Friday, July 31, 2009

Regrets and Satisfaction

With the season now two-thirds finished, I wanted to highlight some moves I've regretted making and some moves that I haven't. With so many people fighting for a playoff spot in our league, it seems like any one of moves that I regret making could end up being the difference between the championship bracket and the consolation bracket. Let's take a look at some of those moves.


Regrets
1. Keeping Ervin Santana
In eleven starts this year, after missing a month and a half of the season due to injury, Santana has been a complete bust. He's given up four runs or more in over half his starts, and he's only pitched six innings or more in four starts. I'm still hoping he'll turn things around, but it's not easy to deal with his struggles knowing that I could have kept Nelson Cruz (ranked 41st this season by Yahoo) instead of Santana.

2. Drafting Magglio Ordonez
As I mentioned in my look back at the first round of our draft, I thought that Ordonez would be a dependable source of batting average and RBI, along with 20 HR. He's been far from it this year, with production that ranks behind outfielders such as David DeJesus, Randy Winn, and Garrett Anderson. Like i said before, I wish I had taken Jermaine Dye.

3. Drafting Joel Hanrahan
I had Hanrahan in 2008 when he took over the closer role in Washington after Jon Rauch got traded, and I thought that he would be a cheap source for saves and strikeouts this year. Hanrahan did save 5 games before losing his job due to his 7.71 ERA with the Nats. Closers I could have drafted instead of Hanrahan: Chad Qualls, George Sherrill, or Rafael Soriano.

4. Missing out on Adam Jones
Prior to the draft, Adam Jones had been on my list of young guys that I was excited about. Ultimately he didn't fall quite far enough for me, and he's having a great season. In retrospect, I should have reached for him with my previous pick, instead of Jhonny Peralta.

5. Trading Carlos Lee for Brandon Webb
This happened in another league, but it was to Jonathan, manager of the Dinos, and it hurts more now knowing that Webb will likely make just one start for my team. Both my offense and pitching are average in that league, so losing Lee hurts as well.


Satisfactions (Moves that I'm glad I made or didn't make)
1. All my trades
I'm happy with everyone I received through trades this year. These include: Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Matt Kemp, Robinson Cano, Ubaldo Jimenez, and Kosuke Fukudome (sortof). Morneau is having a monster year, I think Kemp's going to be a star, Cano has turned things around, Mauer's having a career year thanks to his newfound power, and Jimenez has pitched great this year.

2. Picking up Nyjer Morgan
I picked up Morgan near the end of April; since then he's stolen 26 bases and is leading my team in steals.

3. Picking up Ricky Nolasco
The Balls dropped Nolasco when he was sent down to the minors, and I picked him up before he cleared waivers. Since coming back from the minors, Nolasco has a 2.71 ERA, a 1.04 WHIP, 5 Wins and 73 strikeouts.

4. Drafting Kevin Gregg
During our draft, the Cubs' closer role was still up for grabs between Gregg and Carlos Marmol. I went with the guy with previous closer experience, he got the job, and he now leads my team in Saves.

5. Highlighting J.A. Happ and Clayton Richard as possible sleepers
This isn't a move that I made, but I did write in a post at the start of the season that Richard and Happ could have value this year. Happ has 2.97 ERA with 7 Wins for the year, and Richard has had some value as a matchups type pitcher. Richard is headed to Petco in the Peavy deal, and he could have even more value there.

Around the League
I asked the owners in our league to email me with their best and worst moves this year. Here are their responses (as of July 2nd):

Ben P. (Screaming Lemurs) - Positives: "Not too many difference makers unfortunately. Randy Wells has been a pretty good find so far."
Negatives: "Picked up and dropped Ryan Franklin."

Micah (Dissect Yourself) - Positives: "The move that has benefited me most has been picking up Brandon Inge from free agency early in the year. He's been one of my best and most consistent producers."
Negatives: "The biggest move I regret is drafting Chris Davis with the first overall pick."

Nate (Naterade) - Positives: "Keeping Justin Upton."
Negatives: "Keeping Russell Martin. My other really bad move was drafting Lastings Milledge and holding onto him after he got demoted. I don't know why I can't drop him."

For the other owners in our league that want to complain or crow about moves they've made this year, feel free to post them in the comments.

2 comments:

Nate said...

your trades have been really good. who know mourneau would instantly end his two year suck fest as soon as i traded him. that said I'm still fairly happy with the trade as I have the best set of keepers I have had in a long time

Clint said...

Had I had any indication that a not-a-lot-of-power catcher coming off a nagging back injury would become Babe Ruth, I would have reconsidered that deal.

I am happy with McCann though...

Drafting Mark Reynolds mid-draft was definitely the play of draft day.