The effect of the "opener" on fantasy baseball

[harmon]

As for the effect on fantasy baseball, being in a league with 6 SP's and 5 RP's on each roster, it is a bit of a mess. Our executive committee is currently considering rule changes to make openers remain RP's and "followers" (and Yarbrough is the poster child) remain SP's, but we haven't decided on anything yet. It is tricky to come up with a rule for followers that doesn't sweep regular long-relievers in with it.

Could you go with an IP/Appearances type of criteria? Maybe anyone with an average of 4 innings would be a SP?

I guess this doesn't deal with your long relievers concern however.

Could you just drop the 6 and 5 requirement and go with a minimum IP instead?

[DMT]

Could you go with an IP/Appearances type of criteria? Maybe anyone with an average of 4 innings would be a SP?

I guess this doesn't deal with your long relievers concern however.

Could you just drop the 6 and 5 requirement and go with a minimum IP instead?

Or just eliminate SP/RP altogether just as our forefathers intended.

[rhd]

Altho the "opener" strategy is just now being implemented in MLB, the concept has been around for a while, at least since 2007 which is when "The Book" by Tom Tango, et al. came out. One of the main bases for the concept is that a team's best hitters will hit 1-5 in the lineup. So if you can have a quality reliever face these hitters the first time and then bring in the "real" starter after that you can get more effective pitching since the starter will be facing the weaker 6-9 hitters 3 times instead of the 1-5 hitters.

In order for this strategy to work, you need enough quality relievers to spare one of them to use at the start of the game. If you dont have enough, then it's probably not going to be very effective. The teams that would benefit by this would be teams that dont have 5 very good starters in their rotation. So, probably most teams could benefit by using this for their #4 and #5 whereas they may not need it for their #1-#3 starters.

Of course, you could get the same benefit by just taking your starter out after he's been thru the order twice, but he may not have completed 5 IP by this time so using the opener strategy instead would allow him to be eligible for the win.

I really dont know what effect this will have on roto. It might not have much effect at all. I dont plan to alter my draft strategy because of it.

[Moonlight J]

re: going 1-3 or 1-4, I guess another element is, if my team is beating up on the other side's pitching I'd probably rather let a Jake Odorizzi throw 6 or 7 innings as opposed to burning up my pen; so I wouldn't want to wait too long before bringing in the starter (if that's the plan, as opposed to an all-bullpen outing).

That's the problem with him in particular; he gives up a lot of foul balls because he only has one true swing and miss pitch. If you managed Odorizzi so that he never faced the 19th batter of the game, he may only qualify for a win in 10 of those starts. He was the king of the 30+ pitch first inning while in TB

[joncarlos]

Yarborough is the poster child because he won 16 games. But the Rays were a good team. And he might be their only "bulk guy" this year - I'm not sure how things will play out beyond Snell and Morton. Does Glasnow get an opener? IS Glasnow an opener?

What will be more interesting is whether the other teams that dabbled with openers will do it in 2016. Specifically, the Twins, A's and Brewers. Jason highlights Odorizzi as a guy who could benefit. But the rest of the Twins pitchers are probably unaffected (Berrios/Gibson too good, others too bad). Milwaukee could be really interesting depending on what they do with guys like Woodruff, Burnes, Freddy Peralta, etc.

[revo]

Does the "Opener" Help or Hurt in Fantasy Baseball?

With now possibly 6 teams employing an "opener" strategy in 2019, how much will this help or hurt fantasy baseball? Presumably, a couple of SPs on all of these teams will continue to start as normal, but the pitchers who previously manned those remaining slots will now get shifted into another role. And these pitchers usually were on the non-rosterable side, for the most part.

But also, presumably, these pitchers may be in line for more wins, as they may clear the 5th inning more than they usually would have (to note, Ryan Yarbrough, TB's "next-up" extraordinaire, had 16 wins).

OTOH, you won't exactly be sure when these pitchers will actually be employed, so you won't be able to use an 'upcoming starts' calendar. Furthermore, if your league distinguishes between SPs and RPs, you may not be in position to use them at all.

So is this strategy, for however long it will be in use, good or bad for fantasy baseball?

[madducks]

http://forum.rotojunkiefix.com/showt...ntasy-baseball

[revo]

http://forum.rotojunkiefix.com/showt...ntasy-baseball

Doh!

[joncarlos]

Yeah, nobody really wants to draft the openers, but the followers could have a lot of value. If you know who they are, that is.

[cavebird]

Todd Zola is right here. Despite the third time through penalty, etc., it is the platooning that causes this. It counters the platoon strategy (low money teams messing with low money teams who platoon, mostly, even though it started with the Rays v. Angels---a ROOGY (Romo) vs. Simmons (I think), Trout, and Upton before Yarbrough). It is smart. With limited rosters and the ability of teams to have two possible followers for a game, they start a guy who is obviously an opener and the other team has to guess which platoon guys to start. I haven't seen any stats on how many times the "follower" has been different-handed than the opener, but I would not be surprised if it is 100% for true follower games as opposed to bullpen games.

[joncarlos]

Todd Zola is right here. Despite the third time through penalty, etc., it is the platooning that causes this. It counters the platoon strategy (low money teams messing with low money teams who platoon, mostly, even though it started with the Rays v. Angels---a ROOGY (Romo) vs. Simmons (I think), Trout, and Upton before Yarbrough). It is smart. With limited rosters and the ability of teams to have two possible followers for a game, they start a guy who is obviously an opener and the other team has to guess which platoon guys to start. I haven't seen any stats on how many times the "follower" has been different-handed than the opener, but I would not be surprised if it is 100% for true follower games as opposed to bullpen games.

Both Romo and ... that other guy.. Stanek ... are righties. Yarbrough and Beeks are lefties. I didn't know Yarbrough was lefty until today.

The funny thing is that most of the other times I can remember, the follower was the same handed guy. The Twins seemed like they used mostly righties as their openers and followers. The A's too.

For the Rays, it was more about the platoon split. Romo had a monster split and even if they followed him with another righty, that guy couldn't handle Trout like Romo could.