Mastersball Fantasy Forum

Hi all,

First post here and seeking for advice on my keepers as there are great comments in other threads. I'm in a 15 teams 5x5 mixed league. We have to keep 7 players and can keep an additional minor-leaguer (mine is Jennings, Desmond OF TB). I finished 5th last year, largely but not solely, because 3 of my first 5 picks were abysmal choices (in hindsight) : Atkins, Kelly Johnson and Brett Myers to name them. It is a 12 year-old league and is very competitive (to me). Saves are absolutely overvalued (they go starting in round 3 and all "safe" options are gone by round 7), but don't tell the other owners!

I have narrowed it down to 5 certainties:
Pujols, Albert 1B STL
Teixeira, Mark 1B NYY
Halladay, Roy SP PHI
Haren, Dan SP ARI
Crawford, Carl LF TB

And 4 potential keepers:
Pedroia, Dustin 2B BOS
Vazquez, Javier SP NYY
Werth, Jayson RF PHI
Wieters, Matt C BAL

I'm leaning towards Werth and Pedroia at the moment. Pedroia for the scarcity at MM in our league but I'm not sure Werth will repeat the carreer year? Wieters has potential but I'm not sure it's worth the wait at keeper over Pedroia? Vazquez always seems to have an inconsistent year between great years, besides I have a good core of pitchers already with Haren and Doc...

I need to make up my mind by March 1st. Please help!

Welcome!

with Haren and Holliday already kept, there is no need for Javy. Werth IMO is a no-brainer. That leaves you choosing between Weiters and Pedroia. While Pedroia needs to 'max it out' to give you a really good stat line, he has proven that he can do this, repeatedly. Weiters does not have the track record of Peety. I'd to with Perdoia and sleep well.

Thanks for your thoughts. I'm thinking the same for Wieters - learned my lesson the hard way as Soto was one of my keepers last year. Catcher is so scarce, so seeing the second coming of Piazza is enticing. I'm thinking maybe someone can change my mind with some good arguments for Javy or Wieters.

Is there a limit to how long you can keep players? If not, I would seriously consider keeping Wieters as he will be a bonafide keeper as soon as next season. I say this because your keeper list is much stronger than a typical 15-team league should be.

Pujols #1 overall
Teixeira and Crawford both mid to late first rounders
Halladay and Haren 3rd/4th rounders.

That's SICK!!!

Add in the potential of Pedroia and Werth as 2nd/3rd rounders and what you basically have is...

R1 Pujols
R2 Crawford
R3 Pedroia/Werth
R4 Halladay
R5 Haren
R6 Teixeira
R7 Wieters

Basically, you are getting a FIRST ROUNDER in R6 and a 9th/10th rounder in R7, but someone that could be a yop-5 rounder as soon as 2011.

You could keep Werth and Pedroia, and get the equivalent of a 3rd rounder in R7, but if this is indeed a pseudo dynasty format where you can keep guys forever, I get greedy, compete this season with Wieters as my 7th.

Between Pedroia and Werth, I like Pedroia a little more as the likelihood if a decent 2B not frozen is slim and there are not too many "sleepers" at the position.

Bottom-feeding for a few years will get you the keeper options I have! Our keepers are to keep forever if we so choose. I know I have a strong core of keepers, but the 23 rounds of the draft are equally important. Proof of concept is my last two years with the same top 5 keepers but I finished 4th and 5th - I won 3 years in a row before that!

I am a very conservative person in life, so taking risks is really hard for me. So for Wieters over Werth : I'm thinking best case scenario for Wieters in 2010 is .280-70-20-70-0. Whereas Werth is .275-100-30-100-20. Am I right to think that Werth is giving me more at his position compared to the average OF than Wieters would compared to an average C?

I'll let Todd answer that question.

The fact that they are lifetime keepers does certainly change things. Now Weiters is your no-brainer (without risk there is no profit) and it comes down to Pedroia v. Werth. If you want the straight stats, I'd go Werth. But, given your ridiculous keeper list, I'd go with Pedroia for the position scarcity. Also with Pujols and Pedroia, thats a serious AVG cushion, allowing you to take more of the low AVG high counting stat type guys that will be around in the mid to late rounds.

Also, how many OF do you start, 5?

Second part first, yes, Werth is the play if you want to win this year. But...

You obviously drafted Wieters at some point and when you did so, you took a risk. You now have a chance to reap the reward from that risk by freezing him.

Now the first part -- the previous two seasons, did you have a forum at you beck and call with some pretty smart people to help you make sure you have a strong draft?

Todd, you are right, I didn't have a strong support cast the last few years!

Alston, we start 5 OF and have a DH spot (Utility player but DH can only be slotted here).

We have a Minors player slot as 8th keeper. I've been hanging on to Wieters for 2 years now. He never impacted my 7 "real" keepers list before this year as he hadn't played a single MLB game before last May so it wasn't that much of a risk. But seeing my keepers list is still pretty strong, I'm having a hard time dropping one of Werth or Pedroia for him...

Then trade whichever one nets you more; assuming of course you can trade. If you can't trade for picks, see if the guy with Utley wants Werth and Pedroia for him (just an example). Now, you might say, thats a heck of a lot to give up for Utley, but if you have to drop one of them anyway, your really only trading 1 of them for Utley, and that would be a steal.

In theory a minors spot is one where groom a keeper. Not saying definitely keep him to justify holding him though.

My sense is that had the winning and losing been in reverse, you would be more comfortable keeping Wieters. That is, if you were coming off a 2-year winning streak, your confidence in your drafting ability would be higher.

You didn't forget how to draft the past 2 seasons, stuff happens.

Something else to consider is with Jennings, Crawford becomes a great trade chip and you can already afford to deal Teixeira.

If trading is active, you may want to try to turn Teixeira into a 3B or SS, then in a couple of years, get the other position for Crawford.