A lot of fantasy baseball owners have asked me if they should cut a player they drafted going into the year for an available Free Agent who is off to a hot start. This is one of toughest decisions owners face during the early stages of the season. At best, fantasy baseball forecasting publications have a 60% chance of accurately predicting the final player rankings for an upcoming season. The affect of injuries, poor performances, replacement performances, unexpected performances, trades, and luck all play a major role in the final player rankings of any fantasy baseball season.
When your fantasy baseball team is off to a slow start, your first instinct is to panic. Every fantasy baseball owner will have a panic attack to some degree, but the best fantasy baseball owners don’t let their emotions control their decisions, rather they try to justify their moves using the information available on hand, a little math, and their gut instincts.
Injuries are a part of the game, and most leagues allow you to carry a player reserve to help mitigate the impact that injuries will have on a given team. If every team was completely balanced and used their reserve spots for the purposes it was intended, then no one would really complain if they suffered a short term injury to any player, but as we know, there are many different ways to use your reserve which makes it extremely difficult to predict what kind of talent will be available to you via Free Agent Market.
Some injuries have a bigger impact than others. There is no arguing this point. If one team loses Albert Pujols for the season, and another team loses Sean Casey for the season, it is obvious that the teams that own Albert Pujols will have a much harder time finding a free agent replacement that can hit .330 with 40 HR and 120+ RBI. Sean Casey, on the other hand, can be easily replaced by any number of hitters in the Free Agent pool, including a player like Chris Shelton, who would likely be called up from the minor leagues if Sean Casey went to the DL for any extended period of time.
There are some major injuries that can be weathered by good fantasy baseball owners. Teams that lost BJ Ryan last week had an opportunity to add Jason Frasor to their team, and depending on how many reserve spots your league allocates to each team, some veteran fantasy baseball owners would have “handcuffed” their primary closer with the primary setup man for the MLB team of that Closer. This may not always turn out to be a perfect way to protect your points in saves, but if you drafted Eric Gagne in Round 8 of your draft, you better have draft Akinori Otsuka before anyone else did. Owners who took a chance and drafted Brad Lidge in the first 12 rounds clearly knew that Dan Wheeler needed to be on their team based on what happened in 2006 and the poor spring performance Lidge had in 2007.
The tough choices many owners are facing this year, is that they are being overwhelmed by injuries and poor performances. The weather has definitely been a factor in 2007, and some of you need to make a choice or to stay afloat until your primary players return to action.
When I faced with making a tough Free Agent decision, I consider several factors before deciding on who to cut from my team and who to add to my team:
1. When did I draft the player I want to cut?
2. Why did I draft the player I am cutting?
3. How did this player get to the point of being a candidate for a Free Agent Move?
4. What is the reasoning for cutting the player at this time?
5. Where will the player end up, if I cut him from my team?
6. Is there a better alternative?
When did I draft the player I want to cut?
As a fantasy baseball owner, you put a lot of time and effort into developing a draft guide for your season. You identified potential injury risks, potential breakout candidates, and players that you felt had to be on your team.
If you used my rankings as your draft guide, it is pretty safe to say that any player you drafted in the Top 5 rounds of your draft are legitimate stars within MLB. I am a very conservative prognosticator, so I don’t feel the need to put risky players in my top 50 – 100 players unless I am really comfortable that they will provide me with the statistics that I have assigned to them, if they stay healthy. Some draft guides may have had Alex Gordon in their top 100, hoping that he was a clone of David Wright. Usually a player in the drafted in your first 10 rounds should not be cut unless he has suffered a season ending injury, had an unexpected change in status (Brett Myers to the setup role, Brad Lidge to Middle Relief or Starter, Jorge Cantu to the minors, etc.), or you took a big risk and drafted someone well before their value dictated (I still am trying to figure out why Outfielder Chris B Young from Arizona had an Average Draft Pick of 133 an 8th round pick in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship) and you are willing to swallow your pride and make the right move for your team.
Why did I draft the player I am cutting?
Players drafted after round 10 are more likely to be players you drafted to fill a particular need. If these players are not doing the job you expected them to do, then you need to make the adjustments necessary to help your team stay focused on your strategy for winning the league.
For example, if you drafted an outfielder with speed to help with your Stolen Base totals, and the player has hurt his hamstring several times this season and has less stolen bases than expected, then you really need to replace him with someone who can help your team.
If a player is merely off to a slow start, you really need to decide if you want to cut him. A hitter that normally bats for a .300 batting average that is off to a slow start (5 hits in 50 at-bats or a .100 average), then the player likely has a hot streak waiting to happen. If you cut the player before he gets hot, you may regret it.
I personally am more likely to cut a player who is off to a fast start (25 hits in 50 at-bats or a .500 average), than a player off to a poor start. The category is called Average for a reason, and seeing that the top hitters usually end up having a batting average around .350 (175 hits in 500 at-bats), there is a good chance some players will come crashing down to their career mark.
How did this player get to the point of being a candidate for a Free Agent Move?
Well, I have already discussed several factors that may have pushed you to the point of no return; however, you want to be absolutely sure of your decision before making a major move in Week 2 of the season. Carrying the regret of a bad for the last 20 weeks of a season can really drain the fun from your fantasy baseball campaign!
What is the reasoning for cutting the player at this time?
If your team has 5 players on the DL, and you only have 4 reserve spots, you may not have any alternatives. But, I have seen some owners cut a really good player to free agency, while they keep a minor league prospect on their reserve. You really need to put a player’s value in perspective. Why keep a minor league prospect that hasn’t been able to crack the major league roster, for a player that you drafted and have a good idea of when he will return to form.
If you have 5 injuries and only 4 spots on your reserve, but one of the injured players will definitely be returning as soon as he is eligible to come off the 15-Day Disabled List, do you really need to cut anyone? If I have a great catcher that gets injured and he will only be out a few weeks, I believe it is better to take no stats from that position then to add a mediocre replacement who may actually end up doing more harm than good, especially if the catcher is a defensive specialist like Yadier Molina or Yorvit Torrealba.
Where will the player end up, if I cut him from my team?
A lot of teams never consider where their player may end up, if they cut them to Free Agency. A player that you can’t use may actually be serviceable by another team you are chasing in the standings. If you drafted three second baseman, but your league only allows you to start 1 second baseman and 1 middle infielder, and you really need to cut your last second baseman to make room on your reserve for a better player, like BJ Ryan, then look at the teams in your league, and see if there are any teams that need a second baseman. If you are in second place, and you drafted Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler, and Josh Barfield during your draft, then you would have a tough cut to make. Barfield would be the most likely cut at this time, but what if the first place team, the third place team, and the last place team would love to upgrade their current second baseman to Josh Barfield? You could be unwittingly helping them improve, due to your need to make a move.
If you are in a league that allows trading, then you really need to consider making a deal with the last place team before cutting a good second base prospect to free agency. Even if you have to practically give the player away, you would rather help the last place team improve than the two teams on either side of you in the standings. If you aren’t in a league that allows trading, and the free agent pool is open to anyone, then you need to really analyze which player you should be cutting. You might discover that your extra Outfielder is a better cut, from a strategic standpoint, since outfield is usually a far deeper position, and only the bottom three teams in your league are in desperate need of an outfielder.
Is there a better alternative?
Sometimes taking no actions can be the right move. If you don’t have enough information to make a decision, and the free agent you are looking to grab is not a high profile player, then maybe you should take an extra week to decide. A lot of teams rush to make moves on Sunday night, when little or no information has been given to them besides that one of their star players is headed for the DL.
Brett Myers will be the perfect example of this philosophy. Who really knows if Philadelphia will keep him in the setup role for the remainder of 2007? Sure, he told reporters that he wanted the move to be permanent, but if he regains his mechanics by mid-May and Adam Eaton, Jon Lieber, or Jamie Moyer suffers a season ending injury, there is no doubt in my mind that he will want to be the number 1 starter again, and Philadelphia will likely do whatever it can to encourage him to take his rightful place a the top of their rotation.
And who knows, the Yankees are desperate for Starting Pitching right now, and Brett Myers has to be looking like a great candidate to be traded at this point! Give yourself a week or two to see if anything else develops, before making a choice to cut one of your first pitchers drafted.
Who to add to your team?
As I stated earlier in this article, the “Law of Averages” is absolute. Unless the player is having a breakout year, or having a catastrophic year, their performances will migrate towards their career averages. You’ll have to use your gut to decide if the stats true indicators of the performance you can expect to see the rest of the year, or if they are just early season anomalies that will all but disappear by the end of the year.
If you want to gain some ground on your competition, you’ll look for good free agents that may have been cut by other teams, but they have no chance at losing their job anytime before June 1. If you grab a player before he has his hot streak, you can gain a lot of ground quickly. Some players off to extremely slow starts and may begin to show up on the free agent wire, like Mike Cameron, Jason Kendall, Connor Jackson, Gary Sheffield, Adam Laroche, Shea Hillenbrand, Zach Duke, Scott Olsen, Brett Myers, Dave Bush, Clay Hensley, Jake Westbrook, Jason Schmidt, and Jeff Weaver are off to really bad starts, and their owners may consider dropping them for “hot” players, depending on the setup of your league.
Finally, be extremely careful of dropping your struggling player for a very hot player, or you will do twice the damage to your team. Dropping a player hitting .150 to start the season for a similar player hitting .400 to start the season could be devastating to your team, if both have a .280 average by the end of May.