Posted by rbow923 on 11/1/2018 5:27:00 PM (view original):
Can someone explain the fascination with Kershaw? He's not a top 5 pitcher and his performance doesn't exceed that of several others in the same $/ip range. And only 149 innings.
Divide his IP and $ in 2, and you basically have 2 very good relievers. Not peak-Rivera level, but very good. And left-handed - I think only Kuo and one of the Wagner seasons do better. (Maybe Britton too if you can live with walks and are paranoid about HR.)
Then in the playoffs he basically turns into 3-4 Milackis. You can easily run him out for games 1, 3 and 5 of an LDS. And in WISC, where LDS counts for a lot (8 points for winning + a lottery ticket in the later rounds with another 7-8 points of expected value), that's huge.
And all that for 1 draft pick. It's a pretty good deal.
I mean, it was still a dumb draft pick and it will probably cost me the whole tournament thanks to all the penalty points I'm about to accrue. I should have just taken another good reliever or a platoon player if I wanted to maximise expected value. But it did have some upside.