Ride the Wave
By this time of year, all the really good players are gone. By this time of year, most of the unknowns/sleepers have shown what to expect from them for the rest of the year. By this time of year, the waiver pile is looking fairly slim. Does this mean that your fantasy baseball life has come to a stagnant finish? No!
Of course there are always trades that can be made, but my focus here is on the 'hot' player. How do you get Johan Santana numbers without getting Johan Santana? You ride the wave of a 'hot' pitcher. How do you get Hanley Ramirez numbers without having Hanley Ramirez? You guessed it, ride the wave of a 'hot' batter.
Unless your team is rock solid (congrats if it is) you probably have a position that you can be flexible with. Maybe you have two top outfielders but your third one is nobody special, perhaps your infield has a weakness, or, like most teams, you have holes in your rotation. This is the position that riding the wave can help you. Why hold on to an average player when you can get an average player who is on a hot streak? There is no reason. Grab a guy who is performing higher then he should and ride the wave of good performance until it starts to break and then hop on another wave.
The downside of this strategy is minimal. With batters, there are no issues - you are replacing an average player with an average player, the worst that will happen is average numbers. No loss there. Where this strategy can hurt you is with pitching. When an average pitcher is on a streak, you can get some great stats from him, but when that streak ends, it could be bad. Maybe the wave will fizzle out slowly, or maybe it will crash hard. For example, if you had picked up Dontrelle Willis after he had an excellent start, that wave ended quickly and he put up awful, awful numbers - that one probably hurt you.
Here's a few of guys who are hot right now, consider riding their wave:
Luis Valbuena (2B, SS - Indians) in the last one week he is hitting .434, 4 runs, 3 HRs, 7 RBIs, 2 BB (Wow!)
Juan Rivera (OF - Angels) in the last two weeks, he is hitting .333, 8 runs, 4 HRs, 12 RBIs, 5 BB (Good stuff!)
Scott Podsednik (OF - White Sox) in the last two weeks he is hitting .363, 8 runs, 2 HRs, 7 RBIs, 6 BB, 3 SB
Aaron Cook (SP - Rockies) In his last 4 starts he has 4 wins, an ERA of just under 2.00, 18 Ks, and only 5 BB (Been a good ride so far...)
In a week or two, this list should look a lot different. Riding the wave is transitory solution. You generally will not keep the guy for more then a couple of weeks.
So if you have a need, find the hot player and ride his wave. Hang 10 into the playoffs.
-Scout Monkey
Labels: Aaron Cook, Juan Rivera, Laura Lapo Art, Luis Valbuena, Mark King, Scott Podsednik, Scout Monkey
