*****TAKE FOLLOWUPS TO THE NEWEST POST.

@knighttown: Sucks about Peavy. Aviles will be out possibly a few days; Upton should be fine by tomorrow.

And an extra special thanks to Trevor Hoffman for blowing Jake Peavy’s 13k shutout today. My league is going to be decided on wins as 6 teams are spread apart by 3 wins.

I’d have to drop someone Markakis, Hawpe, Pena or Burrell to make that happen. Like you said somewhere yesterday, Grey, it’s probably better to get sonavabenched than have them hit HRs for someone else.

@Steve: I hear ya man, you know how many HRs and RBIs I left on the bench by not trusting Ludwick? Lost count.

Was probably uneccessarily cautious – ’tis possible to overthink these things sometimes. He’s 2-3 with 2 RBI now!

Over the course of a season, I’m sure you’ll have more success than failure by letting your players play in these situations.

Ah well, I still got a 15 pt lead and wins from Shields and Halladay.

BTW, Halladay costs 27 next year so I’m thinking………

Halladay, Webb, Hamels, Shields, Bills for 88 bucks with Ludwick as a 5$ outfielder. What you think?

@BSA: I agree on Cruz and Atkins. Not crazy about dropping a starter for another closer.

That being said, I don’t see the other owner doing the deal anyway.
Guys don’t draft Peyton just to trade him away in the 1st week. Good luck yak, let us know how it turns out.

My outfield and utility are the questions. At this hour I am rolling with Sparkakis, Grandy, and Cruz with Atkins at utility. That leaves me with Ankiel, Tulo, and McLouth on the bench. I think Atkins should continue as they go back to Coors and Cruz should wake back up as he heads back to Arlington. Correct?

Also in the weekly H2H format I am going against ten pitch starts to my 8. I have Harang, JJohnson, Billingsley, Liriano, Myers, and Wainwright with either Broxton or Fuentes closing. I also have Shields on the bench. Obviously I could drop a starting pitcher for two closers. Any changes you would consider there?

Thanks

Just before game time, I benched Ethier just to be extra-safe that I would get through (I’m ahead in OBP by .001).

Need I go on?

@martin: As of right now? Ethier seems under-owned, Wigginton had an incredible August and Mike Cameron is batting close to .400 in last three weeks and he’s at 24/16 on the season. Not sure what you meant by your question, but there’s some underappreciated names or people that weren’t owned two to three weeks ago.

@yak: With all due respect to Hippo, I would not do that trade. With each team being allowed to carry not more than 2 QBs in your league, relative scarcity, in my mind, would make Grant much too valuable to give up for the difference between Farve and Manning. If you do not trust Farve (and I do not blame you), you should still be able to find an usable alternative starter so you can play matchups on a week to week basis. Try looking at Warner, Schaub, Eli, Garrard, Bulger, Young, Campbell and Rodgers, probably in that order. I understand that some of these choices may very well be rostered already.

The way that I see it, H2H, regardless of whether it is baseball or football, is all about minimizing downside risk and maximizing evenly distributed performance over time (hopefully at over par). If Farve goes down due to injury, your season is still salvagable. If you had Manning and he goes down, as painful as that might be, you probably could still find an usable substitute. If you trade Grant away and start SJax and Edge, and SJax goes down, you are in a lot of trouble. Edge and Mendenhall simply will not do it for you on a week in and week out basis.

Just my $0.02. Hope it is a helpful alternative perspective.

I’m a bit sick of the sometimes random nature of H2H. Like today for example. I’m up 8-4 going into today and my opponent picks up Beltre for today and starts Wandy plus a bunch of schmohawk relievers off the wire who go scoreless and the next thing I know it’s 8-4 to him.

Better this week this week than next, I guess, and as it is, it’s now 7-5 to him and I’m looking at getting through in the 6th spot, 3-4 games clear of the guy in 7th.

Will try and restrict my whining to the forums in future!

It’s my only hope

RE: Giles: As a Padres fan, I wish that this could happen in real life, as opposed to them “sneaking in to the playoffs with Brian Giles” and promptly getting swept (I do acknowledge that the better team usually wins in a playoff system!).

@cruisinkc: It would take way too much time, but you could go over results from some completed roto year and just do the same moves in a simulated H2H league using the same year’s real stats. Of course, all of this would probably have to be done manually, which would be mind numbingly boring. But I think the result would be just as Grey argues- you would have a different winner. (Esp. b/c real actors wouldn’t necessarily make the same moves in roto, b/c the rules dictate different strategies).

Ok, now I’m totally boring myself. Sorry, everyone!

@BSA: Nice.

@BigFatHippo: Thanks.