Earlier this week I made a statement on Twitter about people asking who’s better rest-of-season between Player X and Player Y when making add/drop decisions. It’s the type of question many fantasy analysts get constantly throughout the fantasy season. My tweet wasn’t an attempt to punt such questions for folks looking to make ideal roster decisions, but more so to remind us all that fantasy baseball is truly a weekly game. Sure, it’s a whole other animal for those with a limit on free agent/waiver wire adds for the season or those with deep benches. But most of us play in leagues with either unlimited moves, a FAAB budget and short (6-7 man) benches. Guessing on who will be better for the rest of the season between Jonathan Schoop and Cesar Hernandez is a personal question. Meaning, analysts usually need context (IE, what’s your roster look like so we can identify where your team might be weak). But more so, pretending we know the answer to this question is foolhardy with hitters and pitchers hitting the IL like flies and the fact that we’ve got 85% of the season remaining. Unless a pitcher or hitter has long-term upside for your team, we’ve got to take it one week at a time.
Basically, we need to assess these types of decisions for the short term. Much of this is predicated on upcoming matchups. Something that can be difficult to assess way ahead of time. Especially when a single rainout or pitcher injury can throw off a team’s entire pitching rotation or corresponding schedule. Either way, it is necessary for us as fantasy players to do our due diligence and look ahead at upcoming schedules when deciding between fringe players.
Borderline/Fringe Pitchers in 15-TEAMERS
By fringe players, I mean the guys you’re actually deciding about adding or dropping. It’s an entirely different set of names depending on if you’re playing in a 10-team, 12-team or 15-team league. These types of decisions are easier in 15-team leagues and higher because the corps of options we’re looking at adding or dropping are lesser in talent, and we can identify targets more easily. There simply aren’t many viable starting pitchers available in 15-team leagues so we can more easily assess whether a 7th starting pitcher for our lineup is worth adding between say Jefry Rodriguez and Jordan Zimmermann. In this case – at least for the example of this week – we look and see that Rodriguez faces the Marlins while Zimmermann gets the Red Sox in Fenway. For most it’s a no-brainer as we’re taking the guy (Rodriguez) in the better matchup facing the weaker offense. It may not end up as the correct call, but it’s the correct thought process.
This, of course, is in the case of adding someone as a one- or two-week rental. If someone like Mike Soroka was available in your 15-teamer, he not only takes priority in your bidding – he likely garners quite a pricey bid to earn his services. That’s because someone of Soroka’s talent level may not be hanging around the waiver wire every week. So, we pounce on a commodity like Soroka who has long-term value and only use low-dollar conditional bids on easily expendable one-week rentals like Rodriguez.
The rule of thumb for starting pitchers in 15’s is simple. One-week spot starter rentals are your backup bids to fill a starting roster slot if you need it behind the guys who potentially offer season-long value and upside.
Musical Chairs with 12-team SP
It’s an entirely different ballgame with the streaming of pitchers in 12-team leagues because of the quality of arms available to add off waivers. We have to be more aggressive and active in leagues of this size, always working to maximize the quality of starting pitchers in our starting lineups. As I had mentioned on this week’s podcast with DraftCheat, I do my best to pay very close attention to upcoming matchups for pitchers and try to stay a week ahead of my competition. Projecting the early season schedule was one of the reasons I targeted Marcus Stroman in the later rounds of 12-teamers noticing he was lined up to face weaker AL teams like Detroit, Baltimore and Cleveland, early on in the season. As luck (or perhaps a blend of skill mixed in) would have it, Stroman’s schedule was not thrown off by rainouts/PPD’s. He ended up getting those exact matchups, and has essentially posted quality starts in four of his first five outings.
Figuring out which pitchers to drop is tougher and more gut-wrenching in 12-team leagues, but there’s a method to the madness.
Padres’ southpaw Eric Lauer was another late-round target of mine in March drafts as I noted he was likely to line up and face the lowly Giants offense in two of his first three starts and that in the second week of the season, he was scheduled for a two-start week with those Giants and Diamondbacks. Of course, that didn’t work out as planned as Lauer allowed nine runs in 11 innings over those two starts v ARI / @ SFG. Noting a tough schedule the following couple weeks and figuring he wouldn’t crack my lineup’s starting rotation, Lauer was a no-brainer drop. There may be a time where Lauer becomes a FAAB target for me later, but at that particular waiver wire period looking to the week ahead, he was easily expendable. Chances are I won’t have to fight too hard for him on a future FAAB Sunday in 12-teamers and unless he turns into the second-coming of Kershaw overnight, I won’t lose much sleep over it.
Lauer may have even had a special place in my roto heart because I picked him up last year for a couple of amazing starts. And because I won a bunch of money in DFS on a day I played him when nobody else did. But that’s last year. He owes us nothing and we owe nothing to Lauer. Being able to emotionally separate ourselves from someone who may have been helpful in the past is of the utmost importance as we should only be looking at and considering what a player can do for us this season or this week. The past is nothing more than the past. I had no problem dropping another one of my favorites in Trevor Cahill this past week because of a tough upcoming schedule. Perhaps I add him at a later date, but chances are, if I don’t, it won’t be the end of the world.
Managing Hitter Drops and Adds
We’ve all had our sob stories. In Josh Donaldson’s massive breakout year with the A’s, I drafted the guy in the 30th round, then dropped him after Week 1. Literally, right before he exploded in 2013. I once waited for Mike Morse to turn it around for an entire month, back in 2011. And then he did. How about 31 HR and 95 RBI which began the week after I dropped him.
We are all human and it’s difficult to separate emotion from rationality when it comes to our fantasy teams. Do I want to drop my 12th round pick Garrett Hampson in 12-teamers soon? Of course not. I believe in him, I drafted him, and I urged you all to draft him too. But at some point I have to accept the reality that Daniel Murphy is coming back soon and that unless another injury strikes in that middle infield, Hampson’s may very well be temporarily demoted down to Triple-A. He does possess great skill and upside. He had a fantastic preseason and has inherent value as a guy who can steal bases, hit for average and plays half his game at Coors Field. But he’s off to a rough start and perhaps the timing isn’t right. If I do drop him, and since I’m still a fan, perhaps I just may be mindful of how he’s faring down in Triple-A so I can scoop him back up for pennies on the dollar a week early before my heathen league mates get their filthy paws on him. But in a 12-teamer, there is always someone out there.
Drops are tough because there’s a duality within us. There’s a part of us that wants to drop a player off to a cold start for the next shiny new toy and there’s another part that understands that it’s a long season, hot and cold streaks can kick off in a heartbeat and that upcoming schedules (read: bad pitchers they’ll soon face) plays a big part in whether a guy can get it going offensively soon.
That’s where looking at underlying metrics is vital. Obviously, we’re not dropping a .160-hitting Yasiel Puig (likely our fifth-round pick in 12’s) but we might drop a Yonder Alonso because he’s a fringe/borderline guy in a 12. Looking into changes in a hitter’s exit velocity and plate discipline (do we see improved walk rates or decreased strikeout rates?) is important. Perhaps also their BABIP, which sometimes helps us understand if a hitter may just be unlucky. Maybe they are hitting the ball hard and getting tough outs. Or maybe they’ve faced a string of stud pitchers and now they line up for some crappy Orioles and Royals pitchers (like Yonder and the White Sox did last week and are this week).
That’s why looking ahead at upcoming schedules and the pitchers your hitters may be facing is so important when deciding which fringe/borderline hitters we want to add to our team. Another simple rule of thumb: if you’re not inserting your targeted FAAB player into your starting lineup this week, then they better be someone you foresee long-term value in. IE, this hitter is more to you than just a one-week fill-in.
It isn’t particularly easy when you’re considering guys like Nick Markakis and Alex Gordon – two hitters who don’t offer much power, but guys you know would have a specific purpose in your lineup – to help you with batting average and score some runs when you see that the Braves or Royals happen to be facing six or seven mediocre/subpar right-handed starting pitchers the following week.
In closing, every new FAAB target of yours needs to be bid upon with a purpose. You think your team is deficient in stolen bases and you want to go after a Cole Tucker for a big chunk of your budget, then go for it. But oftentimes, grinding it out with single-digit bids for the Gordons of the world for the one-week boost with a great schedule is the ideal way to make moves up your league standings.
So before you ask someone whether Fringe Guy A or Fringe Guy B will be better ROS (rest-of-season), look ahead to the next couple weeks of matchups and ask yourself: will I start this guy on my team now and do I think he will help me in the next week or two. Fantasy baseball is won in the trenches. More so with the constant grind of two-dollar FAAB adds then they are with the big spends that could bust just as easily as they hit. Do the homework, and the right process should unfold right before your eyes.
