The Waiver Wire is dedicated to helping you manage your team throughout the season with strategy advice and player profiles, with a focus on leagues with daily transactions.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Octavio Dotel
Dotel should theoretically be fully recovered from surgery and may get first shot at KC's closer job. If he's fully healthy, he'll be a very valuable closer. Ignore the people who say he pitches better as a set up man. I actually think he's going to be an exceelent high risk/high reward late round pick because of the great upside, and the fact that you'll know whether the pick worked out very quickly. Watch his K/9 and K/BB in Spring Training. If they look more like 2004 (IP: 50.2, K:72, BB:18) he's at least a middle-tier closer. If they look more like 2005 (IP:15.1, K:16, BB:11) be somewhat concerned and only pick him with a late round pick. If they look more like 2006 (IP: 10, K:7, BB:11) don't pick him under any circumstances.
Meh.
ReplyDeleteI have a specific strategy on closers; draft one "ace" closer, one late-rounder non-injury risk from a bad team (think Eddie Guardado or Chris Ray), and then scrounge for saves from guys who win closers' jobs mid-season.
I agree that Dotel will probably be undervalued if healthy, but I don't like it when my closers get hurt; thus, the strategy. Saves are tough enough to come by, to lose half your supply mid-season could cripple your team in that category. And keep in mind that Dotel plays for the Royals; that's probably limiting him to 30 saves best case. So unless I got him really late in the draft (i.e. last 4-5 rounds), I'd say I'd probably avoid OD.