The week of the spot start

This week I used a managing technique for my fantasy baseball team that can either turn out to work really well, or make your team lose by a lot, depending on a little bit of skill and a lot of guesswork. Every day, I picked up a pitcher off the waiver wire that was going to be a starting pitcher that night. It’s called a “spot start” (or at least I call it that). Now, this tactic is sometimes used by people if they think a certain pitcher has a good matchup on a particular day, but it can also prove very detrimental if you choose wrong.

In order to keep things fresh, and give my team, Reyes the Roof, a shot at beating the mighty team Suckada’s Glock (who has been on a 6 game winning tear), I pledged to pick up a starting free-agent pitcher every day this week, no matter how good or bad a tactic it proved to be.

Let’s see how it worked out for me, day by day…

Key (this is for you, mom) :
IP = innings pitched
H = hits
ER = earned runs
BB = walks
K = strikeouts
W = win
L = loss

MONDAY
Trevor Cahill, Oakland Athletics
7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K, W
Points: 24

TUESDAY
Joel Pineiro, St. Louis Cardinals
9 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 1 K – Complete Game Shut Out!
Points: 36

WEDNESDAY
Josh Geer, San Diego Padres
6 IP, 8 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 3 K
Points: 0

THURSDAY
Andy Pettitte, New York Yankees
3.2 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 4 K
Points: -1.7

FRIDAY
Ricky Romero, Toronto Blue Jays
7 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7K, W
Points: 35

SATURDAY
Homer Bailey, Cincinnati Reds
5 IP, 3 H, 3 ER, 7 BB, 2 K, W
Points: 8

SUNDAY
Brian Tallet, Toronto Blue Jays
6 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 6 BB, 6 K, L
Points: -3

As you can see, some of these spot starts worked out better than others, but none of the guys I picked really got killed and lost me that many points. So what’s the verdict? How did the week of spot starts turn out? Well, let’s do some 3rd grade math and find out.

If you add up how many points I got in total from my spot starters, it equals 98.3 points.

The final score of my matchup this week was 417.3 - 353.3, with Reyes the Roof coming out on top!

Since I only won by 64 points, without my spot starts I would have lost.

Therefore, the week of the spot start was a big success!
(sorry Gallen)