Draft MVP Blog

Meet my team. A prolific roster of 22 studs top to bottom. I’ve got power, I’ve got speed, I’ve got K’s and SV’s. Favored to finish in the top and likely to take it all.

Then the season started and the injuries started to mount. Of 22 picks during the draft, 16 have missed considerable time due to injury or complete inadequacy (i.e. Rich Hill). We have 6 bench spots in my league; so really, I’ve lost my entire starting roster (check out the body count at the end of this post). 

The result of this horrendous luck? I’m in 15^th place out of 16 teams.  I was convinced that I’d really angered the Fantasy Gods, and here at DraftMVP HQ, the guys were more than willing to make fun of my team. But as we started chatting about it, we realized that it wasn’t just my team that was weighed down by injuries. When Juan Pierre went on the DL for the first time in his career, we started to scratch our heads and ask “what is going on?” So, we dug into the stats and sure enough, there are some really interesting insights:

• 2008 is already an atypical year with a much higher injury rate than any of the previous 20 seasons

• Batters and Pitchers have been similarly impacted

• The “studs” – year in, year out top picks – have been absolutely decimated. Take a look at the top 30 injured players – huge names in there

So what should you do about it? If you’re like me and your team is at the bottom of the heap due to some nasty luck, you need to get your roster healthy.. FAST. Here are a few tips:

• Saving roster spots for guys on the DL is going to hurt you more than it has in the past. Several of your healthy players are likely to miss some time in the 2^nd half of the season and each bench spot saved for someone who isn’t a predictable backup is a bench spot wasted.
• You might want to hang on to guys like J.J. Putz, but for the most part, having a healthy player in hand is worth more than the player with potential. You need that flexibility in your roster.
• Entertaining trade offers for your injured guys is always worthwhile, but this year it might be the strategy that helps you climb out of the cellar. Knowing what we know of the injury patterns, it’s pretty safe to say that you might be able to weaken other teams in your league by sending them some of your long-shots. Don’t be too proud to win at the expense of your competitionJ. On the other hand, if you’ve got a team that’s avoided major injuries and is at the top of your league, you have some different choices to make.

Some things you should be doing as we approach the All-Star break:

• Take a hard look at your roster and figure out if any of your starters have a history of injuries and has thus far managed to avoid them. You should be thinking about trading them, right away.
•  If, in addition to having some vulnerability in your starting roster, you’ve also got several players on your bench who fit this profile, you really need to cut some dead weight and get yourself more reliable backups.-          Say no to bargain trades for injured stars. They’re going to take up a roster space and expecting the player to come back and stay healthy is just wishful thinking.
• Trade for solid backups. Depth at positions that are weak on the waiver wire (catchers, shortstops, second basemen) could be a good strategy.
•  Place a premium on multi-position eligible guys who are healthy. Whatever you do, don’t close your eyes to this season’s reality: players are getting injured more often and if you haven’t bought insurance against it, you’re going to end up feeling some major pain in September.  

Let us know what you think – we’ll be taking a look at more of the stats around injuries in order to try and get some more specific advice together. If you’ve got some ideas on what to look at or how you’d think this through, just share them in the comments or shoot me an email at: cyrus@draftmvp.com 

(as mentioned above, here’s how my draft has turned out for me)