Sports Time Radio

Well since it looks like we’re going to have some sort of a baseball season as of right now it’s probably time to take a look at how your fantasy season is going to go.

There was actually some talk about not playing this year and one of my leagues actually voted not to have a season, but then they changed their minds and are working on a different format. How about you; is your league playing this year?

Now normally at the top of the draft we see a lot of starting pitchers go. I’m talking about pitchers like Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Jacob deGroom, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Verlander if he’s healthy. It makes sense if you’re in the right position in your draft to grab one of these starters and build your rotation around them. Depending on how your league is set up you’ll get the stats you’re looking for out of these types of starting pitchers, but will it be that way this season?

Now one of the categories in the two Yahoo leagues I’m in are innings pitched. We have to get over innings out of our pitching staffs for the week and that might be much, much tougher to do this year than normal.

Think about the five pitchers I listed above and ever other team #1 starter who will be starting opening day. How many innings do you think that starting pitcher is going to give you in that first start? I honestly think if you’re very lucky you might get a starting pitcher to go  innings at the most. Dave Roberts the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers mentioned that he thought starting pitchers would only go 3 or 4 innings at the start of this season.

Now with there only being 60 games in this abbreviated season if a team uses a five-man starting rotation then you’re looking at 12 starts or maybe 13 if they find a way to skip the 5th starter and give their #1 starter an extra start. How many starts will it take for a pitcher to build up his endurance to go more than the 3 or 4 innings Roberts predicted? Is it possibly that we could see the best starting pitcher on a team only give them 60 to 65 innings at the most.

So when it comes to fantasy; is it going to be worth taking one of these starting pitchers even if it’s a big name starting pitcher in the 1st round? I don’t think it will be, but I’m sure there will be some fantasy players who think they’ll be good options.

So you’ve joined me and you’ve decided to downgrade starting pitching for this season. How do you build you’re pithing staff? Obviously you’ll be looking to take closer much earlier in the draft than you normally would. Since you’re going to be going after these closers early than you normally would target the ones that you think are going to be on playoff contending teams. In a short season like this teams are going to want to use these guys quite a bit even if it’s just for an inning and if you get those closers from winning teams that will equal saves. This is where your baseball acumen is going to have to come into play because you’re going to have to figure out who those playoff contending teams are and that might not be easy with just 60 games this season.

The two teams everyone seems to agree on being in the hunt this season are the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. That would mean you’d be looking at Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen at the top of your closer list. With this shortened season there are going to be quite a few teams that look like they might contend, but the Houston Astros seem to have the third best odds to win the World Series. If you’re buying the Astros then Roberto Osuna is your pitcher.

Now if someone notices that you’re trying to draft multiple closers you may start a run and not end up with as many as you originally planned you’ll need to fill out your pitching staff another way.

Now in my leagues we have Holds as a category; so someone like Jake Diekman of the Oakland A’s might be a good option. Diekman tied for the lead in Holds last season at 31 with Ryan Pressly of the Astros and Craig Stammen of the San Diego Padres. What separates Diekman for me from Pressly and Stammen is his 12.19 strikeouts per 9 innings. It’s always nice to get a bonus out of reliever who’s not getting you saves. Now Stammen did have 13 save opportunities in San Diego last season, but barring an Injury to Kirby Yates it’s doubtful Stammen sees too many closing chances in a shortened season.

In all honesty if you think the Yankees are the team that’s going to win it all it wouldn’t hurt to load up n their bullpen pitchers. If you did manage to land Chapman it might not hurt to have Zack Britton or Adam Ottavino. It might not be a terrible idea to try and land all three as the Yankees can really shorten a game. If you’re in a deep league you could probably add Tommy Kahnle as another Yankees reliever you could justify drafting. There aren’t too many teams where you can go four deep in their bullpen, but the Yankees could be one.

Now this is just one of many strategies that fantasy baseball players are thinking about using for the upcoming season. Do you have a plan heading into your baseball fantasy draft? If you’ve got what you think is a good plan feel free to share it in the comments. Don’t worry I’m the only one who can see them; so no one in your league will find out what you’re planning.

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