Two Category Dumps - Tandem Strategies

Theoretically, almost any two categories can be dumped together. For example, an owner can decide to dump both saves and stolen bases or (as I did last year) wins and batting average. However, this is not a tandem strategy.

A tandem strategy is what I define as a category dump where:

• two categories are being dumped, and
• the allocation of dollars and statistics on the Roto team's roster is complimentary based on the categories dumped.

So even if an owner is dumping wins and batting average, one has little to do with the other. I could dump wins and not dump batting average. I could dump batting average yet try my hand in wins. In fact, I'm running two concurrent one-category dumps, not a two-dump strategy.

There are a total of three major ways I can think of to dump two categories in tandem.

• Home runs and RBI. This strategy is also known as The Sweeney Plan, after its inventor, Hugh Sweeney of the American Dreams League.
• ERA and WHIP. This could be called the Labadini Plan, after Larry Labadini, who ran a $9 pitching strategy in LABR one year. However, I do not think that dumping ERA/WHIP is the same as simply spending $9 on pitchers.
• Wins and saves. I don't know if this plan has a name. I first tried this in 1998 in my American League and won going away. I won with it again in 2000. I got the idea from Alex Patton's 1996 Q and A from his book. Thanks, Alex.

I'll start today with The Sweeney Plan.

The Sweeney Plan

Years ago, there was no AB requirement in most Rotisserie Leagues. In those early days, it made no sense to have one. Without AB, you wouldn't accrue any kind of stats at all (or so conventional wisdom went) on offense. So why bother with a rule?

Hugh Sweeney came upon the marvelous idea of simply drafting enough speed/batting average to win and then spending a ton of money on pitching. He was running a marathon that year (so the story goes) and didn't want to spend a lot of time in-season tinkering with his team.

His team finished 5th. With no transactions. His league-mates realized that a more active owner could have taken this strategy and won the league easily. So they instituted an AB requirement. As more and more teams attempted this plan, the AB requirement became very high, making the Sweeney Plan difficult if not impossible.

It can be done, though. A 5,000 AB requirement would mean that you need 10 everyday players getting 500 AB apiece. Since leadoff hitters like Ichiro typically pile up 600+ AB, you might even be able to get away with nine regulars and 5 bench players.

In the pre-AB requirement days, pulling off a Sweeney Plan was easy. You could spend $100-110 on Ichiro and Carl Crawford and fill in with speedy bench players, hoping that a couple stole 15 bases or so. The rest of your money would go to pitching, pitching, pitching.

AB requirements make this impossible, since you need to get an obnoxiously great pitching staff to contend. Your goal is to draft one rabbit like Ichiro and then get a few complimentary players who will steal 10-20 apiece. Suddenly, drafting Carl Crawford is a rotten idea, since you're not only paying for his 58 SB and .303 BA, but also for his 18 HR and 77 RBI. Only $30 of Crawford's $44 earned last year was earned in SB/BA. Ichiro comes close to earning what Crawford did in SB/BA ($29), but at $37 overall would have been a better use of your auction dollars.

You're probably going to have to spend at least $120 on your offense to meet your AB requirement and field a credible team. You might have to spend up to $140, depending on factors such as how strong your freeze list is, how much steals typically go for in your league, and how strong your pitching freezes are.

You'll want at least two closers; you'll want three if you're going the cheap route, since you can't count on all three of them keeping it together for the entire season. Then, you'll fill in with as much strong starting pitching as possible. The conundrum here is whether or not to spend big bucks on 2-3 aces and then try to fill in, either at the auction or later through FAAB, with cheaper starters, or to try and spread the risk across your staff with a few $20-30 starting pitchers.

Based on my experience, I recommend spending for the aces. $20-25 pitchers are more likely to become $0 to ($10) busts. A bad year for Johan Santana will probably be a $15 year, which won't kill you (though you will have to scramble).

Don't be afraid of middle relievers, either. The reliable ones will post helpful ERAs/WHIPs and keep you near the top of ERA/WHIP.

I like the Sweeney Plan. I liked it better without an AB requirement. The higher the AB requirement, the more risk there is in the plan, since you're now spending too little on starting pitching to ensure that you grab enough top flight talent. I can't not recommend it entirely, but I would recommend making sure that you have some pitching value on your freeze list before you try it.