With about one-third of the season completed we should have a good idea of our team strengths and weaknesses in roto categories. Understanding the overall makeup of our rosters and identifying those weaknesses even as early as late-May can help steer our teams in the right direction (towards the top of the standings!) whether that be through trades, FAAB additions or just weekly and bi-weekly lineup changes.
Timing the Market for Trades
When you guys and gals send me your teams to review midseason I can usually take a quick glance at it and tell you right away where I think it needs improvement. The other day, a subscriber sent me their full roster so that I could help them assess whether a trade they were looking to make would be beneficial. One look and I could tell his team was probably deficient with power and was abundantly laden with leadoff hitters and guys who pretty much just provide assistance in stolen bases, runs and to some degree, batting average. The sub did confirm after the fact that in this H2H league he was consistently crushing those categories and usually losing HR and RBI each week. It’s the type of scenario that is an easy fix if you spend the time perusing trade opportunities in your league. His roster had Jose Altuve, Andrew Benintendi, Michael Brantley, Mallex Smith, Jean Segura, Joey Votto and Byron Buxton. Even the untrained eye could tell exactly the type of offers he should be making. In addition to the obvious power-deficiency, the other problem is that several of the guys are underperforming (Benintendi, Votto) or are on the IL (Altuve) so trading any of them isn’t optimal since he’s not doing so at the height of their value.
He could target current home run leaders like Pete Alonso, Joey Gallo or Anthony Rizzo to upgrade on Votto and can get a power-producer there but doing so is difficult as he’d like be buying high on any of those three hitters. Even recent surgers like Hunter Renfroe, Franmil Reyes and Daniel Vogelbach might command a pretty penny where he’d be paying above market value on them based on recent performance. It’s the type of scenario where it might behoove him to see if he can ‘steal’ a power guy who is currently underperforming – someone a fellow league-mate might be growing frustrated with. Guys like Manny Machado, Matt Carpenter, Nelson Cruz, Nick Castellanos and even a cheap Ronald Guzman come to mind.
Competitions with an Overall Component
It’s always a balancing act on offense in roto and H2H leagues because we don’t want to take a hit in a couple categories at the expense of others. His team is the type is so loaded with good batting average guys that he could easily take on a big power hitter who is typically a batting average drain. Every situation is unique and needs to be reviewed carefully.
For example, I have a team in the NFBC OC where there are 2,100 teams in the overall competition that has 2,000 points in stolen bases and only 712 points in homers. This team got a chunk of its SBs from Dee Gordon and has been patiently waiting two months for Giancarlo Stanton to return while recently losing under-performing power guy Nelson Cruz as well.
As you probably know, these NFBC’s are no-trade leagues. Yet, I still made it a priority to spend 15% of my remaining FAAB budget last week on Mallex Smith. I have enough in my budget to make a big bid for a hitter like Yordan Alvarez when he’s promoted, but I saw a co-owner dropping Mallex as a big mistake and made sure to secure him for my team expecting a hefty SB total from here on out. Gordon is currently on IL but either way, I’ll be extremely cautious with playing both Dee and Mallex in my lineup at the same time most weeks for fear of falling further down the HR category. There’s nothing wrong with acquiring a category you might have a surplus of as insurance so long as your mindful of the overall standings as the season goes on and actively address your deficiencies. As I patiently wait for Stanton and Cruz to return, I’ll have to rely on guys like Anthony Rendon, C.J. Cron and Rafael Devers to hopefully keep me afloat with their current May power pace while streaming power bats with good schedules in other spots. Perhaps there’s an outfielder going to Coors or Camden facing weak pitching who I can pick up for the week. Then continue to attack my power deficiencies to gain where I need to in those overall categories while still being mindful not to lose track in the ones where I have that surplus.
Managing Pitching Categories
It’s something I’ve discussed many times this season, but as we head into June, we have to truly have a good idea of which pitching categories we need to gain in order to make a rise up the standings. Saves are a true pain in the grill if that’s the category we’re chasing. At some point, those with just one closer and a low FAAB budget have to make a stand on whether they continue to chase potential closers or just load up on starting pitchers. Wins is the other category we quite often curse. That’s probably the case if you’ve ever owned Jacob deGrom or utilized your first-round pick on Max Scherzer this season (he’s 2-5 in 12 starts). Luck plays its part there as well and its tough to ‘draft for’, even if you’re targeting SPs only from teams you expect a .550 or above win percentage from.
One quick glance at the 2019 win leaders and you’ll note that six of the top nine in baseball were either late-round picks or available of waivers:
- 9 – Domingo German
- 8 – Justin Verlander
- 7 – Hyun-Jin Ryu, Lucas Giolito, Jake Odorizzi, Jose Berrios, Brandon Woodruff, Max Fried, Martin Perez
Meanwhile, SPs from the first few rounds like deGrom, Scherzer, Trevor Bauer, Noah Syndergaard and Carlos Carrasco all have less than five wins a piece this year. Not much you can do but embrace the variance. If you’re streaming in shallower (10 or 12 team) leagues, you could put yourself in a position for a higher percentage chance of wins by projecting two-start pitchers who are facing offenses like the Giants, Orioles, Tigers and Marlins. No guarantee of anything of course – but knowing that the SP you are looking to stream might be the Vegas favorite for their team to win puts you at higher odds of attaining those wins if everything breaks right.
If your team is suffering in strikeouts, that’s usually the easiest waiver wire/FAAB fix. That usually involves attacking two-start pitchers with strikeout rates north of 25 percent or in matchups against offenses in the top-third in strikeout rate in the league. Doing so should also be a careful balance. If your team is middle of the pack or lower in ERA and/or WHIP after getting Pivetta’d in April and you’ve been doing ratio management since then, then you have to be ever more mindful of the starting pitchers you’re looking to stream. Teams that aren’t far back in ERA and WHIP can afford to take more chances.
Ratios are the toughest of all, especially if you’re in a drought. If you’re in a league where you can trade, acquiring assets who can help with ERA and WHIP is possible if you’re a) looking ahead and projecting scheduled starts, b) targeting buy-low starters who might have run into some bad luck (ERA much higher than FIP/xFIP) and c) targeting buy-low starters with good control (walk rates under eight percent). It’s a much tougher correction in 15-team leagues where decent starting pitchers on the wire are far and few between and almost all of them have a high possibility of damaging your ratios.
The bottom line is that fixing category deficiencies are possible everywhere – no matter whether how many teams in your league nor whether you can trade or not. Wins and Saves are the toughest and most random, but almost all of the other categories are attainable with the proper research and planning. Four months left means we have a long time to make those corrections and set our team’s sail in the right direction.
