Keepers

With final protects due this weekend, I want to address two issues. The first is protecting a fully-valued star, and the second is the psychological barrier imposed upon pool pick-ups.

With a fully-priced (actual value + inflation premium) player, a team needs to determine what their individual margin-of-error is for their valuation method i.e. I have Derek Lee for $33 and think he could go for $29 to $35. If the player is within this range, then protecting him should not be in question. (Whether another team would trade for him is a different subject. While I wouldn't protect a $28 Marcus Giles, someone else may. While I would protect a $38 Schilling, other may not.)

The facts to remember is almost all superstar players always go for full value, and, in every draft, there are a couple who go for slightly less. The key though is recognizing the difficulty in determining beforehand which ones they will be. Knowing this this allows you to rest easier than you would if you spent the time prior to the draft feeling uninformed because some magazine says ARod is worth $28 when you want to protect him at $41. (Also keep in mind, most Roto mags are non-keeper,mixed-league and 5X5.)


Pool pick-ups carry a salary of $10. When protect time comes along, many teams look at that $10 salary and think, "I plucked him from the pool and could get someone like him again this year, so I can't protect him."

This mental rule needs to be broken despite its ingrainment in our psyche from lifetimes of $1.99 being a much better deal than $2.00. In order to break through this ask your self if the $10 player was $9 or $8 or $11 or $12 would he be more attractive. If "yes", then keep him.

Is Dontrelle Willis less attractive at $10 than Al Leiter at $8? Is JT Snow less attractive at $10 than Adam LaRoche is at $13? Is Jesus Colome less attractive at $10 than Huston Street is at $9? And so on.