by Outta Leftfield » Wed Dec 07, 2005 10:58 pm
...you can certainly fire the players. There can be a certain satisfaction when you dump a high priced slugger with a BA of .161 or a fire-balling SP with an ERA of 7.69. But then there's always that lingering uncertainty that you've dumped them too soon. Often, you never find out, but once I was beaten in the semi-finals by two different pitchers who I had dumped earlier in the season. Ouch! This led to a very quick exit by my team from the playoffs. :( :oops:
On the other hand, it's hard to beat picking up a player discarded by another manager and watching him put in an MVP-level performance for your team. My most successful team ever in terms of regular season wins had ten players on it who were discarded by other teams. :D
So, while it can be fun to fire players whose performance is frustrating, I think it's good, most of the time, to put a lid on your emotions and wait till you have some reasonable evidence that the player's in a bad year. The newbie managers who dump a great hitter after 30 bad at bats often, I think, have a tendency to live to regret it.