Just a quickie today, folks, but definitely some Food for Thought for fantasy baseball owners...
On September 1, the day MLB rosters expand from 25 to 40 players, fantasy baseball owners are going to feel like contestants scrambling around one of those wind-blown, cash-grab booths. Teams in playoff contention will fortify their bench depth and rotate in numerous minor-league hopefuls to keep the starters healthy while non-playoff teams use the final month to audition their youngsters who are on the cusp of major-league readiness. Your fantasy waiver wire is going to see a massive influx of talent and your job is to sift through the array of names and find the most-talented ones with the best chance at regular playing time.
There are two ways to go about this. Imagine your cash-grab booth has hundreds of singles swirling about and someone drops in a small stack of $100 bills. You can grab as many bills as possible and hope to find a few of the larger denominations in your fistfuls of cash or you can methodically hunt down the bigger bills, trading quantity for quality. If your roster is both deep and strong and you aren’t concerned about pitchers losing starts or position players being rested, the latter method is your best bet. If you foresee and number of roster holes developing over the final month, you better start grabbing.
The important thing to note, regardless of which method you choose, is you cannot be afraid to employ the revolving door for your roster. For every Rafael Devers or Rhys Hoskins headed to the majors next month, you’re going to find countless Jarrett Parkers. Not everyone called up has the hot-shot pedigree and not everyone is going to produce right away. You have to understand, there is no time to wait on upside anymore. If they don’t perform in that first week, then find someone who will. Again, you’re talking about 15 more players per team which means there are 450 more names available.
The key to remember here is that opportunity is your primary concern. Players cannot offer you fantasy production if they don’t have a regular opportunity on the field. That means a player with less talent on a bottom-feeding MLB team could prove more valuable than a high-end prospect who logs more time on the bench for a playoff contender. Your $100 bills are more likely to be wearing a Phillies uniform than that of the Yankees.