Re: Fantasy Ball

122
I've often thought of a strategy like that before. I.E. getting way ahead on innings pitched. If you guys are winning, ride the streak. After the streak, dump/trade them and pick up some who can help fill the games missed for position players. Example for me is right now. Pitching has been great, but IF/OF guys are constantly taking days off. It makes it a pain to re-adjust the lineup on thursdays and Mondays, just to make up those days that guys take off.
Keep riding the wave. Last at bat, first at bat, doesn't matter. Just win!

Re: Fantasy Ball

123
Here's the problem with that strategy.

It will work, but only temporarily. I've seen it many times.

Here's why.

In order to run up that many innings, you have to use pitchers who you ordinarily wouldn't use. That forces you to have "less than ideal" pitchers using up your LIMITED amount of innings.

If you have 1500 innings to spend during the course of the season, you want those innings to be used by the best pitchers possible, in order to maximize each inning.

Again, to run up tons of innings early means you are using LESS than top quality pitchers for too many of your limited innings. Therefore compromising the more important "points per inning used". (A great strategy if there is no innings limit)

The end result is that the manager jumps out to an overall points binge, and often leads the league while they are binging. Then they crash and burn in the end, having used up their innings - and with scrub level pitchers for lots of them.

When I see this done in random leagues, 9 out of 10 times it is a kid. The kids just gets a thrill of being in first place all that time, and doesn't worry about the crash and burn that happens, every time.

IMO, as a result, when a league leader has +100 innings, or whatever the amount, it is a false lead, often just for appearance sake.
"I've suffered a great many tragedies in my life....most of them never happened". Mark Twain

Re: Fantasy Ball

124
When I see this done in random leagues, 9 out of 10 times it is a kid. The kids just gets a thrill of being in first place all that time, and doesn't worry about the crash and burn that happens, every time.

Well, Alan is no kid, though maybe compared to us, he is....he's 35. lol!

Re: Fantasy Ball

131
JR, well, since I have +4 in my OF positions there MUST be a way to add games somehow, LOL!!

Basically, it's set up so that each position has 162 games. Games, not days. There are more than 162 DAYS in a season. So there are extra days to add games.

Therefore, if you add guys into the lineup at a position (say, 1B) on the days that your regular guy is NOT playing, that's how games are made up/added.

Especially on Mondays and Thursdays, days where many teams are off. IF you have a guy on your bench, put him in at the position you need to add games on to.

Sandbox used to have a somewhat complicated algorithm as to how this worked, but generally speaking it entails putting subs in on days regulars are not scheduled to play. That does not mean, depending on the date, that it always will add a game, though. That's the algorithm part, and I can't exactly explain that.

Suffice to say, as I started out saying, that if I have a position that is +4, then it must be possible to add games.
"I've suffered a great many tragedies in my life....most of them never happened". Mark Twain

Re: Fantasy Ball

134
TFIR:

As to offense games, they are harder to fill, particularly at catcher. I say fill up as many games as you can early, when there are more off days, helps protect against an injury later. If you run out of games in September, so what? Everyone else moved on to football

Re: Fantasy Ball

135
So you not only need a backup at every position, but one who plays on different days than your starter. Do you figure all that out in your draft preparation? Plus you need to check the lineups for every game, which are not available until about a half hour early, then make the required changes. Of course, you might not even know if your backup is playing until later. Seems to me that it's nearly impossible to avoid being under games started in some positions.