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DownloadThe first month of the Shandler Game – a monthly, modified, 4x4 roto contest, is over. So who are the winners and who are the losers?
And more importantly for those of you who will try the September contest or play in Shandler’s monthly contests next year, how did people win their leagues?
First, a recap for those who didn’t play and likely don’t remember the parameters of the contest, you can read more here. But here are the categories and roster constricts.
Game format: Salary cap game
Roster construction: 30-man roster -- 23 actives and 7 reserves. Positions will be standard roto - 2 C, 1B, 3B, CI, 2B, SS, MI, 5 OF, UT, 9 pitchers, 7 reserves at any position.
Salary cap: $300 for all 30 players. The prices will be based on 2013 performance to date.
Stat categories: This will be a 4x4 league with the categories of HR, SB, OBP, (R+RBI-HR), W, Sv+HLD, K, ERA.
Free agents: There will be no free agent access. You'll play out the season with the 30 players you draft.
Roster management: Intra-roster moves (reserve-to-active and active-to-reserve) can be made twice weekly, Mondays and Fridays at noon ET. You'll be setting your active roster for each Major League series.
League sizes: Each league will have 30 teams, filled on a first-come, first-served basis. I won't run a league with fewer than 20 teams. (actually there was such a large turnout that there were 18 leagues with nearly 450 teams).
For more background, see Todd’s Knights of the Roundtable discussion about the format and strategy.
But let’s take a look at the roster of one of the winners – Tim McLeod, a friend of mine and a long time contributor at RotoRob.com. I asked Tim what his draft plan was and here are the most important components:
First, he said he read the rules and then re-read the rules, and I agree with Tim that understanding a new contest is really necessary in order to attack it. “The one thing that caught my attention immediately was that we were allowed to make lineup changes twice a week – Monday and then Friday", recounted Tim. "Very quickly, I determined that I was going pitching heavy with the plan being to search for bargains, add some big dollar stud type starters and have at least five closers."
“I wanted to rotate the SP and then fill in each period with the closers and setup guys”, Tim said. And he was spot on as the RP category was, as you see above, Sv+HLD. Having extra pitchers in a twice weekly lineup format is not to stream pitchers but rather to maximize the pitchers you have in your lineup for each four and three-day period, as I mentioned when suggesting back in July that having five pitchers among your seven reserves would be the optimum construction.
Here was Tim’s list with the best bargains (remember the prices in July were based on results to that point in the season, so as you can see those who had missed time or got off to a bad start were going to have low salaries).
As Tim said, “Let’s face it, every team would take advantage of Ramirez, Reyes and Price, but Cole, Weaver, Garza and Hellickson were far from the most popular choices.”
Tim said he was going to add stud pitchers after that and he did:
He wanted a solid blend of power and speed in his lineup and added these hitters:
Tim was also thoughtful in choosing his two offensive reserves. “I thought it was imperative to fill my UT slot with an OF. In the event of injury, it gave me a very important option from a flex perspective.” He didn’t need it and I agree that in a monthly contest you pretty much have to get the hitters you think will be on the field.
So how did McLeod’s team fare in the eight categories? Remember that there were 23 teams in his league.
56 home runs – good for 17 points
36 stolen bases – 16.5 points
.3483 on-base % - 14 points
377 RBI+Runs-HR – 22 points
32 wins for all 23 points
2.25 ERA – 22 points
344 strikeouts – another 23 point sweep
32 Saves+Holds – 18.5 points
A total of 156 points, nine and a half ahead of the second place team (who had 81.5 pitching points, just five behind Tim). Shandler’s team finished 8th in this league with 101 points (in fact he did not win any of the eighteen leagues). One interesting point was that Shandler said he would not take Mike Trout on any of his teams (he had one in each league). Funny, Tim didn’t either and still won the league.
Tim really enjoyed the contest and as others have, thanked Ron for adding a new contest to the many fantasy baseball formats. He did say that “one of the keys was the underpriced players and I am sure that will be corrected in future contests.”
I think there will be an announcement soon at RonShandler.com about the next contest, so make sure you are on his e-mail list if you want to try and beat him – and Tim. {jcomments on}
Monday's long awaited Biogenesis suspensions created an interesting and unusual problem for fantasy owners and commissioners.
While most sites have separate designations for DLed players and players in the minor leagues, aside from a possible S next to a player’s name, most league hosting sites do not have a way for you to move a suspended player to a separate status.
While there are very few suspended players, there still needs to be a way to deal with them.
What does YOUR league do?
Yes, you can move them to the bench/reserve, but if you have limits on those spots, should a suspended player even be legally allowed there? Should the fantasy owner have to cut a suspended player? If not, how do they keep them on their roster?
And what if an owner didn’t replace Nelson Cruz or Jhonny Peralta in their lineup Monday before game time? It may not be critical, although some leagues have rules requiring active lineups, but the point is your league should have rules for this.
In my Great American Rotissileague, which I started in the mid-1980's, we allow suspended players to be put into a DL slot – largely because that is an available option on CBS Sportsline. But as I told the league yesterday in a commissioner’s email, if they weren’t put there before game time on Monday, I would not allow a mid-week replacement for them.
Not all league hosting sites have a convenient way to deal with issues like this, which again means your league needs to have a rule. Speaking of league hosting sites, next week’s column will deal with a review of the good and bad of the major sites where fantasy leagues are set up, so if you have a site you would like included or have problems in some area with a site, please send me an email or PM or leave a comment or question in the Commissioner’s Forum on the Mastersball Fantasy Forums. {jcomments on}
Long time readers will remember columns on trading where I introduced the concept of “addition by subtraction” as it applied to category standings in fantasy baseball.
Simply put, you could make a trade that a) wouldn’t gain your team any points in the standings, and b) where you would take the short end of the trade and still gain points in the standings by taking away points from one of your competitors.
The Jerry Beckham League, as noted in the draft prep article that Todd Zola and I pen in January, is a league where all the parameters mirror the NFBC format. Of course, that is done so that the drafters can get a head start on their research and strategy for the NFBC by drafting in a much cheaper league with the same setup in December.
And, part of mirroring the NFBC leagues is that the league is a “no trade” league. But what if I could make a trade in that league? Actually, I pose the question only to give you a nice example of an addition by subtraction trade.
First, here are the overall standings as of the morning of July 31. (Perhaps the column is also a birthday wish for my late brother Rod, who died way too early several years ago).
As you can see, I have a very tenuous lead in this league.
Captain Hook | 113.5 |
Risky Business | 113 |
Liquid Hippos - JBL | 111 |
Central Park Muggers | 111 |
Hoboken Generals | 105 |
Goldilocks | 103.5 |
But, let’s take a look at the strikeout category:
Captain Hook | 969 |
Central Park Muggers | 917 |
Goldilocks | 909 |
Risky Business | 895 |
Liquid Hippos | 880 |
With the base of my staff consisting of Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Hisashi Iwakuma and Patrick Corbin, I have enough strikeouts that I could trade some if this were a trading league. So the play is to trade one of those starting pitchers to Goldilocks and getting back something that will help my team in another category and will help Goldilocks overtake the Muggers in strikeouts (with a nice bonus in this example of also preventing Risky Business or Liquid Hippos from gaining a point by passing Goldilocks.
Look for a category where you can make a trade like this to help your team.
Unfortunately, I can’t help this team with a trade.{jcomments on}
As those of you in AL and NL-only leagues know all too well, the free agent list often looks like the list of available restaurants in Death Valley.
But one day into Week 17 of the season, there will be several fresh cuts of meat in the NL locker. And AL players will have a shot at Matt Garza, the first crossover player of real value – maybe two if the Cubs and Yankees can agree on a deal for Alfonso Soriano.
Let’s start in the junior circuit where the immediate question is – How many FAAB units do you put on Garza? I can’t give you a specific answer, as obviously every team’s needs and resources vary, BUT you do have to realize that Garza is very likely the most impactful starting pitcher the AL will see this year via trade or callup at this point in the season.
Obviously, Soriano might be the same for hitters but I am less enthusiastic on going heavy on him, one because this reported deal is not even done as I type this but also because Soriano will not only have to adjust to AL pitching again but may have to fight for everyday at-bats in pinstripes.
There are more players to look at in the NL this week but perhaps less certainty about their value.
In Atlanta, it appears the Braves will soon add two pitchers to their roster. Alex Wood, who was called up at the end of May to help in the bullpen and then made one spot start in June, was sent down to the Minors two weeks ago when the Braves starting outfield all went on vacation. He continued to start at Triple-A Gwinnett and will start on Thursday, replacing the injured Paul Maholm. Prior to his callup in May, Wood had a 1.26 ERA in 57 innings of relief pitching at Double-A Mississippi. He had a 2.45 ERA in 22 innings with the Braves with 26 strikeouts and eight walks.
Wood being recalled and immediately inserted into the rotation may have settled the question of who the Braves would turn to first, but persistent reports of their intentions to send struggling starter Kris Medlen back to the bullpen would open a second rotation spot, this presumably for Brandon Beachy, who is completing his latest rehab assignment in Gwinnett.
Both pitchers will be hot targets for NL players with gaps in their starting rotation.
But there are also two new National League outfielders in Miami this week. The Marlins made the unusual move of calling up both of their top hitting prospects, outfielders Christian Yelich and Jake Marisnick, from Double-A Jacksonville at the same time. While it marks the big league beginning for the organization's top two prospects, the club also decided two promising young players need more minor league seasoning. Second baseman Derek Dietrich and centerfielder Marcell Ozuna were optioned to Jacksonville, creating some holes in the lineup for either you or your league mates.
Yelich, who was the higher ranked prospect going into this season, started this season with Class A Jupiter and was then promoted to Jacksonville. He was batting .277 over 191 at-bats at the Double-A level with seven homers and 29 RBI. He's batting .314 over his last 10 games.
Marisnick was also playing in the Jacksonville outfield. He was batting .295 with 12 homers and 46 RBI over 264 at-bats at the Double-A level. Marisnick also had 11 stolen bases, and this may give him more value than Yelich for the balance of the season. Long term, Yelich’s power and likely higher average will make him the more valuable outfielder.
Beyond trying to get one to bolster NL fantasy outfields, it will be interesting to see if both hitters can handle the upgrade in competition at the major league level and, if they can, whether the Marlins will look at the possibility of trading Giancarlo Stanton this off-season as he heads into his first arbitration-eligible year. {jcomments on}
For many baseball fans and fantasy players, the four-day All-Star break is very painful – no box scores, no lineups to decide upon, no stats to try and judge improvement in players or teams.
Face it, you are addicted and the withdrawal is maddening.
What you should be doing is paying even more attention to your teams! Have you made improvement in your weak categories? Are you gaining points in certain categories? Do you have players who aren’t getting enough at-bats to contribute to your counting stats?
Well, if you haven’t I would guess you have decided your team is not in contention. Maybe you looked at all the categories and decided you could not gain enough points to overtake the team in front of you. But did you look at taking points away from them?
How do you take points away from them?
Well, there are lots of different trades to make. Sure, you can trade some of your extra stolen bases – you are twenty bags ahead of the team in second place in your league – for a minor closer to get a few more saves and gain a point or two. But sometimes that trade partner is impossible to find. Okay, how about trading a good source of steals that is not helping you in any other categories? (Everth Cabrera, I am looking at you) But the key is where you trade him, and I would suggest if you can’t get the deal you want, trade him to a team that is just below the team(s) ahead of you in the total standings.
If that team can gain a few points in the SB category and those are points that belong to your opponents, you have “gained” points on those teams. Teams ahead of you losing points is just as good as you gaining points. Hopefully, you can do both.
And another reminder that you don’t have to get the best of every trade, especially at this point in the season. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that we had reached the real halfway point in the season – 81 games played. While traditionally people call the All-Star Game the “halfway” point, it is much closer to 60% of the season for many teams. In fact, the lowest number of games played by MLB teams right now is 92 – that is 57% of the season, while there are a couple of teams who have played 97 games, which is 60% of the games they are likely to play. Well, okay, 59.9% - but remember not all teams will play 162 games because of all the early rainouts, some of which will not be made up. This will more than balance out any play-in games that might be necessary).
Trading now should totally focus on categorical standings – well, at least for those of us trying to “cash” in our leagues. Yes, if you are so far out of it that you should be managing your team for next year, you are looking to obtain value (even potential value) for your player assets.
So trading a $25 Alex Rios for a $19 Ernesto Frieri makes perfect sense if you have the offense covered or get back an outfielder who will contribute something so that Frieri’s saves will help you gain points.
Double bonus if you put Rios onto a team that will pass your competitor(s) in stolen bases. Likewise, overtaking that same competitor in another category where you are 1st and 2nd would result in a two-point swing in the standings.
Another thing to watch right now are players who will be coming back from the disabled list. Last month, or even last week, you could have obtained Curtis Granderson much cheaper than you can today with reports that his rehab is going well. I like Granderson to contribute in August and September (don’t delude yourself that he will help this month), but if you can’t trade for Granderson, the flip side is you should look to trade Gardner or Ichiro or certainly Almonte because the Grandyman will take at-bats away from some if not all of them once he returns.
So even though Gardner may be contributing at a $20 rate, I would trade him for half of that right now if it would help in some category (and you know he is not stealing bases at the rate you expected anyway).
Now get back to your league’s standings and find ways to help your team …and keep you busy for a few more days. {jcomments on}