To Drop or Not to Drop
Today I am going to steal a column idea and talk about everyone’s least favorite subject, my fantasy team. I am going to look at the options I have in the playoffs for a team decimated by injuries. For the two people still reading, hang in for a ride of self pity.
Background
Old keeper, unique rules, it is what it is and I like it.
20 teams
Categories – 9×8. Several overlapping categories (OBP, W, TB, AVG). The only categories that don’t overlap are Holds and Losses for pitchers.
8 positions plus Util
5 SP, 2 RP, 1 P
9 keepers – forever
8 teams in playoffs, I ended up 4th in regular season.
Currently, my team has been just decimated by injuries at the worst time. I was fairly healthy through the rest of the season. Recently I have lost Zack Cozart, Nick Markakis and Kenley Jansen for the season. Also Anthony Rizzo is hurt for a few games and Josh Hamilton always seems to be hurt.
I have four spots on my bench taken up by players that won’t play. Right now, I have no offensive subs. I can’t mess too much with my pitching staff because I go with just five starters that I cycle in and out to go with four SP/RP guys to help with rate stats and Holds.
I am trying to figure out if I should go all in for a title (about had it last year, but my hitters went 6 for 65 over the final weekend) with a team band-aided together. Or should I just accept my fate and be happy to make the playoffs.The band-aided team would need to drop three potential keepers in Cozart, Markakis and Jansen (I just let go of Jeff Samardzija after he reached his innings limit).
It is tough to give up when I am so close, but reality is setting in. I can’t mortgage the future in a league with 180 keepers (20 teams * 9 keepers per team). It is tough to get any good hitters in this league.
Sadly, I think I am going to skirt the edge by dropping Cozart and Jansen and pick up DeWayne Wise and Logan Forsythe for some hitting depth.
I feel I will be mad if I didn’t give it my best over the off season, but I can’t give up the future also. This balancing act, a chance of pennants now vs. chance of pennants in the future, is one of the toughest decisions to make in fantasy sports.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
I wouldn’t drop Jansen. Unless your keeper is dramatically different than my 20-teamer, closers are rather hard to come by. I’m not as enamored with Cozart, and think you’re probably right that dropping him might be the way to go.
how are closers hard to come by? i dont get people’s infatuation with them. they contribute in 1 category, and very minimally to the rest…but they can also kill your ERA when they give up 4 ER in 1/3 of IP….besides, other than Papelbon, Kimbrel, Betancourt, Putz, Jim Johnson, Perez, Valverde, Hanrahan, Motte, and Nathan, every other team has either A.) had multiple closers amass considerable numbers of saves, B.) changed their closer at some point in the season, or C.) become the Astros who dont win any games, therfore, making their closer useless.
“how are closers hard to come by?”
Apparently you’ve never played in a deep league Cliff.
i think thats a smart move. cozart is 27 and doesnt have great upside, not to mention, SS isnt the black hole it once was with the emergence of tolerable options such as Cabrera, Rutledge, Hardy, Zobrist, Prado, Simmons, etc, as well as guys like Nick Franklin, Hamilton, Xander, etc soon to be in the bigs. im 100% in favor of going all-in to win the title. if you arent trying to win every year, whats the point of playing. too often i see teams get stuck trying to hold onto prospects at the cost of winning, and then those prospects never reach their potential, and the team ends up not only losing their chance at a title, but losing in the future as well.
as for your hesitations about not dropping jansen, thats one im not suited to advise you on. i dont see any logical reason to keep ANY closer. including kimbrel or chapman. i just dont. not gonna be convinced otherwise. ill simply respond with this: Tyler Clippard, Steve Cishek, Aroldis Chapman, Rafael Soriano, Aceves, Ryan Cook, Addison Reed, Greg Holland, Tom Wilhelminsen(sp?), Ernesto Freiri, Kenley Jansen, Luke Gregerson/Dale Thayer, Sergio Romo/Santiago Casilla, Wilton Lopez, Fernando Rodney, Cassey Jansen….all guys with significant accumulation of saves that werent really thought of as closers to start the season.
Just because there is more closer job turnover doesn’t make them useless. They and they alone contribute to 1 category that no one else can help you with and a guy like Jansen with 13+ k/9, around 2.5 ERA, and a sub-1.0 whip do contribute quite a bit more than you’re giving them credit for. Considering the average team ERA in 12-team fantasy leagues last year was around 3.9 and the average team WHIP was 1.3, Jansen would help your team in ratios more than 200 IP of 3.62 ERA and 1.16 WHIP. So more than Greinke, Sheilds, Latos, Fister, etc this past year. Add on to that the extra 30-40 K’s he gets over most closers other teams in your league run out there and he’s been pretty valuable.
I’m not the guy that drafts the elite closers early, but the old “closers don’t contribute in other categories” adage is just false.
As for you tossing out the guys that came out of nowhere to have good years – for every one of them there’s a Frank Francisco, a Matt Thornton, a Henry Rodriguez. If you wait to grab closers late you’re stuck with those guys ruining weeks of ERA for you while you sort through the chaff. If you’re in a competitive league you can’t assume that you’ll be able to pick up the next Clippard, Holland, or Freiri because you have 11 guys in your league paying just as much attention as you to rumors and message boards and 9th innings of games.
just for the record, im in 2 20-team dynasty leagues, and 2 14-team keeper leagues, so i have played in deeper leagues. and yeah, keepers are harder to come by in deeper leagues, but because there are more teams, you dont need as many closers to compete in saves.
in response to JREwing, i feel as though your logic is flawed in several different ways. first of all, its impossible to make a blanket statement like Jansen helps your ERA more than Greinke. well yeah, so would 75% of RP since Greinke’s ERA sits at 3.69. but over the course of an entire season, when you rack up 1000+ total IP amongst your team, Jansen’s 55-60 IP are hardly going to have any kind of sizeable impact whatsoever. If you take 1000 IP, which is on the low side, and factor in Jansen’s numbers to an average 3.90 ERA, it is lowered to about 3.85. conversely, Greinke’s stats would bring down the ERA to 3.87, highlighting the minimal impact of a RP’s ERA, even when they are great….especially compared to SP. Greinke’s ERA is only 0.21 better than the average of 3.90, yet it brings down the overall by 0.03. Kenley’s 2.54 is a whopping 1.36 better than your average, yet it only brings it down by 0.05-06. so, in fact, you pretty much made my point for me there. perfect example of how a SP with average at best ratios has nearly the same amount of impact as a stud RP with great ratios.
secondly, considering most leagues have at the very least, 10 starts per week, with 22-25 weeks, thats about 220-250 starts. Figure an average of 6 IP, and you are looking at well over 1200 IP. the more IP you have, the less closer’s will impact your ratios. also, youre completely ignoring that SP will contribute to Wins, QS, and Ks far more than RP will. maybe if you somehow manage to get Kimbrel, Chapman, and Jansen, they will have a greater impact on your ERA…but check this out. if you take your league average of 3.90 for a full season, and you have about 1200 IP total amongst your entire team….and then you add Kimbrel, Chapman, and Jansen to those totals, and they bring down your overall ERA to 3.77-78. Sorry, but thats just not a big enough difference for me to spend a top 50-60 draft pick on a guy. especially since all 3 will likely be top 75 picks. id much rather take my chances with Jordan Zimmerman, Cueto, and Wainwright, all guys i expect will be drafted in the 40-60 range.
As for Frankie Frank, HRod, and Thorton, i would never draft any of them, or any guys like that. for the most part, i grab potential closers like Clippard, Jansen, Cook, Holland, etc., and then when they finally get the gig, i trade them after about 2 weeks of success. i would much rather have a above average SP than a great closer. they will help me more across the board. you claim that the belief that closers dont help you in any other categories is false, yet you dont really provide any information as to why, other than a flawed case about ERA and ratios. yes, they might help your ERA, but not by much, even if you have 3 of the 4 best RP in the league.
***”and yeah, CLOSERS(not keepers sorry) are harder to come by”