Fantasy baseballers, don't forget about Whip

Just a reminder to all fantasy baseballers in salary leagues not to forget about the whip category.

When playing fantasy baseball, many tend to overlook essential categories while bolstering up on power numbers, stolen bases, batting average type hitters and then they buy cheap pitching.

It's okay to buy some cheap pitching, but not a whole staff. If you intend on beefing up your offensive stats and go cheap on pitching, I strongly suggest you take a couple of the not so highly priced elite pitchers and blend them with youths that have displayed control. That would mean going after guys like Roy Halladay and Brandon Webb, or Jake Peavy instead of Johan Santana, Chris Carpenter and Roy Oswalt, and then go cheap from there. If they pitch well, don't pull them just to get 2 starts from more risky pitchers. Keep the consistant pitchers in there as your cornerstone.

I have selected Halladay, Peavy and Webb as my aces in the CDM.com Fantasy Baseball League, and then filled out my rotation and bench with up and coming pitchers who have showed control. There's John Patterson, who's cheap, and he has displayed a nice whip in the past. There's also Felix Hernandez (Who in his rookie season displayed a respectable whip), Chris Young and Jeremy Bonderman. These 4 pitchers are not that expensive, and they are coming into their own as good control pitchers. I filled out the rest of my bench with Cole Hamels, Brett Myers and Matt Cain. They are risky but very cheap and should be spot started in weeks when the competition is weak, until they show they will pitch solidly.

So you really don't have to have that extremely expensive tandem of Santana, Carpenter and Oswalt in order to have alot of K's, low ERAs and a good overall whip (walks, hits to innings pitched). To guarantee the best pitching totals, one would almost have to forfeit their offense. I say take the second tier starters and keep them in all season, followed by careful use of the younger pitchers who came cheap. This allows you better overall balance of your league's stats, and keeps you in the hunt in both offensive categories and pitching categories. Don't overload in just one area, spread it out and keep checking weekly schedules. I can't overemphasize just how important it is to keep an eye on the schedules, both for the pitchers you intend to use as well as your lineup and who they are going to face on a week to week basis. Goodluck!