actual baseball content

What is a month worth?

This comes up because of the A-Rod injury/injury scare. Instead of being an arguable 1-3 fantasy pick, he's been dropped by ESPN below a 30th pick (that's round 4! in some leagues).

The baseball season is 6 months long, plus another year or two of post season (though baseball fits in lots of games over a few weeks whereas basketball fits in a few games over a few months of post season). In any case, for fantasy baseball, all you care about is the regular season, so a month is worth 1/6th a season. So is it worth taking a player you know will miss the first month?

First, the player has to be exceptional. If you take the players normal stats and look at 5/6 of them, most first rounders will continue to be worth that elite tag. Maybe not first rounders anymore, but certainly 2nd, or 3rd.

Second, just because he's hurt now doesn't excuse him from future injury. If anything, being hurt now seems to set a bad precedent that the player may re-aggravate (I'll look around and see if I can't find some evidence to this point).

Third, I'm trying to work out whether taking a player that starts out on the DL is better for head to head or rotisserie leagues. Losing a early rounder (especially 1-2) has a potential to sink a season in head to head leagues. If you lose your first several matchups, you could be so far behind that the player's comeback is inconsequential. Although, if you're able to tread water for those first 4-5 matchups, the elite player you get back can be a terrific boost. On the other hand, in a rotisserie league, you can't catch back up for lost production. So the big question is, can you find some slug on the waiver wire that can give you about average production for the time your elite is gone.

I imagine you should be able to find a decent replacement, so drafting a player you know is coming back may well be worth it.

This is more important when you think of all the injured or otherwise delayed players that get passed over (Pujols, Longoria last year, Chase Utley this year?).

I suppose if I had drafted 3 days ago and ended up with A-Rod, I would wince immediately when I heard the news, but other than that I think having the excuse to have already taken a huge producing 3B would be fine. As long as he comes back...