We live in an increasingly specialized world. The quaint family doctor who made house calls in black-and-white films has given way to a host of medical specialists with unpronounceable titles. The same has happened in most professions — whether mechanics, teachers, lawyers, or even journalists like me — where the trend is to focus on some small corner of what were once much more wide-ranging and varied lines of work.
I can’t say I’m a big fan of this trend overall. But when it comes to mid-season assessments and tinkering with our fantasy baseball teams, I think that specialization is the way to go.
During fantasy drafts or in orchestrating early season roster moves, it’s OK to be a generalist. If you’re drafting in the tenth round and you still don’t have a second-baseman, just pick the best one still available. But by now you know your team’s strengths and weaknesses, and every roster move can be a way to addresses them.
In one of my leagues, Carlos Quentin and Juan Pierre are among the most-owned outfielders still free agents. A team in need of a fifth outfielder would do well to know whether his team needs power or speed before deciding between these two.
A week ago I discussed some of the shortcomings inherent with using overall rankings to assess the wisdom of a certain trade or free agent pickup. What’s a better system? Specialize!
Counting stats are the easiest to figure out. Whether you need home runs, steals, RBI, wins, holds, or saves, it’s relatively easy to figure out which of the available options is going to help the most (That said, don’t put too much faith in year-to-date stats — I like to look at a player’s historical performance: Hunter Pence, for example, has 13 steals so far, 5 short of his career high and already his third highest total ever. I think his chances of stealing 13 more in the second half are slim. And keep in mind that younger players are more likely to improve as the season progresses or from one season to the next; older players are more likely to decline because of fatigue and nagging injuries).
Ratio stats, on the other hand, have a more interesting solution: if your team needs help with batting average or ERA, the solution is more likely to be addition by subtraction. An example: if you start Adam Dunn regularly, you’re probably doing well on home runs but hurting on average. To solve the problem, look for a team in your league near the bottom in homers and try to trade Dunn to them for a player on pace for 12 or 15 fewer homers but with a solid average (maybe Pence?). You won’t miss the 6 or 7 homers you miss over the second half once you realize that eliminating Dunn’s drag on your batting average will give you a nice bounce there.
Also, look to improve in statistical categories where they’ll make the biggest difference — and trade with a team that can’t catch you. If there are four teams just behind you in the home run standings, trading Dunn isn’t a great idea … especially if you trade him to one of those teams just behind.
Last point: use these ideas not only when assessing free agent pickups or trades, but when setting roster. A final example: I’ve got Jacoby Ellsbury on two teams, but in one (where he’s my only hitter with double-digit steals) he’s seen nearly 100 more at-bats on my active roster than in the other (where I have Starling Marte, Rajai Davis, and Jason Kipnis on the roster, and so I sometimes sit Ellsbury or another speedster for a hitter more likely to knock one out of the park).
* * *
There’s a special place in my heart for players like Juan Francisco, an intriguing but flawed hitter who has the special blessing of being a poor fielder. Yes, I wrote “blessing.”
I could have just as easily focused on Edwin Encarnacion, Vernon Wells, Chris Carter, or Jason Giambi here. Take a look at a guy’s fielding stats: if he has an error every sixth game or so, put him on your watch list.
All these guys have predictable righty-lefty splits and are big liabilities in the field. What that means is that if you see their name on the starting lineup, it’s because their (real-life baseball) manager thinks their potential at the plate that day is so compelling he’s willing to overlook their flaws elsewhere. That’s usually a good enough endorsement for me.
The post It’s time to specialize, not generalize! Yo! appeared first on hecmanroto | fantasy baseball blog.