Fantasy Baseball: How to Find Money

Have you ever found money?

There are two ways that I have found money:

"1. On the street, coins (mostly pennies) and the occasional dollar!2. Putting on a pair pants or a jacket that I hadn’t worn in a while. Low and behold, there was a five spot or even a saw buck. On one glorious occasion, there was even a 20 dollar bill!!"

However I would like to point out that technically the latter was not really found money. The money was mine already, and I am guessing (though I can’t remember) that it was missed when not around.

This can relate to fantasy baseball of course. After all, this isn’t an economics website, I am writing about this for a reason. At times people can stumble upon stats that would fall into one of these two categories. For the sake of your end goal (the total amount of stats that you need to win), you need to truly know the difference between actual found money and money you had planned around already.

I am a huge advocate of setting goals and benchmarks for stats throughout the season. You need to have a reasonable end goal with a solid map for getting there. You also need to keep track so you know whether or not you are on track or need to switch your focus at all. I mapped out such plan in a couple posts about using your bench.

There are many ways to achieve your goals and you need to stay the course!
Let’s use my goals set from the roto article for this article as well:

In that same article I talked about how I aim to achieve my goals with just my required active hitters.  I recommend to all playing in roto style because it is so very frustrating leaving stats on the bench.  Pitching stats are much easier to plan for as rotations are a set order which makes things very nice to plan around.

Okay let’s play a game. We will call it found or not found?!

You typically use you bench for for players like Robert Andino or Sean Rodriguez, guys that have a lot of position eligibility. That way, when guys have a game off, you can easily sub these players in and gain stats. You are on track offensively and you realize you are losing a little ground in pitching, so you now plan to drop Andino for an extra pitcher. Sounds good, right?

Well, let’s say that the pitchers available today are too risky.  Both Andino and your regular starting shortstop have the day off.  You decide to drop Andino and roll the dice on Zach Cozart then pick up a pitcher tomorrow.  That night Cozart goes 2/4 with a home run and 3 RBI.

Found or not found?!  Take your time.

I’ll wait.

Almost ready?

Okay.

FOUND – You were not counting on Cozart’s stats. Therefore they are just like a dollar in the grocery store parking lot.

Okay, you are streaming in guys all season, but are still just a tad short of the pace you set. So, you pick up Trevor Bauer for his first start. He kills it, 7 innings, 7 ks, 1 earned run, takes the win, giving up only 7 hits 1 walk. You are now right on pace for your pitching goals.

Found or not found?

I am humming the Jeopardy theme to myself right now.

NOT FOUND – This was your plan. Even if you feel you got lucky with this gamble, you set goals and you know your pace to achieve those goals. This just helped you on the way, so it was just a $20 in the pocket of your rain coat.

Okay, you are on track offensively, but barely. You just lost Troy Tulowitzki, so you DL him. In his place, you pick up Zack Cozart and he starts to hit well in place of Tulo.  You maintain your pace in offensively.

Found or not found?!

Think long and hard about this one, this is tricky one.

Ready or not, here we come.

NOT FOUND – The reality is with Tulo out, you NEED those stats from Cozart. As great as it is to not miss a step with a star out of the line up to DL, it is not found if it is needed.

Okay, last one.

You are behind in all offensive categories except steals. We’ll be nice and say that struggling stars such as Albert Pujols and Eric Hosmer, and Alex Gordon haven’t done a lot for you at the plate. You have a nice lead in pitching because of sweet finds like James McDonald and Tommy Milone. So you cut bait on the now injured Jaime Garcia, picking up Daniel Murphy because of his position eligibility. He starts to heat up again and you are able to move him into your line up on days off for other guys.

Found or not found?!

Don’t mess this one up. This is it. No matter how good or bad you’ve done, it always feels good to end on a good note.

Okay, are you ready? Deep breaths.

FOUND – This one is tricky and is based on the premise that Gordon and Pujols are going to balance out (somewhat) by the end of the season. With guys like those you can more or less count on that. So Daniel Murphy is just gonna provide a little cushion for the time being.

I hope this was educational, and helps you keep your team in perspective for the remainder of the season.  Here is to finding some money on the street the rest of the way!