Today's Fantasy Rx

As in yesterday's article, while I excerpted parts of today's introduction and the quotes from Rotosirens' articles in previous seasons, all the player discussion is brand new.

In discussing Rotosiren hitters yesterday, I ignored perpetually unhealthy players like Frank Catalanotto since drastic swings in performance by players with injuries affect values in a fundamentally different way than inconsistency by normally healthy performers. I'll adopt the same philosophy when discussing pitchers since plenty of hurlers in both leagues stayed healthy all year yet didn't match expectations.

You must drive straight on past, but melt down sweet wax of honey
and with it stop your companions' ears, so none can listen;

Mike Mussina's inconsistency once again left roto owners confused. Yes, the 35-year-old missed most of July and August with elbow discomfort, but his performance when apparently healthy makes little sense:

		ERA	W-L	IP	QA
April		6.14	1-3	29.1	204224
May		3.44	4-0	34.0	24352
June		3.86	4-0	28.0	25032
July		9.82	0-2	11.0	32
August		7.04	0-2	15.1	044
September	2.14	3-1	42.0	4555

While Mussina posted a very solid ERA and perfect 8-0 record during May and June, he still registered disasters in half his starts. At least he rewarded owners quite concerned after April before collapsing in July, missing a month of starts at the beginning of the second half. Although he continued to pitch badly after returning from the DL, a superb finish during September again places him in the upper tier of AL starters heading into 2005. Hopefully next year he won't fail everyone who acquires him after a couple of impressive months, although recent seasons suggest Mussina's monthly success doesn't foretell his future performance.

Tomorrow I'll return to Sunday Morning Musings for the first time in months, and then on Monday we'll begin our end-of-season review by analyzing the effectiveness of some of my predictions. I expect to spend two weeks examining what lessons we should learn from the 2004 fantasy season before beginning my review of each team's minor league system by the middle of the month.

Today's Fantasy Rx: The Saves' leaders stayed the same almost all year. Seventeen pitchers saved from 5-10 games in April. Twelve of those relievers remained healthy and closing all year, and all twelve accumulated 30 saves. More importantly, seven pitchers registered 7 or more April saves. Of those seven, only Matt Herges failed to reach 40 saves, and despite losing his job at the beginning of August, still saved 23 games. Dustin Hermanson replaced Herges and saved 17 games, giving Giants' closers the same 40+ saves as Armando Benitez, Danny Graves, Mariano Rivera, Jose Mesa, Joe Nathan, and Francisco Cordero. Only John Smoltz and Trevor Hoffman also managed 40 saves, and although Smoltz saved 3 games in April, Hoffman saved 6. Given this data, you can project your teams' save total at the end of next April. Expect that any closer with 7+ saves by May will reach at least 40 saves and closers with no less than 5 saves will reach 30 by season's end. Barring severe injury or inconsistency, April stats should give you a good idea of your team's likely finish in saves.

All previous italicized text from these past two articles is from the Perennial Classics' edition of Homer's The Odyssey, translated by Richmond Lattimore.