Adjusting Mid-Season Part II

nwhorton follows up on yesterday's post with a wrinkle on anonymous' problem.

I'm in a similar situation as the first commenter. Deep NL-Only league, only a 4x4 for me though. We start 9 pitchers and have a lower 900 inning minimum. I am doing well in hitting but poorly in pitching as well, having auctioned a bunch of under performers and then unloading most of my prospects for Harang and Cain a couple months ago which is obviously not helping. I'm also interested in hearing your strategy advice for teams looking to move up in ERA and WHIP in deep NL-Only leagues right now.

For the original commenter - I've learned the MR-based strategies will only work when you go all out. You can't pepper in a couple mediocre SPs or the entire strategy is ruined. One SP with bad numbers in ERA/WHIP will offset like 3 MR with solid numbers in those categories.

nw brings up a few points that are worth discussing.

First off, in a leagues with a lower innings requirement, it's definitely possible to sandbag innings early and try to make up ground later by picking up a bunch of starting pitchers. The problem with this strategy in deep, active leagues are constantly trying to pick up starting pitchers and hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. Some owners picked up Seth McClung after his first bad start, for example, not because that start inspired confidence, but because they thought McClung was worth the risk in a thin free agent pool. McClung owners have more or less been rewarded, but that's not the way these kinds of pick-ups typically play out.

nw is also correct in his assessment about a strong middle reliever strategy. If you have five or six starters on your staff, you'll see a lot of fluctuation up and down from day to day and week to week, since you'll be logging 40-50 IP a week, depending on how deep your starters go and how your bullpen is assembled. However, a staff with only two or three starting pitchers can see a significant fluctuation to the bad.

I've talked about the best way to do this in a much earlier post some of my newer readers probably haven't seen. I've had the most success in the past with this strategy. The problem with it now is that if you bought Jake Peavy or Johan Santana at your auction this year you bought yourself a good pitcher, but probably not the anchor you needed to paper over any of your mistakes. In the A.L. it's even worse. Josh Beckett's been OK, but Erik Bedard and C.C. Sabathia owners who ponied up big bucks for those guys are probably in the middle of the pack, at best.

Both nw and anonymous want to know the best way to climb out of an ERA/WHIP hole. Unfortunately, this is one of those areas where the best way to climb out of that hole is not to dig it in the first place. Of course, we all know that's easier said than done.

If you started out with six middle relievers and your starting pitchers aren't working out, you're still going to need to grab some good starting pitching to make a move. Two or three innings a week per middle reliever aren't going to have the same impact as 7-14 innings from a good starting pitcher.

You're probably stuck doing what I suggested to anonymous yesterday. Grab starting pitching and hope for the best. I've never seen a team dig itself out of a deep ERA/WHIP hole by grabbing middle relievers. As nh says, you have to start out with a small number of starting pitchers, but they have to be the right ones. Otherwise, you're hosed.