Last week Marc Meltzer talked about finding a replacement for an injured player.  This week I want to talk about bidding on a full replacement player.

In Marc’s situation, he needed a temporary replacement for Scott Kazmir.  Kazmir was placed on the DL and was expected to come off on April 15^th.  (It has since changed to the end of April.)  Based upon the information he had at the time, Marc was looking to replace about three starts.  Three starts are too many to just keep an injured player on your active roster.

His solution and a correct strategy was to find someone to fill the position cheaply using a long set of conditional bids.  Each conditional bid is done as cheaply as possible to save money for a major breakout candidate when it becomes clear that one is available.

In my case, I find myself in a different situation.  I want to replace a player on my active roster.  The player I’m looking for will hopefully stay active for the remainder of the year.  This player is a potential breakout player or at least a full-time player with a good hold on his job.  A rare commodity in the NFBC draft pool, indeed!

I watched a little bit of Kyle Kendrick in spring training.  He wasn’t as sharp as he was when he was thrown into the Phillies’ rotation last year because of injuries.  Kendrick ended up on my Tout Wars roster, so I watched most of his games.  Last year he didn’t strike any one out, but no one was able to get good wood on the ball.  If you can’t overpower them, then make sure that they hit your pitch.  It worked for him.  He won 10 games in 121 innings.  If he could do the same thing this year, he’d be worth a spot just for his wins.

He had a poor spring and fell in the draft.  I picked him up with my 22^nd pick.  As a full-time starter on a winning team, I didn’t mind the risk and the lowered strike out total as he was going to be my #6 starter.  I hoped his spring training numbers were more related to trying new things and that eventually he'd work it out.

I watched his first start against Cincinnati and I have lost confidence in him.  I’m not willing to dump him yet, but I’m not willing to keep him on my active roster.  I have a problem, however.  I’m finding myself a little short on starting pitchers.

I have Homer Bailey who at the time I drafted him was figuring his way into the Reds’ rotation.  He was sent down, but I’m going to assume that he’s going to replace Josh Fogg before the season is over.  I won’t cut him, but he’s useless for me in Triple-A.  I have Noah Lowry on a deep speculation pick (29^th round).  At the time I drafted him, he was looking to be back in mid-April, now it is looking like mid-May.  Still, I’ll hold on to him for now.  I have other players to toss into free agency.

On the free agent wire is the #2 starter for the Royals, Brian Bannister.  He was drafted in the 27^th round in my league.  I wanted to draft him, but he was taken before I could get him.  After his first great start, he is on a roster in all leagues and is active 90.3% of the time.  He is like Kendrick, doesn’t strike out many hitters, but he’s playing on an improved Royals and he has been successful in preventing hitters from getting good wood on the ball.  Based upon my assessment, he is the best available starter in the free agent pool.

Unlike Marc, who just needed a temporary replacement for someone on his roster, I’m looking for a full replacement.  In this case, a strategy of low conditional bids is not going to work.  I’m targeting a player who is on 100% of all rosters and active most of the time.

I found myself in this exact same position last year, and I wasn’t aggressive enough.  I had a terrible string of four weeks where I failed to get my target.

All I had to go on was the first week of waiver claims.  One team spent $545 of his $1000 on five players.  Sadly, all he needed to spend was $116.  Logic says that I should throw his bids out as an outlier.  In two other cases, a starting pitcher with a full-time and safe hold on their spot in the rotation (Nate Robertson and Jason Marquis) went for around $50.  In both cases they are #4 to #5 starters on their respective teams.

Then what should I bid for a #2 starter who is on a roster in everyone other league except mine and starting most of the time?  I guessed that it would probably cost me $75 to $90 dollars.

The problem I struggled with was this owner that just blew $545 dollars.  “He’s an outlier!  Ignore him!” I kept saying to myself.  But if he bid so much, wouldn’t others up their bids?  I decided to double my bid to $150.  You have to pay to play.  I decided to do that because of the rash of injuries that happened this past week.  I talked myself out of something sensible ($95) into something too high ($150).  The second bid turned out to be $80, to I wasted a good $70.

Still, I got the guy I wanted and the free agent pool is so shallow in the NFBC that paying $150 may not be all that bad in the long run when I look at my other choices.  Bannister is a full-time starter on an improved team.  We'll see how I feel about it at the end of the year.

JP Kastner is the winner of the 2007 Strat-O-Matic Baseball Online Expert League World Series.  In five seasons of SOMBOE, JP Kastner has five winning seasons, four playoff appearances, three World Series appearances and now one World Championship.  He is in his third season in the Tout Wars mixed league.