Kicking Rocks: Closer Frustrations & Injuries

As much joy as the game of fantasy baseball brings to most of us, it can also bring an enormous amount of frustration and anxiety.  They say you shouldn’t keep that sort of stuff bottled up inside you, unless, of course, you enjoy the taste of bile and all the other stomach acids that a bleeding ulcer provides.  You need to get it out.  But what are you going to do, bitch to your girlfriend?  Try to gain sympathy from your fellow owners?  Doubtful.   Her level of care is reciprocal to your level of interest in her best friend’s latest relationship disaster and deep down, your fellow owners are wishing this kind of stuff on you.

But not us.  We’re here for you.  Kicking Rocks is a new weekly column dedicated to the venting of your fantasy lamentations.  Aggravated by a manager’s choice to suddenly platoon one of your outfielders?  Frustrated that a particular strategy hasn’t worked in your favor?  Ended up with the short end of the stick in a trade?  Whatever the case may be, bring it to the table here and hopefully we’ll be able to get you through it.  Consider it your fantasy support group.

But since the season has yet to begin and there hasn’t been time for much in the way of regrets, I’m going to start things off by venting my frustration over something that is causing many of us some serious angst.  Whether you’ve already drafted or you’re about to, the abundance of unsettled closer situations and late Spring Training bullpen injuries are killing us.  You’re either spending far to much time re-working your draft day depth charts, or worse, you’re already scouring the waiver wire looking for replacements when there hasn’t been a single regular season game played. It’s like a nightmare, isn’t it?  And it just keeps getting worse and worse.

Take the situation in Washington right now.  Most expected Drew Storen to be the Nationals go-to guy, but with a sub par Spring, we’re now looking at a committee that includes him, Tyler Clippard, and Sean Burnett.  Sure, there are some advantages to holding a middle reliever or two on your roster, but how many roster spots are you going to hold to glom the saves from one team?  Most competitive leagues have a very limited bench and your reserve spots are are likely to be more useful if they supply better depth at other positions.

RotoGraph’s writer Mike Axisa pointed out the equally frustrating situation in Atlanta the other day, and Mike Podhorzer and I have yet to find common ground on the Tampa Bay situation.  He likes Joel Peralta, I like Jake McGee, and both of us are going to be forced into using up roster spots on handcuffs if we need to use the Rays bullpen.  And let’s not forget about the Kevin Gregg/Koji Uehara debate or the “up in the air” status of Neftali Feliz.  Both are equally aggravating this close to the season.

Then there are the injuries that are biting us in the ass.  There’s the Frank Francisco injury that opens the door for Jon Rauch and Octavio Dotel, Brad Lidge’s biceps, Andrew Bailey’s forearm, and now Brian Wilson’s oblique.  With each bump, bruise, strain, and tear, bulging veins are popping out of foreheads everywhere.

What’s worse is that, due to all of this, your options become extremely limited.  If you’ve already drafted, you can either ride out your situation or resign yourself to a season of wasted waiver priorities and spending far too much of your free agent dollars on short term solutions trying a patch together a bullpen.  If not, then you either have to assume that you’re going to either go through the same revolving door of free agents or be forced into investing more than you’d like on a closer you can only assume will have better job security and/or health.  People who don’t want to struggle with relievers all year are now starting to drive up the prices on players like Carlos Marmol, Mariano Rivera, Joakim Soria, and Heath Bell and it’s taking up more and more of your budget to land someone that comes with less of a headache.  Either way you go, the closer situation is becoming far more tenuous than it has been in the past and is causing some serious fantasy agita.

How about for you?  What’s driving you crazy already?  Chase Utley’s knee?  The 1B platoon situation in Arizona?  Your rookie sleeper heading back to the minors?  Let us know here and we’ll try to help you get through it





Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over 10 years on a variety of websites. In addition to his work here, you can also find him at his site, RotobuzzGuy.com, Fantasy Alarm, RotoWire and Mock Draft Central. Follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or for more direct questions or comments, email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com

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Rob
13 years ago

The Brandon Morrow injury really buggered me over.

In the 24 hours before his injury was announced, I was approached by another owner in the league wanting to acquire Morrow from me. After some minor haggling, I agreed to give up Morrow and Axford for Alex Rios. Great deal, right? The trade went up for league review over the next 2 days.

As the guy who got the label of “cutthroat” about 10 years ago in our fantasy league (for reasons I still don’t understand), I know everybody is assuming I knew about Morrow’s injury and frantically searched out for another owner to take him before the information became public. The situation is further compounded by the fact the other owner is a friggin saint.

Really, the deal should go through… but I know the odds of that are very low now. And instead of making a nice little deal for Alex Rios, instead I’m gonna end up with Brandon Morrow jumping back and forth between the DL all season long.

AA
13 years ago
Reply to  Rob

He wouldnt be back and forth. A forearm strain that Morrow said was very minor and told the pitching staff just to be safe. A little inflammation does not mean something drastically horrible at all. He was going to have an innings cap of 170-175 innings anyways (roughly 20% more than last year) and this just means that instead of shutting him down earlier, we are able to let him pitch later in the season. The DL stint is being backdated to March 22nd and this means he is only missing one start (or else why backdate it). He was trying to convince me that he was good to go and we didn’t need to put him on the DL but we are just being safe and cautious (we do have the depth to do so). If it were a playoff game or an important one, I already mentioned to the National Post that he would have pitched.

AA
13 years ago
Reply to  AA

“I was a little tight after my bullpen session and I was being safe and let them know about it,” Morrow said. “It sucks because I think I can go. I didn’t think that we needed a DL stint.

“It feels fine but that’s not what they’re going off of.”

“I was surprised because I didn’t think we’d need to go on the DL, that’s for sure,” he said. “I thought maybe we’d take a couple of days, throw a bullpen, then make my scheduled start on Monday.

“My elbow feels all right. I’ve got full extension. It doesn’t bother me at all. It’s fine. I didn’t have any concerns before the MRI and it showed that there wasn’t any serious problems, like with a ligament or anything, just a little inflammation.”

“We took the decision out of his hands,” Anthopoulos said.

Manager John Farrell stressed that Morrow was shelved as “a precautionary move” and was “clearly the right thing to do for Brandon.”

Anthopoulos said the decision was not difficult, especially since Morrow will face a yet-unspecified innings limit this season because of his relative inexperience as a starter.

“It’s one of those things where we’re being extra cautious,” Anthopoulos said of the Morrow decision. “Really, we’re talking about him missing a start. He is adamant that he can go. We just want to let everything (in his elbow) calm down for four or five days. Why try to rush when it’s only one start.”

Aaron
13 years ago
Reply to  Rob

One way to get some objectivity into the whole trade veto question is to post the trade at TradeBashers.com. The community votes on the trade rather than the managers who are in your league (and therefore invested in the outcome.)

Cool new site and could definitely help with situations like this.

RotoChampmember
13 years ago
Reply to  Aaron

Cool site. I’ll probably be using it a couple of times in my leagues this year!