Beware he who has little to lose

Just as an update (as if anybody cares)- the strategy worked as I intended, but not enough to net the outcome I wanted. I lost the K point by a little over 20 Ks. I closed the gap considerably on the K/BB, but not enough to take the category. Meanwhile, his motley crew pitched pretty well on Sunday, which meant that I barely hung on to the WHIP category. (I likely would have blown it chasing he Ks.)

At the end of the day, my team didn’t hit enough to win, regardless.

one of my leagues has a roster lock come playoff time; allowing add/drops only in the case of injury, and even then, positions must be replaced by a matching FA.  A streamer may get into the playoffs, but it is hard to overcome quality pitching over a 2 week period.

In my H2H league, we have limited transactions, but you can acquire more through trades (everyone has a free agent budget of $50 + any leftover dollars from the auction, and they can trade that money to other owners). There are no acquisitions allowed during the playoffs (drops are allowed in case someone comes off the DL). You can still win with something approximating a streaming strategy (in that it emphasizes Ws and Ks at the expense of ERA & WHIP), because all of our pitching slots are generic, so it’s certainly possible to forego an offensive bench and roster 14 starters, where most owners carry 6 to 8 and a few relievers.

I’ve found, though, that a wiser strategy is to have a small to medium cadre of elite starters combined with a plethora of high-K relievers (not necessarily closers); usually, out of 8 pitching slots I only have 1 or 2 not occupied by relievers. I still mostly forego an offensive bench, which doesn’t cost that much except in the case of an injury during the playoffs, and I can usually take 4 of the 5 pitching categories (Ws, Ks, ERA, & WHIP) without having to pay a lot for pitching.

Derek,

This is a pickle we’ve been in in our league recently.  I generally like to allow as much room for strategy as possible (especially when it comes to trades).  But I think that incentives drive managers toward not investing in pitching.

My argument for innings caps unfortunately fell on deaf ears this offseason.  With more owners looking to maximize counting stats, the ones that did it the year before didn’t have the advantage.  So while the competition evened out (no real advantage or loophole as you discuss), I’m not sure values are distributed correctly on players in the league.  As I said, I like as much realism as possible, as I think the ultimate goal of participating in a fantasy league is simulating the real thing.

Sorry about the multiple posts…seemed to be a glitch…

I just think innings caps are a far less intrusive way of reaching the same goal. I don’t know if streaming pitchers actually devalues pitching. It only happens that way when the long term incentives are lost. My opponent in the finals streamed all year, but throughout the season if you convert the H2H to roto, I would have outscored him in the cumulative pitching cats (and then add the times when I sat pitchers to protect rate leads, something he hardly ever did).

There are two larger points. One, in order to argue for limiting moves, you’d have to establish a positive correlation between moves made and final standings (somehow accounting for skill disparity among owners). Anecdotally, this may be kind of true in the history of my fantasy baseball playing, but certainly not absolutely. My opponent in this case has been in the league for three years. Every year he uses the same strategy. This is the first time he’s won the regular season or playoffs. It may be true that teams who make more moves often finish higher, but that’s often a reflection of the owners’ commitment as opposed to an endorsement of transactions being a pilar of success, for their own sake. I’ve won leagues making more moves than anybody and I’ve won leagues making among the fewest.

Two, the streaming strategy only becomes incredibly difficult to counter when long term concerns cease to exist. So, do the playoff beg a different set of rules?

I’ve got to agree with Todd on this one.  Much of the point of having a cap on salary and an auction format is defeated by allowing unlimited moves.  With no discretion on pickups, the value of the auction is limited.  The idea, at least in our league, is to have the auction be the most important part of the league results.  Significant free agent moves and certain strategies could lead to an inefficient outcome in the auction, given the free unlimited moves.

Obviously, smart moves and trades during the season are extremely important as well.  For example, the pickups of Randy Wells, Andrew Bailey, Tyler Clippard, Tom Gorzellany, Eric O’Flaherty, Garrett Jones, Scott Podsednik, and Matt Diaz were pivotal in my having a successful season.  Similarly, I should be penalized for dropping Franklin Gutierrez for Russ Springer, or bothering to use a roster spot for Kris Benson, Russ Ortiz or Carlos Silva.  Using discretion in FA moves adds another component to strategy, and combines strategy and evaluation into one.  Not limiting moves simply removes discretion and careful evaluation, leading to hoarding and the quickest draw to get the players.  While it promotes participation, it doesn’t necessarily promote the competition we are looking for in a league.

I strongly disagree with ‘having to establish correlation between wins and moves’.  Why would you have to do that?  If that’s the case, then you’re imposing limits for the wrong reason: to limit the ability of a single owner.  If teams are significantly moving up the board by using more moves, then you have a participation problem.  The outcome, in theory, should be that if everyone participating sees that correlation, then they, too, will use more moves.  Just because it’s not leading to ‘Wins’ doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.

Rules should be put in place to A. Ensure the removal of inefficiencies in the leauge and/or B. To ensure the underlying theory of why we run a fantasy league are upheld.  Inefficiencies usually only last for a short time (like your correlation of ‘moves’ and ‘wins’) and once one person exposes it, others follow to reduce that advantage for everyone; but the persistence of hoarding is an issue I see as undermining my interest in playing fantasy.

Brian,

Perhaps this is a semantic issue, but I’m not sure what you mean by “hoarding.” Rosters are set at a certain size; at any given point we all have the same number of player under our control. Therefore, the idea of “hoarding” is a red herring.

Second, the idea of reducing discretion is not an advantage or liability, per se. To pick up a player, you have to drop one. And, while the streamers often get great short term production and/or maximize their opportunities for production their short leashes also cause them to drop players who turn out to be very valuable assets. That aspect of the strategy evens itself out.

Third, I don’t see anything wrong with penalizing the quickest to act. I know sometimes I lament the fact that I may be busier than others in my league and that impacts my ability to beat others to the wire, but those are (as I feel they should be) tough cookies.

And, forgive my ignorance, but wouldn’t the streaming strategy only truly devalue players bordering on replacement level anyway? The sample size is really the culprit here more than the streaming itself - the scoring periods are short enough so that a marginal starter can approximate a stud.

Finally, you are correct in the idea that if everybody co-opted the strategy then it would cease to have the advantages it is alleged to possess. The fact that in leagues with unlimited moves, the entire league does not necessarily adopt that model serves to establish that there’s a lack of consensus on whether those advantages are real.

Once again, in my opinion, the biggest reason to regulate against the streaming strategy is that the cost of implementing it diminishes as match-ups become more important, culminating in a dynamic in which there is almost no deterant to implement it in the playoffs on a scale that wuold have been illogical and counterproductive at earlier points in the season.

Beware him indeed.