Burrell and Konerko

[Guest]

I've been extremly unfortunate enough to have drafted both of them (not to mention RJ). It's not quite so bad because I really only need one of them to fill my UTL spot and have the other for injuy insurance but this is getting old. Can two players go from being that good for a couple of years to completly tanking it? I've held onto them because I just can't believe that a professional baseball player, especially in their prime, could just completly do a 180 like that for the entire season. Am I just being too overly optimistic for these guys or should they turn it around eventually? I've tried to package them together using the same reasoning I used above but i've had no takers.

[Leiter Fan]

Konerko is a bust. People forget that his slide started halfway through last year. Out of his 27 HR's and 104 RBI's, 20/70 of them were hit BEFORE the All Star game (and even the 7/34 that he put up after is better than what he's on pace for by this July).

Burrell I can't figure out. If you can trade him do it - he at least has some value becuase of his homers. I had him, and I just managed to trade Burrell and Mike Williams to a guy who really needed another closer for Brian Giles.

[jdh]

If you have the roster spots and can carry both of them without using them in your active lineup, I'd hold onto them. I personally hung onto Konerko until a few days ago, but dropped him because I needed use of that roster spot with a bunch of injuries to cover. Since his slump has made him so low on the rankings screens, noone is likely to notice him, but I will still monitor his performance and when he shows signs of coming to life get him back.

Konerko has had three consistent seasons of .280-.300 averages, 30 homers and 80-100 RBIs. At 27, I just don't buy that he has lost it completely any more than Giambi or Tejada have lost it and he should rebound, probably as soon as Jerry Manuel is put out to pasture. At his age and with him apparently healthy, there is just no reasonable explanation (like new team, new ballpark, new league, etc) to explain just suddenly forgetting how to hit. If you need use of that space, I would dump Konerko but carefully see if there are any signs of him coming to life. He has always been an extremely streaky hitter; last year he hit 16 of his 30 homers in a one month span. Just get him back when he starts to turn it on.

Burrell might be a little more worrisome, because unlike Konerko, he doesn't have a track record of consistent performance. He had a major spike in power and RBI production as well as average last year, and had generally been improving every year, but only really had his breakout in 2002. Perhaps he can be compared to Aramis Ramirez, who went .300-35-110 in 2001 virtually out of nowhere and then hit only .233 in 2002 with greatly reduced power. With Burrell, there isn't really a consistent track record to show that he should be at least at a certain performance level, so last year could have been a career year.

[Longshot]

I'm glad to hear you finally dropped him jdh