Keeper advice

[aaronck]

I'm having some trouble with my keeper list- I'm in an auction keeper league that I've been in for years now, and have some interesting keeper problems. I can keep 3 players, giving them a 1,3 and 5 dollar raise, with a maximum of $280 for 23 players (5 are free bench players at the end) My team looks like this
AJ peirzinski - 3
Y. moilina - 3
Ryan howard - 14
P polanco - 1
miguel.cabrera - 28
J. peralta - 7
J votto - 1*
C. rasmus - 1
G. sizemore - 41
I suzuki - 35
J ellesbury - 12
V wells - 24
Josh hamilton - 3

t.jones - 3
borowski - 2
corpas - 3
Johan santana - 10
J smoltz - 14
D. haren - 22
C. wang - 19
J. lackey - 25
K. escobar - 1
R. harden - 5
J. garland - 1
Y escobar - 1
M. garza - 1
Adam laroche - 1
C. jackson -1
*I traded Votto and Rasmus Mid season for Pujols-$40
I was planninn on Keeping Santana, $10, Josh Hamilton $3 and either Miguel Cabrera at $28 or Ryan Howard at $14.
Now another manager has put a wrench into the works by offering me Longoria ($1) for Cabrera.
Should I keep Howard or Cabrera, or deal Cabrera for Longoria? I was leaning towards keeping Howard at that price, and bidding on Cabrera as a 3b, but getting Longoria for almost nothing would allow me to bid on some big names to add to an already cheap core.
Any advice?

[HOOTIE]

Howard
Longoria
Hamilton

[zippytrash]

Make the move.....

Keep Longoria, Santana, and Hamilton...

you've only spent $14 on all of your keepers... the price of a ryan howard or half of a m-cab... looking very good going into you auction.

[aaronck]

Howard
Longoria
Hamilton

Interesting, but I can't see letting Johna Santana go at $10. And Howard's average has been sliding rapidly the past couple of seasons. making him a bit of a risk?

[HOOTIE]

Howard
Longoria
Hamilton

Interesting, but I can't see letting Johna Santana go at $10. And Howard's average has been sliding rapidly the past couple of seasons. making him a bit of a risk?

Santana/Howard a push.

Howard had a unlucky hit rate % of 29% last year, way under his norms or 37/36/34.
His xBA the last 2 years was .277 and .284, not bad.

I could make the same argument on Santana. His DOM rate has been dropping

10.5
9.3.
9.5
9.7
7.9

Add in his xERA last year was 3.62, because of a lucky 83% strand rate.
So Santanas DOM rate is in decline, his xERA has risen the last 3 years, and he's hurting a bit now. I could see taking Santana, but i'm sticking with Howard.

[aaronck]

Thanks for the advice...I'm going to try to pull the deal today, but am still leaning towards keeping Santana.
I've had him on my team for years, and although his numbers with the Mets so far are a bit of a letdown, he's still the #1/2 pitcher out there, for the price, he's hard not to keep