Thursday, March 31, 2011

12-Team Total Points Squad

CABRERA'S CERVEZAS 2

C - Buster Posey
1B - Carlos Pena
2B - Kelly Johnson
SS - Elvis Andrus
3B - Alex Rodriguez
OF - Ichiro Suzuki
OF - Alex Rios
OF - Mike Stanton
Util - Delmon Young
BN - Angel Pagan
BN - Ike Davis
BN - Placido Polanco
BN - Jhonny Peralta

SP - Felix Hernandez
SP - Clayton Kershaw
SP - David Price
SP - Francisco Liriano
RP - Fernando Rodney
RP - Matt Capps
SP - Clay Buchholz
SP - Michael Pineda
SP - Hiroki Kuroda
SP - Fausto Carmona
SP - Kyle McClellan

A total points league is very different from a head-to-head one. For those don't know the difference, I will explain.
In my head-to-head league, one team plays another team for an entire week. We have 19 different stats that we keep track of. Whoever wins a particular stat that week gets 1 'win.' If you win all of the stats (which I have never seen happen) your record would be 19-0. Say you went 11-8 the next week, your overall record would be 20-8 and so on. At the end of the year, the six best teams make the playoffs and compete for three weeks to crown a champ. In the head-to-head format, every team that makes the playoffs has a chance to win the title.
Total points is pretty self explanatory. You get points for stats (1 for a 1B, 2 for a 2B, -.5 for a K, etc). At the end of the year, whoever has the most points wins. Whereas this is probably the best game-type (along with Rotisserie) to determine the 'best team,' I'm not really a fan of it because not every team has a chance to win. Come the middle of August, some of the bottom teams have no realistic chance to win and may give up. I don't like that. Fans of total points and rotisserie will say it is the best system because it ultimately shows who the best team is. That's fine and all, but that's not how it is done in real sports. Every day (or week), every team has a chance to win or play the spoiler. You may have the best record during the regular season and lose in the playoffs, but 'stuff' happens. Deal with it. And this is coming from a guy who has had the best Fantasy BBall team over the last three years and has zero championships to show for it.

Before I start going through my draft process, I would like to point out this tid-bit of information. Last year in this league, 25 pitchers had more total points than the No. 1 hitter in Albert Pujols. Knowing that, my draft philosophy became rather easy to figure out.
With the 6th of 12 picks, I took Felix Hernandez (the third highest pitcher last year behind Halladay and Wainwright). After watching my buddy and commish Jason Boris tell me that there is no advantage with pitchers (BS) and then take Halladay with the 4th overall pick, I went with King Felix. I was looking to take a SP regardless of what he said, but that just cemented my thought process. The reason pitchers are so valuable is because they get 3 points-per-inning and 1 point per K while losing -.5 point per K/H/BB, etc. Oh, not to mention they get 10 points for a win and only lose five for a loss. Whereas hitters may get you 12 points on a good day, pitchers can get you around 30.
I stuck with this philosophy and took three pitchers over the next five rounds. I went A-Rod, Kershaw, Posey, Price and Liriano. Price was the eighth in scoring last year, while Kershaw was 19th. Having three of the top 19 scorers on one team isn't too bad according to my calculations. Liriano was also 34th in 2010. Not too shabby.
The rest of my draft was spent filling out my lineup. I took five consecutive bats before adding another SP in Buchholz. I may not have the deadliest lineup, but no one in the league is going to mess with my starting pitching.
Still, I don't think my lineup is that sub-par. Posey, Rodriguez, Suzuki, Rios and Young are pretty solid. If they get me an average of 2-5 points per day I will be happy.
Fortunately for me, some of my other buddies and I did a head-to-head points league last year and found out that pitching was the way to go. I have my fingers crossed that it proves true once again.

2 comments:

  1. When you win the league, you can thank me for my genius strategy.

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  2. It took a lot for me to take four pitchers in the first six rounds. I am still a little nervous, but it does make sense when you look at the scoring.

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