I already sort of covered this when I went over how you should not be dropping guys from your fantasy baseball team that you just drafted because they’re in a slump. Due to the amount of feedback that continues to come in about whether or not Chris Davis is worth more than Cristian Guzman (fill in any schmohawk name), I decided to cover the same topic again, but this time with examples.
Back on April 30th of 2008, right after Shane Victorino was benched because of the hot Werth start, I said, “Victorino’s got too much to offer to be a bench player, he’ll be back in there. … Say Victorino doesn’t start for two weeks then he gets what? Four and a half more months to play. He can still get to 15/40. He only played in 131 games (in 2007) and he got 12/37. Patience is key.”
Now I have to expose a couple of commenters (I’ll remove their names to remove their shame), who just didn’t want to trust me with Victorino. Bee tee dubya, these comments were the overriding sentiment last year, not just a few screwball loose cannons in Da Razzpound:
Commenter, “I dropped Victorino because he was kinda duplicating what I would get out of Rios as a leadoff hitter. Now they’ve moved Rios back to third and I’m thinking about picking Shane-o back up…he’s still available but it would require me to drop Willingham.”
My response, “Yeah, I’d be careful about making a move just based on a manager’s current whim. Rios could be back in the leadoff spot today but that wouldn’t reduce Victorino’s appeal.”
Another commenter, “One slot open on my bench – who is more a better utility guy to have (the already owned) Votto or Victorino?”
My response, “You need Victorino more than Votto (because of your team’s makeup), but I wouldn’t drop Votto. I’d try and trade him.”
Those comments were not from April, but from the middle to the end of May of last year. Shane Victorino finished 14th overall for all outfielders. His final numbers were 102/14/58/.293/36. Alexei’s off to a rough start, Prince Fielder sucks and Brandon Inge looks like Johnny Bench. So when you’re thinking about writing players off in April and May, take a moment and chillax. The season is looooong (too many O’s to count). If you throw out everything you read in February/March, you’re doing much more harm than good. (Now go Google those comments to see who those comments are from. You nosy!)
