Fantasy Focus: Savvy Vets Shakeup

Time to give you all an update on my Savvy Vets fantasy baseball team.  We got off to a great start the first 3 weeks, but, much like the Giants, started stagnating last week and now this week too.

The first move was triggered by another manager dropping Howie Kendrick for Angel Pagan.  If you remember my post-draft discussion, Kendrick was the guy I had targeted for 2B in our auction draft, but this guy was on autodraft and bid him up to above $20 which was a bit too rich for my taste, even though I am a Howie Kendrick fan.  I settled for Dustin Ackley who has been OK, but nothing special at all.  Kendrick has been in a slump, but already shows signs of coming out of it.  I think he's almost a lock to put up better numbers than Ackley over the ROS.  I dropped Ackley for Kendrick.

I had a couple of pitchers who have been hurting me.  Matt Harrison was great for the first couple of weeks, but his last two starts have been shellings which essentially sank my ERA and WHIP numbers.  Ervin Santana has been a huge disappointment.  He was solid, but not great last year.  Upside is limited.  I wanted to make a change.  Lastly, Cory Luebke went on the DL with an elbow and now is rumored to be a TJ candidate.  This is bad news as he was solid in the early going and I always like Padre pitchers from a fantasy perspective.  So, out go Harrison, Santana and Luebke and in come Jeff Samardzija, Juan Nicasio and Carlos Zambrano.

Alejandro De Aza has been slumping.  Yeah he might recover and put up solid numbers, but he also could fade back into baseball oblivion.  He was really Ozzie's guy and Ventura probably doesn't have a lot of patience for him.  Josh Reddick is a guy I had pegged as a sleeper in the pre-season after his trade to Oakland and has been solid so far.  I dropped De Aza and picked up Reddick.

We all know about Pablo Sandoval.  He's been a mighty contributor to the Savvy Vets as well as the Giants.  No way was I dropping him, so I moved him to my last open DL slot and picked up Pedro Alvarez who has suddenly started hitting dingers again for the Bucs.

Another big reason for the recent stagnation of the Savvy Vets is the slow starts by my two big boppers, Jose Bautista and Prince Fielder.  I'm confident both of them will get it going as the weather heats up and then Savvy Vets will really take off!

Despite the stagnation, Savvy Vets is still sitting in first place in the league after going 5-5 last week.  We are currently leading in this week's H2H 6-4.  I've now used 8 of 40 allotted moves and we're currently in Week 5, so I've still been relatively conservative with moves in the early season.

Here's the current Savvy Vets Roster:

C    Matt Wieters
1B  Prince Fielder
2B  Howie Kandrick
3B  Jose Bautista
SS  Dee Gordon
IF   Pedro Alvarez
OF  Andrew McCutchen
OF  Melky Cabrera
OF  Josh Reddick
UT  Freddie Freeman
UT  David Ortiz
SP   Zack Grienke
SP   Madison Bumgarner
SP   Bartolo Colon
SP   Juan Nicasio
SP   Chris Capuano
RP   Joe Nathan
RP   Santiago Casilla
RP   Jordan Walden
P     Grant Balfour
P     Vinnie Pestano
BN   Brandon Morrow
BN   Brandon Beachy
BN   Jordan Zimmerman
BN   Jeff Samardzija
BN   Carlos Zambrano
DL   Pablo Sandoval
DL   Kyle Farnsworth

I'm watching Dee Gordon closely.  Despite his anemic BA and OBP and occasional sitting on the bench, He's still helping me win SB's each week which is the only reason I drafted him.  I don't see anyone else challenging his starting SS role in LA just yet, so I'm hanging onto him for now.  I'm going to have to re-assess my RP/Closer situation with the recent demotions of Balfour and Walden.  Not sure if either is a permanent demotion yet, but the Angels acquisition of Freiri is worrisome for Walden.

Any suggestions?

PS:  Just found Jonathan Broxton sitting on my league's FA list.  I could have sworn he was owned by somebody.  He's reeled off 4 Saves starting April 26 and has an ERA of 1.86.  I'd say he has the closer job in KC nailed down for now.  Dropped Vinnie Pestano for Broxton.