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Saturday, October 04, 2008FOX Sports Expert League recap and strategy discussion (Part 3)Posted by Derek Carty at 12:01amYou can read Part 1 and Part 2 here, so let's jump right into the final part. Late season points in drovesI gained nearly 15 points from the middle of August to the end of September. It went from a heated battle for first to a run-away in just six weeks. Jose Reyes, Brandon Phillips, and a Denard Span pickup netted me a bunch of steals and runs points, but I also grabbed quite a few in the pitching categories. Thanks to some excellent (and lucky) pitching by Tim Lincecum and starting six or seven closers with great stats every day, I had a huge lead in ERA. Losing Lincecum and Daisuke Matsuzaka (who I wasn't starting anyway because of his control) was no big deal at all because they had already done what I wanted them to; I had my ERA lead and was doing well in WHIP. Going forward, they could only provide marginal value in wins and strikeouts. They were actually near replacement level in the context of my team, because all I cared about for the final month-and-a-half were wins and strikeouts. Any additional stats a starting pitcher provided was meaningless. Jorge de la Rosa and Bronson Arroyo were nearly equivalent options, plus I got Javier Vazquez and John Danks to make sure I had at least some quality innings getting logged. Essentially, I leveraged Lincecum and Dice-K's excellent value for offensive points and lost nothing in the way of pitching points. Up until now, I had sat tight with my starters. I didn't engage in spot starting and just rode the wave. After the deadline, though, I slowly but surely began to spot start. By the middle of September, I managed to keep my big ERA lead and was picking up at least one starter almost every single day (some days as many as three or four) to spot start and accumulate strikeout and wins points. By John Halpin's calculations, I was making "937 transactions per week." This is a highly volatile strategy under most conditions, but I was in a somewhat rare situation where I could afford to do it with no risk attached. The WHIP point or two I put at risk were made up for by the strikeout and wins points I could gain without any risk at all. Start a lot of pitchers, and those two things will come. Final standingsI ended up getting 12 points in both HRs and RBIs, as I intended with my draft day plan. I finished with 11 in runs and six in steals (gaining several points over the last few weeks). I also managed 11 in batting average, more than I expected (but I would have been fine without them). I got 12 points for saves, which was huge considering I paid almost nothing for them. I got 12 points in ERA and 11 in WHIP, and finished with 8 in both wins and strikeouts (again, gaining several over the last few weeks). Keys to success
Concluding thoughtsThat wraps it up. Hopefully this gives you a clearer idea how to go about evaluating your own seasons. I'd like to say thanks to everyone in the league for making this such a pleasant season, and a big thanks goes out to Roger Rotter, John Halpin, and the other guys at FOX for extending the invitation. Derek Carty is a Mets fan currently residing in New Jersey. In addition to writing for THT, his work has also run either currently or previously at Rotoworld, Sports Illustrated, and FOX Sports. He was the champion of the FOX Sports Experts Fantasy Baseball League in 2008 and will be competing in five expert competitions in 2009, including LABR NL. He welcomes questions via e-mail. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Next Post: Player risk profile: Ben Sheets>> <<Previous Post: FOX Sports Expert League recap and strategy discussion (Part 2) |
