You don't need a base stealing stud like Jacoby Ellsbury to make up ground in steals. But it sure helps.

There are just four weeks left of fantasy baseball left in the 2008 season as of today, the beginning of Week 23. In baseball terms, with about 30 games left to play for most teams, this is officially the stretch run. For the most part, if you are in the running for a money finish among the top three teams in your fantasy league, your last opportunities to make up ground are here. In other words, if you have some kind of plan for a “big move”, as one manager in my main fantasy league is fond of calling it, the time to implement it is upon us. Since August 31^st is also the waiver trade deadline in MLB, as well as the traditional trade deadline for fantasy baseball, you no longer have to worry about MLB players changing leagues (those of you in mono-leagues). However, this is also your last chance to talk to the manager in your league who is out of the running, to try and pry that base stealing phenom, or home run mashing stud away from him in a trade.

I get a lot of questions from fantasy managers asking which categories it’s they should try to go after to make up points in their league. Of course, the answer to that is going to vary according to the scoring rules of your league and the distribution of talent among the teams in your league. In general though, there are a few categories that are easier to make up ground in. Let’s begin with which categories to forget about right off the bat. At this juncture of the season, the ratio stats are pretty much set, and it’s almost impossible to make much of a dent in them. ERA, WHIP, Batting Avg., OBP, or any similar type statistic requires far too many at bats to make up any kind of appreciable ground. While you might be able to make up a point or two, don’t count on any more than that for the ratio categories. The other very difficult category to make up some ground in is Wins. It is such a crapshoot of a category to begin with. Wins can be extremely elusive in this day and age mainly because of the increasing specialization of pitchers. Starters rarely take the ball beyond the six inning, with managers turning to a progression of specialists before ultimately bringing in the closer in the final inning. The Win is often awarded to one of those specialists, despite the fact that they may have worked only one inning, or even just part of an inning.

That brings us to those categories you can beat to death to make up ground. I have two favorites that I like to chase after in the latter stages of the season, and I often draft with that strategy in mind. In the pitching categories, I advocate chasing after strikeouts. Unless you’re in a ridiculously deep league, or a league with restricted transactions, streaming starting pitchers to chase after strikeouts is fairly easy. When not using starters, it’s wise to have as many middle relievers active as possible to get strikeouts from them too. Obviously, you want to use relievers that have relatively high K/9IP rates. The top relievers have K/9IP of 7.5 or better, with the best ones posting rates as high as one strikeout or more per inning pitched. You can churn, or stream pitchers like crazy day after day, until you’ve caught the team ahead of you in the standings.  The other category I like to chase is the stolen base. Admittedly, this is not as easy as strikeouts, because the steal and the choice to use it as a strategy is affected by a great many different factors, whereas the strikeout occurs as a potential natural outcome of any at bat. However, with more than 80% of the season over, there is so much data available about players, teams, and managerial strategic tendencies, that it is easier to find “hidden” stolen bases. For example, it is now possible to identify which pitcher/catcher batteries have allowed the most stolen bases, and thrown out the lowest percentages of attempted base stealers. In fact, every week all season long, I’ve been giving you this information in every edition of Leading Off. At the bottom of the page you will see a heading about speed. This week it says, “Speed is the Name of the Game.” In there I list the teams that are playing games against some of the easiest teams to steal on. If you start your best base stealers against those teams, chances are you will pick up several stolen bases over the course of the series between them. It is also wise to check the waiver wire for any base stealers that may be sitting there, pick them up and activate them for that series to see if you can pick up an extra stolen base or two. For example, if I see that the Red Sox are playing the White Sox (A.J. Pierzynski gives up more steals than any catcher, by the way) I’ll make sure I have Jacoby Ellsbury active for the series. However, looking on the waiver wire, I see that Coco Crisp is also available. If I were chasing steals, I’d pick him up too, just for this series, and find him a slot to play in for my team. Between Crisp and Ellsbury, I am almost guaranteed a couple of steals over the course of a three game set. I recommend you do this as often as practical to make up ground in the steals category.

So, there you have it, one of my biggest personal strategies for the last month of the season. Over the course of the season, I will often let those two categories go in favor of chasing other categories, all with the idea in mind that I will go after points in steals and strikeouts during the final month. Hopefully, you’re sitting in first place and don’t need to worry about it. But if you’re like me, mired in third place, with nine points between me and first place, then you will need to try and get points wherever and however possible. Take a tip from me, and go after steals and strikeouts, and hopefully it will help you to dominate your league.

If you have questions, or could use some friendly advice on strategy as we head into the home stretch, feel free to send me your questions, comments, or suggestions any time. My email address is: TimM@SportsGrumblings.com.  That’s all for this week’s Leading Off. Until next time, shake it easy!!