Fantasy Baseball Strategy: The Art of the Stream
I remember my first matchup of the fantasy season. It was fantastic, a 9-1 gutting of the now fifth-ranked team in the league. I sat back in my chair at work and thought to myself, “Ryan, you’re a genius. You drafted like a pro, and you didn’t even research players or projections beforehand. Now, what are you going to buy with your league winnings?!”
Fast forward seven weeks later and I’m saddled with a 31-33 win-loss record. Firmly in eighth place, I was no longer laughing, especially with a substantial buy-in on the line. I decided to look at the entire league and I saw a ridiculous correlation between roster moves and ranking. In general, the more moves made by a team, the higher the ranking, barring one exception (the team with stat monster José Ramirez, of course).
Jumping forward again to this week’s current stats, my team has inched up slowly to fourth place. The top six teams (all over .500) have 343 combined roster moves versus the bottom six with an abysmal 71.
It may seem obvious that in order to win, moves have to be made; especially with the sheer number of injuries and other players breaking out. But that wasn’t the only case with my league. Each successful team was streaming starting pitchers: picking up and dropping guys like a high-stakes game of hot potato. It became clear that RotoBaller’s Weekly Start/Sit Matchups had become the de facto fantasy bible for a number of the league’s managers.
This year, fantasy baseball has more streamers available than a kid’s birthday party. Plenty of them don’t require a second thought either, such as Nick Kingham (4.11 ERA), Nathan Eovaldi (4.26 ERA), Kyle Freeland (3.28 ERA), Kyle Gibson (3.57 ERA) and many more—all solid options who are racking up the wins but are missing in strikeouts or have a low enough ERA to justify a permanent position on your roster.
Thus, when there are multiple teams attempting to stream starting pitchers every day, your best option is to pick up the streamers the day before. This allows you to stay one day ahead of your competition and get the best streaming options for the week. Note: This option works best if you open up two or three slots in your pitching roster. Since the catcher slot has been a black hole this year, I’ve opted to not have one at all, giving me an extra spot.
If you’re in a 12-team league, it’s easy to overlook the waiver wire since the best guys are usually scooped up right away. In this particular case, the bottom tier of the league hasn’t made moves at all. Therefore, the sheer number of daily adds and drops was staggering among the top six teams.
Even in the most competitive leagues, there are bound to be managers who don’t wake up at 5 a.m. to claim their prized targets. In other words, there are always advantages to be had… if you know where to look.
