Fantasy Baseball Cafe Forums

by **2times** » Fri May 03, 2002 1:20 am

I've been offered Beckett/Thome for Ishii/Lofton in my usual 5by5 league plus walks and total bases for hitters and IPs and Losses for pitchers. Whatcha think? i would do this deal without second thoughts if i knew beckett would be fine the rest of the year b/c i'm weak at the corners (Olerud, Ventura, & DYoung) and have speed to burn (Lofton, Cedeno, PWilson, Womack, SStewart, Mondesi) but i'm concerned about giving up stud ishii for hurt stud beckett. What do u think?

by **Arlo** » Fri May 03, 2002 3:17 am

I don't thinkBeckett's blisters will cause him to miss too much time. From what I can tell, they're just giving him time for his blister to completely heal, which sounds like a good move - doesn't make much sense to let it heal a bit, only to let him pitch and reaggravate the blister five days later. I could be wrong, but at the moment I'd be more worried about Beckett's pitch counts than the blister.

If the deal fills a need on your team, go ahead and do it. You could, of course, modify the deal so that you agree in principle now, but only transfer the players when Beckett comes off the DL, giving you a bit of insurance in case there's something we don't know about, but on the whole, I wouldn't fret too much. Lots of pitchers have similar problems - Nolan Ryan spent half his career soaking his fingers in pickle juice, and it didn't slow him down too much.

(Ok, so the Beckett-Ryan comparison is a bit premature...)

by **2times** » Fri May 03, 2002 3:40 pm

thanks arlo, glad to see you don't think beckett is gonna be fine, i'm definetly going to see if i can get the guy to do it now (he proposed it casually in person so we'll see if it works out when it comes down to submitting the proposal formally)

by **2times** » Sun May 05, 2002 9:04 pm

well a bit of a modification to the proposal has left me looking at

MMorris,Lofton,Mondesi for Giles, Thome, Beckett

here's before and after for my team

Before

C Kendall/Fletcher
1b Olerud
2b Kent
SS Aurilia
3b Ventura
CI Mclemore(while DYoung is on DL)
MI Biggio
OF LGon, Green, Mondesi, PWilson
UT Cedeno, Stewart, Womack

Staff
Morris, Ishii, Sabathia, Halladay,Lawrence
Percival, Urbina, Gagne, Irabu, Dotel

Supann, Mlicki, Person

I guess the big question is can my staff withstand the loss of Morris for Beckett in order to get the needed boost in power and walks from Thome and Giles???

by **Arlo** » Mon May 06, 2002 5:32 am

You're right - that's a big question. The addition of Mondesi and Giles won't make or break this deal (in fact, with Mondesi's current all-or-nothing approach, Giles sounds like the far safer player), but adding Morris instead of Ishii is a gamble. Ishii is playing extremely well at the moment (see the Ishii Watch thread) in spite of a rather high number of walks, and is an extremely valuable pitcher - the problem is that Morris is the only truly proven guy on your staff (I'm not worried about those bad outings yet). Sabathia is boom-or-bust, with no way of telling which version will show up on any given day, and the rest of your staff is good but not great.

The deal isn't bad, but I don't think you're getting enough reteun. The upgrade from Olerud to Thome doesn't seem as significant to me this year as it would have been in the past. Olerud's power won't thrill you, but he won't be a disaster, and he'll get solid bb numbers. Thome, on the other hand, is suffering greatly from Cleveland's off-season roster moves. With Fryman or Snyder hitting behind him, his job isn't easy, as can be seen by his woeful average.

So in the end, I wouldn't accept this deal - the risk is simply too high, even if you expect Thome to get back on track. I'd try countering with Sabathia or Lawrence, for instance, and point out Thome's shortcomings as well as Beckett's blister trouble, and see what happens.