The Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy

One of my favorite Sci-Fi books and one of the funniest books I ever read. Besides its zany humor the book is filled with little life lessons like the many uses of towels. But It’s most important advice is written in big letters on the cover: DON’T PANICK.

In a 12 teams auction league I play in, Jed Gyorko was dropped. At the draft his owner paid for him $10, not a minor buy. What happened since the draft date? Not much. Gyorko doesn’t have the best start of the season and he’s batting below .200. On the other hand he has a HR and seven RBIs. The point is any player can have a couple of week’s slump; if it happens in June nobody will get excited over it. In April there are no previous stats so the numbers cause owners to overreact.

In the John Marzano MLB.com Listeners League I’ve drafted Albert Pujols as my first baseman. At the beginning of the fourth round I thought was a nice value pick. I believed that after couple of down years due to injury Pujols will be healthier this season and even if he won’t be an MVP candidate like he was in St. Louis he’ll have a decent enough season. The first weak he was a disaster: no HR and only one RBI. Now he has 4 HR and 9 RBI and he ranks 10^th among first basemen in Yahoo! Leagues.

If Pujols was a nice pick, I can’t say the same for Ike Davis. I picked him at the beginning of the 24^th round, as my corner infield. As a Mets fan I’ve been following Davis since he came to the majors and I thought that after couple of down years, some due to injuries, he’ll be able to get back to the level he performed in his rookie season. Unfortunately it looks like if he’ll ever do that it won’t be with the Mets. Davis lost the first base job to Lucas Duda, and except for one game winning grand slam he didn’t show much offensive skills.

So what to do? How do you know to stick with Pujols and drop Ike? There’s a 411 rule of thumb for that! There are 26 weeks in a fantasy season. You should keep your first round pick until the last week of the season. The flier pick on the last round can be dropped after a week or two. I’m a big fan of this rule. It makes sense and it helps you avoid overreacting and at the same time give you a guideline when it’s time to drop a player.

A good reason to drop a player early can be an injury. If it’s a long term injury and you have no DL slot or it’s already occupied, dropping the player can be unavoidable.

If your fifth outfielder or fifth pitcher doesn’t play on a certain day you can drop them to pick someone who does play just to maximize your playing time.