Make any moves after lucky FA pickup of Schmidt (updated)?

[The Loveable Losers]

12 team 5x5 roto league

Updates:
Traded Molina/Maddux for Inge/Ol. Perez
FA pickup of J. Lugo to be my backup 2B/SS. I liked Weeks, but he can't give me SB with the same frequency that Lugo can.

New questions:
Where is my most important spot to upgrade now? I plan on picking up a backup C to make sure I max out my games played at C. I'm pretty happy with where I stand at every position. I've got Huff, Berkman or Feliz to play 1B...Feliz, Figgins and Lugo to hold down the 2 MI positions and can mix and match them. Blalock is solid at 3B and I've got depth in the OF in case someone gets injured/doesn't produce.

My top 3 SP's are great or have the potential to be great (RJ, Peavy, Schmidt). I've also got C. Lee, W. Miller and Ol. Perez (once he's back) but with me being over the IP limit the 3 of them will see very limited action. My pen is still iffy but has me in a very solid second place in saves right now with B. Wagner, Hermanson, Reitsma and T. Jones.

So, where do I aim to upgrade? Do I stand pat? Do I try to move OF depth to improve my closer situation? I'm pretty happy at this point but you can always make a team better.

C B. Inge (Det - C)
1B L. Berkman (Hou - 1B,OF)
2B C. Figgins (LAA - 2B,3B,SS,OF)
3B H. Blalock (Tex - 3B)
SS P. Feliz (SF - 1B,3B,SS,OF)
OF C. Crawford (TB - OF)
OF C. Beltrán (NYM - OF)
OF V. Wells (Tor - OF)
Util A. Huff (TB - 1B,3B,OF)
BN F. Thomas (CWS - Util)
BN M. OrdóñezDL (Det - OF)

SP R. Johnson (NYY - SP)
SP J. Peavy (SD - SP)
RP B. Wagner (Phi - RP)
RP D. Hermanson (CWS - SP,RP)
P C. Reitsma (Atl - RP)
P T. Jones (Fla - RP)
P J. Schmidt (SF - SP)
BN C. Lee (Cle - SP)
BN G. Maddux (ChC - SP)
BN W. Miller (Bos - SP)

Despite the title of this post this is a competitive and active league. I'm going to just assume that the entire league (myself included) had a collective moment of not paying attention when one of the league members dropped Schmidt. It's a custom rules league and guys only sit on the WW for one day...I picked him up this morning when I had time to check all 16 of the leagues I was in for FA's and low and behold there's Jason Schmidt sitting there after being dropped Saturday night.

My team is currently in 3rd place and my goal for the year is to finish in 2nd (1st place is ahead of 2nd place by about 25 points and pretty much has this thing sewn up barring a colossal meltdown). Here's my current points:
R: 4, HR: 2.5, R: 6, SB: 10, AVE: 3
W: 6, SV: 11, K: 11, ERA: 8.5, WHIP: 10
TOTAL: 72 (3rd / 12)

Catcher is an obvious weak spot. I dropped AJ Pierzynski to the wire and plan on picking him up as soon as I free up a roster spot. May drop Weeks for him as well...I'm lagging behind in projected games played at C (-12) and need to get as much production there as I can. A trade isn't out of the question for a catcher either.

1B is one of my hold my breath and hope for the best positions. I've got Huff and Berkman (traded Turnbow to get him a few days before he came off the DL) both able to play there. I could deal for a 1B to upgrade but I think I've got to stand pat here and hope one of the two can produce at their career paces over the remainder of the season.

2B/SS I'm ok at right now...I've got the choice between Weeks, Figgins and P. Feliz (traded T. Walker to get him a bit before Berkman came off the DL). Feliz puts up very nice numbers for a SS but is mired at the #7 slot in the order most of the time now. I like Weeks hitting #2 but he's young and you just don't know whether he's going to produce or not. Figgins has been solid for me all year and is a huge part of why I'm doing so well in SB's.

3B I've got Blalock. He's been a slight disappointment to me but I've got too much invested in him to try and upgrade here.

OF Crawford, Wells and Beltran (traded BJ Ryan to get him about 10 days ago) nail down my OF right now. Feliz, Huff and Berkman all mentioned above can play there as well.

Util Huff or Feliz were taking care of the Util duties but I cut down to carrying one catcher to pick up Frank Thomas right before he came back. He's been a VERY pleasant surprise at the Util spot and while it certainly won't last I'm loving every minute of it right now.

My SP has been decent in the first half of the year. I had to spot start quite a bit earlier in the year since I didn't have any depth. Then someone gave up on W. Miller and I picked him up. Then I picked up C. Lee who seems to be figuring things out really well this year. Finally someone gave up on Schmidt (still don't know what was up there) and I just now picked him up. I now have a starting rotation of RJ, Peavy, Schmidt, Maddux, C. Lee and W. Miller. I'm at +15 IP on my projections so I could deal 2 of those guys and still have plenty of IP'd the rest of the way out. Or I could keep all 6 of them and try to play the matchups...which can be very good but very frustrating as well.

Lastly, my RP has been ridiculously good this year. I've dealt BJ Ryan (to get Beltran), D. Turnbow (to get Berkman) and T. Walker (to get P. Feliz)...and STILL have 4 closers in B. Wagner, Hermanson, Reitsma and T. Jones. I'm not overly comfortable here in that Reitsma and Jones will always be iffy on keeping the job and Hermanson is even not guaranteed to keep his so I wouldn't be against trading to upgrade here (probably by moving a SP + T. Jones).

So....where I am now is that I'm trying to figure out how I can best help this team. My offense has been struggling mightily this year but after the moves to get Beltran, Berkman and P. Feliz as well as the facts that Huff is a notorious second half player, that I have Ordonez waiting on the DL and that Frank Thomas hasn't had too much time to help my team yet I'm not quite sure trading even more pitching to pick up hitters is the way to go.

If I did happen to dump pitching I'm thinking that Peavy and C. Lee would be the right ones to trade. I could get some huge value out of Peavy and Lee should definitely have high value as well. A SP staff of Schmidt, Unit, Maddux and W. Miller does not look bad at all and should be able to get me a good number of wins and k's while posting nice ratios. On the other hand though, spot starting these 6 guys might do even better...of course it might just have me missing good performances in unfavorable matchups while I eat the bad performances when the matchups are favorable. I'd much rather have guys that start every game regardless...I despise the guessing games.

Lastly, with a 15 save lead over the next closest person in the standings can I trust the 4 guys I've got in there to keep me ahead for the rest of the year? If it helps, G. Mota is on the FA list if I want to handcuff him to T. Jones.

Thanks for any help! I definitely think I've got a team here that can compete if not for first place then at least for second but I don't want to let an opportunity pass to make the team better now that I got lucky and picked up Schmidt as a FA.

[statsman88]

you can trade one of your outfielders for a catcher with Magglio coming back, you could probably get a catcher like posada for vernon wells or maggs or whoever you want to trade. (Beltran and Huff most likely will heat up come 2nd half of the season). I still can't believe you picked up schmidt like that! I tried to get him when he was doing bad and I couldn't! Hope this helped a little.

[The Loveable Losers]

Actually, that helped quite a bit. Vernon and Magglio will probably put up similar numbers...I can wait to see how Magglio is when he gets back and make a trade like that.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

[bluntyboy]

you need to upgrade at catcher. 1st base isnt that bad, but your catcher spot is kind of bad. id trade an outfielder for one. since you got magglio coming bakc next week. help with me.
http://www.fantasybaseballcafe.com/foru ... p?t=142987

[The Loveable Losers]

Found out why one of the owners didn't get Schmidt...he saw him there on Sunday and thought about picking him up and realized he had #11 on the WW priority and figured someone else would claim him.

Goes to show you...NEVER pass someone up if you want them and have a low WW priority thinking 'someone else will take them'. You never know what might happen.

[skinfan2k]

play chone at 2nd and feliz at ss.. solution right there.. i need some suggestions. I wish i had ur team

[The Loveable Losers]

I actually do give Feliz a lot of time at SS (sometimes benching Chone against LHP or other unfavorable matchups). Picked up Weeks to have a backup/extra 2B. Feliz hitting number 7 in the lineup right now doesn't have me overly excited but all 3 of them are solid MI's. I played Cantu during his hot streak as well.

As good as the team looks on paper the offense has been terrible. I'm hoping that a night with 11rbi's, 4hr's, 10rbi's and 1sb is a sign of things to come, especially given that the hr's came from Huff, Berkman and Blalock (2).

[The Loveable Losers]

Anyone have any thoughts on the new edits I put into the top of the post?

[screwyinstlouie]

I'd not sure you want to drop a decent player just to have a backup catcher. Inge will play as much (and probably more) as any "real" catcher. On Detroit's off days, that backup catcher would not give you much production, plus the backup would have some of the same off days (assuming you have daily lineup changes). I'd say it's better to be sure you can max out your 1B/OF/Util games and your IP (assuming that's applicable).

Good luck to you.