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Studs at some positions -- Platoons at others

Posted By Tim

What I usually do in launch leagues is try to get the most out of my 35 man roster by drafting guys based on things like Grade for pitchers and OPS for hitters. Of course I also look at defense also. By taking these things into account instead of just grabbing the guy with the highest PB value I usually put together a good team in a launch league.

I use platoons a lot also, especially in the outfield. By platooning say Darryl Strawberry and Tony Phillips in LF (both selected late in the draft) I get very good production everyday and since I don't need to draft an everyday LF early in the draft I can get an extra quality pitcher in an early round.

My typical team consists of an Ace Starter (a guy like Glavine, Clemens, Rogers, etc, etc in Round 1 or 2), two 180-200 inning starters with high grades, then fill out the starter innings with 3 or 4 100-160 inning guys with decent grades. In the bullpen I usually go for at least 7 guys with the highest GR + CL I can find-- usually 3 of them are lefties. The top 2 of these relievers will be taken in middle rounds (say 10-14 unless you want Gordon or Rivera type closer). Then many of the other relievers can be taken in late rounds.

I add a couple extra pitchers at the end so that I have trade bait and this usually leaves me with about 15-17 pitchers on a 35 man roster.

On offense I usually will have 5-6 positions where someone plays everyday and the others are platoons. LF,RF,and DH are the easiest places to have good platoons because you can get good part time hitters that can hit one side or the other very late in the draft.

The key thing to remember is that you have 35 picks and by getting the most out of all your picks you can get a better team. It does no good to have 5 full time outfielders that are mediocre because you can't play them all. On the other hand if you can mix and match the right combination of 5 part time outfielders (or maybe 1 full time and 4 part time) you can have a pretty good outfield. The same concept applies to other positions as well.