And Sometimes It Rains

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, and sometimes it rains. Remember that line from Bull Durham? Well, so far this season it has rained and rained some more. There have been 10 more rain outs so far this year than all of last year.  Can these rain outs affect your fantasy leagues? The answer is very much so. They have consequences on having someone in your line-up when the game is postponed therefore taking up a spot where you could have plugged a bench player into for that day. Rain outs also have the opposite effect. You plug someone from your bench into the starting roster you may have not wanted too. By doing this you peel off another game from your game limits for the season.

Tommy Lasorda always said a win in May is worth 2 in September but that may not be the case in Fantasy. With the 30+ rain outs in 2011 you may be over your limits in games played/innings pitched to date. That current overage may come back to haunt you late in the season when these rain out games start getting played. I am in leagues where managers are already close to 100 projected innings over their limit. Good for me, bad for them. With these pending games be rescheduled later in the season you must be aware of possible double headers and games being made up on off days. With this in mind let’s look at some Yahoo rules and regs you may not know about.

These rules cover your team when reaching limits on games played. Most leagues have a 162 games limit per position. Multiply that number by the number of players per position. Example; two catcher leagues get 324 games played limits. Four OF leagues get 648 games played limits and so on. The key here is to know what happens when you are 1 game from reaching you limits. In the 4 OF scenario if you are at 647 of a possible 648 games played limit you still get credit for all stats generated from all 4 of your OF for that day. Yes you are going over your limit but you get credit for all players’ stats playing while reaching your limit. Good info to know.

As far as pitching, the same applies. Your league has a 1400 innings limit and your team enters the day at 1399 innings pitched and your team have 3 SP going that day and 4 RP slotted. You will get the credit for every win, K, Save, ERA and WHIP adjustment. You could literally pick up a couple of Wins, Saves and 20 Ks.

The lesson here is to keep an eye open for these make-up games being re-scheduled, your limits along with your other league manager’s limits and maximizing that last day’s stats when reaching your limits. It may seem minor but it could just win you a League Championship come late September.