I feel sort of stuck because I don't know what players Rodger has and what prices he can keep them at. My general advice would be to try something different than a straight, eight-category strategy.Generally, my keepers are not very good and my pitchers are especially bad. Does that seem the perfect circumstance to try to minimize pitching costs?
As far as minimizing pitching costs, I would agree that this is one possible idea. Judging by Rodger's comment, though, I wouldn't go down the path Rodger describes next:
I'm assuming that Dotel went for $5, Putz for $6, and Papelbon for $9 last year. Jenks went for $8 and Street for $11 in a previous season, Ray was picked up as a free agent and his salary converted to $10 at some point.Keep this in mind: in my league, the largest source of draft inflation is the number of cheap closers: Dotel $5, Putz $6, Jenks $8, Papelbon $9, Ray $10, and Street $11. Total: $49.At LABR, those guys went for $106 -- when the Sox said Papelbon would be a starter. Incidentally, those 6 retained closers were acquired as relatively cheap middle relievers, so that's another potential perk of this strategy.
If those assumptions are correct, I still believe that this is a lot to pay for a chance at saves.
I've always been against paying too much for a closer-in-waiting (CIW). I believe that CIWs are a pretty random crapshoot. Whatever you pay for a CIW, you want to hope that you at least get it back in value in ERA/WHIP.
More importantly, if you pay $5 a pop for potential closers, you might as well draft a top closer for $30 and spend $1 on your other relievers. The relievers listed above are certainly success stories, but Dan Miceli went for $13 in my league last year and Fernando Rodney went for $11. Miceli's owner probably wanted to jump off a bridge by May. Rodney's owner got good stats, but didn't get saves, and you can get good stats from middle relievers just floating around the free agent pool. You shouldn't pay $11 for those stats.
And this is my philosophy when you're playing for eight categories. When you are playing for six categories, every dollar must be optimized. If you're going to dump wins and saves, spend $1 for all six of your relievers. If you get a closer, great, but you can't count on getting one. And since you planned to finish last in saves, it won't matter too much if that's what winds up happening.
One last thanks: Given the poor state of my keepers, and your February 22 post on freeze lists, I'm now likely to keep Hafner at $31, Jeter at $33 and/or Rios at $24.I don't know what Rodger's inflation rate is, but I would agree that all three of these players are freezes with inflation. The downside is that Rodger is still in the position of having a team that will wind up under the $260 medicore bar even with those freezes.
A dump wins/saves tandem strategy might work here. A lot depends on if Rodger has any pitching freezes, if Santana is available, and what price Rodger guesses he might go for. If Rodger can't get Santana, he'd have to decide if Halladay or D-Mat could make this strategy work as well as the ace pitcher.
2 comments:
Love the site. I posted this at Patton, but I thought I'd post it here as well, with an additional question:
My fifteen-year-old league collapsed under a wave of recrimination, lies, etc. Seven of us are starting a new NL-only, 4x4, $260 league, with three new owners. Of the seven originals, 4-5 are pretty good owners, 2-3 are raw, and the three new guys are likely to be fish. We couldn't find twelve owners, so I know the guys who would have gone for $3-$7 will now go for $1. I don't think the Pujols/Reyes/Wright/Carpenter studs will deflate much, if at all. What other effects might we see?
Also, what should we do after the season if we go to twelve teams? There's going to be a raft of bottom-feeding bargains. I suggested that EVERY player get $10 added to his salary after the season, to bring the bottom up without shooting the stud through the ceiling.
Thanks for addressing my question. You are correct that one should not overspend for middle relievers -- especially if using the kind of dump strategy you discussed in the original article. I acquired Jason Davis for $1 last year and could have been lucky...but I wasn't.
Oh, and just to clarify, those pitcher prices I quoted don't reflect last year's draft prices.
First, my league requires graduated salary increases. Davis would be $3 to keep this year. Second, some of the prices reflect amounts paid for players acquired using free agent cash.
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