GUYS PRIMED TO BREAK YOUR HEART FANTASY WISE

There is nothing worse than watching your fantasy stud who’d carried one aspect of your team for the whole season crumble in the latter stages of the season. You have to put him in there just because, but you know that it means damage to your chances to win a title.

Stop doing that. This is fantasy baseball, not real life baseball. You can afford to bench some of your studs and no one will be mad at you in the clubhouse.

Here are some of my picks who are primed for a late season collapse.

Dan Haren

His periphial stats are outstanding, the most of which is his Eric Gagne like WHIP of .81. The alarming part is that he has logged so many innings in that arm that it even started showing last year down the stretch when his ERA was 5.63 in August and 3.90 in Sept. Arm fatigue is an issue with Dan, so I’d expect to see an uptick in ERA and a serious regression WHIP-wise. Don’t drop him though, just let him sit after a bad August start.

Johnny Cueto

Decent WHIP, nice ERA, innings are out of control though for a guy who’s never been here before. He’s on pace to throw for 206 innings or so. While it is not way over last year’s total of 178, it is still significantly over, especially for a pitcher who wore down in the second half, struggling with command and seeing a dramatic decrease in SO-BB ratio. Watch out with him, if you can trade him do so.

Brandon Inge

He’s a 32 year old sometimes catcher who is having his best offensive season ever. If that does not scream collapse, then I can’t help you friend. He has a career 82 Adjusted OPS, yet this year he’s putting up a very impressive 127. He’s playing over his head, and if those knees start to bother his 32 year old frame, he’ll go in a hurry. The good thing is that his offensive value is not tied into speed, the bad thing is that it is tied into how many homers he can hit.

Ichiro

He’s a deadball player playing in the modern era. It’d be fine if he was, say, a second baseman. But for a corner outfielder, no matter how impressive those singles are, he’s merely slightly above average. He’s closer to the guy who hit .310 last year and had people questioning how much he had in the tank. His BABiP is an insane .382, and that’s going to fall. When a player with as many offensive limitations as Ichiro loses his only tool, his legs, his value will plummet.

Also, he’s not really helping you much at this point anyway, he doesn’t score as many runs as he should, and to tell you the truth, when he regresses he’ll be just a guy.

Jason Bartlett

Yes, he’s 29, athletic, and has always had a pretty decent contact rate. But .371? There’s no way. He’ll collaspe, but his value will be saved by an ok batting eye and a decent power stroke.