By Jesse Severe
League 3
If you still are reading columns for strategy in September, congratulations, because you must be close to winning your league. If you are out of the running, the low-impact strategy of middle relief does not lend itself to playing catchup … unless you need only a little bit of help in ERA or WHIP, that is.
Even if middle relievers are not keepers, especially in the five-keeper FBM format, you can still utilize middle relievers for putting yourself over the top in the last month of the season.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
It’s been a month since we last took a peak at middle relievers and how they can help your fantasy teams. If you survived the post-All-Star lull, when so many owners stop checking in on their teams, you are probably still in the race. Well, how your team finishes in the pitching standings could depend on how you utilize middle relievers. Here are two strategies to pay attention to as you enter the stretch run.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
You’re a Big-League manager. It’s the 8th inning, and the game is tied. Your starter has an icepack on his right arm, and the game is up to the bullpen. Who do you send in to pitch?
By Jesse Severe
League 3
This has happened to all of us. You are driving down the road, trying to reach a destination, and thinking you know how to get there. After driving a ways, and after a few wrong turns, you are no longer all that sure where you are or what direction you should be heading.
You swallow your pride and stop to ask directions and realize you are going the wrong way. In fact, you drove right past your stop and are driving directly in the opposite direction from your final destination.
What is the best way to get back on track?
By Jesse Severe
League 3
2,500 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Mozi told the following story:
A farmer was in the woods one day chopping down trees for firewood. For a while, he stood on one of the stumps of the trees he had already cut down, when a rabbit came speeding across the field, crashed straight into the stump, snapped its neck and died.
The farmer brought the rabbit home as dinner for his family. The next day, a passerby found the farmer again in the woods. This time, instead of chopping trees, he stood on a stump in the woods. Asked what he was doing, he simply said “hunting rabbits.”
Drafting last year’s elite middle relievers is like standing on a stump, waiting for a rabbit to crash into it again. Still, this is how most people look at middle relief in fantasy baseball.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
Sustaining quality fantasy baseball pitching is a maddening project. Every time one of your pitchers takes the mound, you expose yourself to big risk for uncertain rewards. Such is the nature of the pitching half of the fantasy baseball game.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
Normally, in this space, I identify and lionize those little-discussed middle relievers sitting on your waiver wire who can provide short-term help to your strikeouts and ratios. Two weeks ago, I told you about an exciting rookie lefty, Mitch Stetter. He had a 1.69 ERA at the time, 15 strikeouts and only four walks in 9 and 2/3 innings, and seemed the unlikely rock in the meltdown that is the Milwaukee bullpen.
By the time, Up the Middle published that Friday, Stetter had one outing with four walks and an earned run in 2/3 of an inning and another with three walks and an earned run in 1/3 of an inning. By the weekend, he was back pitching for my local Nashville Sounds.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
Continuing my yearlong sales job for bullpen bulls, let me start with a confession: I have a lot of trouble letting go of marginal starting pitchers. Every time I open up one of my rosters, it seems like I see Matt Garza.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with Matt Garza. Some of the publications love him, and he may break out eventually. After all, Tampa’s run support and defense are better this year. The problem comes when you have seven Matt Garzas on your team.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
Last year, I remember a caller to a big fantasy baseball show pitching an interesting strategy. The caller announced that he was going to draft a team with no starters. Instead, he planned on grabbing all of the elite middle relievers in the late rounds and competing in wins by taking advantage of the few accidents picked up by guys like Neshek, Okajima, and Shields.
The caller went so far as to add up the win totals of the top few middle relievers from 2006 to show how many vulture wins are lost to the waiver wire. Together, with the ERA and WHIP that middle relievers can put up, he figured on being competitive in pitching. The proposal didn’t go so well with the hosts, but it generated some good discussion.
By Jesse Severe
League 3
Everyone who is currently getting saves for a Major League team is on someone’s roster today. So are the top starters. Everyone has heard of ‘pitch-or-ditch’ or ’sniper starts’, and a few people are picking up backup closers or AAA ‘fireballers-in-waiting’ and holding them. Is there anything left in the fantasy pitching market?