Cutting Star Players in ottoneu

With the trade deadline passed in ottoneu, the only way to improve your roster – for now or the future – through free agent auctions and waiver claims, which means cutting players, rather than trading them. In some cases, this is easy. That $37 Allen Craig you picked up at auction last spring, expecting a bounce back (one which I, myself, expected) is probably not hard to cut loose right now.

But what about the overpriced stars you plan to cut in the off-season but who are still productive? The problem here is that while a $60 Giancarlo Stanton might not be worth a keeping at $62 next year, if you cut him, another owner can start an auction and someone could end up paying him as little as $32 next year.

The worst teams in each league likely don’t face that problem. If you had a $60 Stanton and did not plan to keep him, I would venture to guess that someone in contention was willing to offer a nice package for him earlier in the season. But what about teams that were in contention, but are no longer jockeying for position? Maybe you were fourth, made your big moves for Carlos Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki, and Paul Goldschmidt, just to see all get hurt and tank your season. Or maybe, like one of my teams, you have been in a fight for first, and it is now apparent you won’t win that fight, but you aren’t falling to third either.

That second place team will have to make a bunch of cuts in the off-season to come down from $469 in salary, including four players now over $40 and three more over $30. There are players available in that league right now who I would love to add (Rymer Liriano, Blake Swihart, Clint Frazier, Hunter Dozier, among others), but cutting some of my high-priced talent won’t work.

My $40 Ben Zobrist, acquired in a trade to strengthen my MI is likely an easy cut – if another team wants to make room for him at $20+ to keep him for 2015, so be it.

But even if I don’t plan to keep a $55 Stanton next year (and I am not sure what I plan to do with him), letting him go on the auction block for $27 right now is crazy. Some team will likely end up with an insanely valuable asset for 2015.

The same is true for a $44 Felix Hernandez, $40 Yu Darvish, $30 Cole Hamels or $30 Evan Longoria. The first two might be keepers for me – the latter two probably are not. But all four are great values at half those prices.

So what’s an owner to do? Unfortunately, I think you owe it to yourself and the league to bite the bullet and hold onto guys you know you will cut in a couple month’s time.

In an ideal world, you can add the players you want by finding other pieces to cut (so long $10 Tim Lincecum and $8 Rafael Soriano). Even cheaper players who you think would be undervalued at half their current price (like the two mentioned above) are better cut options. Closer’s often go for $8-$10 in points leagues, so a $4-$6 Soriano is a steal, but letting someone save a few bucks on a RP is a not the same as letting them save dozens on a stud OF or SP.

If that is not the case, if you really have no one you want to cut loose other than your overpriced stars, you likely have to sit on your hands and hope the players you want to add fall through the cracks until the off-season.

There is one way, though, that you can add the players you want with far less risk. Auctions can only be started up through the second to last day of the season. After that point, newly cut players can be claimed via waivers, but cannot be added via auction.

That means, if you start an auction on a guy you want to add at the deadline, then cut your overpriced star when that auction ends, your leaguemates will only have the option to claim that star at his full salary. That may still be a deal, but it won’t be the kind of roster-making discount it would if you cut that player today.