2016 REL Dynasty League Update: Week 2

On top of bullpen issues, my trade that went down right before last week’s update has turned into an utter soul crusher.  Hector Olivera was arrested for domestic violence, and all I really wanted out of him is every day ABs.  So much for that.  Just really, really disappointing, and I will conduct character interviews before any more trades.

With Ender Inciarte going down, I decided to dip into my FAAB to bring in Drew Stubbs, only to see Mallex Smith was getting called up too.  Stubbs crushed a big homer off Wainwright, but has since not started and the Braves have little incentive to start him anyway.  Maybe against some lefties.  But hey, he’s really fast and on a big league club, so maybe he can sneak in some pinch-running steals, and Olivera is playing OF so maybe this works out for Stubbs a little at the least…  Moral of this story is to not acquire any more Braves…

It’s tough to own a rebuilding team, as the Brewers are playing different line-ups everyday, and rightfully so.  They gotta see if any of the Rule 5 scrubs can stick.  But it’s frustrating as hell as their REL owner to have gaps in my batting order. Thankfully we’re 0.5 ahead of the Cardinals in the REL and just gave them a heartbreaking loss last night.  Not all is lost.

• We are still healthy. I cannot emphasize “still” as the absolute, most important word in that sentence enough. With 3 regulars 36 and older, I’m not sure how many more weeks I’ll be at liberty to write this.

• When healthy, we can hit. If this was a hitting only league, we may find ourselves at the top. Alas, it is not. And here I thought that chicks only dig the long ball. (Hopefully McCann and his toe don’t miss too much time. He’s hitting .500 and has 10 runs through 6 games).

• When we hit, we can run. 6 SBs, only 2 from Ellsbury, on the season is good enough for 2nd place in steals so far.

• And the bullpen is as advertised even without Chapman. Through 7 IP, Betances and Miller have a K/9 of 19.2 and 0 earned runs.

The Bad:

• The starting rotation is mind-numbing. Not the kind of numbing from eating ice cream too fast either. It’s mind numbing like falling into a House of Mirrors with Ben Stein’s voice reading a “Guide for Dummies” over the loud speakers. The rotation doesn’t pitch deep into games, doesn’t have a good K rate and puts themselves into trouble too often. It’s going to be awhile until I find the right path to get out of the house with my sanity.

Aside from the early pitching woes, and the losing record, the MLB team is doing fine for my purposes. I don’t own Rasmus, Fister, Feldman, or any of their RPs besides Gregerson and Giles but I don’t think that’s too bad considering those pitchers aren’t doing anything worth mentioning. Yeah, not keeping Rasmus was a mistake. Whatever, I’ll survive. Tucker is off to a good start but he’s sadly still just a 4th OFer and backup DH, but there is a rumor circulating that Gattis might do some more catching this year which would be a way for Tucker to get more ABs. This would obviously be amazing for me. The Stros haven’t faced a lefty starter yet so Marisnick has only seen a handful of ABs, and thus the aforementioned Rasmus has only received one day off. They’ll be facing lefties eventually and Marisnick will get his opportunity. Tucker and Marisnick I own. Unlike Singleton or Duffy who have been sent down to AAA or Marwin who is currently 1-fer-11 with 6 Ks and absolutely no threat to anyones playing time. I had a non-protected call up in Devenski. He was added by the Tigers and I didn’t put in a bid on him. I think his major league role is long relief only and the high upside arms in the Astros system are all close to MLB ready. Oh and yeah, some guy named White has been pretty good too. I’m kind of lucky to have him really. He almost didn’t make my list of 10 protected prospects but fangraphs, and only fangraphs, had him as a top 10 Stros prospect (#6 overall) with a ceiling of a 70 hit tool and they thoroughly convinced me he was worth protecting.

As for my non-Astros, offensively I’m running out the platoon of Morrison and Pearce in my util and it’s been down right offensive. I’ve tried to improve this but to no avail. I’m also patiently holding Renato Nunez, the A’s AAA 3B who just turned 22 and hit 29 HRs in high-A ball as a 20 year old. He’s the unquestioned long term answer at 3B for Oakland and being on the 40-man roster already means worst case I probably see him as a September call-up. My only non-Stros starter is Minny’s Milone who I’m hoping can help my ERA/WHIP a bit. The bullpen consists of Duffy who’s SP eligible, KCs only lefty, and might be a starter due to injury or ineffectiveness sometime down the road, LAA’s lefty in Alvarez who has 3 early holds for me, LAA’s Morin who just vultured a win and seemingly is moving up the bullpen pecking order, and Abad who is Minny’s only non-closer lefty who doesn’t have a hold yet but it’s pretty tough to get holds when your team doesn’t have a win. I added Furbush to my DL in the hopes he can recover in time to help me, although I won’t be holding my breath for that. Lastly I’ve got TB’s Taylor Guerrieri, who missed most of ’14 and part of ’15 rehabbing from Tommy John and serving a 50-game suspension. Now fully healthy, on the 40-man roster, and sporting stellar milb numbers (0.97 career WHIP seems kind of good, as does the 2.95 career milb GO/AO) it seems nearly guaranteed that he makes his first major league start at some point this year. I also added Griffin to my roster today. I was surprised only two teams bid on him considering there isn’t a single other starter available.

Now that that the boring stuff is finally out of the way I want to talk a little about the Astros minors. AAA has only a few names I’m monitoring. Feliz is really the only pitcher I’m keeping an eye on. He was blown up in mop up duty for the MLB team in NY and was immediately sent down. I’m just glad they’re serious about keeping him as a starter. Reed, Kemp, and Moran are all protected guys, all three are off to good starts, and I imagine all 3 see the majors at some point this year, obviously Reed especially. The Astros AA team is absolutely loaded with talent. Pitching you’ve got Martes, Musgrove, Paulino, and McCullers currently on rehab, McCurry as a high upside RP, and an under the radar guy worth mentioning is Kyle Smith who missed all of last year after undergoing Tommy John surgery but has solid career minor league numbers including a 9.5 career K/9. The AA hitters I have protected are Bregman, Davis, and Fisher, with Bregman probably a capable major leaguer already. The guys in the low minors are all too far away to matter with the exception of maybe one, Riley Farrell, a 3rd round pick last year who was the closer for TCU and currently occupying that role in high-A ball. I’m not saying he’ll be closing in Houston anytime soon but he has the stuff to work himself into high leverage situations in the majors sooner rather than later.