Are you desperate for a second baseman or middle infielder in your deep league? Then you’ve come to the right place! I’ve got a pair of possible free agents ripe for the picking just for you.
The beauty of life as waiver wire fodder is that you don’t need to be great, or good, or heck, even a full-time player to gain entry into the club — you merely need to show up with a job opportunity to take center stage here. In the case of our two contestants this week, their long-term playing time is far from certain, but they’ve been given a chance in the immediate term to contribute in fantasy, and given their past success, that might be enough to make them worthwhile in deeper leagues.
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It’s always interesting to see the players who are often available versus owned in the fantasy baseball realm’s popular platforms. At least it is to me. I don’t know why I allow myself to be surprised. The masses flock to results, regardless of the level of talent and statistical support that come with them. That’s where FanGraphs comes in, at least for those who want to know even a little more of the why. I don’t feel as if I fit in, but I enjoy the chance to learn from the experience and hope to share a little something of value along the way.
The beauty of playing in a mono league such as AL Tout Wars is that I am able to see first hand who the hot FAAB pickups are. Rather than scour my CBS league’s free agent pool to find players worth considering, I could browse through the players actually bid on in a deep league. Having said that, only one of the two players here were actually added this week. The other was drafted. I’m sure you could guess which is which.
When I’m determining what I’m going to spend on players during my leagues’ FAAB runs, I think about the long term. We all do, right? In my experience, however, most fantasy players tend to base their bids on the here and now: The players on hot streaks fetch the most dollars. The exceptions include recently named closers and promoted prospects of great esteem, among others, but you get the idea.
I’ll talk more about FAAB strategy in future columns, I’m sure, but I wanted to plant the seed: Bid according to what kind of returns you figure to receive from the player for the rest of the season, regardless of recent performance. A player’s latest feats can factor in a little, sure, especially if characteristics of them indicate skills growth. In the latter instance, though, you’re already wisely influenced by possible long-term gains.
Today’s edition of the deep league waiver wire is for those with a truly barren free agent pool scrambling for an injury replacement. Even better, both have dual position eligibility, which is extremely helpful when you’re faced with so few pickup options.
Another week, another crop of injuries open up spots for two waiver wire candidates. Me thinks there’s a pattern here. As we snorkel amid the waiver wire waters, our first contestant is no stranger to deep league fantasy owners, though his awful 2013 made him persona non grata in the vast majority of formats entering the season. Meanwhile, a Tommy John snakebite has opened up a spot in the Yankees rotation, potentially opening the door for an intriguing left-hander to aid fantasy owners.
Since 2009 when I started this whole “blogging” thing, I’ve had aspirations to write for FanGraphs. Now that I’m finally here, I don’t know what to say, so I’ll ramble for a bit and hopefully make some kind of point worth reading.
This is how LBJ must have felt when he finally became president: All those years of striving for something that seemed terribly elusive and just when you’re about quit on the whole endeavor, an opportunity arises. You are surrounded by “Harvards” and “Yales”—or in my case brilliant baseball minds—and you went to Southwest Texas State Teacher’s College—or in my case Dominican University of California—and you can’t help but imagine you are horribly inadequate and under-qualified. The good news is that, to the best of my knowledge, no one had to get assassinated for me to get here.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I once had a love affair with Edinson Volquez. He was wild, unfaithful at times, but I was younger then. (That’s how time and the aging process work, as I understand them.) The willingness to live on the edge, the danger he brought, it was part of his allure.
We occasionally reconciled through the years, but for only brief periods. As I matured, I grew to know my boundaries, and too often, Volquez crossed them. Eventually, I understood that he was just no good for me. I taught myself not to answer the phone. Eventually, he stopped calling.
At least not just deep leagues in the case of the first one. And they’re not just a couple of soft-tossing left-handers whose nicknames are spelled the same way, although that’s basically where the similarities end, besides the fact that both started out in Texas’ organization.
