“At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.” Viktor Frankl

“When we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl

The 2019 season is less than a week old and injuries have already started to mount for fantasy owners. Justin Upton, Corey Knebel, Steven Souza, Francisco Lindor (who was supposed to miss only a week at the time of most drafts), Joey Wendle, Miguel Andujar and Giancarlo Stanton were drafted and expected to make fantasy contributions. However, they’re all going to miss significant amount of time.

Last night Trea Turner broke a finger and joined this group. As of Wednesday morning no one knows how long he will out. After my most important draft I said I was going to win my league. That team has Turner on it. No one can replace Turner. When I drafted him I banked 50 stolen bases. With stolen bases in severe decline no one is going to give me that production. I, like many other fantasy owners, have two options. I can quit and give up on the season or I can try to work with what I have and not give up.

I acknowledge Mr. Frankl’s quotes are grandiose when viewed through the prism of fantasy baseball, but if you want to win your fantasy league it is imperative you embrace this mentality.

The baseball season is six months long (duh). This means there are many options on how to manage my team and still effectively compete despite losing Turner. At the end of my draft I projected my offense to have 164 stolen bases and 334 home runs…my targets were 152 stolen bases and 328 home runs. Suppose Turner is out for the entire season, my team is only projected have 119 stolen bases. That means I need to find 33 bases between now and the end of the year.

What is not specified in my projections is when I need to accumulate those statistics. For example, I need to average about 55 home runs a month. Suppose I averaged 63 a month for three months. That means I would only need to average 46 home runs the last three months. Knowing this allows me to better identify what types of players I should look at to replace Turner. Turner was in my Middle Infield (MI) slot so I need to look at second basemen and shortstops.

These are the best hitters available on the waiver wire: Starlin Castro, Josh Harrison, Brendan Crawford, Willy Adames, Adam Frazier, DJ LeMahieu, Dansby Swanson, Adam Frazier, Scott Kingery and Hernan Perez.

Kingery and Perez are upside plays because they currently do not play full time but if they did their value would be tremendous (Kingery especially if you need to replace Turner). Kingery, if he was able to play a full season, could provide 90% of Whit Merrifield’s numbers. If you look at the other players there isn’t a lot of value to be had because every player has significant warts.

The safest player is Castro because he’s going to bat 3rd/4th and the Marlins lineup at the top is competent enough to give him enough RBI opportunities. (Fun Fact: Castro is still only 29 years old!) Harrison could revert back to his 2017 season where he went 16 and 12 but I don’t see that happening. In terms of raw talent Swanson has the most, but he’s going to bat 8th for awhile which will suppress his rate statistics. Adames, like Swanson, will be limited batting 8th. Also, Adames is raw; he has good power but it could come with a .230 batting average.

The most intriguing player is LeMahieu. According to the Yankees internal data, “[he] was undervalued offensively.” With Andujar hurt it looks like LeMahieu will play every day at least until Didi Gregorius comes back in two months. Last year LeMahieu hit 15 home runs, 11 of which came on the road. With a full season of at-bats maybe the Yankees see 20-plus home run hitter with good-to-great defense?

Judging by what’s available on the waiver LeMahieu has the highest floor and ceiling. Suppose LeMahieu hits 10-15 home runs the next two months. If he does that then I would have more home runs needed to reach my home run threshold which would allow me to add a stolen base-only threat later in the season.

My course of action will be as follows:
1. Pick up LeMahieu and start him.
2. Pick up Kingery and wait and see if he gets to play every day. I can’t drop him until Turner comes back.
3. Continue to look for quality players on waivers. Preferably stolen base options.

Despite everything I just wrote it’s going to be extremely difficult for me if Turner misses more than 4-5 weeks, but if I continue to watch the waiver wire and find hidden gems I will certainly have a puncher’s chance of winning the league.