H2H Strategies?

[alleyoops]

I've joined a first-year redraft h2h league, and haven't played h2h in some time. I'm sure most of the other owners have much more h2h experience than I do. Was wondering if the folks here who have had more experience might have some sage advice for strategy? I have a few approaches that have occurred to me, but rather than suggest them and ask for comments, thought it best to leave it open, in case there are other ideas I haven't thought about yet.

League parameters: 5x5 (the usual), mixed, 16 teams, (snake) redraft, C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, 4OF, UT, UT, 8P. 7 player bench. 3 minors. FAAB twice per week. Lineup changes once per week. 15IP min (may go up), no IP max, no AB min or max. Each week you play vs 6 other teams out of the other 15, for 20 weeks (so 120 "games"). Top 4 go to playoffs, 1 plays 4, 2 plays 3. 50%/25%/15%/10%.

[Todd Zola]

here is an essay on H2H strategies

http://www.mastersball.com/sample/Head% ... eagues.pdf

The main thing with roto-H2H as opposed to straight roto is you can better "game" categories in H2H. All you have to do to win the game is win 6 cats. So you can bag SB in an effort to win the others. You can avoid good pitchers and bulk up on wins and strikeouts, saving your assets to build a better offense. Or you can use all relievers, assuming you make the minimum innings, win ERA/WHIP and saves and also fortify your offense.

Or, you just play it straight, like you would regular 5x5.

Some will talk about getting consistent players -- it is a myth, they don't exist.

[Mickey4081]

Loading up on innings pitched per week (double start pitchers) would be a wise move in h2h weekly matchups.

[alleyoops]

Thanks for the input so far - keep 'em coming! Also thanks for the link to the article, Todd.

Since the league is not a one-on-one weekly matchup, some of the things that I read (about matching up) don't directly apply. The min IP is low, and with no IP maximum, I expect that with 16 teams, there will be at least a couple who take the mostly-RP approach, and that several, perhaps many, will take the mostly SP (i.e. maximize IP each week) approach. I'm sure that others will take a balanced approach with pitching. So how any of these pitching strategies fares each week depends on what strategies the teams you are against that week are using, as well as the usual factors (quality and luck).

My guess is that more than half the owners will favor offense over pitching. The rules lend themselves to this, and as the article suggests, if you can dominate offense and take W and K, or SV, ERA, and WHIP, you're in good shape. The main issue that I have with taking this approach is that since many will be using it, "dominating" offense might be a pipe dream. You should do well most weeks againt teams which took a balanced approach, or favored pitching. But will that be more than half the teams in the league?

I've thought about going "contrary", and trying to dominate pitching, while giving up offense. It would be impossible to be competitive in the power categories with this approach, but it would seem that SB, AVG, and R you might still be competitive, especially since the speed guys tend to be devalued in H2H (from what I've read). It would also help that the guys typically taken early are mostly power guys. The problem with this approach is that pitching is less predictable than offense, so if your top P's don't come through, you're in big trouble. Plus, if you're attempting to win all 5 pitching categories each week, you'll run into some teams with more SP and others with more RP than you (those using the unbalanced pitching strategies, and/or streaming). The other, and perhaps more likely problem is that if 1 or 2 other teams are taking this same approach, the quality of your pitching and speed will not be all that much higher than those with more balanced approaches.

[Todd Zola]

The 400 lb gorilla with any of these strategies is the fact that since so many players now get hurt, and the quality of replacements is lower than it has been in awhile, it may be more a matter of survival of the fittest as it is a better scheme or better player evaluation.

Personally, my plan would be to go for balance and if it wasn't working out, then I would diverge and switch to one of the gimmicky strategies depending on how the team was looking at the time.