Are You Ready For Fantasy Baseball - 2009?

I knew there was some honor thing involved in keeping your draft team and being a kind of draft king, or maybe draft martyr, from something I read either on yahoo or a blog. I suppose as years go by and I know more about teams and their players, really know more about the game, I'll stop with at least some of the player churning. Meantime, if I had to go with autodraft day and just move around those playing from day to day, I'd quit in a flash.

I suppose you are talking about extreme changes to optimize any given week - which sounds like a bad crapshoot to me - but I'm not sure how you can tell that from what I'm doing, considering each player for a long term role.

Well, with any luck, our number of players will grow and we can have more leagues with differing philosophies.

Waiver wire.

Whether or not streaming works really depends on what stats count in your league.

I obviously partook in the strategy. I needed to to stay competitive. I understand it can be fun. Which is why I suggest a compromise.

Aha. Thanks. (I'm not much of a waiver user, though I see I've got numero uno in football, to what avail I don't know.) I'm usually lurking for brilliant rookies in the free agent lists or the recently called up)

CG and SHO are, let's face it, a crap shoot and unlikely to be affected by
using the jamoke of the day.

Assuming we're talking SPs -- SV, BS and HLD are irrelevant.

ERA and WHIP are as likely to hurt as help, maybe even likelier to hurt.

IP will definitely benefit.

W and K less so depending on how good you are at selecting jamokes.

We had this same discussion the first year I tried fantasy baseball and I
only tried this out when others assured me it was OK with them. If we
decide to ban "streaming", then we'd better come up with a good definition
of it.

I'm happy to play by any rules we agree on. It doesn't make sense to have
one player using one set of rules and other player using a different set.

One thing I would like to suggest - would it be possible to just have 1 catcher slot? 'Cause, except for guys like Mauer, and Victor Martinez and anyone named Rodriguez, the catchers this year were godawful. It was really easy to end up with 2 guys playing who were being played by less 25% of all typical managers.

What's a "catcher slot"?

In fact was was that post about generally?

Do you really want to know? Baseball season is pretty much winding down.

Right.

I think streaming pitchers is more fun than useful, specially in a league with so many players all that's left in the wire is usually nasty stuff.
I once played in a league won by a mean streamer, who'd stream pitchers picking them and dropping them inmediately just to make them unavailable for all the other players. I think he played below the edge of sportmanship (within the rules, but obviously trying more to hurt the opposition than to benefit himself).
A rule can be made to limit the number of moves per season, so the streaming can not get out of hand, but I'd think of a high number... say 100.

As for categories, I think CG and SHO add fun (and I used it in the draft, with Greinke and Harang, who -alongside Sabathia & Halliday & others- tend to do long starts). BS and Holds are also a plus... they put interest into middle relievers.

One thing that could be made next season is to match the number of batting and pitching categories.

to date, we have two catchers, like them or not

Sure, there's strategy involved in picking them from the wire, but there's no question a team averaging 70 IP playing a team that averages 40 or 50 IP significantly increases their potential for wins and Ks, provided they don' t draft Jeff Suppan or any one in the Pirates rotation.

I agree. "Less so" means less of a bump than IP.

are you guys still counting losses.

that is a good counter to streaming, not that I know much about it.(streaming that is)

Fool me once, fbaezer. Fool me once ...

A "slot" on your fantasy roster, filled by someone eligible to play the catcher position.


I think Jes is just jealous of my fat catcher #2 who happens to primarily play 3rd base, and is currently batting .323 with some pop.

According to the numbers RJB posted, you must have been the biggest steamer. Osso's not a streamer, and neither am I, yet I tied with George (a notorious streamer) for player moves. So, it doesn't look to me like there was all that much streaming going on ... except by Gargamel.

As previously stated, there can be a benefit to streaming. One stat we could add to offset mindless steaming is L (loss). As I recall, we had that stat 2 years ago.

Actually I think Jes is jealous about my dropping a prime rated catcher and grabbing a better one off the wire.

If we look at the stats, there IS a trend.
The 6 players who made less moves are exactly the 6 players that did not make the playoffs.
The 4 players still playing for the Championship are numbers 1, 3, 4 & 5 in number of moves.

Schniff, I was number two..


(laughing, but taking your point)