-mo, etc. Most pitching coaches don't rely on computer-aided pitching analysis, they're old-school. That sets back and prolongs a guy's "bad game" syndrome for a good while till they retweak everything and get him back to where he started.
They'll push starting pitchers into the rotation forever. Middle relief and closers, they'll just sit them down and bring someone up, or whatever. They'll just keep his ass off the mound.
That's how I play it and a little of why. A guy can have just as much success with starting pitching/a little middle relief and no closers. I just feel it's more work and more risk. I've tried just about every combination and this one yields results for me.
The hitting side is tougher. I go with power-heavy, and those guys get hurt a lot. It makes things tough to fix if the injuries last and I don't have a comfortable margin.

[Stephen]

With five required starters though, you really can't go reliever heavy in this format (at least to where you have any sort of viable edge). That's all I'm saying, brother.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Stephen

With five required starters though, you really can't go reliever heavy in this format (at least to where you have any sort of viable edge). That's all I'm saying, brother.

They aren't required. You don't have to fill any spots any given night.
You'll see later that I'll only carry 1 or 2 bench bats and carry more middle relievers. That way I'll get just as many innings (or at least close to as many) as guys that are starter heavy. Enough so that I can compete for K's and W's and Outs. ERA, WHIP, L's, Saves and Relief Wins should already be bagged.
If I get five and the usually tie in SHO and CG, a 5-3-2 week is awesome. I'd take that every week all year, and it's very well within reason.
You'll see how the numbers mash out in a couple weeks. It's a great math game. But just like Fantasy football, you can have everything in place and lose your ass. Or vice versa.
With all the games and all the points, it's best beat with aggregate averages, or at least that's what I've found.
It sure helps to have Verlander, too.

[Stephen]

Originally Posted by shilala

They aren't required. You don't have to fill any spots any given night.
You'll see later that I'll only carry 1 or 2 bench bats and carry more middle relievers. That way I'll get just as many innings (or at least close to as many) as guys that are starter heavy. Enough so that I can compete for K's and W's and Outs. ERA, WHIP, L's, Saves and Relief Wins should already be bagged.
If I get five and the usually tie in SHO and CG, a 5-3-2 week is awesome. I'd take that every week all year, and it's very well within reason.
You'll see how the numbers mash out in a couple weeks. It's a great math game. But just like Fantasy football, you can have everything in place and lose your ass. Or vice versa.
With all the games and all the points, it's best beat with aggregate averages, or at least that's what I've found.
It sure helps to have Verlander, too.

Two things:

1. I asked earlier if this was a daily or weekly lineup. You said weekly. Now you're saying it's daily?

2. Any fantasy game I've ever played in required a full lineup submitted otherwise a forfeiture occurred. So if for instance I don't want to start a catcher I don't have to? I suppose to get around that if there's daily transactions and lineups you could just go and pick up joe blow that isn't starting that night...