Speed Never Slumps......Except in the NFBC

[DOUGHBOYS]

Can I debunk a myth?
Or at the least, call bullshit on something said often in our NFBC game?
Here is the statement....
'I'm light on speed, but speed can always be found on FAAB'.

Have you looked at FAAB?
What speed merchants are there?
I think we say these type of comments to make ourselves feel better about a hole on our roster.
NFBC rosters have holes. We have a hard time admitting those holes.
When we're trying to describe our teams, we try to gloss over those holes.
We mention speed as always being available on FAAB. We talk about the Closer carousel if short on Saves.
We even expect more power or Wins from players exceeding their past numbers or expectations.
In other words, we lie to ourselves.

Most of us lie to ourselves. A little like looking at ourself in the mirror and thinking, ' Damn good looking guy '.
We see the square jaw, the piercing eyes, overlooking the obvious jowels and badly receding hairline.
Our rosters are like us. Unfortunately, our parts cannot be replaced by FAAB.

Yesterday for an experiment, I went looking through my leagues, hunting for speed.
Here are the usual suspects I found...

Jose Iglesias
Peter Bourjos
Andrew Romine
Brandon Guyer
Jace Peterson

You get the idea.

If wanting any kind of speed on our roster, we also have to accept that, for the most part, that is the ONLY thing we're adding to our starting lineup.
If having Neil Walker, Erick Aybar, and Jhonny Peralta as your middle infield, how do you fit in a middle infielder like Iglesias to get more speed?
Same with five decent outfielders. How can we justify sitting our fifth best outfielder, somebody like Nick Markakis or Travis Snider.
In effect, shoehorning a category, to the detriment of other categories.
Even if giving up a bench warmer and FAAB'ing Bourjos or Iglesias, we hold our noses.
Bourjos doesn't even have a job.
Iglesias batting ninth and has already hit above his head in having the stolen bases obtained.
In rostering him now, we are only looking at the piercing eyes and square jaw.
When dropped, it'll be because of seeing the jowels and receding hairline.

[Bronx Yankees]

Good stuff, Dan. I went shopping for speed last night for one of my teams and I left the store without making a purchase. For the reasons you cited, I could not justify making a bid on any of the potential candidates. I also think that the holes in our roster may seem exaggerated based on the small sample size. I have one FAAB team that is doing OK but for a shortage of stolen bases. When I look at my roster, I see a number of potential SB contributors who, for whatever reason, have yet to put on their track shoes this season. I refuse to believe this refusal to run will continue (rightly or wrongly). When we roster a guy with an expectation of 25 SBs, we would like to think they will get us at least 1 SB every week, even if only to help justify their existence on our rosters. As we all know, however, baseball does not work that way. They may steal five bases in a 7-10 day period, including three in one game, while leaving us wanting for many days if not multiple weeks on end. Only time will tell if the weak SB performance is temporary or something long-term reflective of a change in performance (or hidden injury).

If I was substituting a player with some speed for a comparable value player without speed, I might consider using some FAAB money to accomplish this. To bench a better player for a lesser player now, simply because one might steal a few more bases, seems crazy so early in the season. How do you know you won't wind up really needing (and missing) the BA, HR, R and/or RBI that you would be benching (or cutting) in exchange for the prospect of a few extra SBs this month?

Come later in the season, say August, the analysis is totally different. At that point, we have a much better idea where we are in each category and what we need. It might make perfect sense then to roster a pure Judy (assuming one is available) and bench a three-category power hitter. But not now.

Mike

P.S. Is it only me or does it seem like SBs are a little harder to come by this season? I see more and more games being completed without any SBs (at least by guys on my various rosters!).