In Season Strategy: You are a baseball God, unleash your wrath

SO you just started to read this blog and you are three weeks into a seemingly lost already season (LOST because you didn't read this blog and the rest of your league did and now they're pounding your pathetic little excuse of a team into the internet turf), or you have been reading all along, but you didn't believe me/chose to ignore me/thought you had a better plan...

And now are paying the steep terrible PRICE...

Well, fear not dearest sports fan.  Closers go down all the time or get traded or suck and get demoted.  Point is, you're gonna have a legitimate shot at picking up the necessary seven, so don't worry too much.  Just gotta keep your eyes open.

Here's a list of guys that could be closing soon, and be pretty good at it.

1.  Ken Giles - he will absolutely be closing games out for Philly and is a strikeout machine so if you don't have seven closers, this guy should be on your roster.
2. Tommy Kayne - situation in Colorado can always change.  Axeford is notoriously unreliable and Colorado, like Florida is for old people, is where pitchers go to retire.
3. Jason Motte - Chicago's bullpen was a tire fire last year and new Cubbie manager Joe Maddon has been known to ride the hot hand.  Motte was lights out just three seasons ago and while Motte might be pushing 35, he was lighting up the radar gun in spring training.
4. Jim Johnson - They traded Craig Kimbrel, and Jason Grilli strikes fear into the heart of .... well...  no one really... also Johnson has a career arc much like that of Brad Lidge.  Lights out for a playoff team, chokes in the playoffs (twice) is released/traded to new team.  Betcha Johnson has one more great year left in that arm
5. Carson Smith - Yes, we know, Fernando Rodney is the big name, big stuff closer but Rodney has always had control issues and looks like a prime candidate for a regression year (um he's 38! and just had the 2nd best year of his career).  Smith looked dominant in spring training and posted nice strikeout numbers in the minors.  Wierd or Unique delivery.  Check: Smith has a funky three quarter submarine thing going.  Big time Fastball:  Check: Smith regularly clocks in at 94 mph with sink and will hit 98 on occasion.  Wipe out Breaking Ball;  Check, Smith throws a power slider along with a pretty good changeup.


Also, keep your eye on the closer situation in Oakland, Dodgerville, Detroit and Toronto.

I wasn't going to say I told you so.

But.

I did tell you.

Week Three Recap (3-0): Rolling Right Along is not as easy as it looks (ok, yes, it is that easy)

ATLANTIC CITY SHARKS  482
TEAM TIMOSWAN               353


Big Moves:  No major lineup shifts.  Picked up Brock Holt and Alex Guerrero for the off days.  They both paid off pretty well with Holt putting up 14 points in 4 starts and Guerrero 6 in one start.

Best Moves:  Aaron Harang vs Miami.  27 points.  Kyle Lohse vs Cinci.  Of course I did.  22 points

Conclusion:  The lineup was slightly better with 172 points, but the pitching was record setting with 310 points.  Pretty much every starter I picked up this week popped for 15 or points.  Closers went boom, boom and King Felix threw a shutout.

I'm feeling pretty darned good about the design decision to roll with seven closers.  The lineup will be a season long tweak.

Week Two Recap (2-0): It's almost too easy

ATLANTIC CITY SHARKS    448
TEAM VIRGINIA                     422


Big Moves:  There were no big moves this week as the waiver wire was just a whole lotta onions and other slim pickins.

Best Moves:  Odrisamer Despaigne vs Arizona.  Yeah I picked that.  29 points baby.  Shane Greene at Pittsburgh - first start made the second start kinda obvious.

Conclusion:  The lineup was a little better than last week, but still kinda awful, they only put up 162 points.  Pitching again carried the day, putting up a ridiculous 10-4 mark, with 13 saves, 286 points.  Yikes.  My opponent was pretty good, but left two starts on the table and only carried one closer.

Week One Recap (1-0): Gather the finest doughnuts and coffee in the land, for tonight we feast, and drink from chalices of victory!!!!

ATLANTIC CITY SHARKS 396
SPACE WRANGLERS          242


Big Moves:  Added Keven Kiermaier and Avisail Garcia to the lineup.  Hoping Kiermaier duplicates his run late last season and Garcia finally becomes a power hitter.

Best Moves: Shane Greene, Drew Pomeranz and Edison Volquez all put up 30 or more points.


Conclusion:  I was obviously playing a nube as my oponent only used 5 of the allowed 16 starts (I only used 14) and the disaster that was the draft was pretty obvious.  My lineup scored 158 points (42 points under the design threshold of 200), however, the pitching staff did its thing going 8-5 with 11 saves and putting up 238 points.

ON the road to awesomeness: Draft Strategies: King Felix and the Legion of Doom

THE DRAFT Doctrine and a really important tip:

The tip first, dearest fan of the Phillies. 

It’s a simple one.  DON’T LET THE COMPUTER DRAFT FOR YOU!!!! (I did and now I have a catastrophe the breadth and width of Katrina roaring straight towards my season’s sweet spot.)  Draft live, dearest and most beloved reader, DRAFT LIVE and you will become the baseball god you always knew yourself to be.

Strategy and Draft Doctrine: Designing an engine to rev at 450 points a week. 

Our draft strategy is obvious if you think about it and rooted in some fairly simple calculations.  When designing the roster, look to emulate best built MLB rosters.  A Gillick roster, for instance.  Roster flexibilty and depth.  Consider the whole picture, the whole season.  You're going to need the Greg Dobbs and So Taguichis of the world.  You're going to have injuries and slumps and career years and all the other completely unpredictable baseball things that go on in a season so flexibility needs to be in the design.

MAGIC NUMBER TIME!!!

So how do you construct a team to get to that number?  Start with the true number you need and work backwards.   450 points a week over 25 weeks is 11,250.  

Interesting, you say, 25 weeks, you say, 450 points you say.  So then you if you have 25 players on your roster does that mean you will need players who score 450 a season?  

Well, you say, that’s a very small list (six position players, sixteen pitchers) you say, an impossibility actually.  Perhaps lower the design threshold you're wondering (perhaps out loud while chuckling snidely to yourself - check out this moron)

Well…….

The secret lies in a sneaky little loophole.  

Lets look at the actual weekly matchups, breaking down your daily starting slots.  You start 13 position players and 9 pitchers.  Hint, hint: 9 pitchers each gameday for 14 total starts a week? 

In case you missed that, let's expand a bit and walk through the specifics.

Here's what you need to know.  If you stretch your 14 starts over the whole week, 1) you only need 2 slots a day for starters which means that 2) you have 7 slots for relievers  which means that 3) 7 (closers)+14(starts per week) +13(position player slots) equals 34 potential players per week which means that 4) you only need relievers and posistion players (we'll get to starters later) who top 330 a season. 

This also means that that +7 will give you the edge over every other team in the league.  Most teams will only carry one or two closers, one or two teams might carry four.  That means you will have at least a three player edge over every other team in each weekly matchup.  

THEREFORE, DRUMROLL!!!! 

Drafting seven closers is a draft priority.

This also means you don't want to draft more than two starters, but you want to pick up an elite top-ten starter.

Yes, if you are scratching your head and wondering, um, one pitcher can't 14 games a week. Um, dude, what the hell?

Well, you are correct.  One starting pitcher maxes out at two starts a week.  Your going to have to play the waiver wire every day.   

That's what I said, every day.

Don't worry, it's not that hard. You only have to have average a little over 10 points a start.  Think of it as having 13 bullets a week.  You are bound to luck into 3 or 4 good shots.  And after a while, you might discover that inner marksman.  Check out Fangraphs,  Baseball America and the always excellent Gammons Daily for ideas and guidance.

Ok, so that's your pitching staff.  One or two Starters and seven closers.  Let's move on to position players.

POSITION PLAYERS

Based on our point threshhold of 330, let’s revisit the player pool.  79 position players are projected to score 330 or more, and 76 pitchers .  That’s a total of 155 players.  In a ten player league, that means you might only get a shot at drafting  fifteen or sixteen players who hit that 330 a season mark.  

I SEE YOUR MAKING YOUR MATH FACE AGAIN. And you're mumbling to yourself that you've already spent 8 to nine of those first 15 picks on pitchers.  

There are thirteen position player slots to cover, and your draft board isn't going to last more than six or seven rounds.

Yes, again, you're going to have to play the waivers to fill out your lineup (you were going to have to do that anyhow).

You're still sniggering, I know, how do you navigate around that.  Well that’s what strategy’s for (psst Reuben, straaaaateeeggyyyy… foooooreeeesssiight).

Don't think of the draft as creating a unit, think of more like putting in the ground floor.  There are going to be injuries and rookies and career years and all the other weird stuff that happens in a baseball season.  

So, to get on with it,

1. You're going to want to maximize your lineups output.  How do you do this?  Look at each position, 2B, 3B, OF, ect individually.  There's a wieghted value there.  For instance, only one shortstop is projected to score more than 400 points while eight outfielders are projected to score 400 or more.

Obviously, in projection land, this means that shortstop has more value than the OFs.

When looking to take the best player available consider that infielders have a higher weighted value than outfielders, THERFORE, you're going to look for infielders in the early to mid rounds.

2. There are some obvious bounce back candidates out there.as well as some guys who are due for a regression.  A cursory glance at five year trends, health history and a look at the lineup around a guy can give you a sense of a players potential.  There are also a bunch of sites with projections based on sabermetrics and new age dance moves, but everything is just a projection, so I don't recomend getting too crazy with your research, just enough to be familiar with the bottom half of the draft.

Let's walk through a hypothetical draft and see if we can't get a better sense of what we're talking about here.  Using ESPN's draftboard:

Round One (picks 1-10): Only ten players are projected to score 500 (only two more than 600) or more points and they are all starting pitchers.  Get one of these guys first (most likely King Felix will be available), as this is the only starter you will need to draft (unless one of these ten guys falls to you in the third round). 

Round Two (picks 11-20):  Of the 53 players who scored 330 or more last season, there were only two catchers, only three are projected to achieve that feat this season, only two are projected to score more than 400.  Your second pick is an absolute no brainer.  Get Buster Posey.  He will be there.

Round Three (picks 21-30): If one of the pitchers from the 500 club falls to you here, grab him.  If not, grab the highest projected (over 400) 2B, or 3B.  Most likely either Robinson Cano, Jose Altuve, or Adrian Beltre will be there.

Round Four (picks 31-40): If another 2B or 3B player projected to score 400+ is available take him.  If not, take the best 400+ player available.

Round Five (picks 41-50): Take the best 400+ position player available.

Round Six (picks 51-60): Take the best 3B available.  Carlos Santana, Kyle Seiger or Nolan Arenado should be available here.

Round Seven (picks 61-70): The best SS available.  Ben Zobrist should be available here.

Round Eight (picks 71-80): If you don’t have a shortstop yet, you’d better get yourself one here.  Take the best one available.  If a 400+ position player has fallen to the 8^th round, obviously take him otherwise, take the best closer available.

Round Nine (picks 81-90): Take the best closer available.

Round Ten (picks 91-100): Take the best closer available

Round Eleven (picks 101-110): Take the best closer available

Round Twelve (picks 111-120): Take the best closer available

Round Thirteen (picks 120-130): Take the best closer available

Round Fourteen (picks 131-140): Take the best closer available

Round Fifteen (picks 141-150): If you don’t already have seven closers, take the best closer available.  If you do have seven closers, take the best 2B/SS available.

Round Sixteen (picks 151-160): Take the best 3B available.

Rounds Seventeen through Twenty Two (161-220): Fill out your lineup with the best talent available.  These are the rounds to gamble on rookies or come back of the year candidates.

Rounds Twenty Three through Twenty Five (221-250): Set up your first weeks starters or nab big names on the DL.

So here’s your projected Roster and some math:

SP1 – Felix Hernandez – 650 + 380

SP2-14 – Waiver Wire - 248 or 10 points a week

CP1 – Holland – 420 + 90

CP2 Robertson – 390 +60

CP3 Rosenthal – 360 +30

CP4 Rodney -340 +10

CP5 Uehara -340 +10

CP6 Janson -330

CP7 Britton - 330

or 6410 from your pitching staff.

C Posey 420 +90

1B – BA 330

2B – Cano/Altuve – 450 + 120

3B – Santana – 400 + 70

SS – Zobrist – 380+50

2B/SS BA 330

1B/3B BA 330

OF BA 400 + 70

OF BA 400 +70

OF BA 330

OF BA 330

OF BA 330

Util BA 330

or 4760

for a total of 11170.

Ok so you’re looking at this and saying to yourself, A) that’s a lot of postion players at 330 and B) didn’t you say that there were only 155 players projected to score 330, which means that C) six maybe seven position players on the roster are going to be under the projected magic 330 line.

Well, you’re right, you keen and clever personel guru you.  But for the time being, suspend your disbelief and trust that we will circle back around to cover this glaring discrepancy.

For now, let’s focus first on your pitching.  This where the strength of your roster design strategy truly comes into focus.  Designing a team like this means that you are going to have to play the waiver wires.   That you’re going to need to pick up two starting pitchers on most days (the days King Felix isn’t pitching) and while this may initially seem like a shortcoming, after all, the undrafted pitcher pool looks a lot like the backend of the Phillies current staff of retreads and Quad A pitchers, herein lies the genius of our design.  Those pitchers need only average around 10 points per start. 95 starting pitchers are projected to average 10 points per start. 

What this means is that you can and will dominate with the Tim Hudson and Aaron Harang’s of the world.

What else does this mean? More math amigo

Knowing that your waiver wire pickups need to average 10 points per start allows you to project what you might get a week from your pitching staff.  Based on our current roster design and allowing for waiver wire pickups that average about ten points a start, your looking at about 95 from your closers (or 14 points per pitcher), and a little over 150 from your starters for a total of a little less than 250 a week.

That means that you need a little over 200 from your lineup every week to nail your 450 point goal.

Now, for all those holes in your lineup.  The answer to this is two-fold.

First some more roster shenanigance. So you have 13 position players daily, over seven days, that's 81 opportunities for points from your lineup per matchup.  Most players play five to six times a week.  So optimistically maxing out all your starters at six days a week, you still have 13 unused slots a week.

What this means is that if you only drafted one starter and seven closers, you will have three bench slots and one to two pitching slots open every day.  Most days you will have two bench slots open to plug holes (days off, injuries, DNP, ect) in your lineup.

Use that slot.  Look for platoon players and players in the middle of hit streaks. Look for guys that don't strikeout a lot.  Look for players who steal bases.

OK, so this post is going going going on forever.

Draft Felix, Buster and Seven Closers.  Own the waiver wire.  Rule as a baseball god again, Phillies phan.

PEACE OUT!