The Darren O'Day Era is Over

Darren O'Day leaked his injury status to Facebook today and it turns out that his hip labrum is torn and will require surgery. I promptly took the opportunity to give him his limping papers. But who should replace him on the roster?

Punting saves doesn't mean ignoring opportunities to pick them up, hence why I took a flyer on O'Day in the first place. I just didn't want to spend draft dollars on closers and I'm not going to be heartbroken if I lose saves every week. Let's back up and take a look at the dollar values and April stats of the top ten (eleven, actually) highest paid closers:

Carlos Marmol, $25: 1-1, 5 SV, 15 K, 2.53 ERA, 1.31 WHIP (10.2 IP)
Mariano Rivera, $22: 1-0, 7 SV, 9 K, 2.53 ERA, 1.13 WHIP (10.2 IP)
Heath Bell, $21: 1-0, 5 SV, 7 K, 0.90 ERA, 0.90 WHIP (10.0 IP)
Neftali Feliz, $20: 0-0, 5 SV, 6 K, 1.08 ERA, 1.08 WHIP (8.1 IP) *injured*
Brian Wilson, $20: 0-1, 6 SV, 8 K, 8.64 ERA, 1.68 WHIP (8.1 IP)
Joakim Soria, $19: 1-0, 5 SV, 5 K, 5.59 ERA, 1.55 WHIP (9.2 IP)
Jonathan Papelbon, $19: 0-0, 5 SV, 11 K, 2.16 ERA, 1.08 WHIP (8.1 IP)
John Axford, $18: 0-1, 5 SV, 11 K, 5.79 ERA, 1.61 WHIP (9.1 IP)
Jose Valverde, $18: 2-0, 5 SV, 9 K, 0.93 ERA, 0.93 WHIP (9.2 IP)
Francisco Rodriguez, $17: 1-0, 5 SV, 13 K, 2.08 ERA, 1.73 WHIP (8.2 IP)
Matt Thornton, $17: 0-2, 0 SV, 7 K, 6.43 ERA, 2.43 WHIP (7.0 IP) *removed from closer role*

Marmol, Rivera, Bell, Papelbon and Valverde were clearly worth the investment. Feliz was doing well until he got hurt. K-Rod is converting saves and getting out of trouble, but that WHIP suggests that the situation could change at any time. Wilson, Soria and Axford have struggled but kept their jobs. Thornton has been a complete failure.

When you consider that the next two closers on the list are Jose Contreras (injured) and Jonathan Broxton (removed), that means only 5 of the 13 top drafted closers can be considered good investments. Makes me feel a lot better about spending my money on other guys. I just wish those guys were performing.

Anyway, since the available starting pitching in the free agent pool is, dare I say, crappy, I checked through the available list of middle relievers. Slim Jim dropped the Padres' Luke Gregerson, one of MLB's elite bullpen strikeout men. Unfortunately, he's on the waiver wire until Friday. While my waiver priority is only 15 out of 20, I don't want to go back to the back over a middle reliever. If he clears waivers, I'll probably pick him up. However, I could use a player now.

Enter Mark Melancon (pictured above). The former Yankee prospect was traded to Houston in the Lance Berkman deal last summer. So far this season, he's posted a 2-1 record, 0 saves, 10 Ks, 1.54 ERA and 1.29 WHIP in 11.2 innings. Good numbers, but the most attractive thing about Melancon is that he's the set-up man behind Brandon Lyon, who has a tenuous grip on the Astros closer job (2-1, 4 SV, 4 K, 4.82 ERA, 1.82 WHIP in 9.1 innings). If Lyon loses the gig, Melancon is likely to take over as closer.

Which would explain why Last Year's Champ sent me two trade offers for him. LYC previously owned him and, ironically, Melancon's only loss this season directly contributed to my 6-5 victory two weeks ago. LYC also owns Brandon Lyon and clearly believes in the handcuff rule. He's not offering me much: one offer is a one-to-one trade for injured Indians starter Mitch Talbot, the other offer is Talbot, Joe Mauer (also injured) and Royals OF Melky Cabrera for Melancon, Jonny Venters and Adam Dunn. I'm not seriously considering either offer, but mostly just because I get an injured player (or two) back no matter what and I already have 3 full DL spots and 2 other injured players taking up spots on my bench.

Clearly LYC wants Melancon, so I'm thinking of making a counter-offer for a healthy player, maybe Angels catcher Hank Conger. But I'll probably keep him and hope he grabs the closer job. 2 or 3 saves in a week can be enough to win in this league, so one closer may be enough to compete.

To Punt or Not to Punt?

OK, Part Two of the Punter's Bible right here. Today we cover saves, but first, a quick refresher on the pitching categories:

Wins. Losses. Saves. Strikeouts. ERA. WHIP.

Let's talk about those first two. You'd think with losses in there that I should be stockpiling relievers, right? Not so much. Remember this is a head-to-head league, so you can always play the matchups to your advantage. Got Jeremy Hellickson going against the Yankees this week? Bench him. Playing your starters selectively generally will only cost you in the strikeout column, but smart management should pull you victories in losses, ERA and WHIP. Strangely enough, those are the categories that closers are supposed to help you with. So why not double your pleasure and pick up some stoppers?

Not so fast, triggerman. Here are the pitchers who finished in the top eleven in saves and their corresponding draft day values:

Brian Wilson - 48 SV, $18
Heath Bell - 47 SV, $20
Rafael Soriano - 45 SV, $19
Joakim Soria - 43 SV, $24
Matt Capps - 42 SV, $5
Francisco Cordero - 40 SV, $27
Neftali Feliz - 40 SV, $9
Carlos Marmol - 38 SV, $21
Kevin Gregg - 37 SV, $1
Jonathan Papelbon - 37 SV, $30
Billy Wagner - 37 SV, $17

Elite closers tend to go for around $20 in this league, give or take a buck, but look at the 3 guys who went for single digits. Plus, consider that Jonathan Broxton went for $27 and was terribly disappointing with only 22 saves and less than stellar ancillary numbers.

There's just too much variation from year to year in the quality of closers to invest heavily in them. Plus, with the risk of injury, there's always going to be a few guys in the free agent pool who get a shot to close at some point.

On top of that, in a weekly head-to-head league, your stud closer may never even see the ball. I completely punted saves last year and ended up tying that category at least a half dozen times with a grand total of zero saves. So what are they good for?

Well, I probably would have actually won a few of those if I even had one really inconsistent, low-dollar closer. It's probably worth the ERA and WHIP gamble (those inevitable one-inning meltdowns are much more damaging in head-to-head) as long as you have a stable of consistent starters chewing up a fair amount of innings without getting torched.

This year, I'll probably plop a couple bucks down on somebody like Craig Kimbrel in Atlanta or Jake McGee in Tampa, guys who haven't proven anything or are going to be part of a committee. Or maybe even a Rafael Soriano, who would grab the reins in case anything happened to the Sandman (I made this bet last year on Joba Chamberlain; fool me once...)

Again, with the peculiarities of a 20-team head-to-head league, I can get away with punting or gambling on some set-up guys, but I still won't be paying top dollar for a closer. I'd rather save my limited pitching dollars for a starter with a reliable track record.

Q: How Do You Make God Laugh?

A: Make a plan.

Like I said in the intro, last year I finished second in the Ugueth League (which I'll abbreviate as "UL" from here on out because I'm tired of seeing the red squiggle under Ugueth.) Before I go into what strategy got me there last year and how I intend to match or better last year's results, let's delve into the innards of the UL.

The Ugueth What U Pay For League is composed of 20 teams that draft the following roster positions through an auction draft ($260 budget per team): Catcher, First Base, Second Base, Third Base, Shortstop, three Outfielders, one Utility player, three Starting Pitchers, two Relief Pitchers, three additional Pitchers, six bench players (either batters or pitchers), and up to four players on the Disabled List.

We play head-to-head weekly with a 6x6 scoring category format. Batting categories are Runs, Home Runs, Runs Batted In (RBI), Stolen Bases, Batting Average and On-base Plus Slugging (OPS) Percentage. Pitching categories are Wins, Losses, Saves, Strikeouts, Earned Run Average (ERA) and Walks + Hits/Innings Pitched (WHIP.)

Teams may make daily transactions and there are no limits on the number of transactions a team may make over the course of the season (the median number of transactions made by a team last year was 40, though the league champ made a whopping 324 transactions. I made 86.) There are no games or innings pitched limits, though each team must reach a minimum of 25 innings pitched per week, ostensibly to keep teams from activating only relievers so they can take the Losses, Saves, ERA and WHIP categories without much investment.

At the beginning of the 2010 season, I decided to punt steals and saves. If this were a roto league I'd be signing my own death warrant, but in head-to-head where each category counted for a win or loss, I was basically saying that I'd be content with a potential for 10 wins and 2 losses per week instead of 12 and 0. Overly optimistic, yes, but let's examine the logic behind the idea.

Steals end up being a very expensive commodity, but the players who provide the the biggest returns in the SB column tend to be very one-dimensional. Let's take the player who led MLB in steals in 2009, Jacoby Ellsbury. His 70 steals drove his auction price up to $34, and indeed only 30 players were drafted at a higher price, a testament to how Ellsbury could single-handedly deliver a win every week. In addition to the steals, he scored 94 runs and hit a respectable .301, but without much power (8 homers and .770 OPS) and a weak 60 RBIs.

Let's not even consider his injury-riddled 2010 campaign, but focus on the 2009 numbers. A player like Ellsbury (substitute Juan Pierre, Michael Bourn, Rajai Davis, or even Ichiro) is unmatched in the steals category, and is generally helpful in runs scored. However, batting average is usually hit or miss (Ichiro = .315, Chone Figgins = .259, both had 42 steals in 2010) and they are usually detrimental in the three power categories, with the notable exceptions of players like Carl Crawford ($39) and Hanley Ramirez. ($55)

So is it worth it to spend $34 on Ellsbury, $30 on Ichiro, $25 on B.J. Upton, $23 on Figgins, $18 on Nyjer Morgan, $17 on Bourn, or even $11 on Davis when you're only paying for one or two categories? Let's look at how helpful base stealers are in the runs category. Of the top 25 in SBs in 2010, the average number of runs scored is 82.8. By contrast, the top 25 home run hitters scored an average of 94.64 runs while contributing to a significantly greater degree in RBIs and OPS. So a non-thrilling power hitter like Nick Swisher - drafted for just $12 - scored 91 runs in 2010, higher than the speedsters' average. He also hit 29 homers and drove in 89, while posting a .288 batting average with an .870 OPS. Compare those to Nyjer Morgan's 60 runs, 0 homers, 24 RBIs, .253 average and .633 OPS. Are those numbers plus 34 steals (compared to Swisher's 1) worth $6 more on draft day?

The scoring categories in the UL favor power hitters and marginalize steals, yet these guys routinely go for higher dollar values than they end up being worth. There are always exceptions, of course: Juan Pierre was drafted at $3 and returned 68 steals. Coco Crisp went undrafted because of a broken finger and didn't see regular game action until late June, but I picked him up from the free agent pool for free and he got me 32 steals in the second half of the season. On the whole, however, I don't see a reason to spend money on steals unless they come attached to other categories. Due to the nature of head-to-head, a couple of 15-20 steal players can be more beneficial in a specific week than a player in the Ellsbury/Pierre mold due to matchups. Plus, there just aren't enough of those guys out there for one team to dominate the category in a 20-team league.

I'll cover saves tomorrow, as that's a little more complex.