In the family of fantasy baseball strategies, streaming, also known as churning or cycling, is probably best described as the redheaded stepchild. Streaming often elicits abuse and derision from opponents that have been burned by it. However, the purpose here is not to debate whether streaming should be legal or not, but to outline its use as a strategy for winning a fantasy baseball title. Done properly, streaming can be an effective winning strategy in both rotisserie and head-to-head formats. So, we’ll leave the morality questions for another day and take a look at how streaming can be used to bring home some hardware in your fantasy baseball leagues this season.

If you’re planning on a streaming strategy, you can safely ignore super stud pitchers like Justin Verlander on draft day. Photo Credit: SD Dirk

For the purposes of this article we’ll discuss streaming as it applies to relatively shallow, standard 5X5 leagues. In general, the deeper the league, the more difficult it becomes to win with a streaming strategy. Besides, streaming rarely works in leagues that use more than ten scoring categories, or stray from the standard 5X5 pitching categories (wins, saves, strikeouts, ERA, WHIP). The reason for this is that streaming will help a team dominate in wins, saves, and strikeouts; and done right, it is possible to finish in the middle of the pack in ERA and WHIP. That, combined with domination of all five hitting categories (HR, RBI, SB, BA, R) is typically enough to win. Adding more categories will spread the points out, making it necessary to win them as well, which usually requires a different strategy and prohibits streaming.

In its pure form, a streaming strategy is best decided upon before draft day; because if you go this route, your primary goal in the draft will be to put together an offense that will crush the competition in all of the hitting categories. In that way, streaming appears similar to the LIMA plan auction strategy, which uses a nine dollar budget for a nine man pitching staff, leaving $261 to purchase an awesome group of hitters to dominate the five hitting categories. Therefore, all of your early round picks on draft day are spent on hitters. In fact, you don’t draft a single pitcher until your starting offense is complete.

Once you’ve got your starting lineup, you then begin building your pitching staff by drafting your closers. Remember, you need to win the saves category, so if there is a run on closers early in your draft, make certain you can still draft enough closers to stay at or near the top of the category. The last nine picks in the draft are for your pitchers. Obviously, you want to take the best of what’s left. But don’t hesitate to look for value picks here. Value might be in the form of pitchers that are coming back from injury after missing last season, or candidates for a bounce back year that were ignored by the rest of your league. It truly doesn’t matter if you make a mistake drafting in these final rounds, because the rest of the players left on the waiver wire are, in effect, an extension of your bench.

While streaming works best in leagues with daily transactions, it can be done in weekly leagues, though it is somewhat more difficult. The key is to raid the waiver wire each day to roster and activate pitchers with favorable match ups the following day. Then you release those pitchers after their starts, and replace them with a new group of pitchers. There are a few ways to choose pitchers for streaming. Ideally, you want to pick up pitchers with strong skills. For example, high strikeout rates (7.0+ K/9IP), low walk rates (<3.0 BB/9IP), and low homerun rates (<1 HR/9IP) are the primary skills you are looking for, especially if the pitcher’s match-up is less than favorable. Remember, the whole point of streaming is to run up high totals in strikeouts and wins while maintaining middle of the pack WHIP and ERA ratios. You can run three or four closers and stream the other five or six pitching slots; or you can adjust this mix however necessary, as long as you stay at or near the top of the pack in saves, wins, and strikeouts.

You won’t always find pitchers with great skills just sitting on the waiver wire, especially in deeper leagues with more than ten teams. Also, if another manager in your league decides to stream, the pool of available pitchers will shrink considerably. The next best thing is to look for pitchers on the stronger teams in MLB that are scheduled against one of the weaker teams. For example, given a choice between a Yankees pitcher facing the Indians, and a Pirates pitcher facing the Phillies, without a doubt you should take the Yankees pitcher. Use team stats to decide which match ups are most favorable. Every team has weaknesses of some sort. Careful analysis of team statistics will help you to find them, and choose pitchers that will benefit from them. You will also need to be very familiar with the rules that govern when you need to pick players up in your league to have them active for a game. Some hosting services allow you to pick players up the morning of game day, while others require you to activate a player the day before the game. Also be on the lookout for another manager in your league who is streaming. You may need to pick up players two or more days in advance to ensure that you’re getting the best available pitchers off the waiver wire and beating him to the punch.

The primary drawback to this strategy is the effect it can have on your WHIP and ERA. Of course, all the innings you’ll accrue will mathematically cancel out a bad performance or two, and your closers will also help to keep your ERA and WHIP in check. But, if you’re careless about your pitching choices and don’t pay close attention to the match ups, irreparable harm can be done to your ratios; the strategy will backfire and ruin your shot at a title. Another drawback is that you are very likely to draw the ire and anger of your fellow league mates. Many fantasy players look down on streaming as a violation of the spirit of the game. Some go as far as calling it cheating. Of course, if it’s within the rules then it’s completely fair game. But your league mates won’t care about that, and may not invite you back next season if you win with a streaming strategy.

That brings up a salient point; you have got to know the rules of your league inside and out. Many leagues have rules that seek to prevent successful streaming. Innings limits, transaction limits, fees, and rules restricting when players can be activated and/or released, can all make a streaming strategy difficult or impossible to implement. Make certain that streaming and the flexibility of transactions it requires are legal and within your leagues rule structure.

If you’re not certain that you have the brass to stream right from the get go, then you might consider some of these alternative uses of the strategy:

• Go for a little more balance on draft day by picking up two or three top line pitchers in rounds seven through nine, and stream the other three or four starting pitcher slots. You should still be able to assemble a strong offense, and you can always trade those pitchers if more is needed.

• Consider trying a middle reliever strategy. Ignore starting pitchers altogether and stream middle relievers with high strikeout rates and strong ratios. In this variation you draft an awesome offense, as many good closers as possible, and stream in middle relievers. Punt wins and dominate in nine categories. This is tough to do in leagues with IP minimums.

• Streaming can be an excellent second half strategy as well. If you reach the All Star break and find yourself behind in strikeouts and wins, but have competitive numbers in saves, ERA, and WHIP, trade away your best starters for some offensive power and stream away. I’ve used this as a winning strategy several times with great success.

The fantasy players that object to streaming often say that any idiot can pick up and drop pitchers every day to run up strikeout and win totals. They also complain that streamers take all the fun out of the game. The problem with those arguments is that everyone has a different concept of what fun is, and violating the “spirit” is not the same as violating rules. True streaming strategy involves a great deal of research and a daily dedication of time over the course of a 26-week season. If that sounds like your idea of fun, then you’ve found yourself a great strategy to try this season.

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