The Secret to Streaming

If you don’t play fantasy baseball, please skip to the next post. If you do play fantasy baseball, there might not be a more important article you’ve ever read in your life.

 

“Streaming” pitchers is a fantasy baseball term used to describe picking up a pitcher from the waiver wire specifically to play him for his upcoming scheduled start (sometimes for the upcoming 2-start week). Inherently a streamed pitcher is one who’s supposedly not that good because he was not owned by any manager in the league, and also you’re only relying on him for that one specific start, making no long term plans for the future. Fantasy owners aren’t starting a 401K plan for that pitcher or anything. It’s usually done to exploit a certain matchup play against a bad team or because a pitcher is hot, areas which I will delve into now, giving you the most important factors in streaming a pitcher.  

Before I proceed however, disclaimer is necessary: Streaming is not for everyone. It is not for the faint of heart. Any time you “stream” a pitcher, there is a non-zero chance that pitcher will destroy your ERA and WHIP in the most devastating of fashions, without adding anything of value in terms of wins or strikeouts. That is the inherent danger of starting pitching: They have the most influence on your team per start. They can go a complete game shutout with 15 K’s or on the other spectrum, go 1.2 IP of 10 ER, 13 baserunner ball. The hope is over the course of many streamed starts you’ll get a profit from streaming pitchers by getting more of the good starts than the bad starts, but by no means is each start automatically a “good outing.” There are many outings that are just pure evil, and there’s no telling which ones they will be. Fair warning.

1.)    The quality of the pitcher himself: This is the most important. Any major league lineup can feast on a major league pitcher if he is not on his game. There are just certain pitchers who you can NEVER rely on, no matter the matchup, no matter how hot they are, no matter if they just got a new pitching coach. Modern- day examples of streamers who fit this category: Edinson Volquez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Edwin Jackson. NEVER trust these guys.

2.)    The quality of the lineup the pitcher is facing: the benefit of streaming a pitcher is you know which lineup he will face and how that lineup has done recently. Before streaming, one should ALWAYS pull up the game logs of the lineup he is facing and check out the last 5 games or so. See if that team is scoring runs, taking walks, has a hot hitter, is good against a certain handedness, etc., etc. There are just some teams that are good to stream against. Modern day example: San Diego Padres (since like 2006), Tampa Bay Rays, New York Mets. On the flip side, of course, try to AVOID streaming against good lineups, including this year’s Oakland A’s, Toronto Blue Jays, etc.

3.)    Whether the lineup strikes out. This could be 2A, but a strikeout-prone lineup is a great target to go after, like this year’s Atlanta Braves.

4.)    Whether the pitcher is “hot.” Sometimes pitchers just get on a groove and are pitching really well. This can continue for a while like a month or two, like Bartolo Colon or Jake Arrieta right now. But don’t be fooled; pitchers can cool off immediately and catastrophically, going from a 0 ER gem to an 8ER unmitigated disaster in the next start. (See Edison Volquez rule about not starting certain pitchers EVER).

5.)    Picking pitchers who just got lit up. May be counterintuitive, but for some reason I find that after a really bad outing, pitchers’ luck tends to even out, they figure something out, basically things can’t get any worse, they’re due, whatever it is, but pitchers tend to throw a good outing after a REALLY bad one.

6.)    AL or NL. This matters. If it’s in an AL ballpark, you’re adding another legitimate hitter (usually one of the team’s best hitters) instead of the pitcher. I prefer NL pitchers if I can help it.

7.)    Home field. This matters, however counterintuitive. Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN recently did a study that shows MLB pitchers, for whatever reason, fare better at home than on the road, even if one’s home park is like an extreme hitter’s park. It could be the home cooking from the night before, playing in front of a home crowd jacks them up, they’re used to the environment and routine when playing at home, whatever it is, I slightly prefer home starts to road starts.

8.)    Ballpark- this might be more important than having home field, but definitely get pitchers pitching in Petco Park, AT&T Park, Safeco Field, Marlins Field, etc. and avoid pitching hells like Coors Field, Fenway, Yankee Stadium, etc.  These ballpark factors can be easily found on ESPN and is nothing special that I’m spelling.

9.)    Team defense: the better the defense, the more mistakes they can cover up for a pitcher. A good SS is a good start for having a good defense. Modern day good defenses include Atlanta (Simmons), San Francisco (Crawford), Tampa Bay (Escobar).

10.) Quality of the opposing starting pitcher. Definitely doesn’t always work, but try to go up against rookie pitchers, bad pitchers, struggling pitchers, journeyman pitchers, whatever. Don’t go up against Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Jose Fernandez, or other comparably elite pitchers.

11.) Quality of the pitcher’s team offense. Related to the quality of the opposing starting pitcher, and depends on how bad you want a W. If just looking for ERA and WHIP, don’t look at it too much. In a streaming pitcher’s expected performance I value ERA, WHIP, K, and W, in that order. Don’t chase the W at the expense of other categories unless those other categories are out of play (head-to-head leagues).

There’s some other minor factors, but you get the point. And remember, you’re not going to satisfy all these categories! Having No. 1 is nice, but if you can’t have 1 but can get 2, 3, and 4, that’s fine too! Just try to keep all of these factors in mind before you haphazardly dip into the streaming pool. There are diamonds in the rough, you just gotta find them!

I highly recommend streaming. If you follow the steps shown above, you’ll suffer some bumps, some bruises, but over the course of time and many streaming efforts your fantasy team will benefit over time, and you’ll develop your own system of streaming (mine is just a sample, build your own). And if you’re lucky, one of the times you stream, you get the Holy Grail of streaming, a streamed no-hitter through 8IP (Tim Lincecum vs. San Diego! Holy cow!) for your team when facing a bitter division rival. I LOVE THIS GAME!

 

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan