Players to Avoid

It's sleeper week here at MLB Front Office and although the week is coming to a end, before I post my final sleeper wrap-up article, I thought it would be important to outline some players to avoid. These are players that I am not taking, or are only taking if they fall far enough in a draft. Each person has his own scenerio so please don't just look at the list and dismiss it, in order to get the full benefits of this article, you need to read the entire analysis for every player.

Adam Dunn - 40 HR are nice but his average will hurt you more than his homeruns will help you. In my top 250 list, he fell to 84. Some people are taking him as early as the 4th round, do not buy into the hype! Just because his name is Adam Dunn doesn't mean he is worth a high pick. If he is still there in the 7th or 8th round, it is time to consider taking him.

Chien-Ming Wang: His low strike out rate will kill you and it also suggests that his ERA may rise next year. He will always get you the wins because he plays for the Yankees but don't look at his Wins and take him for only that. If you have 2-3 200+ strike out guys on your team already, then feel free to nab him. For example, in a mock draft I did, I had Zambrano, Myers, Harang and Hill. 3 of those are 200+ K guys and Hill has the potential to be one, therefore, I nabbed Wang to round out my staff. However, Wang is by no means a front of the rotation fantasy pitcher.

Todd Helton - This is another case of a big name influencing you to cough up a lot of money or an early draft pick for him. Do not buy into the hype! Helton's HR have been consistantly decreasing since 2003 and he has only hit over 40 HR twice in his career anyway: *cough* roids *cough*. He will get you an average around .300 and probably 10-20 HR. I'm sorry, but no one naturally gets an average of .372 and hits 42 HR in a season, there is too big a correlation between HR and average to do that (see my Baseball Stastics article for more on that). He is also 33 and his career is dieing.

Roger Clemens - If he plays, as he probably will, it won't be until the beginning of July probably and it is not worth spending a bench spot on him until then unless you have a very deep bench in your league, probably 5 spots or more.

Pedro Martinez - Pedro won't be back until July at the earliest and even then he will be very rusty and will need a minor league outing or two. Don't expect Pedro to be pitching at his level until mid August at which point you can probably pick him up off the waiver wire.

Fransisco Liriano - He is missing the entire season. No questions asked. Do not pick him in hopes he will return early because he won't.

This is just a small sample of some players to avoid. There are also a number of closers that should be left alone until late on draft day because they don't have a very good chance at holding the role for very long, these closers include:

1. Todd Jones; 2nd in line: Joel Zumaya
2. Ryan Dempster; 2nd in line: Bob Howry/Kerry Wood
3. Eric Gagne; 2nd in line: Akinori Otsuka
4. Kevin Gregg; 2nd in line: Taylor Tankersley
5. Takashi Saito; 2nd in line: Jonathin Broxton
6. Bob Wickman; 2nd in line: Mike Gonzalez
7. Cincinati Closer?
8. Solomon Torres; 2nd in line: Matt Capps
9. Boston Closer?; 2nd in line: Jonathan Papelbon
10. Octavio Dotel; 2nd in line: ???