Winning Fantasy Baseball Strategies — Weekly Head-to-Head Points Leagues
Part III: Roster Construction
Welcome to the third deep dive into fantasy baseball strategies to win your weekly head-to-head points leagues.
Previously, I wrote about my initial fantasy baseball strategy hypotheses. That article can be found here.
In the first article in this deep dive series, I focused on how to maximize points from your starting pitchers. That article can be found here.
In the second article in this deep dive series, I outlined strategies to deploy to successfully maximize your volume of at-bats and innings pitched in your weekly head-to-head matchups. That article can be found here.
In this article I will expound on strategies to utilize to successfully manage your overall roster construction.
Roster Construction
Given the small bench sizes in fantasy baseball, roster spots are extremely valuable. You should not hold any players on your roster that you do not have immediate plans to use in your lineups to accrue points over the next few days. The bottom of your roster should constantly be churned to acquire streaming starting pitchers to start, fill-in batters that you will start, and relief pitcher/starting pitcher hybrids that can be started.
Hitter Roster Construction
Given the premium placed on starting pitchers due to the high ceiling of points that they can earn, and the small size of fantasy baseball benches, I don’t think you should hold any more than one batter on your bench at any given time. You can hold one batter on your bench to use to fill in at the last minute for any of your players that end up out of their team’s starting lineup for a day due to injury or rest, but if you hold any more than one batter on your bench you are losing other opportunities to accrue points.
Ideally, the batter that you carry on your bench should have multi-position eligibility, which would increase the amount of players that they could sub in for in your starting lineup if one of your core starters ends up out of their team’s starting lineup one day. A batter that has dual infield and outfield positional eligibility would be ideal.
Starting Pitcher-Relief Pitcher Hybrids
One of the best ways to maximize volume via innings pitched in your daily lineup is to acquire players that have dual eligibility as starting pitchers and relief pitchers. Following this strategy is a way to win on the margins and give your team a chance at an extra 5 to 15 points per day that your opponents may not have.
In my second league’s starting lineup, we have 5 starting pitcher spots per day. Over the course of a 7-day matchup week, this comes out to 35 individual starting pitcher starting lineup spots. Since we can only have 11 starting pitcher starts per week, this means that there are 24 daily starting pitcher lineup spots that are not being used to generate points!
The best strategy to pursue with these empty starting pitcher lineup spots is to look for pitchers that pitch in relief roles but have starting pitcher positional eligibility. Thus, those pitchers can then be started in your daily lineup in your starting pitcher slots that are not being used for your 11 pitching starts for the week.
My strategy to find and acquire these relief pitcher/starting pitcher hybrids is to filter on the starting pitchers available on waivers, and then sort the list of available starting pitchers by saves and then by holds. I filter on saves first, as saves are worth 5 points, while holds are worth 3 points. In addition to saves and holds, these pitchers also accrue points for innings pitched and strikeouts (and lose points for hits, walks, and earned runs).
From applying these filters so far this season, I have been able to identify and acquire two pitchers that serve as their teams’ closers (Michael Kopech on the White Sox and Jalen Beeks on the Rockies), and one pitcher that serves as one of their team’s primary set-up men (Hunter Gaddis on the Guardians).
When I start these players in the starting pitcher slots in my daily lineups, I get to start 6 relievers in my lineup, and I could potentially earn 5 saves and 1 hold in one day. Since there are only 3 starting lineup spots for relief pitchers, if my opponents do not pursue this strategy, they will only have the opportunity to earn a maximum of 3 saves if they only utilize their 3 relief pitcher lineup spots.
I have noticed that there are a couple teams in my league that start relief pitcher/starting pitcher hybrids in their starting pitcher lineup spots, but I know from looking at the daily waiver activity that I am the only team that actively pursues this strategy on a repeat basis whenever I have a free roster spot that is not being used to hold a starting pitcher or fill-in batter.
Although, the main word of caution when pursuing this strategy, is that if there are not any quality relief/starting pitcher hybrids available on waivers to utilize, then it may not be worth putting a poor relief pitcher in your lineup and risking the chance for negative points from them surrendering earned runs, blowing a save, or recording a loss. If you are behind in your weekly matchup and need to pick up points, then it may be a good idea to pursue this strategy. But, if you are leading in your weekly matchup, and you do not identify any quality starting/relief pitcher hybrids available on waivers, then this strategy may not be worth pursuing at that time.
Relief Pitcher Roster Construction
If you don’t have solid closers as your relievers, don’t be afraid to look to strong performing set-up men to start in your relief pitcher spots. A strong relief pitcher that records strikeouts and earns holds may be more valuable for your team than a shaky closer that has an increased risk of blowing a save and losing points by earning loss.
If you are looking to acquire a reliver or a relief/starting pitcher hybrid from waivers for one-day use in your daily lineup, make sure they have not pitched in both the last two days. Because if they did, then they probably will not appear in the game the next day where you are looking to use them, denying you the opportunity of earning any points from them.
Conclusion
Overall, I believe that these strategies that I have outlined in this deep dive series are working very well, as I have scored the most points so far in both of my leagues. I will continue to pursue these strategies to aim to maximize my points. I’ll be on the lookout for any modifications to these strategies and any new strategies, and I’ll check back in again in a few weeks!
