Draft Strategies: The LIMA Plan

Ever since Ron Shandler revolutionized the strategics of fantasy drafting when he developed his LIMA Plan (low investment mound aces), drafting has gone from a means to forming a team to a multi-million dollar science. The pitching pool this year is the deepest I've ever seen it. With that in mind we are going to revist Shandlers LIMA plan in a 10 team $260 auction league.

C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, OF, OF, OF, OF, OF, UTIL, 9 P, and 3 Bench.
(This is a standard ESPN auction draft)

Let's start with a little math. Each team starts with $260 to fill 25 roster spots. If you spend a minimum of $1 on each spot that leaves you with $235 to spend to improve those 25 spots (260-25=235). Now, the key to executing the LIMA plan first begins with a good bit of research. I've spent considerable time this offseason looking for pitchers that go largely undrafted and usually don't cost anything more than $1. Here is a list of players that I feel have a great chance of exeding expectations and are being overlooked by the fanatsy community:

Paul Maholm, Manny Parra, Jeremy Guthrie, Jonathan Sanchez, Jair Jurrjens, John Maine, Oliver Perez, Justin Masterson, Wandy Rodriguez, Kenshin Kawakami, Jesse Litsch, Jeff Samardzija, Jered Weaver, Chris Carpenter, Chris Young, Fausto Carmona, Edwin Jackson, Nick Blackburn, Kelvin Escobar, Ian Snell, Sean Marshall, Sean Gallagher, Jorge Campillo, Rick Porcello, Rich Hill, and Jeff Karstens.

That's a very long list and can be intimidating if you're not familiar with their names and statistics. Several of these players are coming of very good campaigns, some are youngsters competing for jobs, a few are veterans coming back from injury, and a couple guys coming off horrible seasons but have showed signs of progress in spring training. Obviously you won't be drafting all of these players, but the bigger the list, the better, because there may very well be other managers targetting any number of these players, and when the money gets tight, you might not have enough to even spend an extra dollar to get them. But, each and every one of these pitchers should be available to you for $1. Pay attention to what these players do during the spring, who is progressing from injury, who looks to have the inside track on a starting job and who is(or isn't) struggling with command. The best of the bunch are Maholm, Guthrie, Jurrjens, Weaver, Litsch, Young, Porcello and Samardzija.

Now that you have your sleeper list for pitchers. It's time to take yourself through the first part of the draft. The thinking here is that you want to completely dominate the offensive landscape. Using a little bit more math we can calculate what our budget is for the offensive positions. You also want to be nominating stud pitchers every chance you get to clean out the landscape and force other managers to spend large portions of their payroll on something other than offense.

There are 9 pitcher spots, and our goal is to spend $1 on each. So you can subtract 9 from 25, which gives you 16. We can also assume that we won't be spending anymore than a $1 on our 3 bench spots and our catcher, which takes us down another 4 to 12. So, we have $235 to spend on 12 roster spots. That's an average of $20 and some change (since we've all ready included a dollar charge for each of those 12 spots the exact math is (235+12)/12=20 and some change) . Not bad, but we can do better. Now let's figure out which stud players we are going to target to fill the 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, CI, MI, and OF spots. Let's target Pujols($40), Kinsler($30), C. Davis($20), H-Ram($40), Howard($25), Phillips($20), and Braun($35). These are the absolute maximum dollar values we can consider spending on these players. It's very possible that the prices we actually pay will be less, but it makes it easy on ourselves to over value before the draft and compensate later in the event of a discount. So, the total of those 7 spots is $210. Since we all ready included a dollar for each roster spot we can take this total down to $203 (210-7=203) That leaves us with $32 to spend on our remaining 4 outfielders and our utility spot.

The average value for each is roughly $6 and some change but the best way to approach it at this point is to adapt a bit to your draft. It's very likely that you will be able to get players like Nate McClouth, Bobby Abreu, Corey Hart, Torii Hunter, Johnny Damon, Jay Bruce and others between $10-$15. So for the sake of simplicity let's assume we snag McClouth for $14, Adam Dunn for $9 and Lastings Milledge for $3 so that puts us at a total of $23 (after subtracting our $1 charge for each position). So we now have $9 left to spend on whatever we see fit. For our remaining OF and Util spot we take $1 flyers on Elijah Dukes and Nelson Cruz and then take Kevin Kouzmanouf and Ian Stewart as our offensive bench players as well as our dollar catcher, in this case let's say we snagged Gerald Laird.

So now our offense is filled and we can spend an extra $9 on pitching. At this point I'd check to see the dollar amount available to your other owners and gauge the availability of the closers left against it. Maybe spend a few extra dollars to get guys like Chad Qualls, Matt Lindstrom, Joel Hanrahan and Brandon Lyon. Chances are one or two of these guys will be available for a buck at the end but make sure you get at least one closer (or even two). Also you can spend an extra dollar to get a guy like Brandon Morrow, Randy Johnson, John Danks, or Chris Volstad. Or perhaps you can just go all out and try to land a Chad Billingsley, Josh Johnson, Scott Baker or Matt Cain. Chances are you won't, nor would I recommend it, but to each their own. Then once you're down to a dollar you can start throwing out those LIMA aces we talked about at the begining. Well there you have it, a perfectely executed Lima Plan. So let's recap our roster:

C - $1 Gerald Laird
1B - $40 Albert Pujols
2B - $30 Ian Kinsler
3B - $20 Chris Davis
SS - $40 Hanley Ramirez
MI - $20 Brandon Phillips
CI - $25 Ryan Howard
OF - $35 Ryan Braun
OF - $13 Nate McClouth
OF - $9 Adam Dunn
OF - $3 Lastings Milledge
OF - $1 Elijah Dukes
Util - $1 Nelson Cruz
Bench - $1 Kevin Kouzmanouf
Bench - $1 Ian Stewart

P - $5 Chad Qualls
P - $5 Brandon Lyon
P - $3 Joel Hanrahan
P - $1 Paul Maholm
P - $1 Jeremy Guthrie
P - $1 Manny Parra
P - $1 Jair Jurrjens
P - $1 Chris Young
P - $1 Jered Weaver
Bench - $1 Jesse Litsch

$260 spent and the LIMA plan executed to a T. Obviously things out of your control can happen, perhaps someone goes all in on Hanley Ramirez or Albert Pujols that leaves you shaking your head wondering how in the world someone could pay $50 for them. If that's the case just do some mental adjusting. Instead target Miggy or Reyes and use the remaining funds elsewhere. This is just a 'sketch' if you will. Hell you're team could look better than this if you end up spending considerable less on the stud players (which is possible especially considering that these are usually the MAX values for each player). So remember, the key is that no matter what strategy you take to your draft, you MUST be prepared to adjust.

Good luck!
Roto Wizard

A few words on some big hype youngsters

Recently in a draft I witnessed a bidding war over a trio pitchers that have been getting a lot of hype this off-season. Zack Grienke, Yovanni Gollardo and Josh Johnson. These guys have made tremendous strides in their game and each offer some major upside. But as the season draws nearer they seem to be going for more and more in each draft ($15+ I saw Grienke go for $21!!). Of the three I think Gollardo has the best chance to post numbers near his $ amount. His stikeout potential is legit and with a little luck he could post Liriano-like numbers. Grienke has excellent command and has decent K/9 numbers, but his W total may suffer in KC (though I feel KC will surprise a bit this year). Johnson is the one I like the least though his QS% was better than names like Halladay, Webb, Peavy and Haren. So here's my forecast for these three players:

Grienke: 191 IP, 12 wins, 182 K, 3.55 ERA, 1.21 WHIP
Gollardo: 203 IP, 14 wins, 191 K, 3.45 ERA, 1.25 WHIP
Johnson: 184 IP 13 wins, 168 K, 3.71 ERA, 1.29 WHIP

I preach getting the players you want, but paying purely for upside can really come back to bite you, especially with pitchers. If you can't get these guys under $15 then let another owner take them.

On the offensive side of the coin there are two guys that I feel the need to write about: Chris Davis and Jay Bruce. I love both of these guys and honestly offensive production is alot easier to predict than pitching statistics. Davis is looking more and more like a guy that can post 90/35/110/280 numbers with multi-posistion eligibility. With those numbers I fully condone spending $20 on him, but once it starts to get to that point, take a look at the BA of the guys you have. If you're looking good then back off and go for Mark Reynolds. If not then maybe pay that extra dollar or two, but consider a guy like Kevin Kouzmanouf who can hit for average and could post 30/100 with 25/85 an almost certainty. Each of those two guys can be had for $1-$5.
As for Bruce his underlying peripherials are pointing to a huge season statistically. It's hard to see him hitting for anything more than a .280 AVG but the power numbers are almost limitless. His improved fly ball % and contact rate, as well as an increase in his pitches per at-bat point to 30+ HR with 35+ a real possibility. Depending on how the top of the order shapes out in Cinci he could post 100+ RBI but expect something closer to 90. He's also a good bet for 90+ runs. He'll even swipe some bases. So taking those numbers to your draft don't be afraid to shell out that $10, those are Carlos Quentin like numbers at half the price.

An Introduction to Roto Wizard

Hello my fellow roto addicts! And Welcome to your non stop analysis for everything fantasy sports. Just a few quick words about myself and what you can look forward to. I have a decade of experience and spend several hours a day immersing myself in our little fantasy realm. I specialize in Baseball and Football, but I also have extensive knowledge in hockey. You won't see much basketball here as I'm simply not that interested in the NBA. Though you may see some discussion from time to time. You can anticipate several blogs per day, some short, some long, but all give pause to discussion and intuitive thinking. You can reach me through email at roto_wizard@yahoo.com

I look forward to making this the first stop in everyones fantasy day, hearing your feedback, stimulating some discussion and helping everyone achieve a new level of fantasy domination!

Roto Wizard