Comments on: Streaming Pitchers for Fantasy Baseball: Magically…PREDICTABLE!

By: FIlthyRich

FIlthyRich — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:12:19 +0000

Excellent article and I’m going to try using the strategy. I’m curious on your thoughts on Travis Wood’s outing last night. I had him in my lineup as he looked like a ggod STREAM – facing MIA at CHN. Marlins are #26 OPS on road, #25 vs RHP. Wood’s O-Swing% is 30.0, and he has pitched well of late, so looks like good matchup, yet he gave up 8 ER in 4 2/3 IP. Just one of those days or did I miss a warning sign?

By: simply fred

simply fred — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 16:32:06 +0000

@Eddy, 582. Retro Vertigo in first place, 385. I have dropped to #2.

By: Eddy

Eddy — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 05:42:17 +0000

@simply fred, Fred, I’m curious, how many moves are you up to in the RCL? I got a guy in ours (Big Magoo) who is racking up the moves with a similar MR strategy.

By: Eddy

Eddy — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 05:41:31 +0000

On the H2H note that I’ve seen asked, there are very few differences.

Unlike Fred in roto, H2H is no place to stream MR every day. You’d have to stick strictly to starters, and this goes double if you have weekly move limits. Standard limits are about 6-7 moves per week. I think that’s doable. You should already have five solid starters and sometimes they’ll be starting twice a week.

Using 5-6 shouldn’t be hard on anyone. I’ve been doing it all season in my H2H.

Now those who are in leagues that cap transactions at a set number for the YEAR, I’m not sure what to tell you other than my condolences. No reason to limit a manager like that.

So yeah, H2H= Yes on starters, no on MR
Roto=Yes on starters and MR.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 04:39:22 +0000

@Melvin Emanuel, sorry man. Everything else went well. You got the one stinker. Doesn’t feel good I know. Watch for awhile and see if you want to take another chance.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 20:03:17 +0000

@AL KOHOLIC, You taught me half of what I know. AND, you snagged Doolittle! You are Yoda!

By: AL KOHOLIC

AL KOHOLIC — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 18:32:42 +0000

playing in a few leagues with him,ill testify to his unrelenting work,top class guy and fearsome foe,hats off for your secrets Fred

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 17:27:29 +0000

STREAMER ALERT!

http://razzball.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=28427

By: VinWins

VinWins — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:46:33 +0000

@simply fred, Yeah, you taught me to fish, but I heard you can get fish at the store.

I started looking at Saturday’s probables yesterday, but I soon realized it was more work than I was willing to do. I’m even more impressed by what you do, now.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:26:26 +0000

Yikes! Double Yikes!! This was supposed to be “Teach a person how to fish” kinda deal.

First things first. We need to get our expectations in check:

For Roto, the goal is season-long totals. Streaming is very much dependent upon the MLB schedule:
Example:
SD #29 and SEA #30 HOME
COL #21 and AZ #23 AWAY
So, for a week when SD and SEA are HOME and COL and AZ are AWAY, there are plentiful ops for average pitchers to perform well.

SD #18 and SEA #12 (can you believe it?) AWAY
COL #1 and AZ #3 HOME
So, when this is the schedule, not so many ops.

The point is, we can have a week with ONE nice streamer and another week with 13 nice streamers.

Point being: need to adjust thinking to not expect a ‘streamer per day.’

You are killing me with all of this love. Some of it may temper when today’s picks blow.

Bottom line: I will look into posting my roto streamers (apparently via forums). Expect some sort of qualifier that you can’t count on me every day, nor even every week. I may be off to El Carib spending my anticipated 2nd place money. The Living Legend is nearly a lock for #1. (shout out to Retro Vertigo)

I don’t understand H2H enough to know if the principles can somehow help in that format. If so, you would need to look to someone with that experience to get up to speed with the process and do the posting, since I think you would want daily/weekly streamers that will just out-perform your opponent, not necessarily provide great periphs.

By: BluePulaski

BluePulaski — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:55:16 +0000

oops…lol “insight” …had to correct…didn’t want to “incite” anything by leaving it like that! ;o)

By: BluePulaski

BluePulaski — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:47:34 +0000

I took over a team in a young keeper league…1st fantasy baseball exp…H2H…big rosters…not much pitching to stream consistently…have to basically look for potential value and keep if more potential detected..anyway…I learned a lot from the article…AWESOME STUFF!…don’t know if there is a there is a CAPS rule…but had to say IT…I’ll be joining a public league (or two) next year…roto..to try this stuff out…”so I guess this dude Grey knows his stuff too” (said in a sarcastic Grey tone)…good to hear…but seriously…

…great incite!

By: Marty

Marty — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:13:08 +0000

Am I missing something? Is there a Grey’s Picks daily stream/sit column that I am not seeing?

By: lankydank

lankydank — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 13:09:42 +0000

Simply Fred,
Thank you for your insightful contribution. Are you willing to post a couple of probables each day or so based on your recommendations? No commentary necessary. I want to learn to reverse engineer your methodology. Thanks again.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:22:56 +0000

@Joe, Greinke’s 0-Swing% 28.2. Poor.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:14:22 +0000

@Terrence Mann, Thank you, sir. I respect your posts!

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:13:15 +0000

@kR Express, wrong guy. check with Grey another post.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:11:54 +0000

@Joe, ace or not. analysis is the same: the way he’s pitching this year:
Has given up 11 ER in last 15 IP. That’s the way he has pitched recently. No headsup this year vs. PIT; but, last year vs. PIT in 25 IP had a 5.76 era. A miracle may happen and he shuts ‘em out. More likely gives up 5 ER.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 06:01:39 +0000

@Jay29, you’ve convinced me. i need to look into this further. thanks!

By: Terrence Mann

Terrence Mann — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:43:23 +0000

Very nice.

By: kR Express

kR Express — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:24:03 +0000

Moustakas free agent, dump Butler and pick him up for DH?

By: kR Express

kR Express — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:22:57 +0000

Morse and BJ Upton for Adrian Gonzalez?

By: Jay29

Jay29 — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 04:14:59 +0000

@simply fred, You’re right, it’s more of a long term method, but that’s generally how I try to acquire pitchers — not for the next start but for the rest of the year. If I were streaming like you do I would definitely focus more on matchups and park factors. Just a matter of how any given league is set up.

No, no formula, really. It’s just a way to assess whether his ERA/WHIP should tend to rise, fall, or stay around the same, and to see how much he’ll help in Ks. If you had to check one stat I would recommend SIERA [http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/pitching/siera/]. It encompasses a lot of the deeper peripherals that FIP and xFIP don’t use.

ERA/WHIP can mean a pitcher is hot/cold, but they can also be very deceiving. Checking it against SIERA might put a red flag up for some SPs with good face value (e.g. Parker), and it also open your options up to guys that you’d normally pass over, like say Alex Cobb and his 4.89 ERA and 3.49 SIERA.

With that said, there still seem to be some guys that consistently beat their xFIP or SIERA (Hellickson, Weaver, Cain) so it’s not an exact science.

By: simply fred

simply fred — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:52:23 +0000

@Jay29, if I were evaluating the long-term worth of a player I would go to those lengths. Right now, I feel the weight of quality of parks and quality of opponents as more telling for single matchups. I always have an open mind. I don’t doubt that the extra research would help refine the overall projections even better; something would have to go to fit all of that in. Some days it just feels like: who’s at SD?

I see (and have considered several of your targeted stats) as very applicable to preparing a list of SP for the draft–if a person were drafting SP.

Do you have a formula? I might try it to see how I feel about my lonely 0-Swing%.

The current era/whip is mostly just a way of telling if a pitcher is ‘hot’ or ‘cold’.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 03:51:12 +0000

Very interesting post. I love it, thanks! but, how do you go about deciding whether to sit Aces? guys such as greinke tomorrow. By your analysis, I think greinke should get sat tomorrow, but is that feasible with the way he’s pitching this year? Thanks!

By: Vacation

Vacation — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 02:36:02 +0000

@simply fred, Will do. Morales is a one time start. I’m applying your method the rest of the way. Trying to trade guys like NatGio and McDonald for offense and moving to strictly streaming.

By: Jay29

Jay29 — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:59:43 +0000

@simply fred, Cool stuff. I play in a deeper league with weekly add/drop, so no one can stream to the extent you do, but I use a lot of the same criteria for picking up SPs (which I do almost every week). The problem is I don’t have the luxury of benching SPs, or I’ll be in last place in both Ks and Ws (seriously… every team gets about 12-14 starts per week).

What I would recommend to you is to ditch the “recent ERA/WHIP” from your checklist and instead spend more time on FanGraphs after checking for O-Swing%.

For myself, I check, somewhat in order, K/9, BB/9, SIERA, xFIP, BABIP, HR/9, LOB%, and compare all of these (qualitatively) to the pitcher’s past performances. You use those (along with with ZIPS ROS projections) to get a general idea of what kind of pitcher the guy really will be in the future. It even works for minor leaguers if you just skew the peripherals a bit in your head.

Using those underlying numbers has landed me a lot of FA SPs the rest of the league was not focusing on: Niese, Doubront, Morales, Fiers, Smyly (until recently). It’s helped me recover immensely from a horrendous start in the starting pitching department — and made me desperate to trade away Jarrod Parker!

By: Paulie Allnuts

Paulie Allnuts — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:32:55 +0000

Fred, a terrific job. Keeping this entry as a “Favorite” so I can consult and study your methods.

By: Paulie Allnuts

Paulie Allnuts — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:31:03 +0000

@simply fred, Putting in my two cents – don’t think that this works anywhere near as well in H2H leagues, especially those with weekly limits to moves. The key in H2H is numbers – the more starters you can use, the better. You want to compile large numbers of K’s and Wins. You might actually take ERA and WHIP, but even if you don’t, you have pretty much assured at least a split. Fred’s system works in a format with start limits, such as Razzball RCL’s.

By: Paulie Allnuts

Paulie Allnuts — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 01:27:27 +0000

@Grey Amen to that. Preferably before he swipes up all of the top streamers in our league…ESPN has a daily column rating starting pitchers. I can verify that Fred is far better then the ESPN fantasy-faux’s. How he achieves an incredibly low ERA and WHIP by virtually streaming all of his pitchers is an incredible accomplishment.