Roto Robbery

Don't look now (well, actually, DO look now), but the fantasy playoffs are just around the bend. Instead of kicking yourself for not making that juicy trade before the deadline, why not focus on what hidden finds are lying dormant on the waiver wire? This edition's focus: Starting Pitching. Whether you prefer assembling a rotation and sticking with it or streaming your way along with the hot hand, here are a few starting pitchers for consideration:



Fausto Carmona

In 5 starts during the month of August, Fausto Carmona has posted a 2.63 era, walking 13 and striking out 18 over 29 innings. While his WHIP remains higher than desired and he has only 1 win to show for his efforts this month, he has surrended 3 runs or fewer each time out, and his latest outing vs. Seattle should inspire confidence: 7IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 8 K. His percent ownership has crept up to 25% in Yahoo! Plus leagues, and the Indians' September schedule features home games vs. the Royals, the Twins, and the Orioles. If you are looking for someone to eat innings, this could be your guy.



Joe Saunders

Joe Saunders has a higher percent ownership than Carmona (circa 46% in Yahoo! Plus Leagues), but his early-August stint on the DL caused many owners to cut bait. The 2008 All-Star struggled most of the season before succumbing to injury, but now back and feeling good, Saunders' season-long woes are increasingly being attributed to the tight shoulder that sidelined him for several weeks. Mike Scioscia was impressed with the fluidity of his rehab work, and Saunders did not disappoint in his first start back on Wednesday, pitching 5 innings of 2-run ball with 6 strikeouts and garnering the W. Saunders was brilliant last September: Over 5 starts the lefty earned 3 wins, pitching to the tune of a 2.14 ERA with a strikeout to walk ration of 24:6 across 33.2 frames. With the Angels offense cranking on all cylinders, consider Saunders a strong play for wins and a respectable line to boot.



Charlie Haeger

While it is uncertain just for how long the knuckleballer will serve as a starter, Charlie Haeger has shown an ability to keep the Dodgers in the game. In 2 starts, Haeger is 1-1, taming the Cardinals and Cubs for the most part. His line thus far: 14 IP, 8 H, 4 BB, 3 ER, and 9 K. Pitching in spacious Dodger Stadium doesn't hurt, nor does facing many of these hitters for the first time, as a knuckler can have a distinct advantage in this way. Take a flier on him, particularly as a streamer candidate, but don't go dropping anyone too respectable for him, as his magic could run dry if Torre decides to shake things up in September.

"Don't kiss and tell." "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." I typically heed these sorts of creeds, but when it comes to fantasy baseball, the drama can be juicier than a fondue party with Heidi and Spencer. July is quite the interesting time for fantasy baseball owners. With the trade deadline about a month away, the Fourth of July weekend is a chance for owners in the Top 3 of the standings to pat themselves on the back and for the rest of the owners to take stock of their teams and get a bit motivated to turn the tables during the dog days of summer. Sometimes motivation is coupled by a bit of agitation, and that's a recipe for some fireworks even the Washington Monument hasn't seen.

Case in point, consider a little charade that went down in my league this past week. Any fantasy veteran is familiar with the strategy of "streaming" pitchers. Sometimes in a head-to-head league, when a few points are on the line, it is in an owner's best interest to snag a pitcher off waivers to help secure a few categories, like IP, W, K, etc. This can lead even the proud owner of a CC, Lincecum or Haren to stoop a bit and grab a Bred Penny or a Bronson Arroyo for a day, only to drop him like day old sashimi the next morning. It is risky, as these pitchers have a strong propensity for getting bombed, but presumably an owner has vetted the situation carefully beforehand.

Last season, streaming got a little out of hand in my league. More than a few all-stars were dropped for the likes of Joe Blanton and Ian Snell during the playoffs, creating quite the headache for the commissioner, your truly, by season's end as I assigned owner's desired keepers and noticed that Ian Kinsler was dropped by an owner who was not returning the following season and then claimed by another owner as a keeper. To simplify the situation, I instituted several rules going into the 2009 season whereby owners participating in the playoffs would not be allowed to keep any players dropped after September 1st and any adds or drops made on or after September 1st would cost $2 apiece. This way, I thought, nobody would be on their way out of the league and cavalierly drop an All-Star to waivers, and by the same token, the playoffs would be a matter of who can best manage the best team to the promised land, rather than who can assemble the greatest waiver wire battalion this side of the Mariners' infield. The Red Sox, for example, did not win 2 World Series in the past 5 years by dropping 2/3 of their roster after being down in the Series and neither should a fantasy league operate in such a way.

Well, back to the situation at hand. As we enter the Fourth of July weekend, my league's bulletin board is littered with the remnants of a massive blow-up between two owners each high in the standings but with very differing opinions about streaming. The setting: one owner had made a 142 roster moves as of June 30, with the next highest totalls belowing to owners with 55 and 51 moves, respectively, and then 18 after that. "Owner Alpha", maker of 11 moves, waged that owner Beta, maker of 142 moves, was manipulating the system to guarantee an advantage in the pitching categories. Owner Beta retorted that streaming is a "time-tested and acceptable strategy in EVERY head-to-head league in the country." Hmm ... Time-tested ... Makes me think of that Kix slogan, "kid-tested, mother-approved." Anyway, what resulted was a war of words that saw me having to post up a reminder of the league rules with a promise that the rules would be reevaluated at season's end.

At the end of the day, owner Alpha made a strong point about what the spirit of fantasy baseball competition ought to be regardless of the actual letter of the law. Regardless of the rules, a fantasy league thrown to this much chance and scheming does begin to ring hollow if the quality of one's roster becomes irrelevant to winning. It begs the question of just how one not tied to a computer 24/7 but with a superior team could find him/herself at a disadvantage all of a sudden. Owner Beta, however, is right to point out that with injuries to stars galore, what is an owner to do but fight and claw their way to a victory in a strategically effective manner, particularly if the rules do not stipulate such a strategy as illicit in any way? All owners, after all, are permitted to make moves to their heart's content, at least free of charge prior to September 1st.

What do you think? What advice would you have for tweaking this system for next season so that the "letter" and "spirit" of the law better coincide? Perhaps I will start by putting up some padded walls next time... if this is the dynamic now, then just wait until the John Lackeys and Roy Oswalts of the league inevitably get dropped for Jose Contreras in the final weeks of September.

Be careful what you wish for. It might just bite you in the arse.

There I was, circa two weeks ago, with the grin of a 5-year-old who had just snagged the missing link to his McDonald's Happy Meal Toy collection. Enjoying a third-place standing at the time in my Yahoo! Sports Plus 12 Team Head-to-Head Fantasy Baseball Keeper league, I was stoked to have dealt the slumping Grady Sizemore for Ryan Howard. I was even more stoked to find that this deal was made just prior to Mr. Sizemore's trip to the disabled list, a bullet I actually did not see coming but am nonetheless happy to have dodged. Don't get me wrong, I don't live for these kinds of trades. I just don't ... well, mind them so much if they drop into my lap. I suppose the moral of the story is that if a player is dealing with a troubling ailment, go ahead and move him before it gets worse ... because once it does, THEN and only then are you truly at fault for passing that hot potato to your fellow owner.

You might think this all seemed fine and dandy at the time, and believe me, it did. You have to ask yourself, how could a team with the likes of Pujols, Pedroia, Rollins, Cabrera, Howard, Soriano, Granderson, Peavy and Billingsley ever lose? Throw in my two all-beef patties (Broxton and Sabathia), and I have one heck of an attack on my hands.

Fantasy baseball is a unique blend of instant gratification with a touch of measured patience. It is one thing to want to win this year. Pardon the boast, but I have won the league the last three years, and not so much on account of skill as some really good fortune and a few savvy deals. If I am going to make a play for a long-term dynasty, I had better take a look at my impending third base vacancy next year. This was my train of thought at the time, and indeed, with Miguel Cabrera moving to first base in fantasy next season, I would be left with three stud 1Bs in Pujols, Cabrera and Howard. Nothing wrong with that, but it's kind of a logjam. It just so happened that another owner had possession of David Wright and Evan Longoria. In no time flat, I sent him an e-mail floating the idea of trading my Howard and Rick Porcello (a recent waiver wire pickup) for his Evan Longoria. It seemed like pie in the sky kind of offer, and the owner admittedly had to think about it over his weekend camping trip.

Things must have been pretty good and trippy for him that weekend, because sure enough, I received a trade proposal that Monday morning with the exact same terms we had discussed. After screening the deal on my favorite message boards, I clicked accept and once again grinned at the prospect of having three of the greatest studs under the age of 30 in Pujols, Cabrera and Longoria. The icing on the cake: Longoria was not kept last year and so he could be a keeper for my team through the 2011 season as opposed to 2010 with the rest of my studs.

They say lightning can't strike twice, right? Yeah, well, that doesn't mean you should dance outside under a tree in the middle of a thunderstorm ... I think I may have done that in the mind's eye of the baseball gods. No sooner did I click accept than a message popped up on Longoria's tag a day later stating he had suffered a tweaked hamstring and would hope to avoid the DL. Being the optimist, I figured this would sort itself out by the time the trade processed. WHAM -- that same 24-hour period, my current third baseman, Miguel Cabrera, pulled his hamstring and was given the similar outlook by trainers and staff. In a similar vein, Milton Bradley suffered a strained calf, Sheffield's knee started acting up, and Mr. Pujols decided to take a 1/12 vacation at the plate over the weekend. To make a long story short, what was a 14-3 lead on Friday turned into a 12-4 loss by Sunday night.

At the time of the posting, my team is once again down 12-4 and the outlook is not great for turning that around this week. The moral of the story is NOT necessarily to refrain from trading players with mild ailments, because if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, well it sure isn't a golden retriever. The advice is simply to make such moves with your eyes open. Karma's a bitch, and a very jealous and vindictive one at that. Should this happen to you, keep your head up, click your heels together twice, and think happy thoughts.

If it's any consolation, I would have been no better off with Ryan Howard's 3-15 over the weekend.

Happy hunting, my fellow roto warriors.

--- Pedro.