As of this writing my pitching staff in the Rotosavants league is 5th in K's, tied for 6th in Wins, 18th in Saves, 3rd in ERA, and 2nd in WHIP. With the trade deadline looming one of these categories clearly screams out to be addressed. And yet, a couple of weeks ago I cut off talks with another manager in the league who was willing to trade one or two confirmed closers to me for a reasonable price. Why walk away from talks to address a definite need? Simple, I thought I could get Saves more cheaply from the free agent pool.
Even in a deep league there are usually potential Saves to be had on the waiver wire and with that in mind I added Dan Wheeler, Manny Corpas, David Hernandez, Joel Hanrahan, and J.J. Putz while dumping some of my backup hitters and marginal starting pitchers. Obviously each of these relievers has a different value and a different likelihood of getting Save opportunities but by buying a small flock of setup men I was hoping to get two closers out of the deal. Right now I'd count Hanrahan as about 3/5 of a closer and with the recent reevaluation of Bobby Jenks by his manager I was hoping that Putz would win the race for ninth inning duties in Chicago. So right now my haul definitely does not add up to two closers and it's time to take a look at the fruits of my strategy and see whether I need to look for a trade before the Aug. 20th deadline.
I have just six measly saves on the year - don't ask - but there are teams not too far ahead of me at 18, 18, 20, 20, 26, 28, 28, 30, and 33 before the numbers jump to 51 and up. If I assume that all of these teams continue to post saves at about the same rates through the rest of the season then I can expect this same group to have Save totals from about 30 to 50. If I can record thirty Saves I think there's a fairly good chance that I can catch the bottom four teams, forty saves and I could maybe catch seven or eight of the teams. That's a lot of points to make up and even if I trade Wins and K's I don't see my team losing that many points in those categories. If things go well with Hanrahan I can hope for maybe ten to fifteen saves but without any of the others getting a definite closer job at this point I think I only have one option. Change my strategy. I still think it was the right move at the time and had the White Sox gotten a couple of Save opportunities during Jenks' sabbatical then I could easily have two solid closers right now. But that didn't happen and sometimes you just don't have the time to let your gamble pay off.
Sometimes the best trade is the one that you don't make. But just because you decide not to make a trade one week doesn't mean that's the right decision the next.
