First Month NL

The first month is in the books, and my teams are both in 5th place less than 10 points off the lead. This is generally a place I like to see myself as it leaves room to improve as opposed to being at the top and becoming afraid to make adjustments for fear of falling from the top spot.

My NL team can improve greatly in Wins and Saves. I have Dontrelle Willis, Jason Schmidt, Andy Pettitte and Matt Cain anchoring the staff with Taylor Buchholz and Juan Cruz filling two more starter slots. In one of the flukes of the season so far, Buchholz leads my staff with two wins. With that situation, I expect Wins to be a category that I will move-up in.

I have Armando Benitez as my closer and expect him to get more saves than the other two teams I am tied with two teams in that category with zero saves apiece. At worst, I expect to gain a point. Given I am hyper-attuned to saves, I expect to find a second closer in the pool or via trade. There are an additional 5 or so points to grab painlessly.

If my other points held steady, I’d move towards 70 with only those improvements. I do not expect the other six categories to remain static so I must examine my hitting as objectively as possible as I am at or near the top in all four categories.

I have done this with the likes of Wilson Betemit, Freddie Sanchez, Craig Wilson, Todd Walker and Brandon Phillips. Clearly, I will need to keep my eye on the free agent pool and for any hitters dealt into the league. To expect five more months of the same from those five hitters would be a recipe for losing – not that there are not Roto participants who do expect that. They usually end-up losing.

I have little to worry about in SB as I have Juan Pierre and Raphael Furcal. That is an area I will ignore barring an injury to both players – not that I wouldn’t grab SBs when available. Only that I will not try to acquire them via trade.

The strategy going forward will be to look for saves and everyday hitters while passively allowing Wins to take care of themselves.