Greek physician Hippocrates is credited with the phrase, “For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable.” That phrase led to the more commonly known advisory, “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
While I doubt that Hippocrates ever played fantasy baseball, if he did, he wouldn’t have drafted Jon Lester in the 7th round of his Main Event league. I did, and I wrote a column about Lester last week. In that column, I intimated that you couldn’t trust Lester in the second half, but that he couldn’t possibly be as bad as he had looked in all but one of his second half starts. After Sunday, I recant that. Lester can look that bad and regrettably, he may very well be that bad.
The waiver wire doesn’t contain a whole lot of pitching talent and I have little trust in those called up at this point in the season. I’m fighting for my league title, but have dropped significantly in the past ten days, in no small part due to Lester. Toss in Tyler Skaggs, Drew Pomeranz and a slumping Freddy Peralta, and the options are limited. With Lester due to travel to Pittsburgh for his weekly drubbing, and Skaggs venturing to either Texas or the disabled list, I needed to come up with a new strategy to try to stop my ballooning ERA and WHIP.
Enter Josh Hader, Collin McHugh and Anthony Miller. Normally, I’d be reasonably comfortable matching one of these three with my two closers (presently Felipe Vazquez and Seranthony Dominguez, with Brandon Morrow on the DL), but never two or three. Yet, given the options, it’s all in on middle relievers.
Doing the math, this strategy just might work. At first glance, I was concerned with wins and strikeouts. But, it might not be as bad as I thought. Skaggs has 123 punch outs, and Lester has 105 (the majority of which came in his remarkable first half). Hader has 101, and Miller had 95 last year (this year he has pitched just 18 innings, so those numbers don’t really equate). So, the Skaggs/Lester due, with all things being equal, would likely get about 20 more strikeouts over the remainder of the season than would Hader/Miller. That 20 will cost me one point in the standings.
Wins are tough to predict, but I figure to lose about four wins if I were to go exclusively with Hader/Miller of Lester/Skaggs. Considering my place in the standings, this loss won’t cause me any harm. Thus, I’m looking at a loss of about one point in those two key categories.
It’s hard to pick up points in ERA and WHIP in August. Yet, stopping the hemorrhaging of Lester and Skaggs in their post all-star break mode, and replacing them with half as many innings, but an expected ERA of no higher than 2.00 and an expected WHIP of no higher than 1.00 will likely earn me a combined ten points in the standings. If all goes as expected, I can pick up as many as nine points by going with five relievers and four starters the rest of the way.
Would I recommend this strategy to start the season? Of course not. However, as Einstein stated, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” Tossing out Lester and Skaggs and counting on quality starts, double digit strikeouts and/or wins is a fool’s errand.
It’s getting late in the season. If your team is not performing as you might hope, sitting back and hoping isn’t likely going to help. It’s time to get drastic. For extreme diseases, extreme methods of cure, as to restriction, are most suitable. In my case, sitting Lester and Skaggs and going with five relievers is my attempted extreme method of cure.
Wish me luck. Don’t blink.
Buster
