To rest, or not to rest?

[durantjerry]

I would play them another series and see what happens. HF can be a difference maker. Is the other team dominant at home(probably)? It's worth the risk IMO. Now if it were Manny, it might be a different story, but I just played Manny to the end under somewhat similar circumstances. If you find yourself four games out with six to go, you may want to reconsider, but I would go for it while there still was a reasonable chance of catching them. You could make up two games tonight and be one out with six to go. I believe you should play to win, and the best chance of winning without getting help involves having HF against anyone. You still have the two rest days helping injured guys, so they would still need a major injury to miss playoff time. If I lose, I want it to be because I was aggressive trying to win rather than because I was passively trying to avoid losing.

[LMBombers]

Never rest guys UNLESS you have already clinched a playoff spot. Once that happens you should rest all your non-600 PA starters that you can with 12 games to go or less. You would hate to lose one of your best players for the first round (or worse) just trying to get home field advantage. Home field advantage only amounts to one game at their place. Why risk losing an important player for multiple games, a series or even the entire playoffs for one away game.

[durantjerry]

Because your best chance of winning(usually) is if you have HF. You take a chance and play them another series. If you lose ground, definitely sit them down. They still would, in a worst case scenario, have to get a nine game injury to miss a playoff game and his backups are pretty good. Again, I would just rather lose being aggressive rather than being passive, and I think sitting them with when you still have an outside shot at HF with nine games to go is playing not to lose rather than to win. I would look into the tiebreaker issue though.

[keyzick]

I gotta agree with durantjerry...HF is too important IMO. Like he says, if you lose ground, then go ahead and rest them. Sucks way too much to see a key guy go down thru game 5 of the semi's, but worse to give up HF by being passive.