As I mentioned yesterday, confusion typically occurs when a non-ERA/WHIP strategy is discussed. It is often confused with a $9 pitching strategy, where an owner spends $1 on every pitcher and then spends $251 on offense. An ERA/WHIP dump is similar, but different.
Your goal when dumping ERA/WHIP is to win saves and wins. To win saves, you'll have to spend money in the category. You don't want to spend full ticket price for two closers, since you'll all but defeat the point of punting categories. In this plan, you want to spend at least $200 on offense to optimize all four offensive categories. I'd recommend spending as much as you can while keeping in mind that you should acquire two closers. If you acquire a stud and a mediocrity (i.e. K-Rod and Todd Jones), you can also trade for another stud later. In fact, you'll have to.
Another difference between an ERA/WHIP dump and a $9 pitching strategy is that you'll probably want to fill out the rest of your staff with starting pitchers. That isn't to say that middle relievers aren't useful or valuable, but not too many middle relievers ever get double digit wins, whereas all starters theoretically have a chance to do so.
One similarity between the $9 pitching strategy and an ERA/WHIP dump is that you will be spending as little as possible on your starting seven. You're not necessarily looking for the worst pitchers out there, but you are looking for the cheapest.
The paradox of this strategy is that poor ERA/WHIP pitchers tend not to win games, for obvious reasons. If you put up a 6.00 ERA, you're not going to win too many ballgames.
If you go down this road, you'll be using your FAAB dollars early and often to try and mix and match to find the right combination of starting pitching. Unlike the no-power strategy, there's a chance you might not finish in last in ERA/WHIP. In fact, you want to try and get at least a few points in each category. The best ways to do this are through FAAB and through trades. If you play Ultra or a modified verison of Ultra and use a reserve list, pick up a lot of pitchers, even if those pitchers are in Double A. You never know.
The ERA/WHIP dump banks on the following:
- Pitching is unpredictable in its very nature. Last year's lousy pitcher can turn into this year's wonderful mediocrity. Conversely (and more commonly) last year's solid pitcher can turn into a $0 earner this season. Don't delude yourself. You're not going to finish in the top half in ERA/WHIP categories. You only need to finish with 6-10 points, depending on your league.
- There are more pitchers that come up from the minors and out of nowhere during the season than there are comparable hitters. You have a better chance of plucking a $28 Jered Weaver out of thin air than you do a similar hitter. That isn't to say you will, but you might.
- If you spend $200-220 on offense, you'll have offense to trade at some point during the season. You can get the closer you need or - if you are relatively close in ERA/WHIP to gaining ground - a good starting pitcher.
My opinion is that I don't like this strategy. It relies too much on bad pitchers suddenly improving, which may or may not happen. Of all the tandem strategies, this one relies the least on your acumen and the most on dumb luck. Sure, Jered Weaver and Boof Bonser might fall in your lap once the season starts. But do you want your entire strategy to hinge on this?
I also believe that spending this kind of money on saves in a category dump almost defeats the purpose of the category dump entirely. I'll get into this in a future post when I talk about dollar allocation in a category dump.
If you're going to toss two pitching categories away, I believe there's a much better way. And I'll talk about that in my next post.
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