One of the big lessons you will hear this fantasy baseball season is: Don't overpay for saves. Mainly you will hear this from Matthew Berry but also occasionally from our very own DME. But like every "rule" you will hear about fantasy drafting, there's a counter valid argument and you realize these crazy constants that "you have to do" are pretty dumb. I personally will overpay for saves but I completely understand the counter argument. You can win your league overpaying for saves and you can win your league not overpaying for saves (consequently you can also lose your league doing the same).
The key to any draft and any draft strategy is just picking the right talent in each individual round. Just because Yahoo! or ESPN or whatever site you're using to draft ranks a player 122 or what have you, doesn't necessarily that player will end up being the 122 best player. That player might end up being a top tiered player. Just some examples- last year Zach Grienke was drafting the 12th round. Mark Reynolds in about the 19th. Cedric Benson in the 6th or 7th. Steve Slaton a year ago and Ben Zobrist last year went undrafted. Conversely, LT, Brian Westbrook, Matt Forte, and Brandon Jacobs were all first rounds picks and they were awful.
The point is, no matter where you draft a closer, you need to make sure that 1) you still need to get value in the other spots you don't draft a closer in and 2) make sure you get a good value and wherever you draft a closer. Also, don't draft a guy like Joe Blow just because "he can get me saves because he's named the closer"
But I will let you loyal reader decide for yourself which approach you think you should use.
Click here for my argument to "overpay" for saves
Click here for DME's argument to not overpay for saves
The problem with closers are they are two category players, at best. You get saves and strikeouts (at least usually), but you only get a few wins and the ERA/WHIP impact is minimal. On the other hand, SP's greatly impact ERA/WHIP/K/Ws and you can almost always get a better SP at any given point.
ReplyDeleteThank you, that YOUR argument. But there's no reason you can't get the two category guy as well as really good starting pitching- especially this year the awful way Yahoo! ranks its pitchers.
ReplyDeleteThis is an objective piece, if people want to read either argument they can read either full article- Don't be dumb trying to start a debate in the comments