Roster Doctor

John writes in: “Non-keeper, 14-team, 6×6, R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OBP, QS, W, SV, ERA, WHIP, K. One DL slot. I’ve got to get my ERA and WHIP down. So do I dump one of my guys and reclaim Jair Jurrjens (he’s available as a FA) or maybe pick up a couple K -heavy relievers for purely K, ERA and WHIP purposes?
My roster:
C Ryan Doumit
1B Victor Martinez
2B Chase Utley
3B Chone Figgins
SS Hanley Ramirez
OF Andre Ethier
OF Josh Hamilton
OF Brett Gardner
UTIL Adam Jones
Bench Denard Span
Bench Jorge Cantu
Bench Alberto Callaspo
P Jered Weaver
P Trevor Cahill
P Kris Medlen
SP James Shields
SP Jonathan Sanchez
RP Jeremy Bonderman
RP Evan Meek
Bench Jason Vargas
Bench Gio Gonzalez
DL Josh Beckett

John – I think you should pick up Jurrjens and drop Cahill. Cahill’s walk-to-strikeout ratio is better than Jurrjens’, but whereas Jurrjens’ ratio may improve Cahill’s will likely regress, based on passed form. You can afford to wait and find out too since you have Vargas and Gonzalez, both of whom are probably better for spot starting than Cahill.

I wouldn’t shoot for middle relievers. You’d be losing ground on both quality starts and wins and, with their low innings pitched, they won’t help you in your ratio stats all that much. Hopefully, when Beckett returns, this will become moot.

Meanwhile, you should start Span over Jones. Jones hurts you in OBP and isn’t all that helpful in the power categories.

But most importantly, you should start Martinez at catcher, inserting Cantu in favor of Doumit. You have some wiggle room since you have Martinez, Figgins and even Callaspo, who all have multi-position eligibility. You should see if you can exploit that eligibility to either better your pitching or upgrade at third base. This is something I wrote about last week. Figgins is worth more as a second baseman, but you don’t need him there. If you need the speed help, you can keep him but it might be worth it to try and find some other owner who’s playing a better third baseman (or first baseman since Cantu is eligible at third) in his utility spot and needs an upgrade at second. Maybe you can even mix in Callaspo in a trade too.


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Tommy
13 years ago

Trevor Cahill is a 22-year-old in his second year in the majors who plays in a great pitchers’ park. He is also held in extremely high regard by talent evaluators, placing 24th on Keith Law’s top 100 prospects list and 11th on Baseball America’s. At this point he hasn’t fully matured as a pitcher, so I don’t see much use in taking his statistical history as some sort of baseline to which he is bound to regress. His K/BB this year is indeed better than it was last year, but it seems likely that this is due to a genuine improvement in his skills, rather than luck.

Bill
13 years ago

Drop Cahill for Jurrjens?  That’s enough to make me stop reading this stupid site.

Elbert
13 years ago

though Jurrjens has enough track history to be recommended here, I do think Cahill will continue to progress, instead of regression.

the main reason for Cahill’s success so far, if everyone has recognized, is his usage of his curve; Cahill’s minor track record dictates that he’s a much better strikeout pitcher than we saw in 2009, where he’s just learning to pitch @ MLB-level.

Jurrjens is not a bad choice, but his injury might just backed me off a bit, just for 2010 season; Cahill, on the other hand, should be given much more optimism.

I would definitely pick Cahill over G. Gonzalez though, just a bit of personal bias.

JB (the original)
13 years ago

Well, to fill in, the roster spots I had listed above were just where they happened to be for a low game day based on matchups. No one seems to be willing to give up good 1B or 3B regardless of the trades I put together.  Now, I’ve got V.Mart and Utley on the DL.  I picked up JJ prior to his start yesterday (dropping Meek), and instead of Cahill, I dropped Bonderman to get LaPorta for 1B support.