Crooked Pitch

Thank you for visiting Crooked Pitch! While you're here you'll find tons of valuable fantasy baseball information to help you win your fantasy baseball league. If you're new here, or haven't done so yet, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

The Fantasy Five is a new weekly question and answer session where I (or you the readers) will pose 5 questions to baseball experts around the blogosphere. If you would like a question answered in one of the next Fantasy Five’s, shoot me an e-mail.

1. What key pitching stats can help me find waiver wire help?

Mike Kuchera (Fantasy Baseball Express): I always look for pitchers with low WHIP. Low WHIP means they are tough to hit, can find the strike zone, and know how to pitch. Most fantasy managers do not pay attention to WHIP and it can hurt your team.

Jeff Kuhn (The House That Dewey Built): I look at K/9, BB/9, and K:BB to help parse the field a little bit. Then, depending on categories, I look at team quality (will help with wins), team defensive efficiency (to help with WHIP and ERA), and then go with past track record. Then you just go with the gut. The positive to this strategy is being able to dig out guys like Aaron Harang in May last year, and not be bogged down by the overly analytical.

2. When do you bench a cold superstar for a hot unproven player? Or do you?

Mike Kuchera (Fantasy Baseball Express): You can’t really bench a superstar. Imagine being the guy last season who benched or traded Aramis Ramirez or Mark Teixiera after the All-Star break. You have to stick with your superstars, unless its July and they are hitting .167. Best bet, try to trade them to someone who still values them and thinks they will turn it around. More times than not, a superstar will salvage at least some part of a season whether its September or the whole second half.

Jeff Kuhn (The House That Dewey Built): There is no real answer to this question. If you have a guy like Vlad Guerrero struggling, it would be foolish to bench him in favor of a less good player. I tend to look at player value as absolutes…if a guy is a superstar, he’s a superstar. However, I also have no problem drafting, or picking up a young guy rather than an old one that might be more established. I waited until the 9th round of my keeper league this year to grab Ian Kinsler, rather than either overpaying to get Chase Utley or overdrafting a guy like Robinson Cano.

3. Is Dice K really that good?

Mike Kuchera (Fantasy Baseball Express): If one team is willing to pay over $50 Million just to talk to a guy, yes, he is really that good!

Jeff Kuhn (The House That Dewey Built): As good as he was the other day? No, but that should really be self-evident, since we’d be looking at Pedro Martinez II. But he can throw five pitches at multiple arm angles for strikes, doesn’t get shaken on the mound, and is generally just very studly. I’ll have a better handle on him at the end of April, and even better still by the All-Star break. But he really does have the potential to do something special.

4. How much should I worry about innings limitations or positional limitations this early in the season?

Mike Kuchera (Fantasy Baseball Express): You can’t really worry about it much early on, but try not to overdo it with mediocre pitchers, and by mediocre I mean guys that give you 5-6 IP, 2-3 K, and 3-5 ER per start. They kill your averages and eat up useless innings from your limit. Use up your innings with solid pitchers and young players who have the potential to strike out 5+, keep the WHIP down and win a game or two, then keep an eye middle relievers who get the job done, which so far are guys like Zumaya, Broxton, Shields, Aardsma, and Bruney, guys who will get you those 2-3 K per game and keep your ERA/WHIP down. You get the same K rate as a mediocre pitcher but deliver help to your ERA/WHIP.

Jeff Kuhn (The House That Dewey Built): I’ve actually never played in a league with a strict innings limit or positional limits, but I wouldn’t ever become obsessed with them. As an aside, I think they are foolish as an idea…if you have a 1400 inning limit, and draft Roy Halladay, he’s going to eat up about 18% of your innings, which limits your pitching staff. Doesn’t that seem silly?

5. It’s early in April. Is it too early to start making serious free agency moves or big trades?

Mike Kuchera (Fantasy Baseball Express): Its only been a week. Let your team work itself out a bit. You shouldn’t be making big trades until at least May. Give your team time. The only reason you should be making moves now is to fill holes or stash young players, that’s it! No holes to fill? Then make moves only to upgrade your current players. Dont make a move just for the sake of making a move. Do it because you need to. Once May comes around, re-evaluate your team and then proceed from there.

Jeff Kuhn (The House That Dewey Built): I’m of the school there are no real serious free agency moves, either your filling an injury, or you have a clearly better player available at the expense of a crappier player. Trades are another story, and I try to be pretty active with trades early, because every league has owners that are impatient with a David Ortiz hitting .150 through the first few weeks. As the season goes on, trading becomes less important than free agency because the ability to pick players off other teams gets trickier. Keeper leagues lead to the teams at the top getting ripped off anyway, so I try to get my trading done by June 1st.

Mike Kuchera is the mastermind behind Fantasy Baseball Express and his The Fantasy Man blog. You can also listen to the The Fantasy Man Show Baseball Podcast, which you can find at iTunes or Fantasy Baseball Express.

Jeff Kuhn writes for the uber popular Boston Red Sox blog The House That Dewey Built, which has been around since 2003. His Red Sox insight should be read by any member of the Nation.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 7:57 am and is filed under The Fantasy Five. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.