Looking at some unorthodox strategies.

In preparing for next year, you may be thinking about various strategies. This is a good time to address some of the more unorthodox ones.

The use of unorthodox strategies is a key component to conflict and warfare. As early as Sun-Tzu the power of the unorthodox, especially mixed with the orthodox, has been a key factor for the general. As Sun-Tzu stated in The Art of War, there are really two classes of strategies, the orthodox and unorthodox, yet their flexibility is so great that no one could ever exhaust their possibilities.

One of my favorite historical figures, if he can be so called, is the great samurai warrior Miyamoto Musashi. Musashi was the absolute master of the unorthodox. Two examples among the many:

–Musashi was late to battles against one rival family, the Yoshiokas, as a stratagem. He had previously defeated the father and brother of his third opponent from that family. In the prior two battles he was hours late. In this battle though, the opponent arrived with a small army hoping to overwhelm Musashi. Expecting Musashi to be late, the army laid down in the grass to rest. Of course, Musashi then jumped out of a tree, having hidden for days, to kill the opponent.

–There was an undefeated warrior, Baiken, who used a sickle and a long chain with a steel ball on the end. Musashi wanted to see the weapons in action but Baiken refused, only agreeing to use them in a duel. His strategy was to hurl the ball at his opponent and then charge with the sickle, so that when the opponent was fending off the ball he would kill him with the sickle.

Musashi showed up for the duel with two swords; one long and one short. He charged immediately, so that Baiken couldn’t throw the ball. When Baiken hesitated, since he wasn’t sure what to do next, Musashi knocked him off balance with the short sword and then killed him with the long one.

Perhaps the greatest master of the unorthodox was Hannibal and again there are many examples. Most people know about his use of elephants. However his greatest stroke was in one of his many battles with the Romans. Hannibal wanted to unnerve Roman sentries guarding a pass. So he decided to tie bundles of kindling to the horns of oxen and lit them on fire! The oxen charged the opposing army while bellowing, and of course burning. Since he did this in the dark of night, the Roman sentries were terrified, giving Hannibal easy access to the Roman army.

There is no shortage of such unorthodox strategies in fantasy baseball. However, should you try one, I hope you are as astute a judge of psychology as Hannibal or Musashi! Here are a few of the superficially plausible ones that I have read about over the years. Sadly I have never seen anyone try them in practice. Maybe next year I will have to join a low stakes auction league and give one of them a whirl:

1. The Labadini Plan-This is a plan where you spend only $1 per pitcher and spend the rest on offense. If you play in AL or NL only leagues the benefits of this plan may be apparent. By spending all this money on hitting you lock up the hitting categories. You shoot for getting lucky with a few pitchers and trade excess hitting for the rest.

I have never seen anyone execute this strategy. but it reflects the fundamental premise that pitching is too variable to spend lots of money on in an auction. If you are in a league where you can get a few cheap pitchers for $1 you may be in luck. This year in my high stakes auction I got Sergio Mitre, Claudio Vargas and Edgar Gonzalez for $1.

This is a gimmick strategy. I can envision a team cashing with this strategy, but probably not winning. For one thing, your opponents, unless they are fools, will see that you need pitching and you will never be able to make a fair trade.

2.The “Bernhard” Plan-Named after Sandra Bernhard because the plan is “so ugly it’s beautiful”(!), this plan requires that in each offensive spot you draft a player that will get 300-499 ABs. The thought is that you minimize the effect of the end of your bench, you do very well in offense by leading the league in at-bats, and you can easily replace guys that are hurt since they won’t be superstars.

The problem of course is that you have to fend for yourself on pitching. This is another strategy that I can see getting into the money but not winning.

3. The Sweeney Plan-In this plan the owner essentially punts HR and RBI as a category. It is a much better plan in 5×5 leagues, or league like my high stakes league which are 8×8. Many leagues now have at-bat requirement, which makes this plan much harder to pull off. The benefit is that you save money on the guys who are typically most overvalued (a subject for another column), and can spend on pitching.

There are plenty more where these came from–the Over-30 Plan (only draft players over 30), the $20 Budget Plan (no players over $20), the DL-Plan (get guys who were DL’d last year). All of these plans have a common thread-they seek to minimize the effects of luck, or the effects of the players that are typically the most variable, or seek to apply strict rules to maximize value.

All of these plans are gimmicks that are designed to take the place of full qualitative and quantitative analysis. Fantasy Baseball is not a game where these strict rules can defeat any but the weakest opponents. It is much like poker in that regard.

However, the principles behind these strategies are like gold, and should always be kept in mind by the Fantasy General:

1. Pitching is very unpredictable, so don’t overpay for it.
2. Players coming off the DL can be undervalued by most owners.
3. Maximizing at-bats is often a very strong strategy. My own corollary to this, and one that I will discuss in the offseason, is that when in doubt draft batting average.
4. HR and RBI guys are usually overvalued. This is not to say that true 5-category studs are, but it is the power guys in the next tier down that are often overvalued. Think Vinny Castilla.

No reasonable plan against any relatively tough opponent can be based on strict adherence to rules such as these. While the principles that the plans illuminate have value, the plans themselves will not generally be those of a winner. The problem is that you will often find yourself beset by flaming oxen, or facing opponents who have jumped down to attack you from a tree.

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