At this point last season I believe my team value was around $800; this year I’m sitting at $326. Part of the blame goes to RotoHog for making me work instead of letting me trade all day. However, the new transaction fee system has kept all but a handful of teams from straying far above that first fee increase at $350. If you’re over that line you should feel pretty good about where you stand. If you’re like me and you’re still under it I strongly suggest putting some effort into raising your team value.

One good spot to make some quick gains is off days. Players who play on Mondays and, to some degree, Thursdays when the MLB schedule is lighter will usually see some nice games leading up to their start. Right now you can make some nice money just picking these guys up the day of their start. If this year is anything like last year though, RotoHog managers will start to buy earlier and earlier to take advantage of the gains. Keep an eye on these patterns and use them to get a little boost to your team value.

From a lineup strategy perspective, a common mistake I see this time of year is overreacting to early season results. More than just about any other athletes, baseball players tend to do what they’ve always done. You will see some break out years and some burn out years, but the overwhelming majority of guys will find their way back to doing what they’ve always done. Be careful that you don’t miss out on the actual productive players by chasing some guy who hit a couple of home runs last night.

There are some good ways to separate good fortune and hot streaks from actual long-term ability. One of those is BABIP, or batting average on balls in play. This is basically a hitter’s batting average after removing strikeouts and home runs. It’s been over 7 years since Voros McCracken wrote this article suggesting that pitchers have virtually no control over BABIP and, for the most part, he’s been proven correct. Pitchers who allow an unusually low BABIP in a season can generally expect to see their ERA drift upward, and vice versa. In light of that, let’s look at the top and bottom 8 BABIPs for starting pitchers this year. First, the overachievers:

You don’t really need BABIP to tell you that most of those ERAs are unsustainable. One of the more interesting names on this list is Johnny Cueto. His K/9 and BB/9 numbers are phenemonal, and his 8th lowest BABIP isn’t hurting him either. However, his ERA is still a rather pedestrian 3.72. Of course, this list leaves off the fact that of the 11 hits he’s allowed this year 4 have been home runs.

Another interesting name on this list is Brian Bannister. Bannister is one of the smartest players in baseball; he even managed a perfect 800 on the math portion of his SAT. He posted one of the lowest BABIPs in 2007 and said before the season began that he believed he could combine his brains with his marginal stuff to continue to outperform the .300 expected BABIP for major league pitchers. This interview with Bannister gives some great insight into his ideas on how to accomplish this.

Next we’ll take a look at the hard luck pitchers. These guys aren’t necessarily good, but they shouldn’t be as bad as their current ERAs might suggest:

If you read Zach Duke’s miserable stat line you get quite the plot twist when you arrive at his 2.89 ERA. Ironically I’m going to say that’s probably mostly luck despite him being on what is basically my “unluckiest pitchers” list.

Anyway, those are just some names to keep in mind. In general, focus on who has the real talent instead of who has played well in the last 15 games of their possible 1,500 game career.

PS – Be sure to go join my Hog Blogger league. RotoHog is threatening to fire me if I can’t keep up with all the attention Jocelyn is getting. Ok, not really, but check out our video if you need more arguments from me on why you should join.