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Avoid closers at your own riskby Paul SingmanNovember 03, 2009 Paul has been managing fantasy baseball teams for many seasons and writing for THT Fantasy over the past three years. He is currently a student at UPenn welcomes readers' thoughts at his email here or in the comments below. Comments
Derek Carty said...
Nice job, Paul. I feel as though my original article may have been a little broad and sweeping. *Everything* we do as fantasy players is dependent on context. Wait on saves if your league settings and your personal skillset is conducive to identifying potential closers and quickly plucking them off the waiver wire. If it’s not, then maybe saves should be treated no differently than any other category and closers should be considered in the early rounds. In FSIC, you and I took 2 closers in the top 10 rounds (granted, one was a computer glitch). In LABR, I spent $27 on two closers. But in KFFL, we didn’t take a closer until round 16. All three leagues were top-3 finishes. It’s all dependent on context and making sense of all the moving pieces. Posted 11/03 at 07:01 PM
Paul Singman said...
Thanks for taking my half-handed criticism in stride, Derek. As I say in the article I think your advice was solid, but there are always situations where even the best advice becomes no longer applicable and this type of situation with closers is one of them. First line of The Book says “Everything about baseball (for that matter everything about anything) is about context.” Fantasy baseball is no exception. Posted 11/03 at 09:00 PM
Dave said...
This is a nice article. I just won a pretty deep dynasty league (16 teams, 40 man roster, points) by acquiring closers in every possible way - draft, trade, waiver wire. I was able to run the maximum number of closers out every day, with each single inning + save/win generating the highest possible points/inning ratio. In a league where the innings cap is a real issue, this was critical. I ended up with over 180 saves. The second place team had 133 but a much better team overall. This was possible because my compatriots generally were undervaluing closers, thanks, I suspect, to articles like Derek’s. So I kept acquiring them for relatively little until suddenly I had a nice full bunch and could even withstand injuries/inconsistencies. As always, the moral is to read everything, then figure out where your league’s value level is set, and take advantage. Right now I think SP is a little undervalued. I’d say more, but some of them read this site ... Posted 11/03 at 11:32 PM
Paul Singman said...
Thanks for the positive responses John and Dave. Regarding both of your statements that people are perhaps undervaluing saves, let me clarify something: Personally, I do not believe saves are undervalued in leagues today. If you can plan on being successful in the waiver wire, then I would, every time, opt try to get saves by drafting a few closers late and then having waiver pickups make up for any shortcomings. I am still against picking any of the elite closers in the early rounds they get drafted in since those picks can be more profitably used on hitting or starting pitching. The point I am trying to make in this article is that you cannot become disillusioned into thinking you will be able to add a few of the emergency-pickup closers over the course of the season, when you are in fact going to be outmatched by your league-mates in the race to get free-agents. If that is the case, then maybe instead of drafting a couple of closers in the very risky 200 ADP-area, you will make an effort to draft a more secure closer in the 150-175 range, which is still not making a large investment in closers but is a slightly larger one. Posted 11/04 at 12:46 AM
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Interesting article, thanks. I feel like with everyone not paying for saves, it might be time to cut against the grain a little. Strategies work best when they work alone, right?
I think it’s good advice to never draft with a strategy that involves having to make a trade. I’ll keep that in mind this year b/c I was stuck with two quality 2B I couldn’t quite get value for all season.