Starting pitchers vs. Relief pitchers
In your standard roto league there are 5 pitching categories (strikeouts, wins, saves, earned run average - ERA and walks and hits per inning pitched - WHIP)

Traditionally starting pitchers have the advantage in wins and strikeouts. relief pitchers obviuously have the advantage in the save category. Now is when it gets interesting. ERA and WHIP are up for grabs. Depending on your point of view, managers usually stock their teams with either starters or relievers.

I come from a points based-system that rewards starters more than relievers, so I skew to the starters. I think your best pitchers are your starters, so go with the best. In our league you can have up to 2 starts a day (this is to limit “streaming” - more on that in a later post), so you can rack up some good stats if you have a decent pitching staff. Another good thing about starters is that you know they’re going to get in the game. You obviously don’t know whether they’re going to pull a one-hit shutout out of their ass, or implode and give up 6 in the first inning, but you know they’re gonna have the chance.

With relievers, you never know what you’re going to get. Are they going to even get in the game? If they do get in the game, they have just as likely a chance to give up a ton of hits and runs. That’s pretty much why I like to limit my relief pitchers. I am currently carrying 2 relievers (Jeremy Accardo and Dan Wheeler). Obviously not top shelf relievers, but they’re getting the job done. Other than that I stick with my starters.

What do you do when a fantasy stud you were counting on gets injured? How long do you stay with him? Do you pick up the player who took his spot in the lineup?

This year I’ve encountered this dilemma in a few ways. I drafted Rich Harden in the 14th round. It was late because of his past injuries, but I needed him in my rotation. Of course, he went on the DL shortly after the season began (19 innings to be exact). I not only lost Harden to injury, but more recently Joe Mauer went to the DL. This was a bigger deal. He was my second round pick. Before you get on me too much about selecting Mauer (a catcher) in the 2nd round, let me tell you that he is the best hitting catcher in the league, and I like having the best at any position on my team. I already had Jose Reyes and picked up the best player at his position. But I digress.

The league I’m in has 1 DL spot. I have 2 guys on the DL and still need to field a productive team. In the case of Harden, I threw him in the DL spot and checked the waiver wire for a replacement. There were a lot of middle of the road starters out there, but none that really tempted me. I had a need for some relief pitching (at the time I had no relievers), so I picked up Dan Wheeler. He had recently replaced Brad Lidge as the closer for the Astros. I figured he was on a decent team and had the closers job in his hands. It turns out he has pitched really well for me. Now as some time has gone by, Rich Harden’s return keeps getting pushed back and his prognosis keeps getting worse. This scares me. Similarly a thigh contusion for Mauer has landed him on the 15 day DL. It seems severe for a contusion. How did I deal with having my 2nd round pick on the shelf for at least 2 weeks? I dropped under-performing SS Kahlil Greene, and picked up one of my least favorite baseball players, AJ Pierzynski. He was available and he can provide some good HR and RBI numbers.

I think this is what it comes to when evaluating what to do with an injured player. Is this player going to be able to give me the greater impact long term, or will his absence from my lineup hurt me more in the short term? Of course, if your team sucks, and you’ve stock-piled a bunch of broken players, or don’t have any valid replacements, by all means keep them around. I have decided that Rich Harden and Joe Mauer (Mauer especially) have so much value long term that I will hold onto them, until I get news that they’ll be out for over a month. I’m not even sure if that would prompt me to drop Mauer. He is just such a special player.

A whole other angle of injuries in fantasy baseball is coming back from an injury. When you know a player is coming off an injury, how early do you pick them up? The Roger Clemens situation is not an injury issue but it’s a similar dilemma. When is it too early to pick him up? And more importantly, when do other people think it’s too early to pick him up. All of those questions apply to guys coming off the DL too.

What kinds of policies do you have about injured players?

The only thing worse than the failings of your own fantasy baseball team, is listening to your friends, or just random people go on and on about their fantasy woes. With that in mind, I will spare you a play-by-play of my fantasy team (The BALCO Hitmen). What I do want to talk about it what is good strategy when your team isn’t performing to your standards. Over the next few weeks I will be penning a few articles about how to deal with injuries, slow starts, maximizing an up-and-comer, when to deal an aging star, and more.

My intention is to make this a weekly or bi-monthly column. If anyone out there would like to hear about something in particular, or would like to take a stab at writing a column for Friday Fantasy Feature (FFF), by all means, let me know with a comment.