Back in the old days (last year) of the Razzball Commenter Leagues I preached about the importance of keeping an eye on your strikeouts per Game Started or K/GS. With the move to FanTrax and the change from GS to Innings Pitched (IP) the K/GS stat goes out the window. However, we have a new stat you should be keeping an eye on now, and that is your K/9. Since every team is limited to only 1400 innings strikeouts essentially turn into a ratio stat; a counting ratio stat I suppose, but a ratio nonetheless. Once your innings are up, you are stuck with the number of strikeouts you have. This makes those high K/9 relievers such as Chad Green, Adam Ottavino and king of the K/9 this year, Josh Hader very valuable pieces. This also dings some of the streaming options out there like everyone’s favorite, Bartolo Colon who might go 7 innings but strikeout only 2. If you don’t have a high-K/9 reliever or two to help balance that out, you could be doing more long term damage than good. It’s important to monitor and keep a balance. Fortunately for you, and especially those that are bad at math, we’re tracking your K/9 for you on the Master Standings page. There, you can see that among teams with at least 40 IP/week there are 4 teams leading the pack with an impressive 11.6 K/9. Among those are frequent commenter Great Knoche and our Excel War Room guru, Hot Rods. Bringing up the rear is Cheddar Bob with 7.0 K/9 in 231 IP. I like to try and maintain a K/9 of around 9.5 or so. If you’re below that mark, find yourself an Andrew Miller if you can. If you’re above that mark, awesome! Just make sure you’re keeping pace with your league in Wins and you should be golden. It’s also going to be important to monitor your innings usage. You can click “MIN/MAX” on your team page to see your innings used and your pace. I like to keep my pace pretty close to right on the money, but your mileage may very. Just don’t leave innings on the table if you can help it. Let’s take a look at the rest of the week that was, week 4 in the RCLs:
Please, blog, may I have some more?