Reserve Lists

If you don't play with a farm system (like I do in most leagues I've been in), you probably have a reserve list.

This list of players can be as small as two or three or as large as 17 players if you're in an Ultra League. If you're playing Ultra, you're probably going to pick up every player under the sun, so I'm aiming this post more at leagues with smaller reserve lists of 5-7 players.

Reserve list strategy isn't simply limited to picking your reserves. You should also tweak your auction strategy as well.

There are two types of reserve leagues. In one type of league, you can draft active major league players on reserve, but can't reserve active major leaguers. In another, you can reserve or activate major leaguers at will.

If you can do this, the most significant change will occur on the pitching side of the equation. You will want to draft more starting pitchers than you would in a more traditional Roto league. If you can reserve a mediocre or even poor SP from last year, there's no incentive not to do so. You might catch lightening in a bottle or you might not, but Odalis Perez isn't going to do you harm if he's sitting on your reserve list. If your bid price in a non-reserve league is $3, you might want to bump that up to $5 or $6 in a reserve league.

Your reserve picks, then, can be saved for middle relievers who might wind up closing. Years ago, I grabbed Mike Williams of the Pirates this way, stashing him on my reserve list just in case. Sure enough, the Pirates closer crapped out, and Williams saved nearly 30 games that year.

A nice ancillary benefit of this approach is that you can "dump" saves with your active roster dollar allocation while taking some free shots at saves on your reserve picks.

On offense, it's best to pick up players who might eventually get AB in the event your regulars fail or get hurt. If you have Orlando Cabrera, Erick Aybar isn't a bad use of a reserve pick. One thing you do want to avoid, however, is picking up guys who will be scrubs whether they get 200 AB or 400 AB. Wil Nieves might be a great guy to have in the clubhouse, but don't bother with him. Even if Jorge Posada gets hurt, the Yanks will find someone better fast if it's a long-term injury.

You still want to pick minor league players. The only difference now is that you're probably going to want to pick more players who are closer to the majors than you did previously. Jay Bruce and Cedric Hunter might be hotter than August in Atlanta someday, but the reserve list gives you a great opportunity to pick up stats for later.

Perhaps even more importantly, deeper reserve lists mean less stats floating around in the free agent pool. Picking up two or three minor leaguers who won't see the light of day until 2009-2010 is fine in a league with no major league reserves: in fact, there are plenty of good reasons to do so. However, using these picks in a reserve list league can be fatal. If there are few stats floating around in the minor league pool, then you've got to use your reserve list to accumulate as much as possible.