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Subject: Pitcher Trade Strategy -- A Comprehensive Intro.
Posted by: Madman
- [146191423] Thu, Feb 15, 14:50
A new season dawns, new managers will join the fray. I have two goals for this post. First, to revisit traditional pitcher trade strategy so that everyone can be on the same page throughout the year. Secondly, I took the liberty of tweaking the language in the description of a Guru-rotation. Perhaps it will help give people some intuition how the guru-rotation calculations work. But there are other ways of explaining it. I wanted to see it this approach was clearly or more confusing. Thirdly, there are some tweaks and minor refinements to the ideas of efficiency that I wanted to mention.
So, if you're a SW vet., skim through the parts that you're familiar with and jump to the juicy stuff. If you're a newbie, start from teh top, and I hope it helps.
Trading Pitchers Efficiently
What is the value of a pitcher trade? How should you trade in order to maximize your point total? There are a variety of trading patterns and strategies available to you, but some are better than others. More troubling, it has been very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of a strategy such as “Randro” (trade back and forth between RANdy Johnson to PeDRO Martinez to get all of their starts from a single pitcher slot). The success of “Randro” in 2000 seems to contradict the more traditional “Guru-Rotation” (A strategy defined by the Guru in the spring of 1998 in which you save 5 trades and rotate between 5 pitchers who pitch on consecutive days). A “Guru-Rotation” seems to be mathematically more efficient, but Randro was the strategy of choice for most managers throughout the 2000 baseball season.
Even more perplexing, when should you have used Randro? When should you have used a Guru-Rotation? What was the true cost of Randro?
What you’ll find below are answers to these questions. By the end, you’ll have a new method for evaluating the effectiveness of a pitching strategy, and the tools to judge for yourself exactly how many Smallworld Points (SWP’s) Randro costs you relative to a Guru-Rotation.
To begin with, we need to talk about basic strategies. I want to talk about three different strategies: the “Vacation Strategy”, the “Guru-Rotation” and “Randro”.
The Vacation Strategy
The simplest of all strategies is to go on vacation and do absolutely nothing. In this strategy, you spend no trades but still accumulate SWP’s. Specifically, you have 5 pitchers on your roster, so you’ll gain all the points associated with those 5 pitchers. Everyone with me so far?
The Guru-Rotation
Let’s say that Kevin Brown is on your roster, and Kevin pitches on Sunday and Friday this week. This means that you’re getting no production from Kevin on Monday through Thursday!
Well, a Guru-Rotation solves this dilemma. Take Kevin Brown, and sell him for a pitcher who goes on Monday. Sell that pitcher for another who goes on Tuesday. Repeat for Wednesday and Thursday. You’ve now gotten a total of 5 starts from that single pitcher’s slot! You can continue this process indefinitely (at least until you run out of trades).
How many starts did you gain by spending all these trades? Well, it’s useful to compare the Guru-Rotation strategy to the Vacation Strategy. For simplicity, assume every pitcher pitches every 5 days. Obviously, with the Vacation Strategy, for any given time period, you’d get all the points from 5 different starters on your team. How many points would you get from a Guru-Rotation? Well, you still have 5 pitchers to begin with, so that’s 5 starters worth of points. Further, you gain starts from the 4 additional starters that you’ve managed to squeeze in between Brown’s starts. This means that a Guru-Rotation will net you all the points from 9 different pitchers! This comes at a cost, however, of 1 trade per day (remember, you make a trade every day).
So, let’s see here. It takes 5 days to complete a “rotation,” and you gain 4 starts in this time period. This means that you gain 4 starts for every 5 trades. You can prove that, under the assumption that every pitcher starts every 5 days, that this is the highest number of starts per trade that you can get from any strategy – 0.80 is our magic number.
Randro
So, what if you trade between Randy and Pedro? The logic is strikingly similar. Under this strategy, you keep 4 starters on your staff at all times. In addition, you have either Randy or Pedro in your last pitching slot. This means that you are effectively pitching a 6 man staff. But notice that this trade strategy isn’t as costly as a Guru-rotation, since it only takes 2 trades per every 5 day period (one to switch to Pedro, one to switch to RJ).
Therefore, relative to the Vacation Strategy, you are gaining 1 start per 2 trades – a 0.50 ratio.
And here is where the fun comes into plan. A Guru-rotation’s start/trade ratio is 60% higher than Randro. Does that mean that a Guru-rotation is 60% more efficient than Randro? Not necessarily. And here is where the real fun begins.
Not All Starts are Equal
Scenario 1: Unlimited Cash
Here’s where money is going to start coming into play. At first, let’s assume that you have an infinite amount of wealth. Further, let’s assume that you spend it rationally, and that you can rank 9 different pitchers (correctly) in order of their effectiveness.
If you are employing the “Vacation Strategy”, clearly you’ll buy the 5 best pitchers in the game, pack the mini-van and head off to Ohio. Easy enough.
Well, if you Randro, as we said before, this is equivalent to starting 6 pitchers. If money is no object, clearly, you’ll put the 6 best ones on your staff. Now, notice that you’re spending 2 trades to gain each additional start. But which start is the “additional” one? Aha! Pedro is surely on your “vacation strategy” team. Therefore, this additional start doesn’t come from Pedro, it comes from the 6th best pitcher!
To finish this line of reasoning off, let’s look at a Guru-Rotation. In this strategy, you have the 9 best pitchers going for you. This means that the additional starts are coming from the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th best pitchers in the game. And that’s only if you’re lucky enough to have a 5-day period in which you can rotate to one of the best 9 pitchers on each day! Therefore, it’s very likely you’ll be forced to choose between a pitcher whose not in the top 9 versus lowering the efficiency of your guru-rotation. And the plot thickens. For simplicity, let’s ignore the scheduling problem, and just focus on the fact that you’re using the 6-9th best pitchers.
The goal of all this trading efficiency business is to maximize SWP’s. Therefore, we need to know exactly how good/bad these 9 pitchers are when comparing the strategies. Let’s first assume that the 6th through 9th pitchers are all indentical – let’s say they give you 60 SWP/start. In this case, what the value of a pitcher trade?
Well, if you Randro, each trade is worth 30 SWP (60 * 0.50 – take the SWP/start figure times the start/trade ratio for the strategy). If you do a Guru-Rotation, each trade is worth 48 SWP. Notice that 48 is 60% higher than 30, and we have achieved the exact same figure we hypothesized before – namely that a Guru-rotation is 60% more efficient than Randro.
But, what if the 6th through 9th pitchers are not all identical? What if the 6th pitcher gives you 60 SWP/start, but the 7th through 9th pitchers only give you 50? Clearly, the value of a Randro trade is still 30 SWP. Now, however, the value of a Guru-rotation trade falls. In this case, a Guru-Rotation nets you 60+50+50+50 SWP at a cost of 5 trades, or 210 SWP/5 trades, or 42 SWP/trade. Under these assumptions, a Guru-rotation is only 40% more efficient than a Randro trade.
So, does this mean that a Guru-rotation is always somewhere between 0 and 60% more efficient than a Randro trade? Yes! I won’t prove this (kind of boring), but let’s look at another scenario that should convince you.
Scenario 2: Imposing Budget Constraints
A popular way to construct a pitching staff under a budget constraint is to have 1 extremely expensive pitcher (say, Pedro Martinez), and 4 cheaper pitchers that you hope are very under-priced. This is a very reasonable and successful strategy. But what are the implications of pitcher trade evaluation under this scenario?
Suddenly, you now have two motivations for making a trade. First, you can make money which can then be turned into better players (and more points) later in the season. I’m going to ignore this portion of a trade for simplicity, and mention a way it can be addressed in the summary section.
The second motivation is to gain points directly. Now consider the “additional starts” that each strategy nets. Randro does indeed net you an additional Pedro-quality start now. Therefore, the value of a Randro trade with budget constraints exceeds the value of a Randro trade from scenario 1. A Guru-Rotation, however, also nets you a Pedro-quality start. Furthermore, it nets you 3 other starts. Presumably, Randro adds the 2nd best pitcher in the game (you start with the best and 4 others in your “Vacation Strategy”). A Guru-Rotation adds the 2nd-5th best pitchers in the game (ideally). Only if the 2nd – 5th best pitchers were all identical would a Guru-Rotation be exactly 60% better than Randro. Clearly, this has not been the case in the past. To the extent that the 2nd best pitcher is better than the 3rd-5th, then this gap between the two strategies closes. Which leads us to the grand finale.
How to Evaluate a Pitcher Trade
The hard-core gurupies in the audience may have picked up on the fact that I’m tweaking the language that’s been used a bit in the past. Specifically, I’m talking as much about adding starters to a staff as I am about adding specific starts. This has been an intentional transformation of the language because I think it helps illustrate the fundamental underlying logic – namely that the quality of the starter (i.e., starts) is of critical importance to evaluating a trade. Furthermore, this transformation of the language makes it easy to see, in my opinion, what the gains and losses are (i.e., under certain circumstances discussed above, you may gain all the starts from the 6th best starter under Randro, you don’t necessarily gain Pedro OR Randy’s starts).
Therefore, this now should make the solution rather clear. To determine the value of a trade, look at the value of the marginal pitcher. For example, if you are Randro’ing, who would be your 5 starters without trading? It’s the 6th starter that you are gaining. Let’s say that 6th pitcher is a 60 SWP/start pitcher. The value of a trade would then be 30 SWP, before considering money.
To adjust for cash, let’s say that your “vacation strategy” staff would cost $10m more (i.e., maybe you’d go for a THM). Well, that $10m would give you some SWP/day if it was spent on hitting; add this amount to the SWP/trade figure. For example, if you would get 10 SWP/day by having $10m more spent on your SWP roster, then add roughly 25 SWP/trade (you make 2 trades every 5 days . . .).
Summary
You shouldn’t blindly use the SWP/game totals for Pedro to determine the value of a trade under Randro. Furthermore, it is very unlikely that a Guru-Rotation is 60% more efficient than Randro, even before taking into account the cash gains from Randro that are impossible to replicate under a Guru-Rotation. If you actually want to know how much more efficient a Guru-Rotation is over Randro, compare the 4 pitchers you gain from a Guru-Rotation to the 1 pitcher you gain under Randro. |
| 1 | Wammie
ID: 20039259
Thu, Feb 15, 15:05
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I started playing sw baseball last year, and reading the boards mid season, so I have heard most of this, but not all spelled out like this. This is good for all new people.
Anyway, the guru-rotation is great, but it requires 5 trades, which is going to take 2 weeks to aquire. so you have no pitcher trades for 9 of the 14 days in that 2 week period. the randro does not allow you to stock pile trades, but you do get the full benefit every week(except when they fall together) so what is the idea for a one week plan, randro vs guru-rotation rather than your weekly comparison?
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| 2 | Madman
ID: 146191423
Thu, Feb 15, 15:18
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I don't think you should really worry about 1 week plans. The 7 day period is arbitrary, and it just leads to confusion and/or inefficiency when people focus on it exclusively. The idea is to have the most points by the end of the season. That's the only thing that matters. The actual timing of trade distribution shouldn't be an issue to a well-managed team (i.e., don't be a trade-aholic!)
One thing that I didn't mention is that you should ALWAYS have at least one trade in reserve to give you flexibility in case of injury. Especially early in the season. This can easily be seen by an example.
Let's say you have a $10m pitcher get hurt immediately after you spent your last trade to rotate into him. This means that you'll have to go several days without selling. First, you're going to lose a lot of money, which (if it happens early in the season), will could translate into hundreds of SWP's. Secondly, you may actually lose a start, or at least fractions of a start.
Therefore, if you have a pitcher trade in reserve, if used, that trade is easily worth 100+ SWP in that it reduces your losses. Given the fact that you WILL have a pitcher hurt during the year (guaranteed), clearly the most useful and valuable trade is one in which you escape the damage of an unforeseen injury.
Therefore, never run out of trades. And if you have to run out of trades, do it toward the end of the week! Only after you have the injury aspect of trades covered should you even worry about any of the rest of this.
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| 3 | StLCards
ID: 2504849
Thu, Feb 15, 15:40
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If you analyze the starts per week using 3 available trades per week, then the effeciency is going to change and I think Randro looks better. To relate this to evaluating SW pitching effeciency doesn't it have to be based on a week and in context of the available trades per week?
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| 4 | Wammie
ID: 20039259
Thu, Feb 15, 15:48
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That is what i was getting to StLCards. Maybe I didn't say it clearly though. I agree with what you are saying.
Madman I also agree with you,but I have to admit I am a trade-aholic!
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| 5 | Madman
ID: 146191423
Thu, Feb 15, 15:54
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Hmmm. Let me say this. I think I should add a quick comment about cash accumulation.
If you can earn $1m in trades this week, that's obviously better than earning $1m in trades next week.
I never got around to tacking on the value of the cash gains in making a trade (I mentioned this is scenario 2 when I said there were two motivations for trading). Therefore, let me do this now.
If a trade will earn you $1m, then simply turn that $1m into SWP/day, and calculate how many days you can benefit from this $1m. Tack that on to the value of the trade.
When you add in the cash-gaining potential of Randro, then this will ALSO close the gap between Guru-Rotations and Randro.
And, when you do this, you should indeed realize that I can Randro this week, and compare that to the gains from a Guru-rotation next week. The impact of the weekly distribution of trades is felt by the fact that the cash gains from Randro are immediately realized, and result in higher SWP totals from the rest of the roster for a longer period of time.
But, I repeat, you don't need to look at things in a 7 day cycle to do this. Simply figure out when you would Randro and compare that to when you would Guru-rotate. And calculate the impact of the cash improvements accordingly. . .
Late in the season with All-Star rosters, this will become a meaningless distinction (see Scenario 1 -- unlimited budget constraints).
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| 6 | Cornell AllStar
ID: 5661130
Thu, Feb 15, 18:03
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Madman, unlimited budget won't come late in the season this year...Try June.
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| 7 | Wammie
ID: 437541618
Thu, Feb 15, 21:22
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It might be June with these prices!
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| 8 | quietriot0
ID: 157442319
Thu, Feb 15, 21:53
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Madman, thanks for a very interesting post that should familiarize newcomers with Randro. However, your math is just plain wrong. I'll explain where you went wrong later in the post since many people might not be interested. But first, I'd like to explain Randro as I see it.
Let me start with a simple example. If you use 5 trades Randro-ing 5 times, it looks like this.
RJ--Trade1-->PM--Trade2-->RJ--Trade3-->PM--Trade4-->RJ--Trade5-->PM
You just picked up 5 extra games for 5 trades! That clearly isn't a .50 game/trade ratio. In this example, we found out that with Randro...
1 trade = 1 start.
But will this always hold up? Yes. As long as
a) you trade out of a pitcher the day after he pitches(or at least before the pitcher you buy pitches if you want to get technical).
b) the pitcher you buy pitches before the pitcher you traded out of does
But what about the trades not used by Randro? Randro will leave you with some extra trades. If you do have the leisure of extra trades, you can use them on your other pitchers and still gain a game. Just make sure the trade meets the two criteria.
RANDRO has the highest game/trade ratio possible. In fact, every strategy that meets the above criteria a and b will have a game/trade ratio of 1. A 1.0 ratio is the highest game/trade ratio possible for all intensive purposes, though freakish schedule anomolies(not really worth considering) might technically let you gain more than one game. Furthermore, Randro beats all other pitcher trading strategies simply because Randro has a higher point/game ratio.
Where your math went wrong(not really important, skip over the rest if you aren't interested):
You restricted the time frame, which just doesn't work since there are limited trades. The trade that you used to get back into Pedro Martinez doesn't gain you a game in THAT WEEK, but it will the next week. You didn't count the game gained the following week, hence the ratio of 0.5. Even if you do assume a person wastes the last trade(which i see no reason why it might be the case), Randro's game/trade ratio still approaches 1 as the time period increases.
I hope this cleared everything up. If it does't I'd be glad to field some questions.
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| 9 | ksoze
ID: 001731
Thu, Feb 15, 22:15
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qr,
You're forgetting that if you hadn't used a single trade you'd still get 3 RJ starts and can't count them as gained starts cause you'd have had them anyway.
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| 10 | quietriot0
ID: 157442319
Thu, Feb 15, 22:16
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On another more general pitching strategy note. I plan on Randro-ing and trading my other pitchers only when I think they suck or a price train warrants it. Of course, I'll still try to pick up the extra game with the extra trade, but I'm trading not exclusively to pick up the game, but instead to get a better pitcher. This way, I hope I won't run out of trades and will maintain a solid pitching staff
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| 11 | James K Polk
ID: 4211362123
Thu, Feb 15, 22:26
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Madman's math is not wrong. You only gain one game for every two trades you spend in the Randro strategy. If you have Pedro and go Pedro > Randy > Pedro, you've spent two trades and have three starts to show for it. If you simply hold Pedro, however, spending no trades, you still get the two Pedro starts. Therefore, you've spent two trades to add the Randy start in between the Pedro starts you would have gotten anyway.
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| 14 | JKaye
ID: 4711592917
Fri, Feb 16, 01:02
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quietriot says: "RANDRO has the highest game/trade ratio possible." You could not be more wrong. Randro has a very LOW game/trade ratio. And BTW--saying that Madman's math is wrong will be an incorrect statement 99.99% of the time. He is one of the smartest people you will encounter on the boards.
Pitching rotations have been discussed a lot on the boards. One strategy which Guru discussed last year that many overlooked(including myself) is one that gets you .8 efficiency while burning 2 trades per week.
I have a feeling Randro will not be as successful this year, simply due to the fact that I don't think Randy will be as dominant, or anywhere close to it. That said, a new strategy is required.
Here is my idea for 2001 pitching rotations and strategy:
First off, prices are very low. If they are not changed, the possibility of drafting Pedro along with 4 midrange, reliable starters(or 3 and 1 cheapie if you prefer) is possible. I suggest not worrying about $$ from pitchers at all(i.e. jumping from Durbin to Yan to Penny, etc.) and make all the money you need from hitters. Due to low prices, you will need less money, and with 3 hitter trades I feel you can make more than enough to quickly upgrade your lineup to studs before the ASB.
Without dedicating any pitcher trades to chasing cheapie trains, instead imploy rotations from the start. A opening draft could look like this: Pedro, Clemens, Hudson, Millwood and Zito. Those are 5 pretty good pitchers and with the number of cheapie hitters that will be available this lineup of 4 underpriced midrange pitchers is possible. Without having to worry too much about trading pitchers due to poor play or $$, you are free to rotate from early on.
How to rotate? I suggest using 2 methods. After a couple of weeks of banking some trades, and figuring out who is worth rotating into at the start of the year, start using 2 Guru-methods, and get high efficiency for the entire year. Method 1) Pitcher starts Wed. Rotate into another pitcher Thurs and again on Fri and hold until Wed. Begin process again the following week. Method 2) Every so often, when you have enough trades, conduct a 5 man rotation using 5 trades to pick up 4 starts.
We'll talk much more about this I am sure but this is my initial plan.
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| 15 | quietriot0
ID: 157442319
Fri, Feb 16, 07:20
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I think I see what you guys are saying. Oops! Let me take a brief rambling look now, even though i don't have time to think about it too much. I just still can't see the Guru-rotation being any more efficient on 4 pitcher trades a week. If you are rotating the top 10 players in the guru rotation you'd still have to trade back into the pitchers you traded out of in the Guru-rotation. That would give you the same efficiency as Randro, or the .50 game/trade ratio. Even if you don't, with finite trades, you aren't gaining games, rather days. If the pitcher you trade into pitches in 4 days instead of 5, you gained 1 day. It would takes 5 such trades to actually gain a game.
I'm quite possibly wrong, but I just don't see the guru-rotation being that much more efficient. As far as I can see right now, my math is only wrong in that the Randro will give you .5 game/trade ratio. But the guru rotation flipping back and forth between players will give you the same ratio. The guru rotation without flipping back and forth will give you a marginally improved ratio, unless you are trading into a new pitcher at each slot everyday.
NOT flipping back and forth b/w pitchers should be viewed in terms of gaining days, not games. The days have to accumulate before you can truly say you gained a full game.
Let's say you use the guru-rotation once and traded all of your pitchers for pitchers that pitch in 4 days. Did you really gain 1 start? No, you gained one day at each starters slot. The day after the pitcher you traded into pitches, the pitcher you traded out of pitches. You gained 1 game after one day, but the day after you are back to gaining no game.
Given the limited trades, the accumulation may be noticable, but it won't be a huge improvement over Randro. To gain more than 1 day for a trade and you'll have to trade into a pitcher that pitches in less than 4 games. It sounds feasible, but you'll also have to use another trade in that many days. You won't have the trades. The gain seems to be easily offset by Randro's points/game. I don't know, let me know what you think or specifically where i'm wrong.... I'll check back later
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| 17 | Sam
ID: 204251611
Fri, Feb 16, 07:59
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Madman - Great post, very insightful & an excellent refresher ready for the start of the baseball season, Thanks!! :)
JKaye - I like the 2 Guru-method rotations you mention above for the 2001 season, both look very efficient if used correctly. I was just wondering - what was the guru-method you refered to at the start of ur post in which you get .8 efficiency while burning 2 trades a week? I can't remember that one - Cheers!
Sam.
:o)
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| 18 | Wammie
ID: 20039259
Fri, Feb 16, 08:34
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it is true that it is not the most games/trade using Randro, but those guys almost never get rocked. they were last year at least heads and tails above the rest. one of their starts is worth two starts of any one else, because they almost always scored 100 swp. and they almost never scored negative pts. everyone's fear.
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| 19 | beastiemiked
ID: 54181512
Fri, Feb 16, 09:46
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Well as much as people like to argue about it, Madman is correct about the effiency of Randro(it sticks compared to other rotations).
That being said, it still can be a healthy strategy employed if 2 things fall into place:
If the money swings are as big as they were last year for Randro, you could essentially have enough money by June or July to use the Guru Rotation the rest of the year, and not have any concern about money the remaining 3 or 4 months.
If Dro and RJ pitch A LOT better than other stud pitchers. By Randroing you can eliminate your mistakes of picking a pitcher thats ends up getting a negative outing.
And even if both these don't fall directly into place it still can work(I Randroed until the last 2 or 3 weeks of the season, long after the guru rotation came out)
Sorry about the rambling but, hey, I have nothing better to do at school.
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| 20 | THE ART OF MONK
ID: 551191210
Fri, Feb 16, 10:13
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What about closers? I felt that last year closers were not producing so well at the begining of the season but at the end the season they were producing nicely. Randro trading was too vaulable money wise, not to do. I think I will lock up a good closer at the begining of the season and only have to trade four pitcher slots. I am unsure about the closer, it will depend on the price. I may go with rivera.
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| 21 | JeffG
ID: 40451227
Fri, Feb 16, 10:50
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This thread is a great read. It is good to see the baseball people again.
Every year I've played SW Baseball, they have made some tweaks to the scoring formula and the allocation of trades.
Choosing closers or starters, and deciding a trade strategy is going to depend alot on how Small World defines these for the 2001 season.
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| 22 | Wammie
ID: 20039259
Fri, Feb 16, 12:01
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Closers are good in the Randro, because they are not likely to score negative points. sure they might blow a save here and there, but a lot of the saves, are the easy ones, come in to start the 9th. get an inning, a save, and hopefully a K or two. minus a couple points for a hit or BB, but a cheap stopper is good to have. a cheap stopper on a good team is better to have. I would not spend very much money on my closer though. For me, the closer is a very conservative aproach at filling a pitching slot. it saves you from getting Ramon Martinezed like a lot of us were at the beginning of last year.
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| 23 | Ender
ID: 170131510
Fri, Feb 16, 12:35
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qr, I think you misunderstood the guru rotation. You are not rotating each slot to a new pitcher. You are holding 4 pitchers and rotating in the 5th spot only. There fore you are gaining 4 extra starts from the same slot as oppposed to simply holding the same pitcher until his next start. The reason it doesn't work out to a perfect 1.0 efficiency is that on the 5th day the original pitcher in that slot pitches again. Even if you don't go back to that same player, you are still only going to get the same start (albeit from a different pitcher) you would have had by holding. SO you use 5 trades to get 4 extra starts. That's the 0.8 you see Madman using.
Of course, as Madman pointed out, the 0.8 is only from a games started perspective. that efficiency is diminished by the quality of those starts.
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| 24 | Mike D
ID: 35141315
Fri, Feb 16, 13:25
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I may not play Baseball this year, and regardless am still concentrating on Basketball. But, I just wanted to complement Madman on a tremendous initial post. It's a freakin' tutorial. Nice to see you around, Madman.
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| 25 | Madman
ID: 146191423
Fri, Feb 16, 13:28
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Wow. This is great. I see a bunch of people are getting revved up for the new season.
Ender 23 says what I was going to about qr's question about the guru-rotation.
JKaye's initial plan seesm pretty sound. I'm a bit reluctant to believe that SW is really going to stick with these prices . . . I definitely like the idea of drafting some pitchers that will allow you to stock-pile some trades. I would add that personally, when I guru-rotate, I project pitching rotations into the future, and look for a 5-day stretch in which I'll have the 5 best match-ups. Sometimes, this means planning well in advance.
Finally, if you are in a forced-sell situation, efficiency gains are tremendous, so if you can squeeze even a partial guru-rotation after an injury or whatever, then this can be an extremely effective strategy.
My gut (not Ender's) says that even though there's all this analysis that a straight-guru-rotation isn't THAT much better than a straight-randro situation, the roster flexibility that a guru-rotation can give you, coupled with the ability to expend trades (and gain starts) rapidly and efficiently after injuries, still makes a guru-rotation a great strategy. Cash allowing, of course.
One comment in general -- the effect of not being able to Guru-rotate every week. If you have unlimited cash, this is almost irrelevant. You can buy and hold the 5 best starters. You can then add the 6th-9th best starters (or the best you can find given the constraints of a rotation) every now and again when you have enough trades.
With Randro and unlimited cash, you get 100% of the starts from the top 6 pitchers. Therefore, the only cost from a guru-rotation is that you'll miss some starts from the 6th best pitcher to gain starts from 7th-9th. This isn't too big of a deal, IMO. Especially not when compared with the difficulty of finding a set of 5 days in which 4 unique good pitchers line up nicely.
But just like in my initial analysis, the tighter the cap situation, the closer the gap between Randro and a guru-rotation.
At any rate, I wanted to keep a low profile for a bit, and see how the thread develops. Oops!
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| 26 | Stuck in the Sixties
ID: 301391614
Fri, Feb 16, 14:52
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Since at the beginning of the season, even at these reduced prices, dollars are very much a part of the equation, when does it make sense to start a Guru-rotation. Immediately upon gaining 5 trades or at some other point?
Thanks from a mathematically-challenged Gurupie!
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| 29 | azdbacker
ID: 230212320
Fri, Feb 16, 15:03
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Great thread Madman, can't wait for the season:)
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| 30 | Donky
ID: 55442220
Fri, Feb 16, 15:50
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I just skimmed the text above and did not see mention of the most efficient rotation which is a two start per trade system. For example on Monday you would have say pedro pitching in slot 1. He pitches again on Saturday. Trade out on Sunday to say Mussina. Let him pitch twice. And trade out on the Friday. And so on. If you want Pedro and Randy to always be on your roster then use them in another slot. This system allows you to pick quality pitchers and pick among matchups and also maximizes trades per trade....Im not a math guy but this is probably the system referred to above as being the .80 efficiency system.
The problem with this system last year was that with Randro making so much money it was impossible to do both and Randro had the big monetary upside I didnt use this system til late in the year when money was a nonfactor in my decision making process.. This year things could be different and this system may be the way to go all year.
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| 31 | azdbacker
ID: 230212320
Fri, Feb 16, 16:07
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Wow, a triple post - sorry about that.
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| 32 | Madman
ID: 146191423
Fri, Feb 16, 18:45
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Donky -- I'm not sure I followed your system. There are some special cases where you can beat the .80 starts / trade. I can't tell if you're talking about one of those, or if your idea is like quietriot0's. From what I understand, you seem to be saying that you'd trade out of Pedro BEFORE his Monday start. You'd do this to gain two Mussina starts. Before Pedro's Sat. start, you'd trade out of Mussina and back into Pedro.
IFFFF this is what you are saying, then this is basically like Randro. You're actually not gaining two starts -- you're giving up 1 Pedro start in exchange for 2 Mussina ones. That's 1 net gain. In addition, you used 2 trades to get it -- for a ratio of 0.50 starts/trade.
But, I may have misunderstood what you were saying, so feel free to correct my understanding.
azdbacker -- obviously, I can't wait for the season to begin, either :-) .
Mike D -- Well, I'm gonna be back in SW baseball this season. Good luck in your basketball season. Hopefully we'll see you around, regardless of your decision on SW baseball.
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| 33 | Strike One
ID: 496441210
Fri, Feb 16, 22:12
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after consuming most of this thread i would just like to thank madman. i didn't realize that i actually missed your insights in he offseason. this thread is only one example of your great work, and i think that it will help all the newbies to get on the right track at the beginning of the season.
now, what am i gonna do you ask. well, i have one word for you...RANDRO. i don't think, madman, you emphasized (sp) enough that RANDRO, has the potential to makes millions of SWD. And the good thing is, that you don't lose the money from have the likes of a pedro or randy after their start so in reality, if randy just pitched last night and you sell him and pick up pedro, you miss out on randy's losses and pick up on pedro's gain, netting to even more money.
example: randy pitches. after his start you sell and buy pedro. randy losses 500K, pedro gains 500K, bam! it's like magic, you just gained 1,000,000 SWD!!
i too am unbelievebly hyped for the upcoming season!! it just dosen't come soon enough...
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| 34 | Perm Dude
ID: 501221423
Fri, Feb 16, 22:39
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Good stuff, everyone. Not much to add here, except for two small notes:
1. The losses after Randy or Pedro pitches are among the highest you'll see. If you commit to a Randro strategy you must rotate out of the guy before the next freeze after they pitch to avoid huge loses. Since Randro was so popular last year, the gains on the "off" pitcher would start a couple days before the pitched, so don't worry if you have to trade into one or the other a couple days early.
2. While the name of the game is making money early (even with these low prices) don't chase pitcher money trains. Look for bargains, of course, but don't chase the pitcher trains. You'll waste trades and lose whatever efficiency you would be gaining in whatever strategy you are employing. Any trains you catch should be position players.
pd
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| 35 | BIG RUSS
ID: 0853519
Fri, Feb 16, 22:44
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This stuff is what puts us light years ahead of the rest of the SW players and I am so happy to read all of this info.
Madman, you are aptly named. GREAT work!
As far as closers go, I like the idea of having a closer with four starters and Tim Crabtree is mighty CHEEP!
I like the fact that the prices are low. I think it's going to lead to more differentiation early on in the season. I always hate how we all seem to have the same teams rolling out of the gate (Fick, Ramon, Schoenweis, etc.) Hopefully this will place more emphasis on SWP throughout April and May and not just $$$ in the early going.
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| 36 | Strike One
ID: 496441210
Fri, Feb 16, 22:54
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every once in a while a good pitcher train will come along *cough* d'amico *cough* sparks, bring back any memories? but as PD said, focus on jumping on hitter money trains. and just because a pitcher gained 300K in one day, doesn't mean he's a money train. you should always look at a pitcher's schedule, and possible match up before committing yourself to him.
also, early on in the season i suggest that you pick a strategy, and stick to it for a while. don't let the lemmings throw you off if jesse orosco gains 500K the day after he pitches a perfect 2 inning game, where he gets the win while striking out 6. you must know your limits. many times when you have doubts about a player, they are right, so why waste a trade that you not all that happy about making? don't use up all your trades the day they come out, if your lucky enough with your picks and are disciplined enough to always have a couple of trades in stock, chances are, it will pay off in the long run. i've heard many people say this before and to some extent it's true. "The best trade is no trade"
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| 37 | Mile Hi Rocks
ID: 13118200
Tue, Feb 20, 00:18
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Just reading these posts is like watching the sun rise after the longest night of the year!
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| 38 | InfiniteEternity
ID: 331312116
Wed, Feb 21, 17:08
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I would just like to say that this comprehensive intro was a beautiful piece. No need for me to add anything b/c it was PERFECT.
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| 39 | Slow Stick
ID: 211272322
Fri, Feb 23, 22:27
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Last year I generally RANDRO most of the season with 2 twists
1 I would stick Kevin Brown (early) or David Wells (late) between them when trades allowed.
2 I did what I think Donky was trying to explain. Tuesday evening I would trade a pitcher who started that day for someone that I believed would pitch the next Tuesday.
My theory is I add 2 starts a week for the cost of 3 trades a week. saving extra trades for later when money is no problem And the strategy always seemed to make money. As I was selling the day when most others were burning their all trades for someone that will pitch in a day or 2.
Now if I could keep from picking pitchers that blow up for -100 SWP while I own them... (Kip Wells comes to mind a lot)
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| 40 | True Mahoney
ID: 491121012
Fri, Feb 23, 23:49
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Being i am starting off with perdo and i'm gonna get a cheap closer, i basically have to worry about my other three which are probley gonan be , shilling , garica and wood, so i'll go bak anf fourth with randro and pedro and wont touch my closer, soo should i do anything with my other pictures, should i leave one not touching them and trade bak and fouth the other ones or leave them,..
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| 41 | Ender
ID: 13443221
Sat, Feb 24, 00:10
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No offense Mahoney, but "should i do anything with my other pictures" had me laughing. The classic mistake is of course for kids to pronounce "picture" as "pitcher", I let out an audible chuckle at that one :)
In answer to your question, it will depend entirely on how fortunate you are with those other pitchers. If Garcia, Wood, and Schilling perform then you needn't do anything with them except smile whenever they take the mound. If they stumble, then you will have to use a trade in those slots to make draft corrections.
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| 42 | Gary
ID: 381157822
Sat, Feb 24, 02:46
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I have a comment about the early prices. In the last two years if my memory don't fail me SW changed it's prices after spring training got underway so I wouldn't go putting my money on certain players quite yet. I noticed it the last two years because I signed up rather early those years.
Now I could be wrong but wouldn't be suprised if I was right.
Gary
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| 43 | True Mahoney
ID: 491121012
Sat, Feb 24, 09:50
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Yea Neder , Glad I Gave You A Crankle but it was 1 30 in the morning so i'll take my spelling skills to the time, k... tks for the advice tho, yea hopefully the do good...
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| 44 | True Mahoney
ID: 491121012
Sat, Feb 24, 09:56
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Is There a way to put the Randro - PEdro Trade into affect along with the guru rotation ... Is there a way to limit it so you get both . ...
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| 45 | Pond Scum
ID: 54420321
Mon, Mar 05, 16:37
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Another great Madman thread, let's keep this discussion going.
TM, I would assume that a good Guru rotation method would be to go through Randro, K Brown, Maddux, etc. The key is to figure out when the "Stars" align so that a string studs pitch in sequence. Since Pedro will almost certainly pitch with even more rest than last year, this alignment will be a moving target. You should be able to end up with a non-Pedro stud for an extra start between Pedro starts (or an extra two just missing one Pedro, etc.)
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| 46 | VIDevilRays
ID: 508151619
Thu, Mar 08, 06:16
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I'm still involved in hoops, but have begun to formulate some initial ideas concerning strategy. Preliminarily, my ideas sort of coincide with beasties and JKaye; I will probably draft RJ and Pedro and three other reliable, mid-priced pitchers, or two mid-priced pitchers and one closer. I would leave those mid-priced slots alone, conserve trades-trade RJ or Pedro for someone mid-priced who comes along and, down the road, rotate among the Browns, Madduxes, Pedros, etc. of the world.
Rotating mid-priced pitchers does not make any sense to me since the probability of a quality start is much lower than the pitchers in the higher end. Put another way, there is no guarantee that mid-priced pitcher A will give you a quality start at the time he is pitching for you.
That may be a bit less efficient as far as a pitching strategy, but I bet it is more efficient as far as increasing the number of quality starts you get for your roster.
Last year I used this quite successfully, holding the Neagles of the world long-term, and rotating the higher end pitchers.
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| 47 | rockfish
ID: 8251314
Thu, Mar 29, 13:23
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gee was it that long ago since this thread was up. With the way the preseason is going,the injuries and some midpriced guys getting slow starts I'm leaning toward 2 starts a week by studs. Leiter,Schilling and such w/randro. good thread!
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| 48 | Aaron
ID: 34272911
Thu, Mar 29, 13:43
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I'm pretty new to this. So do most of you think Randro is the way to go at the beginning of the year? Or is that possible? Thanks for the input.
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| 49 | biliruben
ID: 3502218
Thu, Mar 29, 13:51
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I don't think there is a consensus - many are going to Randro and see how the returns look, while others are contemplating a trade-hoarding approach until a clear money-making strategy (if any) appears.
Will be a fun year if everyone has a different take!
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| 50 | Madman
ID: 29246911
Thu, Mar 29, 17:07
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With all the injuries and potential rain-outs, this is going to be an even wilder beginning to the season that I expected! I have no more advice to offer at this point. Go with your Gut!
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| 51 | Ender
ID: 13443221
Thu, Mar 29, 20:37
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All right! Madman's throwing out the numbers and joining my team!
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| 52 | Ender
ID: 52438315
Fri, Feb 22, 2002, 15:00
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BUTT
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| 53 | JC REB
ID: 247059
Mon, Feb 25, 2002, 12:57
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With the change in pitcher pricing this year, to have the daily change based on the previous 5 days average, this appears to eliminate the cash gains from Randro. It may also result in
more money trains on good performing low priced pitchers, as managers hold them in their rotation, and others buy into them.
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| 54 | Ender
ID: 52438315
Mon, Mar 18, 2002, 08:53
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BUTT
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| 55 | DC Expos
ID: 142121812
Mon, Mar 18, 2002, 12:42
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I like the idea of keeping one closer. But which one? Who do people like?
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| 56 | smallwhirled
Donor
ID: 29232811
Sat, Mar 23, 2002, 22:54
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Back up to top
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| 57 | Zman
ID: 55217319
Sun, Mar 31, 2002, 09:54
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What about the Basic Free Game? You think many people will be going Randro like me?
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| 58 | loki
Sustainer
ID: 12253422
Sun, Mar 31, 2002, 14:36
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i am starting the season with rj and holding on to my pitcher trades (barring a catastophic performance by one of my other pitchers)for one or two cycles in order to see where the dust settles.
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| 59 | BillB
Sustainer
ID: 402443114
Sun, Mar 31, 2002, 15:00
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uh, folks, this thread from Madman was pertinent to the 2001 season. With the TSN changes in pricing for 2002 I'm not sure what can be gleened from 2001-fairwarned is fairarmed :)
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| 60 | azdbacker
Donor
ID: 1832261
Sun, Mar 31, 2002, 15:18
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My favorite part of this thread came from JKaye in Post 14:
"I have a feeling Randro will not be as successful this year, simply due to the fact that I don't think Randy will be as dominant, or anywhere close to it. That said, a new strategy is required."
Half right, I guess.
;)
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| 61 | Ender
ID: 13443221
Tue, Mar 25, 2003, 19:59
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butt
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| 62 | MyDodgers
ID: 180471720
Wed, Mar 26, 2003, 13:56
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So how did the money work out last year with the Randro or Guru? I did a mishmash of both, got clobbered and didnt make much money..I think I confused myself.
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| 63 | JamesKPolk
ID: 55053711
Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 13:08
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BUTT in honor of Randro heading to the Hall of Fame
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| 64 | blue hen
ID: 01052416
Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 13:49
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Exceptionally well BUTTed, Mr. President.
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| 65 | Species
ID: 54740122
Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 16:46
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Damn. Love the old school names in this thread.
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| 66 | biliruben
ID: 561162511
Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 17:38
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Hah! Awesome! Is he going with a Mariners hat tho...?
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| 67 | Sludge
ID: 26033717
Wed, Jan 07, 2015, 18:33
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The key word in "old school" is "old".
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| 68 | GoatLocker
Leader
ID: 060151121
Thu, Jan 08, 2015, 21:12
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Ditto what Species about the old school names.
And the BUTT in honor of Randro heading to the Hall of Fame by Mr President.
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