Halftime Adjustments

Hey, it's everyone's favorite Annapolis, Md.-based, sporadic internet fantasy baseball writer, Rob! Hi there! Since we've hit the halfway point of the season, it's time to take a good, long look at a phenomenon of the fantasy world: first-half players and second-half players. Turning fast starters into fast finishers could be the key to winning your league. But who are these Popeye-esque men that spend April through July wearing blindfolds and swinging those pool toy noodles fruitlessly as 95 mph fastballs blast by them, only to grow muscular and green after the All-Star game, ripping their shirts off and hammering pitches into the stratosphere? And who are their counters, the Zeusii and Herculii who revert into mere mortals when the weather gets hot? Fear not, internet friends. Because that's where I come in with two hip-ly named lists: 3 Guys that start well and fall off after the All-Star Break (Sell) 1. Mark Reynolds, 3B, Arizona. Even though we somehow assume he's come out of nowhere pre-ASB this year, he was having a fine season during the same time period last year, going .249-19-58 before the break. Post-ASB, he managed just nine home runs and OPS'd .711. Especially for a guy currently hitting .269-24-61, it might be time to sell high--even though his numbers from 2007 contradict this, since he actually turned on the power stroke then. I feel like his sophomore season is going to be much more telling for this year, however, and I would expect above-average-not-good-not great numbers from him the rest of the way. 2. Nate McLouth, OF, Atlanta. A year ago in Pittsburgh, McLouth hit .281 before the All-Star Break and .270 afterwards. He went from homering every 19 at-bats to homering every 33 at-bats. He ran a lot more, all things considered, but the power decline was sharp. Like Reynolds, however, he did pretty much the opposite in '07, but that was because he went from being a situational guy to an everyday guy. He's one you'll want to watch if you're relying on him for power in the second half. 3. Felix Hernandez, SP, Seattle. A guy that is seemingly always on the verge of breaking through, Felix looked like he really had something pre-ASB last year (101 Ks in 113 innings, 2.95 ERA). Afterwards, he was pedestrian (4.11 ERA, or basically a half-season worth of Tim Wakefield with a couple more strikeouts). It happens to him every year. In 2007, he was at 3.72 pre-ASB and 4.09 afterwards. And that includes an 8 2/3 inning, 1-run gem in his last start against Texas that was worthless because he already screwed you out of the playoffs. Others: Dan Haren, Alex Rios, Ian Kinsler (can't stay healthy), anybody that's old, anyone with an unreasonably high BABIP that isn't a world-class sprinter, any pitcher with an unreasonably low K/9. 3 Guys that historically turn it on post-ASB (Buy) 1. CC Sabathia, SP, New York (American). Yeah, he's fat. And yeah, he's thrown 1,000 innings. But he's been an absolute horse in the latter stages of the past few seasons. In 2007, he had a 2.76 ERA in 15 post-ASB starts (compared to 3.58 before), striking out 90 in 107 innings. In late June of 2006, he had a 4.18 ERA. For the rest of the season, he had a 2.71 ERA in 17 games with 108 strikeouts in 126 innings. And you all know what happened last year: Before the break, he punched old ladies in the face and ran an organized crime syndicate outside of suburban Chicago. Afterwards, he pitched roughly 4,289 innings for the Brewers, singlehandedly putting the team on his back to bring them to the playoffs, while spending his off-days providing free boat rides to terminally ill children. Don't let the workload scare you: Sabathia is the quintessential second-half ace. Expect complete games and shutouts left and right. 2. Kevin Youkilis, 1B, Boston. He hit 15 homers pre-ASB and 14 homers post-ASB. This is a handy reminder to those of you out there who are under the assumption that the ASB is roughly in the middle of the season, because what Youkilis did can be easily glazed over. He homered roughly every 22 at-bats before the break. Afterwards? Once every 15 at-bats. He also OPS'd .933 before the break--not bad--but not the Pujolsian .998 afterwards. Youk is having a fine season so far, but if you can pry him away from his current owner, he's going to start paying dividends. 3. Aubrey Huff, 3B, Baltimore. His remarkable season a year ago was even more impressive because he kept getting better as the season went along. I'm cheating here because I'm looking a bit before the All-Star game, but he was hitting .239 on June 8 last year. From then on out (93 games), he hit .346 with 23 home runs and an OPS of 1.022. Holy cheese and crackers, 1.022!!! He's been struggling so far this season, but it's definitely worth a look, with numbers like that. Others: Mark Teixeira (obviously), Albert Pujols (super-obviously), anyone with an obscenely low BABIP, any and all rookies (see my post earlier this season about this year's Cliff Lee-or don't, the point is, pick up anyone and everyone who might have a shot because in the end all this advice is worthless and it's just a crapshoot). Don't be afraid to go searching for these stats, either. They're widely available. Some players start hot and fade, others take a while to get going. If you know which ones to target and which ones to get rid of, you can put yourself in a much better position to win.

Fun with extrapolation

Two posts in two days? Why not. So I'm at work, flipping through statistics, when the thought struck me that a useful tool in fantasy is pace. You see, it's all fine and good that Evan Longoria has 55 RBI now. And that Adrian Gonzalez has 22 home runs. But is Longoria really going to keep up that pace and tie Joe DiMaggio for 11th all-time in single season RBI? Is Gonzalez really going to end up with 67 bombs? These are the questions you have to ask yourself, because if you can turn guys who start well into guys who finish well, you have a championship-caliber team. Think about it: Last year, Josh Hamilton set the world on fire. But everyone knows he cooled off after the All-Star break. On June 5 last year, he had 68 RBI in 61 games. If you'd have traded him then, you'd have given up a player that was productive the rest of the way, but certainly not anywhere near the same value (62 RBI in his last 95 games). Those numbers aren't just skewed by Hamilton, of course; Ian Kinsler's late-season injury cut down on the number of times Hamilton came to bat in an RBI situation. But that's just it: Injuries and a host of other things are going to happen. This is why 11 people in history have ended up with as many RBI as Longoria is on pace for: It's a long season. Should you think about what kind of value you could get for Longoria? Maybe. Then again, he's also on pace for 40 homers and hitting .322, which are numbers he can control more. But still--if you could swap him in a 1-for-2 situation where you get maybe a big time hitter and a power pitcher, you might want to sit up and take notice. In the case of Gonzalez, too, you can expect that he won't end up with the most non-asterisked home runs of all time. Or maybe you can't. But what you should expect are numbers similar to last year: From June 5 on, he hit .269 with 19 homers. So he probably eclipses 40 this year, maybe 45, probably not 50, and definitely not 60. The point of this exercise is that a lot of people do fuzzy math when it comes to projections: Halfway through the season, if you know hitter X is normally a .300 hitter, and he's hitting .290, there are many of you that would expect him to hit .310 for the rest of the season to "balance out." Sort of like if you flip a coin "heads" ten times in a row, you'd expect it to come up tails on the eleventh. This is not the right way to think, and it's gonna cost you in fantasy. If hitter "X" is normally a .300 hitter, and he's hitting .290 at the midway point, you can expect him to hit normally the rest of the way, or .300. So he'll end up at .295. You can't expect that things just magically "even out." So take David Wright, for instance. The pride of Norfolk, Va., has just three home runs to his credit on the young season. Those of you expecting a power binge should temper your expectations, because it doesn't really work that way. Granted, I'm sure he has a few streaks in him, but he's not going to magically hit 30 home runs the rest of the way. He's not only going to hit six, either. But when you've hit only 3 in your first 51 games, the uninformed think he's "due" for another 30 the rest of the way. And the projections will say six. You're both wrong. Last year, Wright hit 24 home runs from game 52 on (including two in game number 52, for those of you watching tonight). So maybe that number is going to be close to 30... but I doubt it. You've got to consider the fact that a power outage like his so far is going to linger. I think he gets his stroke back by the ASB and finishes off in the mid-20s. So don't be afraid to trade big names or guys who have started off on fire. You have to put the numbers aside and figure out what you really expect to get from a guy as the season goes on from this point. The gaudy numbers might look nice, but they're in the books. And they're not going to help you come playoff time.

Buy High, Sell Low

A quick note to start: Sorry to the potentially-existing people who actually read me on this blog (which is to say, no one). I'm unreliable. Here's a transition: You know who else is unreliable? Francisco Liriano. Which brings me to the ditty I'm going to sing for you guys today: Buy High, Sell Low. Arguments are always going to rage about which guys are doing well and should be sold off while they're high, or which guys are slumping and should be bought while they're low. But oftentimes we overlook guys who are doing so awfully that you should get whatever you can for them--or guys that are doing well but are worth every penny. So it's Buy High, Sell Low (and man I hope I'm the first one to come up with this idea, if it exists somewhere else on the internet, sorry). Buy High Ian Kinsler, 2B, Texas. Kinsler was ranked preseason by many as the number one second baseman in baseball, and right now he still is. However, a mini-slump has dropped his batting average down to .282 and he's been hitting .243 over the past month. After his early-season dominance, his numbers still look pristine, but if Kinsler owners were ever starting to wonder what kind of value they could get for him, now would be the time. He is a legitimate top-10 talent, so anything less than that for him (or a 2-for-1, because everyone knows that the person getting the one player always wins) would be a great treat for you. See what your league's Kinsler owner needs and cast a line out. Kinsler is a 35/35 threat this year, and I think the batting average creeps near .300. Josh Johnson, SP, Florida. Another guy who had all kinds of early-season hype because of a fast start, and another guy who has pretty much kept it up. But the thing about Johnson is that, for whatever reason, the fan in the hype machine is just running on "low" setting right now. What happened to the Cy Young talk? I haven't heard anything about this guy lately and he's got a 2.66 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP. This might be your last chance to trade for him before he becomes a "name" guy, which means this might be the best value you can get for him in the next few years. Keeper owners, take notice: He is a legitimate fantasy ace for now and the future. Those ERA and WHIP numbers aren't really going to do much rising. Adam Jones, OF, Baltimore. Again, once these guys become "name" guys, their value is going to skyrocket simply because of who they are. I'm buying what Pac-Man is selling, and if you are as well then you should go get him even at what many would consider an inflated value. As soon as everyone's buying into him being a top-50 (or even a top-20) fantasy player, he's going to start commanding that type of value--right now I don't think you need to give up that much to get him. The thing about Jones is that the speed is going to be there in addition to the power; four stolen bases right now don't tell the whole story. Even though he's probably not going to hit .345 with 36 homers and 117 RBI like he's on pace for right now, he's also going to steal more than 13 bags. I'd expect a final line like .310/120/27/105/20. Mark Teixeira, 1B, New York Yankees. Tex has a history of starting terribly and finishing strong. But what happens when he starts strong? All bets are off for this guy at this point. Through 190 AB's this year, Tex is at 36/16/44/.279. Last year, through 191 AB's, he was 28/5/31/.267. Fun with extrapolation: Combine his numbers from then on last year with his numbers so far this year and you get a final line that looks like this: 110/44/144/.312. Yipes. Sell Low Francisco Liriano, SP, Minnesota. And it breaks my heart. But his control problems are going to plague him for at least this year before he even has a chance to work on them enough. His stuff is not as good as it was when he lit the world on fire coming into the league, and now he's exceedingly hittable. Something weird to note: Liriano has been awesome this year in the first 2 or 3 innings, and inevitably falls apart around the 4th. I don't know what to make of this, besides saying that hitters see something the first time through the order that they exploit when they see him next time. This is not good. Get what you can from the Liriano supporter in your league and cut your losses. Sorry. He's going to end up in the minors soon enough: The Twins just have too much pitching to let him linger with the worst ERA in the AL. Jimmy Rollins, SS, Philadelphia. Jimmy hasn't been hitting well for a while now, but he's still getting the respect out of some people that he deserved two seasons ago. You might not even be able to expect double-digit home runs out of him this year, and the power/speed combination is what made him so alluring. Right now, he's basically Emmanuel Burriss with a low batting average and a little bit of power. Exploit the name value while you still can. Rollins won't end up hitting in the .220s, but he won't hit .280 either. Matt Wieters, C, Baltimore. Okay, okay, hear me out on this one. Wieters' value has always been a huge question mark, so people never knew what to offer for him. Now that he's starting off his major league career with a slump, it's time to evaluate what kind of value you could get. Be stingy about it, but throw the ideas out there: Someone probably still has him ridiculously overrated. I think Wieters is the savior, don't get me wrong. But think about it this way: Let's say you have a painting worth a hundred dollars. You go a few months of holding onto it even though everyone thinks it's worth a million dollars. Now all of a sudden, maybe people think it's worth a hundred thousand dollars. If you sold it now, you'd still be making a ridiculous profit. Projections for Wieters? Grab them out of a hat. Who knows? That's the beauty. Brad Lidge, RP, Philadelphia. So you paid for saves. And now you're in a bind. Lesson: Don't pay for saves. If someone else in your league is dumb enough to (A) think that closers are worth anything and (B) think that Lidge is still an elite closer, then by all means, get whatever you can. His production can be replaced in most leagues quite easily. And if not, see if you can deal him for an under-appreciated closer like Brian Wilson and maybe a spare part or two. Lidge may very well end up turning it around, but who cares? It's just not worth it to sit and wonder if he's going to improve. So what if he's low? Sell him anyways.

The Next Cliff Lee, or Why You Should Never Listen to Us.

I've been playing fantasy baseball since I was 10 years old, and my best friend has been playing since the year after I started. During baseball season, 90 percent of our conversations revolve around fantasy. We've become pretty well-versed. But last year, something took us by surprise. Cliff Lee. That jerk, Cliff Lee. See, here's the thing. The peripherals and the track record and the career arc and all that other mumbo jumbo that fantasy sports web sites throw at you all amounted to diddly-poo last year in the case of Cliff Lee. There was no rhyme or reason to his success. Even his "good" seasons weren't particularly fantasy-relevant--a 1.50 WHIP in 2004, a 1.40 WHIP in 2006--leaving his one "semi-great" season of 2005 as the only possibly link between him and what he did last year, at age 29 no less. The point is, sometimes things just happen. Sometimes, Cliff Lee wins a Cy Young. And it's why you should take all of these early-season fantasy columns and throw them out the window. Because sometimes, stuff happens that no "expert" is ever going to predict, and if they did they'd be crazy. This has been a big topic of discussion between my friend and I this season, and we both independently came to the same conclusion: Anyone could be the next Cliff Lee. The best advice I can give you is that if you have space on your roster for a fast starter--no matter who he is--pick him up and see if you can ride the wave. Don't listen to the columns telling you that Kevin Millwood won't keep up the pace in Texas, just roster him and see what happens. And yes, I know Jarrod Washburn is about as exciting as my Educational Statistics class, but what's the worst that could happen? Especially in head-to-head leagues, most of the people who are reading this are competent enough to get into the playoffs. So use the first few weeks to tinker. Make guesses, not educated guesses. Cast a wide net. Don't be afraid to pick up and drop people on a whim. Go out there and get Kyle Davies. Because the worst thing that could happen is that you drop him for some other flavor of the week. Eventually, at least one of these guys is going to stick. He might not win 22 games and the Cy Young, but he'll stick. So just remember to forget everything you've ever heard, and don't pay attention to those pesky fantasy "experts." Er. Except for me.

Taking a deep plunge

So people ask me all the time, "Hey Rob, I'm in a 20 team keeper league with 28-man rosters where pitching is devalued and I'm always looking for deep sleepers as far as starting pitching goes." Well the thousands of you that have sent me that exact question can get off of my back because, just for you, I'm looking at some starters who are way off the radar that might be able to help you out. We're not talking late-round sleepers, we're talking about watch list sleepers. Not even sleepers. Guys who are in comas. Nick Adenhart, LAA. He brings the pedigree and the raw tools, but the question is if he can improve on a downright bad 2008 campaign. This might just be conjecture, but I have the feeling with him this year, and he's certainly going to have the opportunity to shine, at least early in the season, with John Lackey's elbow strain, Joe Saunders' dead arm, Ervin Santana's sprained ligament and Kelvim Escobar's rickets. The door is wide open for Adenhart right now to pitch in front of a pretty good offense. You could do a whole lot worse. David Purcey, TOR. Purcey is another young guy who was roughed up last year but who has a solid shot to latch on with a rotation this season. Also, remember his complete-game, 11-strikeout performance in a 1-0 loss to Tampa last August? 'Cause I didn't. He also had a 2.69 ERA and a 1.12 WHIP in 19 Triple-A starts last season. And he's your No. 3 starter for Super Team Canada. How come no one's talking about this guy? Jason Schmidt, LAD. Two years ago I was drafting a team I co-owned with my friend Nick and this choice came up: Schmidt or Cole Hamels? Well, you can probably see where this one is going. But the point is, Schmidt is just a couple years removed from elite status and the only problem is that he can't stop getting hurt. There's another guy that sounds a lot alike and everyone's all over him this year, Rich Harden. I don't think Schmidt's ceiling is as high as Harden's but it's a great value play, especially as the season's starting and everything's getting settled in. Anyways, that's three really deep guys that no one else is even thinking about drafting, and you shouldn't either. But keep them on the radar and if you have an extra bench spot, stash 'em. You just never know.

Draft Strategy: Heavy (on) hitters

So by now everyone who refers to themselves as a fantasy expert has already told you that hitting is more valuable than pitching, draft the best player available without worrying about position need, blah blah. But if you're like me, you've always felt some reservations about going too many rounds in a draft without getting some kind of balance. I went into our writers' draft last night without any real type of strategy, but I noticed 11 rounds in that I had one pitcher (B.J. Ryan). This frazzled me. One pitcher--and a mid-range closer at that--11 rounds into a 13-team draft? How could I possibly hope to compete in the pitching categories without a staff ace? I was going to really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, right? And that's where my nugget for today comes from, because that's wrong. I picked up Ryan Dempster in round 11 (Adam Wainwright almost slipped to me), Kevin Slowey in round 14 and Gavin Floyd in round 16. These aren't projects or high-risk-high-reward guys. These are legit starters that can be found in the middle rounds, after your batters are situated. They're also about as solid as a starter is going to get. Beyond that, I was able to pick up three more guys that are at least on some semblance of solid ground for their respective closer jobs (Chad Qualls, Joel Hanrahan, Matt Lindstrom) in rounds 13, 15 and 17, respectively. There is a ton of pitching value there for the taking in the later rounds. With hitting this season, late-round picks are going to have huge question marks. With pitching, late-round guys are still going to be just as safe as anyone else. So feel free to go heavy on hitting. Relentlessly heavy on hitting. A lot of people will tell you to devalue pitching but to still try and pick up a staff ace and a top closer, or a couple great pitchers in the first 8-10 rounds, but don't listen to them. Go all-out. Fill your lineup with hitters. Because it's not like you'll have to search to find diamonds in the rough--the pitchers with talent, pedigrees, and opportunity are still going to be there when the rounds hit double-digits. So if you're like me and you notice 11 rounds in that you're sitting on a bunch of sluggers and B.J. Ryan, don't fret. You've got this draft right where you want it.

A Real Sleeper (Because That's What Old People Do)

If some no-name was lighting up spring training for the Giants, I feel like there would be a rumble about his one earned run in 8 1/3 innings of work with a 12:3 K:BB ratio. Strangely, since the guy isn't a no-name, I haven't heard anything about him. That stat line belongs to Randall David "Big Unit" Johnson, all of 45 years old this season. Right now, Randy's going 174th overall in your average Yahoo! draft, which doesn't necessarily make him the sleepiest of sleepers, but I think he's being undervalues. People are mesmerized by the potential of unknowns like Clayton Kershaw (162) and Brandon Morrow (164) and the old guy is sliding into the next round. Even everyone's really sleepy tired exhausted sleeper, Josh Johnson, is going at 157. I think Johnson is going to be a lot better than those guys. Besides the hot spring, the guy has been pretty consistent even with his strange 5.00 ERA in 2006. The guy is a WHIP machine (even in 06, it was 1.24... a 1.24 WHIP with a 5.00 ERA? Has that ever happened?) which helps if your staff is anchored by a Billingsley type, and he never stopped striking guys out (173 in 184 innings a year ago). But I think we've gotten so used to him that he's about the 50th pitcher off the board. You could make a strong case that he needs to go earlier, especially consider the fickle nature of the position. Either that, or you should definitely target him where he is, because unlike a lot of the questionable commodities he's going around (Ted Lilly), he's much steadier than the average bear. I mean, come on. Even Erik Bedard is going before him. Why is that? Do you think Erik Bedard is going to recapture his one good season? Unit has had about 154 good seasons. It doesn't matter that the man is 45; he was 44 last year and was great as well. And he seems healthy. Just a quick fun thought: how pumped would you be if you started a keeper league in 1987 and you drafted Unit? How proud would you be every day? Legitimately 22 years' worth of happiness. This is why fantasy baseball rules. Of course, I wouldn't know--that was the year before I was born. Be that as it may, don't sleep on the old man. You're the one that should be waking him up and sending him to the mound.

Sleeper: Chris Iannetta

This is a cliche in fantasy baseball, but let's do it anyways. I present to you, Player A and Player B. Player A: 350 at-bats, 47 runs, 15 home runs, 53 RBI, .844 OPS. Player B: 333 at-bats, 50 runs, 18 home runs, 65 RBI, .895 OPS. Obviously since you read the headline you know that one of these guys is Chris Iannetta, the catcher for the Rockies. The other player is ESPN's projection for everyone's golden boy, Matt Wieters. Wieters is currently going at 114 in Yahoo! drafts, whereas Iannetta is sitting around until pick 142. Are you all crazy? Iannetta is your typical post-hype sleeper. He was supposed to hit well at Coors, didn't, we forgot about him, and now he's awesome and no one's noticing. You know the drill. Unfortunately, a lot of you are still drafting Wieters in the 12th round of a 10-team league when you could be getting Iannetta in the 15th. This makes you a nutter butter. (Quick edit just in case anyone thinks I'm a plagiarist: "Post-hype sleeper" is a term coined by Yahoo. I don't know if my original writing makes me a plagarist or not, but I'd rather be on the safe side. Glad we cleared that up.) Just look at those numbers. I trust ESPN's projections to at least somewhat resemble what we should expect from players, and you can see that a well-researched projection lands Wieters pretty solidly under what Iannetta did last year. This isn't a knock on Wieters though; I'd expect him to deliver. The only problem is that he might not get playing time until June, and then has to face his first go-around of major league pitching. Can he be awesome? Sure. But you know who's also awesome? Chris Iannetta. Look again at those numbers. Last year, he hit 18 home runs and had 65 RBI in only 333 at-bats, as he was fighting the legally dead Yorvit Torrealba for playing time. This year, there is no such fight. Let's say Iannetta gets 500 at-bats this year (Brian McCann, for instance, had 509 a year ago). Those 18 home runs and 65 RBI extrapolate to 27 and 98, McCann-ish numbers from a guy going 100 picks later. This is good value. Does this mean you should reach for Iannetta? Maybe. Catcher is unusually deep this year, so obviously reaching for him before the 12th round or so of a 10-team league (so the 10th or so of a 12-teamer) is probably not going to yield the best returns, simply because you could probably get him later. But if there's another Iannetta sympathizer in your league, you might want to think about reaching. There's really nothing that says he's going to regress this year. This is his age-26 season. The batting average may or may not be there, but the peripherals suggest that he hasn't hit his ceiling yet. And he had a .505 SLG last year. Geovany Soto had a .504. The power is real and so is the potential here. On draft day, when Hall of Famer Matt Wieters comes up in the 12th, take a breath and let him pass, unless your league counts points for healing the sick or turning water into wine. You'll be happier with the unheralded guy you can get 30 picks later. Oh, and it warrants mentioning: a little bit ago, Iannetta hit a three-run double for team USA to blow open the game against Venuzuela. The guy's for real. For real reals. Scout Rob

I missed the draft! What now?

So I'm still getting the hang of exactly what they want from us here, but I know that doing a blog league is part of it. One thing that I didn't know was that the draft already happened, and I missed it. So I figured, let's turn this big ol' negative into a positive and let's blog about it. Missing the draft, unfortunately, happens to the best of us (and the best of us is me). So what happens when you get stuck with a team you didn't draft? Let's take a look at some of the stuff you can do to be proactive and keep up with the people who weren't lazy and/or stupid: Identify trade bait. Especially bigtime players on your team that you don't like, but that have value to other players. Alfonso Soriano is probably the number one player for me like this; he's a high-rated guy who puts up good numbers but I never believe in him. Putting a guy like this on the trading block can benefit you and someone else who might actually want him. I got him with the 29th pick. Would someone trade Carlos Quentin for him? Manny Ramirez? Maybe, maybe not. But it's good to put out those feelers, because at the end of the day it's a long season and you might as well set yourself up with players you can get behind. Identify your biggest weaknesses and pursue them aggressively. Normally it helps to have a bunch of pitchers and only a couple hitters on your bench. Naturally, autodraft will often give you a bench full of hitters you won't use and Wandy Rodriguez. If pitching depth is your problem, don't be afraid to swap your aforementioned trade bait for pitching. Especially after the next step... Take a good, long look at the free agent pool. Missing the draft means that you have no feel for who people valued and where runs happened. Taking a look at who's still available is a good way to see who you can afford to lose--if there are a bunch of viable outfielders out there, you can afford to get rid of Soriano even more. God, I hate Soriano. If there aren't any guys out there who will even have a chance at getting saves, then you should be paying a premium for relievers. Consider where people took players. When you start offering trades, you have to consider where guys got drafted, because we're still in the preseason and people think that matters. Trades could make 100% perfect sense to both teams, but if the other guy overdrafted his players, the odds are he's overvaluing them. The biggest thing you should do is just not panic: If you can't get good value, even for a player you hate, hold on to him, at least until the season starts. Above all else, the fact that you didn't put in the work in the preseason doesn't mean you still can't win. The most important thing is to scour the waiver wire and make shrewd trades. And next year, try to make the draft on time. Scout Rob