Stupid Rotoman. Bad bad bad.
I’ve spent much of this year in first place in the American Dream League. I haven’t had a big advantage, but even when I’d drop out of first for a few days, I’d pop back. Until this week.
First of all, my starting staff is built around Rick Reed, Andy Pettite and Freddie Garcia. All have been knocked around recently, none more so than Garcia this week by the Yankees. Garcia’s history against the Yanks going in was good, but he’s not the same pitcher he was before the all star break last year.
My strategy was to spend some money on breadth of mid-range starters. That hasn’t worked out yet, but unless all three stay in the crapper all season long I should be able to work something out. The strategy may not work, but it wasn’t stupid.
I had Ugie Urbina as a freeze, so I tried to pick up solid middle guys to give good innings and the odd save here and there. LaTroy Hawkins, Arthur Rhodes and Lance Carter all went pretty cheaply in the end game and they’ve all worked out very well so far. So that wasn’t the stupid thing.
The other reliever I bought was Ryan Bukvich. I knew it was risky, because he doesn’t really have better control than Mike MacDougal, but I felt sure MacDougal wouldn’t last the season, and in a trial Bukvich could get a bunch of saves even if he didn’t pitch all that well. He didn’t pitch well, but before he could do too much damage he was sent to the minors.
Which brings us to Albie Lopez, who I activated this past Monday when Ismael Valdez was disabled. I thought about leaving the spot open, but Lopez hadn’t been pitching too badly, and with MacDougal faltering I could dream about Albie becoming the Royals’ closer, couldn’t I?
His first night Lopez vultured a win, his fourth of the season. I was starting to feel blessed. And then Garcia gave up 10 runs in three innings, Pettitte got knocked around, and Albie gave up four runs in two-thirds of an inning. But that wasn’t all…
Tonight Albie gave up seven runs in 1.1 IP. I’ve dropped from fifth in ERA to 11th in a matter of days. All because I had the hubris to think I could outsmart nature.
You can’t outsmart nature. Guys like Lopez have their bad runs, give up lots of runs, and then pitch pretty well for a while, ending up decidedly mediocre. That’s how they keep getting jobs (and actually Lopez was pretty good last year in the Atlanta pen). All would work out fine if you could grab the hot streak, and dump him before the crash, but if he’s going good you’re never going to drop him.
And if he goes bad, you go bad. We have free agent pickups on Monday. Valdez will be back, I guess, though he’s the sort of guy you can carry when you’re staff is going good, but Lopez is going out the door, and Bukvich is headed for the reserve list.
The challenge will be to get someone better.