I'm trying to come up with a strategy around RPs in my H2H points league. The basics....
Pitching
Wins - 10pts
Loss - 5pts
Saves - 8pts
BS - -3pts
K's - 2pts
Holds - 3pts
Hitting
Hits - 1pt (2bs worth 2 3bs worth 3)
HRs - 5pts
RBI - 3pts
Rs - 1pt
SB - 2pts
There's points for walks, bonus points for Grand Slams and complete games and a bunch of other fickle crap.
We start one at each position, plus a DH. We start 5 SPs and 3 RPs each week. You set your line-up Monday morning and that's the line-up for the week.
According to CBS' projections (and it's true for most years), your top 5 SPs or so are the top players, (Kershaw is the tops at 1007 pts for the season, Tanaka is 20th with 691 pts). Then the top hitters (Trout at 820 pts, Kyle Seeger ranked 40th at 568 pts) then your top RPs come in at around the low 600's (Greg Holland projected at 627, Koji Uehara is 15th at 490)
Typically the run on closers begins in the sixth round, though one guy has jumped in the 4th two years in a row. I usually wait and grab a couple of mid to low tier guys and then grab an RP eligible starter (we used to get 5 starts until they had to be used as an SP) and be ready to pounce on a new closer after an injury/performance issue. They closed the SP as RP loophole on me so now I need a new strategy.
The the top Holds guys rank from about 320 - 250.
So even the guy who goes all in on saves would probably do no better than three guys who score 620, 550 and 490 respectively which averages out to about 63.8 pts from the RP position.
If I focus on offense and SP in the rounds everyone else is focusing on RPs, then I grab three holds guys at the end and average 300 pts each for the season (I'll get the top three because there won't be much competition), I'll average 34.6. So on average I'll be giving back 29 pts per week from the RP position. Of course the top holds guys will be in line for saves if an injury/performance issue comes up.
So after all that, I guess my question is, if I'm grabbing a few of the Kyle Seegers and Tanaka's of the world, while the other 11 guys are fighting for the Koji Uehara's of the world, can I make up the 30 points/week over getting into the saves fight and grabbing a Michael Cuddyer-esque guy?