In Defense Of My Fantasy Strategy

First of all Journalissimo, when did you become a contributor, I thought we told you "NO!" Anyway, this seriously is a private matter; although via new technology like Twitter and Facebook America's personal privacy has declined, that doesn't mean it went the way of the DoDo bird. But since you have publicized it, I will retort.

1) Right now my Roto teams are currently both in third (although in the pay co-op league we've been first for a long time and it just so happens to unfortunately be 3rd at this exact moment), one of my head-to-head teams is in 2nd place and I won my last fantasy football league. Let's give me some props, establish my ethos if you will, that after a few years of this I've gotten the hang of it. And although this season's not even a month old, I don't think it's unfair to say that a strategy of mine is worth, at minimum, entertaining (and of course at maximum following).

2)Manny Parra sucks! I don't want any player on my team for the sole purpose of having them, Parra included. Although I believe in accumulating pitchers, I believe those pitchers still have to be quality. Guys who I drafted in the later rounds or whom I pick up in free agency all have to meet personal standards of quality. Every single starting pitcher on my team I believe will have a low WHIP and ERA. This must come first. And if for some reason they don't, they need to strike out a shit ton of guys. (Ideally getting a lot of wins helps too and/or if they don't get a lot of Ks they DO get a lot of W's, but that's so hard to predict that I just really stay away). I believe C.C., Jurrgins, W-Rod, Kazmir (although I'm skeptical lately), Liriano, and Slowey will all have low WHIP and low ERAs or have have proven to me that they can realistically do so. Brett Myers is the only exception- although currently he's our team's best K guy.

2) It's necessary. One of the team main benefits of this strategy is that we will more easily be able to accrue W and K. If all of our guys have low WHIPs and ERAs like I predict, then the other to stats are just icing on the cake. And not only that, but there are other teams that have better pitching than us (like David "MVP" Eckstein's team- seriously guys, why are you still trading with him, he's gotten the better end of like the 10 million trades he's made already!). If we want to compete with better teams, then we NEED all the help we can get. And this also gives our team the advantage over the few teams that have absolutely no pitching depth

3) This is a Zero Sum Game. If I were the only owner to have this strategy, then yes maybe I could be blamed for causing inflation. But I am not. If I don't get a lot of pitchers, someone else will. I believe this is an effective strategy so if someone else implements it (which they will), our team will be hurt in some way. This will cause "overvaluing" as you say. But just because I partake in this strategy doesn't mean I am to blame.

4) Who says we can't have awesome hitting all year? This is an assumption you make and I don't think it's necessarily true. I think I drafted extremely well and I think, and I know you agree, it's pretty stacked. In fact right now we're first in R and SB and t-2nd in HRs. I think this offense can consistently produce all year. And if for some reason one player gets injured, we can always ride the wave of someone who's hot and sitting in waivers in the short term. You claim "A suitable replacement might not always be available on the waivers, but perhaps on the bench." "Perhaps"? Perhaps our bench sucks. Perhaps, there IS someone good via waivers. Perhaps DaMonkeys will win that pay league. Perhaps a lot of things COULD happen. But I can almost assure that at least ONE good player will be available via waiver for us.


5) How can you say for sure when a player is in or out of a streak? Recently, I got fed up with Chris Iannetta. The day I benched him he hit a HR with 2 RBI and 2 R and went like 2-4. In the short term, it was a terrible idea to bench him. But who says in the long term our replacement (Suzuki) won't be better? Maybe Iannetta will slump some more or maybe he just got out of it. The point is you can never really say for sure when a player is in or out of a slump. You can never tell if a player will continue his hitting streak or if the next day he goes into one of his flows. In fact, because it's a roto league, we can handle players that go streaky for a bit. We are projecting how a player will perform over the course of an entire 162 game season. If I project a player to hit .300, I can deal with him hitting .100 for a week or so but I can say with confidence he'll rebound. Obviously at some point if a player you think is going too many ABs while slumping you have to bench him- which is what I did with Iannetta. But I'm not going to bench Cristain Guzman when he goes like 6-50 one week-- in fact I know we will do this soon because no way in hell he's going to manage a .400+ BA. In fact, you are the one that will hurt the team long term if you have batting depth that will sub in when a player just because he had a bad few games. Because of the uncertainty of streaks, I will say you are more prone to potentially hurting the team that way.

I believe all players on the team are very good and will positively produce. Which means all the offensive starters will produce and so will every single pitcher I have. So why waste batting on the bench? Even though if I have them on my team so I believe they are good, they do nothing to help my overall team