Today's Fantasy Rx

It's Only April

With the season underway after Bartolo Colon's impressive debut last night, most of you will be checking your teams every day in the hope that your players will get off to a hot start.

Now I'm not foolhardy enough to advise you to completely ignore your team's fortunes, but as you should pay no attention to Spring Training statistics, you shouldn't make many moves based on early-season numbers.

In 2001, owners who held on to Royce Clayton, Delino DeShields, and dozens of other players perhaps victimized by the "new strike zone" were rewarded with impressive performances in the second half. Some of us that owned Brady Anderson weren't quite as lucky, but most slow starters were able to return their previous career-average levels.

Before the past couple years, we frequently made the mistake of assessing our team's chances after only two or three weeks of the season. While you can begin to estimate your team's fortunes immediately after the draft, you probably should hold off until the end of April.

We owned four teams in keeper leagues last year. Only one of these was a continuation from the previous season as we were invited to three new leagues. While we were relatively comfortable with every draft, we knew we lacked depth and talent on each of the new squads, as we had no closer on two teams and only marginal offensive players on the other.

While we rebuilt two teams into contenders for this season by accepting second division finishes, we dealt a couple of good keepers on the other two to insure we'd remain competitive the entire year. Fortunately, we didn't suffer any severe injuries and ended up with a first place and second place finish.

So although you can certainly enjoy following your team's travails over the first month, don't make any significant moves for the first few weeks until your players have compiled a sizable sample of statistics.

Preventative Medicine

Other fantasy writers have advised this in the past, but you should always remember to give your players a week or two of leeway when they return from the Disabled List. Especially with players resuming play after several weeks of inactivity, most of them will logically start slow as they ease back into the daily grind of the Major League schedule.

For owners in Ultra leagues or any league with unlimited moves involving a reserve or taxi squad, you should definitely hold off on activating recently-healthy players for a week or two. In standard leagues using "book" rules, you have two weeks to activate your healthy player, and unless you're wasting a roster spot on a Mike Matheny or similarly useless player, you should probably take at least the first week to see if your disabled player is truly healthy or if he might have tried to rush back.

Now if your promising young third basemen is headed into Coors for four games or your veteran starter is scheduled to face Tampa Bay at home, you can probably safely deploy them without risking too much downside. The possible benefits of these situations outweigh the inherent risks, but in most situations, the wiser course is to attempt to avoid any lingering effects from an injury.

Rotate like a 45

While this strategy won't help those of you without reserve squads of some type, anyone with unlimited available transactions can gain a significant advantage by using the vagaries of the MLB schedule to your advantage.

Every team is scheduled to use a five man rotation, with only true aces like Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling likely pitching on four days of rest for every outing. Most other teams plan to keep their five starters in a set order for as much of the season as possible to insure that everyone receives regular work.

Most leagues use weekly transactions, and Challenge players have long known the advantages of two-start weeks. Any pitcher scheduled to start on a Monday or Tuesday immediately after a Sunday night transaction deadline will likely see another star the following weekend. Pitchers who only start one game in a given week obviously don't have a chance to win two games that week.

We first heard about adapting this strategy to roto from Gene McCaffrey of Wise Guy Baseball, and while I've mentioned it in the past a couple of times, I wanted to bring it up again now that the season has begun.

Stock your reserve roster with quality starters and relievers. Prior to your weekly deadline, take a look at each pitcher's schedule for the upcoming week. Bench all pitchers headed to Coors. Activate every other pitcher making two starts. For the remaining pitching slots, look at the opposing team in each match-up. If they have a solid offense like the White Sox or Astros and your pitcher's team is somewhat weak at the plate, you probably want to keep that guy on the bench. We'll also usually bench pitchers facing aces like Johnson or Mussina because of the normally reduced chances for a win in these situations. When in doubt, compare skills as a tie breaker.

Fill in your extra slots with middle relievers unlikely to hurt you. Focus on pitchers with solid LPR ratings and anyone posting a solid K:BB and K/9 ratio during the season. You might get lucky and benefit from a vultured win or two, and you avoid the pitfalls of a poor start.

Teams with daily transactions can take this strategy to its next logical step by rotating their pitchers on a daily basis. Ultra teams with seventeen reserve players might be able to roster up to 10 or 12 pitchers in a good draft. Many owners, especially in 5x5 leagues, will ignore middle relievers almost completely because of their normally meager contributions to any particular category. While top setup men like Arthur Rhodes and Felix Rodriguez can earn over $10 a year, most will be lucky to see even a positive Draft Value.

However, on a day-to-day basis, these pitchers can certainly make a positive contribution to your team. Adding even another 6 IP with 2 or less ER, 7 baserunners, 4 strikeouts, and an extra win or save each week will give you an extra 150 IP of 3.00 ERA & 1.17 WHIP, along with 100 strikeouts, 12 wins, and 12 saves by the end of the season. By using your existing roster to its greatest possible advantage, you've added over $20 of pitching value to your team without changing any roster personnel.

I realize that many of you have already drafted rosters that limit the advantages of this last strategy, but you should still be able to make a couple of free agent pickups in the first weeks to replace your useless reserve infielder with a decent middle reliever normally left undrafted. In the American League, Mike Stanton and Chad Bradford should be available in some leagues, and in the National League, Jason Christiansen, Vic Darensbourg, Grant Roberts, Cliff Politte, Jose Cabrera, and Aaron Fultz all should be solid pickups.

Today's Fantasy Rx: Besides the pitchers listed immediately above, at least another dozen likely available free agent relievers should be solid options in either league, so you'll want to examine your league's waiver wire and free agent list to see what talent pitchers you can add to your team's rotation of pitchers.