So here we are in full swing of the 2010 season.  Last time out, we took a look at the first team I drafted for this year, using a combination of full-season projections and The Rotoscope, to see how the year might play out.  Now that we have 3 full weeks of baseball behind us, it’s time to take another look Under the Rotoscope and start addressing to early-season needs.

It’s important to wait at least this long to start reacting to any needs with moves of any significance.  You’ve probably heard over and over how small sample sizes can’t be trusted, and it’s absolutely true.  Now, I do have a loose strategy for moves during the first three weeks, which I’ll summarize here, but it’s much too volatile to have given you any consistent advice.  But after I cover that, I’ll show you a clip from The Rotoscope so we can start to make some disciplined moves to improve.

Very early season strategy

It’s hard not to react to incredible streaks or slumps being put up in the early weeks, but we’ve all heard from experts not to over-react.  That’s absolutely true for players you’ve put a high investment in (either auction dollars or high draft picks).  But I tend to be more aggressive than most at the low end, cutting bait on $1 or late-round guys very quickly to chase the guy having a hot streak.  Every year there are real, season-long contributors nobody drafted but who started quickly.  I want to get those guys.  It’s difficult, because for each guy like that, there are 3 or more who start hot and end up as irrelevant as we all thought.  But to chase those guys, and constantly cycle through free agents until some stick, means you have to part with guys you picked up late in your draft/auction who started slow.  And this cuts both ways.  It’s how I got most of Jose Guillen’s April production into my starting lineup, and Shaun Marcum’s solid starts also.  But it’s also how I gave up on Francisco Liriano after his first shaky start before he got in a groove.  And this year I came away with a new lesson, which I’ll get back to shortly: For chasing pitchers, wait one more start before you make a final call, even if it’s on your bench.

Early Season Strategy

Now, it’s still early, but it’s not too early to start making decisions with the long haul in mind.  In other words, to start trusting some of the sample sizes and shaping your roster for balance of roto needs instead of short-term “talent chasing”.  Click the image below to see the roto spacing chart for my league, as provided by The Rotoscope:

Now bear with me as I run as quickly as possible through a progression of analyzing this chart and determining what action to take as a result:

• Hitting looks good. I’m in the top half of the chart in all 8 categories, while leading 3. From my last column you may remember that this is as-hoped, that my hitting is stacked and it’s my pitching that is a worry. In addition, my 1^st, 2^nd, and 5^th picks are A-Rod, Mark Teixeira and Jason Bay, who have all started woefully slow, especially in HR. So hitting needs no attention right now, except …
• Stolen Bases is rock-bottom. I knew coming out of the draft I was shaky, but I didn’t know it was this bad. I’m not ready to chase it yet, because I want to see how it develops. It’s quite possible a little tier develops there between me, the team I’m tied with, and TROP and BOYS right above us. In future weeks I might make a move to lead this tier, and that’s it. That should help me gain 2.5 roto points without screwing with my core lineup.
• Now pitching is another story, where I’m bottom-half of the chart. Although note that one of the benefits of this chart is that while I may be below the middle-point of the leader and the bottom-dweller, I’m still ahead of a lot of teams. So roto points are better than they look. But then, it tells me my pitching efforts may be more about keeping other teams at bay than grabbing more roto points from teams above me.
• Here are some important points that shape my goal for this week: 1) We have a games started cap of 162 for the season, 2) I’m running ahead of pace on starts and my K per start is much worse than my overall K because I’m ahead of pace, and 3) We have a transaction limit for the league, that I’ve already cut into ahead of pace.
• So here’s my goal: Establish a consistent 5 or 6-man pitching staff, with good K, good WHIP, and good K/BB. Once I do that, I can start to stick high-K relievers in the lineup every day that can bolster my K, steal some Wins, and propel me upwards in Holds. Because right now I’m carrying too many starting pitcher “projects” and making too many pitcher moves.

I’m going to look at my own pitchers and notable free agent pitchers and evaluate them on the following four stats on a per start basis:

• Strikeouts (K): Not only are K and K/BB actual categories, they are also good indicators of how well someone is pitching and helps predict future success
• Walks (BB): Same as above - high walks are a very bad sign
• Hits (H): Hits per start. While not quite as indicative as K or BB, hits still help illustrate how much damage a pitcher is likely to give up
• Innings Pitched (IP): This will help illustrate the pitcher’s opportunity for Wins, and just generally how stable they’ve been

In addition, I like to look at per-start trends, and not just totals.  For instance, Colby Lewis’s 28 strikeouts in 23 innings are impressive, but his per game strikeouts are: 3-10-5-10.  That volatility is important to see - I would feel better if it was more like 7-7-7-7.  Furthermore, his walks look like this: 4-4-2-2.  12 overall walks doesn’t look good, but I can see them trending downward.  So let’s take a look at these four stat trends for my pitchers and a generous list of free agents (note this is a somewhat shallow league and these players may not be available in yours).

My current pitchers

Free Agent Pitchers

So with no further ado, here are my observations about how I would approach my strategy for each player I own:

• Shaun Marcum: Keep and start. His opening day no-hit bid was flashy, but not enough are giving credit to his stability since. I love the consistent K line at 6-5-6-6, and the 1-walk per game pace.
• Hiroki Kuroda: Keep and match up. I’ll start him today against the shaky Mets offense, but his hit trend has me watching closely (5-10-7)
• Ricky Romero: One more start on bench. Romero is an up-and-down guy, which I don’t want to tolerate. If he keeps up the downward K trend (4-12-6-3) I may consider dropping him. If he’s a matchup play I have to bench against the Rays and Yanks all the time, I don’t have room for him.
• Cole Hamels: Keep and start. Hey, I didn’t invest a top-10 pick to give up on him, plus his K and BB trends are solid despite ERA bumps. K: 5-6-8-7 BB: 4-1-0-1
• Scott Baker: Keep and match up. He’s bugging me with inconsistency, but I have to wait - he hits mid-season grooves. Next time out, if hits spike again, I may re-think.
• Clay Buchholz: One more start on bench. Last time out he went 10K/1BB, but I just don’t trust it yet. Just like Romero, I can’t tolerate up-and-down with that AL East schedule.
• Ted Lilly: Keep, next start on bench. Lilly has a really nice track record for this league setup, and will probably be a mainstay. I just need to ease into his return from injury.
• Chris Carpenter: Keep and start. His early struggles in K and HR allowed have melted away for my ace. His K trend of 10-10 in past two games eases my mind.

Finally, here’s my disposition on each of the notable free agents:

• Wandy Rodriguez: Wait another start. He was drafted then dropped by a quick-triggered owner, but his inconsistency is hard to take with a deep free agent pool.
• Mat Latos: Watch casually. His low Ks are an issue, if they rise I’ll pay attention.
• Barry Zito: On the short list. If he posts one more good start or one of my guys tanks a start, I will grab him. I won’t immediately because the Ks and BBs are very inconsistent and the low hit totals reak of market correction.
• Dallas Braden: On the short list. Ks are inconsistent, and low H may be market-corrected. But low walks and AL West schedule are enticing.
• Brad Penny: Watch next start. Walk trend is nice, as is NL Central competition, but rising hits and lagging strikeouts demand more evidence before jumping.
• Wade Davis: On the back burner. His low hits are interesting, to say the least (7-2-2), but middling Ks and bad walks (4-4-3) demand quite a bit more evidence.
• Joel Pineiro: Watch casually. He’s got a track record of low-K but low-BB, which is tolerable in this league, but I need to see what happens with those hits (5-5-9-11).
• Mike Pelfrey: Watch next start. There’s buzz the 27-year-old has it figured out finally. But the 20-inning-game he saved, and the 5-inning CG rainout make it complicated to judge yet. And then there’s those walks: 4-0-3-5. Just have to wait.
• Randy Wolf: On the back burner. Started with 8K/0BB effort, then went 3-4-3 on Ks and 3-3-3 on Walks since then.
• CJ Wilson: Watch casually. There’s some good signs, but steady walks and downward-trending Ks will require at least two more starts to judge.
• Fausto Carmona: Watch casually. He may be pitching to contact more, with his walks trending down 6-4-2-0 and hits trending up 1-5-6-7. Meanwhile Ks leveling at 1-4-4-4. This is good progress for him, and worth keeping an eye on.
• Jaime Garcia: Watch casually. May be a case of the league starting to catch up to this young pitcher. Two intriguing starts gave way to a 2K, 3BB, 7H line last time out.
• Randy Wells: Watch next start. Not noted for Ks, but going for 7-5-6 last three games out is a great sign. His BB of 2-1-2-0 look pretty good as long as he’s striking out more than 3 or 4 per game. One more 6+ K start would put him on my short list.
• Kevin Millwood: Watch next start. Watching next start because it’s the Yanks. If he tanks it, I’ll watch again next time out, at which time he might be on the short list. Why? His K and BB lines look really good at 5-6-9-4 and 1-0-0-3.
• Kevin Correia: Watch casually. Hey, if he kept up the solid-K, high-BB, low-Hit trend all year I could live with it, but he’s young and I see inconsistency and a market correction in hits.
• Colby Lewis: Watch next start. He’s really got stuff, and one thing I need is a pitcher who can pile up some Ks in a single start. But I’ve got to see the inconsistency and walks trending the right way at least one more time out.
• Jeff Niemann: Watch next start. I’ve already stated low tolerance for young pitchers in the AL East, but at least he can’t pitch against his own Rays. The 8K/1BB line last time out needs one more repetition and I’ll be paying attention fast.
• Carlos Silva: Watch casually. He’s been around forever with the same mediocre schtick. So I can’t buy the low hits just yet. He can continue the modest Ks with low-low walks though.

So there you go.  Many leagues are different in terms of the scoring, and depth of free agent pool.  But here is a glimpse into the way I approach my needs in a roto league, and how I start to solidify a roster long-term.  Hopefully you can apply this to your team(s).  If nothing else, I hope the “game by game” approach to looking at pitchers shed some light on who may be of value.  If all these guys are taken in your league that may be much deeper, you can still use this for need-based trades.

Join me next week for a look at how The Rotoscope can help you even in ever-popular H2H leagues.

Tags: Fantasy Baseball, Rotisserrie Baseball, The Rotoscope