Pitcher's category impact in valuations with inning limits

[viper]

This is probably a bad topic title but what the heck. I am currently in an email draft for a new dynasty league. The league has the normal 5 pitching categories plus holds. It also has a minimum inning count of 900 and a maximum of 1750. There are 5 SP slots and 5 RP slots. You can also make daily roster adjustments. Several thoughts I would like to hear comments on.

1. making the 1750 inning maximum should be relatively easy with daily moves. It seems to me that the K-category becomes a K/9-category and pitchers should be evaluated as such.

2. with 5 RP slots, you should accumulate around 350 IP in RP pitchers. With 1400 SP innings left, you can pretty much get by with 7 or 8 SPs. Add a 9th for favorable spot starts, you could even avoid pitching your lesser SP in bad situations such as @Coors, @Fenway or @Yankee Stadium.

3. HOLDS is all but impossible to plan for so your best bet is to get setup men from winning teams and then watch closely to see who preforms best in the FA pool.

4. The 6th category [Holds] is dominated by a small segment of the player pool as do saves. In fact your top setup men would become closer for many start-of-the-year closers. To a degree, with 1/3 of the categories totally not impacted by SPs, the value of SPs drops and possibly drops more than one may expect.

5. Some thought to a RP strategy should be considered as 2/3 of the category could be controlled by RPs. You would still need about 600 innings from starters but that is really just three quality pitchers. Plus these three pitchers would not need to be K/9 type players. With a 39 category point average for pitching, you could get to 46 with four 11's and two 1's. Not sure if that would be enough to win as some team is liely to be strong in both pitching & hitting but it could be a thought.

The mantra "Bully Hitting and Manage Hitting" seems more in force in this setup.

[alleyoops]

The mantra "Bully Hitting and Manage Hitting" seems more in force in this setup.

All well and good, but what do you do about PITCHING?

I think your last point is very important. Not only would that strategy likely be effective, but you should be able to load up on top RPs later than most, and devote your early and mid-draft picks to offense and a few strong SPs. You might even consider waiting on closers, taking the next-in-line guys as late as you can, and hoping some of them turn into closers.

[Todd Zola]

Is there dual SP/RP eligibility or are there SP who will really be RP or vice versa? If not, the 5 SP and 5 RP pretty much dictates not only what you have to do, but what everyone has to do. And if holds are involved and you have to get 5 RP, the top set up will not go cheap. In fact, that may mean a buying opportunity for the top closers, which will help ratios and allow easier streaming of SP, then you use the LOOGYs for holds, as they will be cheap as most will remain lefty specialists, get holds but not get a crack at closing.

A league with an IP limit, daily moves but no SP/RP designation SCREAMS 6 or 7 relievers with 2 or 3 streaming starters.

[brooklyn49]

A league with an IP limit, daily moves but no SP/RP designation SCREAMS 6 or 7 relievers with 2 or 3 streaming starters.

Todd - I want to make sure I understand your terminology. "Streaming" starters meaning? Off the waiver wire? Drafting a few top starting pitchers? Drafting mid range SP and then playing favorable matchups all year? Just not sure exactly what you mean.

My league has many of the same parameters, but the category of Quality Start is added as a deterrent to loading up on RP....a slightly different twist.

[rotodog]

A league with an IP limit, daily moves but no SP/RP designation SCREAMS 6 or 7 relievers with 2 or 3 streaming starters.

Todd - I want to make sure I understand your terminology. "Streaming" starters meaning? Off the waiver wire? Drafting a few top starting pitchers? Drafting mid range SP and then playing favorable matchups all year? Just not sure exactly what you mean.

My league has many of the same parameters, but the category of Quality Start is added as a deterrent to loading up on RP....a slightly different twist.

with QS, you probably cant "stream"....But I think he was saying that you daily transact your 3 starters in and out on days they pitch and use useful relievers every other day....With QS , you really cant do it unless you want to punt Wins and QS and that may be too much...

[Todd Zola]

Yes, streaming is either bouncing on and off a reserve list or in and out of the free agent pool.

I'm not so sure you can't do it with QS, as you won't be dumping the category, just hoping you pick the correct matchups and in theory, your ratios improve to cover any lost QS points.

[rotodog]

Yes, streaming is either bouncing on and off a reserve list or in and out of the free agent pool.

I'm not so sure you can't do it with QS, as you won't be dumping the category, just hoping you pick the correct matchups and in theory, your ratios improve to cover any lost QS points.

I agree to a point Todd, But you need the right SP's and to stream like that requires a pretty high skill level and participation to pull off I think. You really need to know your pitching and the freely available hot hands from a waiver wire.... That tkaes a lot of knowledge and time during the season for a possible middle of the order finish in QS at best. Not quite a punt, but your probably not going to place at the top of QS... In the end its about how the league values certain pitchers and if you can acquire the right personnel to do it...

[viper]

Some pitchers have dual eligibility - Chamberlain and Morrow come to mind. But using Chamberlain as a RP really means nothing as he probably could have been used in the starters role just the same. Streaming starters [grabbing free agents] isn't all that helpful with a 1750 limit. I would expect you would "stream" your rostered starters to a degree in order to get to the 1750 limit. Having atrue RP with SP value could be helpful but still it would impact inning count. Now if they were a closer, like Morrow may be, that would let you get another closer active each day while your other five RP slots were in use. The only streaming I foresee in MRs with high K/9 ratios only on Mondays & Thursdays.

[Todd Zola]

Streaming does not have to be for the sole purpose of accumulating as many innings as possible, for me it is just the act of taking them in and out -- so streaming is very relevant with an innings cap, you just don't do as much of it and have the MR in there instead to fortify ratios.

[viper]

I tend to use 3.90/1.30 as a guideline for ratios. I have a part-SGP, part-home grown method to evaluate a 4.00/1.28 guy but bottom line is that most SP/MR combos who are primarily MR will have non-positive ratios on my scale.

Q&D formula is (ERA + (3* (WHIP))) .LE. 7.80. I tend to avoid pitchers at 8.0 or above.