It's early June, but you know your season is already over. Your ace pitcher has imploded, your star hitter is stinking up the joint, and/or your ace closer is injured. It's time to cash in on your season.
Making this decision, though painful, is the easiest thing you'll have to do. The most challenging element of dumping is figuring out how to put your roster together for next year.
I have a lot to say on this subject, but the most important thing to remember is this: you are building the team that you probably will be living and dying with next season.
This is an important yet often forgotten element that goes into building a team that often gets swept under the rug. While you might be able to make some trades in the winter, it's incredibly likely that the core of players that you acquire will be on your team come Auction Day. The players you get should be players who match your philosophy and your beliefs based on what it takes to win.
With that in mind, who are the best types of players to get? Obviously, you're looking for undervalued players, but within that pool of players, whom should you be targeting?
1) Established young players who are at or near their peak.
While you may want to take chances with a sophomore under the right circumstances, you're better off getting a player with at least a two-year track record. If you picked up Gordon Beckham and/or Nolan Reimold last year to build your team around, it's likely that you're sucking wind this year. If you can get someone with a cheaper salary like Evan Longoria or Jacoby Ellsbury (assuming, of course, that you're in a contract league), even better.
2) Cheap pitching.
Yes, I know, pitchers are unpredictable and unreliable and their raw numbers fluctuate from year to year and all of that. But if you're going to win next year, you're going to need some cheap arms to work out. This doesn't mean that you should overpay for it, but don't forget to try and grab some arms. Having an unpredictable pitcher at $3-5 in tow is better than paying $10-12 for that same pitcher in April.
3) Farm players
This one is tricky, and depends on your league's rules. Getting into league differences when it comes to how long you can keep minor leaguers, what their salaries become when they're called up, etc. could be the subject of an entire post. In many keeper leagues, though, farm players start out at $10 and can be undervalued depending on how good they are out of the gate. If you had Jason Heyward on your farm entering this season, you've got a big smile on your face right about now.
The other variation here is figuring out what these players will be worth in trade when you're contending next year. Last year in my home A.L., I scoffed when an owner picked up Tim Beckham as a farm player. When that same owner flipped Beckham for a $1 Jeff Niemann, I stopped laughing. If you have one or more owners in your leagues that cherish these guys, you'd better accumulate as many of these chips as you can.
4) Undervalued veterans
I put this category of players last because there is a lot of risk in this pool, particularly once players get past a certain age and run the risk of losing their jobs or falling into a platoon. I'm not talking about superstars or $20-25 regulars, but rather $10-15 players who might be at cheap salaries coming off of a down year. This is the rub: is the undervalued player having a true resurgence, or is the bounce back the fluke?
That decision is up to you. In any event, players like this are the difference between a middle-of-the-road freeze list and a strong one. You don't want to populate your entire roster with players like this, but you do want to try and grab some of these guys in order to compete.
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