Fix My Team...Snatching SP Off Waivers

Rich Chancey writes in looking for help on a trade and picking up SP off the wire. He is currently in a 5X5 standard Roto League with 8 Teams. Here is his team:

C-Posey

1B-Cabrera

2B-Beckham

3B-Prado

SS-Infante

OF- Holliday, Ellsbury, Rasmus, Stubbs

Utility -M. Teixeira

SP- J. Johnson, C.C. Sabathia, D. Price, B. Anderson

RP- J. Nathan, C. Perez, J. Axford

Bench- Morales, Morneau, Raburn, C.Santana

Rich states "I know that I'm a little weak on SP but hope to at least p/u a few good trades like give 2 and get 1 good and get some good pitching still left on wire.  A team wants to trade me Latos and Hellickson for Price?  Also what S/P would u grab first?  available are- W Rodriguez, T Hudson, D. Hudson, M. Bumgarner, E Jackson, D. Holland."

Rich, you should pass on the trade that was offered. Not because the trade is unequal; you should pass because in an 8 team league you should put all your efforts into streaming 2 start pitchers every week. My advice would be to secure 2 NL SP that are scheduled to have a 2 start week. Keep that strategy going every week until you come close to exceeding your IP limit (if you have one). Yahoo can give you an estimate where you stand on IP limits on a daily basis. Lasorda always said "1win in May is worth 2 wins in September".

You listed many good SP still available on the wire but I'm sure others like Zambrano, Hudson, Zimmerman are available too. Choose your match-ups to maximize your numbers. There are many very weak teams in the NL that should have availble SP going against them each week. Look for anyone pitching against the D'Backs, Pirates, Astros, and even the Mets when they are on the road. I would even take any SP going against the Padres at Petco. If you are in a daily league this can really be an advantage to you if you are quick on the click to pick up the SP. In a weekly league, track the  many sites that will post 2 start SP over the weekend and have them on your roster come Monday morning.

P.S. Do not be afraid to snag another Closer now and try and build a quick lead in Saves by mid May. Then you can start to trade off the extra Closer(s), maybe in a trade with one of your elite Catchers for players to help in a category you may be struggling with.