Dumping a megastar...

[gorshar]

It's mid season, you're in a $80m league. In two more days the salary recovery for releasing players drops from 90% to 80%. You have a $10 million+ slugger in a hitter's park performing at about a $5 million level. You could really use another pitcher. You have a passable replacement for his position already.

Do you...
1.) Keep him figuring at some point he's gotta bust loose and start acting like a $15 mil hitter to average him out to the $10 mill that he is.
2.) Dump him and take a $9 mill arm?

And your team is very much in the wildcard race.

[durantjerry]

Depends who the hitter is. Some guys I would never dump and hope they come around. If you get a bad year, so be it. Also depends on who is available. I would not go for a big arm off the waiver in a hitting park.

[gorshar]

Player is Lou Gehrig. Tons of arms and hitters available from the free agent pool as it's an $80 million ATG4 league.

I have Trosky behind him who's DHing for me at the moment. Don't really want his glove though.

For arms I have Gibson and T Brown already, but beyond that, complete garbage. I keep hoping Gehrig will catch fire, but the situation is I need bats to compensate for the horrors that occur the 50% of games Gibson and Brown are not on the mound, and the handful of times one of those two falls apart early. So far Gehrig has not lived up to his $10.85 price tag and I'm getting really frustrated with him.

[durantjerry]

I didn't realize you were talking ATG. In thjat game, you have to outslug your opponents. I just looked at a team with middle of the road pitching in an $80 league that is 73-47(Fulton County). Even his good pitcher(Clarkson) has a 6.00 ERA. Vukovich is 16-5 with a 5.93 ERA. Team ERA is 6.45. Would be easier to be specific if we could see your team, but you would get more and probably better advice on the ATG boards.

[coyote303]

Since you know what card you have (i.e., you're not a mystery card league),
I would keep your slugger. His card isn't any worse just because you've had below average results with him so far. Why take a $1 million hit to your team?

[RICHARDMILTER]

Coyote is right. The first step towards becoming a winning GM is learning not to panic, and realizing that you need to go with the players card, over past performances,.... EVERY time. In other words, it does not matter if the player starts fast or slow, his card stays the same. Dumping him and taking the 10% hit will only get you a player(card) 10 % less valuable! Ride it out and hope the dice rolls turn your way.

[visick]

Try the Iron Horse in a different lineup spot.

[PotKettleBlack]

Different take:
I just finished a season where Bagwell, through 40 games, was hitting about .220. I pulled him, added McCovey, and tweaked a couple other things (platoon 2b instead of Bishop, then dump Hooper and my LF for Kiner and Little Poison).

I went on to finish with 88 wins (pythag at 92), beat a 100+ win team in the first round of the playoffs, and the WS starts this evening.

Oh yeah, and starting rotation is Walter Johnson, Matthewson, Willis and Camnitz. That's about 35-40% of payroll. (Led league in ERA, no nods for Cy Young... go figure).

[coyote303]

[quote:c6360b6a65="PotKettleBlack"]Different take:
I just finished a season where Bagwell, through 40 games, was hitting about .220. I pulled him, added McCovey, and tweaked a couple other things (platoon 2b instead of Bishop, then dump Hooper and my LF for Kiner and Little Poison).

I went on to finish with 88 wins (pythag at 92), beat a 100+ win team in the first round of the playoffs, and the WS starts this evening.

Oh yeah, and starting rotation is Walter Johnson, Matthewson, Willis and Camnitz. That's about 35-40% of payroll. (Led league in ERA, no nods for Cy Young... go figure).[/quote:c6360b6a65]

If you substitute an 8 or 9 million dollar player for a 10 million dollar player, he indeed might go on and have a great year and propel your team to a championship. However, if the players are priced accurately, your odds are better with the 10 million dollar player. (I'm making the assumption that you aren't correcting a drafting error where you realize you have two players that can't be used to full potential.)

Whenever I see someone making a lot of roster moves in a non-mystery card league, I'm thrilled if they are in my division and disappointed if they aren't.

Actually, I hope you win and let us know if you do because it might encourage others to make those high-cost changes!

8-)