Last week we covered why you should join a Razzball Commenter League, so this week let’s start covering what to do once you’re in there. To be honest, most all of this has been covered somewhere on the site over the years, most often by Rudy. If you haven’t been playing in Razzball Commenter Leagues though, I could see how some of this has been glossed over, so I’ll try to consolidate some info for the newbies. Even with the recent rule changes, I don’t think the strategy is going to change a ton. We’ll all be learning and adapting to the new format together though, so even RCL rookies will be on an even playing field to start. If you disagree, or think my strategy is whack, let’s talk about it in the comments. Like I said, we’ll all be trying out the new format for the first year together, so let’s see what we dig up.
We now have a cap of 500 moves for the season. That’s still a shizzton of moves! My most active team last year used just over 500 moves. There were some that used 800+ but those are the hyper-spastic rosterbators, those trying to add and drop the entire FA pool on a daily basis playing keep away, or robots. This is why, despite the limit, I still feel like the most important component in competing for a top spot in these leagues is TIME. I alluded to this last week, but you should kiss your family members goodbye now. The time you can pour into this endeavor is mind numbing. Fortunately, I don’t care for sleep much, so I’ve got that going for me. Other things that you might find helpful include having no life, having no job, having no other responsibilities in life and having an addictive personality. I kid, but only sort of. Thanks to daily moves, the idea is to almost always have a full roster of hitters going on a single day. If your middle infidel isn’t playing today and there’s a rough equivalent out there in the FA pool that is in the lineup, you have to make that swap. That swap means (hopefully) free counting stats. I routinely rotate a middle infield slot as well as my UTIL spot and sometimes my final OF spot and CI spot. Although those last two aren’t necessarily ideal. It’s all about those counting stats.
The rub with leaving ESPN, as RCL vets will recall is now we have an IP limit instead of the GS limit. The GS limit meant relief pitcher stats were essentially free. Now, not so much. The elite strikeout relievers will still have big value, but the scrub win vultures will not be finding their way onto rosters quite like they used to. I also suspect RCLers will draft an extra starter or two compared to years past with streaming taking a bit of a hit. With the IP limit the strikeout category basically just turns into K/9 since everyone will likely reach around 1400 IP. Perhaps now those early starters with great K-rates will get an extra bump. The early ADP data will be very interesting.
You are allowed to make moves for the next day the instant the first game of the current day starts. You can maybe see now why having no life is helpful. If you can plan out your moves and snag them all up right after lineups have locked for the day, then you’re all set for the next day. However, right before lineups lock you’ll have to check to make sure all your batty calls are actually in the lineup for the day. It’s for this reason, if it’s a split schedule day that I like to pick up guys playing in the day games. If you batty call has a night game and gets a cramp pregame, you are S.O.L. in regards to swapping him out. In short, just clear your schedule for a half hour before and after lineup lock of each day in order to make sure you’re running a full lineup out there and get first dibs on the next day’s grabs. Also, find a reliable source for lineup info. Twitter is very helpful in this regard. Shameless Plug Alert! See my Razzball Guide to MLB Twitter for who to follow to help with this quick lineup news. That’s from last year, but most of it should still be relevant. FanTrax also has their own lineup indicator right on your team page. Twitter is likely still the fastest source for that info though.
I’m going to break up streaming hitters and streaming pitchers into two different posts just because of the huge amount of information. First, we’ll dig into things to look for and tools to use when streaming a hitter in the RCL format. A lot of this information is strikingly similar to picking out a hitter in any DFS contest, which is probably why I enjoy the RCL format so much. In no particular order here are the things I look for when snagging a batty call.
Lineup Position
Lineup position is a very important factor. Once you’ve seen that a player is in the starting lineup, take note of where they are hitting. A higher lineup position means more chances to provide you with those tasty counting stats you crave. If you can find a batty call hitting in the first four lineup positions, that’s a rare treat and one you should pounce on.
Park Factor
Park factor is a pretty big deal when it comes to streaming hitters and the Coors factor can’t be ignored. My catcher is routinely a “back-up Rockies catcher / visiting team at Coors catcher / any catcher in the starting lineup” franken-catcher. I’m also a big fan of scouting out who will be visiting Coors and grabbing whatever power heavy sluggers I can a day or so before they arrive.
Platooney Tunes
If there doesn’t happen to be a game at Coors field on a given night, then the next best thing is to look to exploit a platoon split match-up. Take careful notes and you’ll find players that find themselves hitting 2nd during choice platoon match-ups that you can freely scoop up. If you are smart enough to look ahead a little bit you might be able to catch a schedule break where one of these specialists is facing a run of pitchers to feast on. You could also use Razzball’s awesome “Weekly Hitter Planner”. That segues nicely into the next note on streaming hitters.
Tools
You are at a distinct disadvantage if you’re not making full use of Rudy’s toolbox. Maybe I sound like a company shill here, but that’s fine. I find the tools Rudy has put together to be best advancement in fantasy baseball since live scoring. Sure, you could find all this information on your own and make the exact same calls, but there’s no way you could do it faster than simply pulling up the Hitter-Tron. Time is valuable, especially when the clock is ticking closer and closer to lineup lock. It’s so nice to simply pull up a page sorted by dollar value for that day’s slate of games and go to town. In addition to the Hitter-Tron there’s the weekly planner I mentioned above and the “Team-o-nator”. This is another great tool to use in the case of a tiebreaker or if you’re feeling like stacking a few hitters on a light schedule day. The Team-o-nator shows which team is projected to score the most Runs. Runs scored equal Runs and RBIs for your streamers, so the more, the merrier!
Razzball ‘Perts League
I would always spy on our resident ‘Perts to see what they were up to and you should too. Grey is chronic with his moves while Rudy is more calculated, both are good to keep tabs on though. You’ll also find Cram It in the ‘Perts league, our resident RCL guru (overall winner three seasons ago, 2nd place two years ago, 6th place last year) as well yours truly. You should absolutely keep an eye on Cram, he works this format like a pro. It took him a season (he ranked 505th his first year playing RCLs) but he learned, adapted and now he’s a fiend. I would bookmark the ‘perts league page and check it once a day. Once the league is active I’ll have a link to it in my RCL updates post weekly.
DFS Tips
I mentioned earlier the similarities between the RCL format and Daily Fantasy Sports. Here are a few quick things you can take from the DFS side that will help in your RCL streaming choices:
- Read Razzball’s DFS Content – A shameless plug perhaps, being a DFS writer myself, but these writers are doing their homework. Each night they are checking on cheap match-ups to write up and you may as well take advantage of their efforts.
- Check the Weather – This includes rain, wind and humidity. There’s not much worse than picking out the best batty call only to have the game washed out
- BvP – Batter vs. Pitcher data is much debated and Rudy has even covered the topic in the past. I’m not saying I use BvP to pick all my hitters in a day, but I certainly don’t ignore it. Mostly it works as a tiebreaker between player choices.
Can you win an RCL without constantly streaming hitters? Sure! Do you put yourself in a much better position to do so by employing this strategy? Absolutely! The amount of streaming done will depend a lot on how good or bad your draft went. In my opinion, this is one of the easiest formats in which to recover from a poor draft. I’ll be going over some RCL draft tips in another post down the line. For now, just know that a bad RCL draft isn’t the end of the world. If you completely pooched it, you’ll just have to put in the extra work to stream and do your due diligence in sniffing out those good match-ups. With any luck you’ll uncover a gem to hold onto. Of course, the less you enjoy being seen in public, the better for your RCL teams.
Speaking of RCL teams, go ahead and sign up for a few! Drafts start going off next week, so don’t be left out. I also know a couple of the high stakes invite only RCLs are looking for some players. So, if playing for $100 gets your rocks off, leave a comment below and I’ll let those commissioners know.
Want to be my Twitter pal? That’s kinda creepy, but you can follow me here: @MattTruss
