Musings about your freezes

I was on the phone today with one of my fellow owners today discussing the various silly freezes in the league. We're still stunned by Ross Gload at $10, but Marco Scutaro at $3 elicited a very funny comment (has Marco Scutaro ever been frozen in the history of Rotisserie at any price?).

But beyond the obvious gaffes and blunders, we hit upon two quick points that are worth repeating, if I haven't done so already in this space:

1) Don't freeze someone if you can probably get him back for the same price, at most. Bobby Crosby was frozen for $15. I'm not a believer in Bobby Crosby, but I know a few owners are. However, even if I did believe in him, I would surmise that enough owners are down on him that he wouldn't go for more than $12. If I can save $3 and get him back, then I've done myself a service and can go spend that $3 elsewhere. If some owner loves Crosby and pushes him to $17 or $18, that's good too, as another owner has overpaid for Crosby and I can go get Orlando Cabrera or Julio Lugo, who are better SS, for the same price or a couple of bucks more.

2) Try to do a rough calcuation of your inflation BEFORE you freeze rosters.

I know this concept seems counterintuitive to most owners. You can't truly calculate inflation until everyone freezes his team, and you're not going to be completely correct (unless you're Karnac and predicted that Gload would be frozen at $10).

But you do want a rough idea of where inflation will be at.

Vernon Wells was frozen at $34. My counterpart, who froze Wells at this price, was disappointed, since inflation turned out to be somewhat lower than last year. Since I had gone in and calculated what I believed inflation would be this year, I knew that Wells would be a par freeze, at best. It helped that I projected nine of the top 13 hitters would be available. My prediction was very close; only a last second trade for Frank Thomas meant that Travis Hafner was thrown back at the 11th hour.

Obviously, your players at or below value are no-brainers. But when you're on the fence about someone, knowing what the inflation factor will be, as opposed to what it was last year, is essential.