A harebrained scheme to hatch a new fantasy baseball strategy. Part One of a series.

Brad Hawpe: LISA Plan Stud?

By Eriq

One of the joys of fantasy sports is that we can experiment with new envelope-pushing strategies for success. It’s true that some real-life professional sports general managers have been known to defy conventional wisdom for hidden advantage, but with a paycheck on the line, they’ll only go so far in a break from standard norms.

This year, FBJ plans to go all out on a strategy we’ve danced around before (here, here, and here) by building the backbone of our roster on the might of baseball’s most under-appreciated left-handed batters. Sound strange?

In past years, we’ve mostly adhered to variants of the LIMA Plan invented by Ron Shandler. LIMA stands for “Low Investment Mound Aces,” with a nod towards former MLB pitcher Jose Lima. In this approach, a fantasy competitor invests much of his auction budget or highest draft picks on hitters, assuming them to be safe and consistent. On the pitching end, a competitor goes for high-upside, undervalued targets such as those with great strikeout-to-walk numbers. It’s a plan that’s been very popular and hugely successful, but we wish to try out something new.

Courtesy of Flipflopflyball.com

Thus, we’re going to go with a plan we’re coining the LISA Plan. It stands for Low Investment Southpaw Army,” with a nod towards the name of FBJ’s wife. We will be joining a random public league this year, trying it out, and reporting back here on its success. Here’s the basic plan:

1. Identify the left-handed batters in baseball who hit best against right-handed pitching and who hit horribly against left-handed pitching. Our premise is that a lefty who struggles against a southpaw pitcher becomes a natural platoon candidate and whose value gets discounted in fantasy baseball leagues. As you’ll see by the chart, there were 120 lefty batters on opening day rosters in 2009.
2. Figure out the positions that it makes most sense to have at least two lefty batters on our roster in a fantasy platoon role. Importantly, we’ll have to compete in a league that allows daily lineup changes and also has a heavy dose of bench roster spots.
3. Figure out the positions such as catcher where it’ll be impossible to staff a platoon.
4. Prepare to invest our highest draft picks on high-quality starters and relievers who are extremely stable and players at positions where it’ll be impossible to staff a platoon.
5. Draft & Play: Make continual lineup adjustments to make sure that as often as possible, a left-handed hitter is facing off against a right-handed starter.

We expect this draft to be like none we’ve ever completed.

We’ll be targeting pitchers and non-platoon options first because we’ll be tying all our excess roster space on under-appreciated lefty batters. For instance, we wouldn’t be surprised to start off our draft with a sequence of players like such: Joe Mauer, Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, and Dan Haren.

Perhaps we’ll then begin to introduce right-handed pitching mashing lefties like Andre Ethier, Curtis Granderson, and Jason Kubel mixed in with some stud closers.

By the later rounds, we’ll be mixing in high speed options like Michael Bourn and Nyjer Morgan with players who we think might be able to thrive with a reduced platoon role. Players like Garrett Jones, Adam LaRoche, Brad Hawpe and even players who probably wouldn’t be drafted in normal circumstances — Kyle Blanks, Johnny Gomes, and Seth Smith.

In Part 2 of “The LISA Plan,” we’ll take a deeper look at our candidates.