When is it Time to Panic?

If you have a rotation of Matt Harvey, Chris Archer, and Adam Wainwright, you are probably not winning any pitching categories. In situations like this, one tends to make irrational decisions when managing their team.This is especially the case in public leagues. I have seen people like Freddie Freeman just outright dropped to waivers. If you’re an active manager that picks up these guys, kudos to you, but what if your the guy that owns a Freddie Freeman or a Chris Archer? Do you panic and trade them? Do you trade other studs you have to try and make up for the loss in stats?

I have never really bought into the sell high mentality. If a player is a sell high candidate and your playing in a competitive league, everyone knows he is a sell high, (I.E. Jeremy Hazelbaker.) What about buy low though? If you notice a bad team that has an Archer or a Harvey, I would send them offers right away. To often teams begin to panic if they are low in the standings after the first month.

That is easy to say for teams that don’t own these guys, but what about teams that do and are struggling? My advice would be to have two or three players on your team that you would feel comfortable dropping anytime. With this roster flexibility, you are free to add any hot hands, (I.E. Rich Hill) to help with your ratios as you wait for your studs to get back on track. Panic trading will only lead to regret later on in the season. You don’t want to be the guy that trades Chris Archer now and see him post double digit strikeout games later on in the year.

With that being said, there are some guys that should be benched until they figure it out. I am benching Adam Wainwright and Chris Archer on all my teams until further notice. Shelby Miller is borderline droppable in a 12 team league. I am not benching Matt Harvey yet, but have gotten several laughable offers for him in a 20 team dynasty. (One such offer was Marco Estrada and Jeremy Hazelbaker.)

Ultimately it’s never easy to just sit back and watch as your team struggles through the first few weeks. If you believe you drafted well and your studs are just not producing early in the season, there is nothing you can do, but wait it out.