In the Staff Keeper League (18 team mixed, 5x5), I found myself heading into the season short on starting pitching. I'd gone into the auction with an enviable core of young starters (Stephen Strasburg, Brandon Beachy and Mat Latos) but as the auction played out I found that brand-name pitching was, to my mind, overpriced compared to hitting, and so I spent my money on offense. Instead of adding a fourth ace to my core as I intended, by the end of the night I found I'd rounded out my staff with a soon-to-be-injured Felipe Paulino, demoted phenom Danny Hultzen and perennial tease Rick Porcello. Ulp.

As April progressed, my worst fears were realized. While I stayed on the fringes of contention thanks to an offense that stayed afloat despite slumps and struggles from most of its big names, I rapidly sunk to dead last in wins and wasn't doing much better in strikeouts. I've been making some progress on a big trade or two, but couldn't afford to simply wait for an opportunity to present itself on that front. If I was going to keep the roster viable for a push later in the season, I needed to act. It was time for Operation Roster Flippity-Floppy, or as most people call it, 'streaming'.

Enacting Operation Roster Flippity-Floppy was really a two stage process:

1) IDENTIFY YOUR TARGETS - If you're going to stream starting pitching, it's important to assemble the right arsenal of fringy arms no one else wanted. Over the last few weeks I've made perhaps over-large free agent bids on three pitchers: Marco Estrada ($8), Joe Blanton ($12) and Christian Friedrich ($8). In all three cases I jumped at them right after their first good start of the season, and in Estrada and Friedrich's case right after they joined the rotation. You'll notice what they have in common. All are NL pitchers, all have have least decent offenses behind them, and both Estrada and Friedrich have some nice strikeout upside. I probably could have saved some money on those bids, but I didn't want to take any chances. Combined with a now-healthy Paulino who's pitched well since coming off the DL that gives me eight viable starters I could potentially deploy in any given week.

2) GO FULL THROTTLE - While my starters were thin to begin the season, I had a strong bullpen. Closers Craig Kimbrel and Joel Hanrahan were joined by high-K relievers Vinnie Pestano, Kelvin Herrera, Bobby Parnell, Tom Wilhelmsen and other arms who might have fallen into closer jobs if the early season bullpen chaos had spun a bit differently. (And Chris Volstad. Oops.) That's kept me strong in saves and afloat in ERA/WHIP through the first five weeks of the season. If you're going to stream, though, you have to go all out, especially in a league like this where there's no innings cap and transactions are weekly and not daily. Heading into this week, I looked at the projected starts for my crew. Strasburg (two starts) and Beachy (home to the Marlins) were locks. Latos has been up and down (or rather, down then up), but at the Mets wasn't a start to avoid. Paulino hosted the Orioles and was going well, so he stays. That's four. Porcello and Estrada both got home starts against the sad-sack Twins "offense". That's now six starters. Benching Pestano gave me room for one more... but both Blanton and Friedrich had two-start weeks, at the Giants and home to the Mariners for Friedrich and two home starts against the Astros and Red Sox for Blanton. Any home start at Coors is dangerous, but the Red Sox are still a potentially ugly foe... hmm, who to pick...

At the last minute I realized I was being an idiot and benched Hanrahan. So what if he got a couple of saves this week? I could afford to lose them. I needed wins and K's, and lots of them.

My reward last night for that decision was a combined line of one win, 17 K's, a 1.29 ERA and a 1.000 WHIP in 14 innings from Blanton and Friedrich in their 'easy' starts for the week. Of course I missed a save from Hanrahan too, but that's a trade I'll gladly make.

After last night's small triumph, here's where I stand in the five pitching categories:

Wins: now tied for 15th (progress!), 14 back of first but only six back of sixth.

Strikeouts: 12th, 78 back of first, 31 back of fifth.

ERA: eighth, 0.72 back of first, 0.29 back of fourth.

WHIP: eighth, 0.131 back of first, 0.078 back of second.

Saves: in a three-way tie for fourth, four back of first.

With a little more than three-quarters of the season left those secondary marks are still very attainable, and assuming my offense kicks into high gear like it should (Brian McCann, Hanley Ramirez, Ryan Zimmerman, Shin-Shoo Choo and Alex Gordon are all under-performing so far, and Mike Morse is getting close to coming off the DL) that leaves me with a very strong shot at a money finish if not a chance at the title. Over the last few years the league winners have crossed the finish line with a point total of around 145 or so, which basically means averaging a fourth or fifth place finish across the board (or, if you're Bloggin' Howard Schindel, punting batting average and saves and being top two or three in almost every other category...). It'll be a long road back in wins and K's for me to get there, but it's doable.