Sometimes Sori Just Won't Cut It

Many baseball purist laugh at the notion that Fantasy Baseball is anything like the real thing. I would argue till I'm blue in the face that your typical Fantasy Player knows twice as much about the game as your typical baseball fan. I will agree that some players value to their teams cannot be evaluated with numbers. Derrek Jeter is a first ballot HOF but his numbers aren't reflective of that. On the flipside Adam Dunn has been a first rate Fantasy Player over his career yet due to his defensive skills or lack there of he had to resort to baseball purgatory in Washington. One area where MLB and Fantasy mirror each other is when dealing with the over the hill superstar.

Nothing will kill a season like the underperforming superstar. In years past Alfonso Soriano, Vernon Wells, Brad Lidge, David Ortiz, Alex Rios among others have fit this description. These players all are getting paid superstar money. Unless they fall victim to injury all will be full time players regardless of how bad it gets because they are making the cash. Managers seem to only remember the good days of these players and these good days provide the equity to get them through the 0-30skid. Fantasy Players tend to fall in the same trap. These players are targeted as buy low players prior to draft day. The problem with this approach is that others target them as buy low guys so by the time they are drafted you have paid somewhat of a premium price for them. Soriano for example should have been targeted based on last year around the 16th or 17th RD instead his ADP was still somewhere between the 7th and 9th round. So you draft these players as breakout guys sometime these breakouts happen but more often than not the declining superstar isn't reborn. What makes matters worse is like MLB teams you are obligated to that player. You don't want to be the guy who sends Soriano to the Waivers to have another pick him up as Soriano goes on to the 25/20 season you envisioned at the start. So you stick with them through the bad in hopes that the good will one day come. Sadly 500 + AB's later your loyalty has been rewarded with a .240 mark possibly 20HR's and fails to total 100 combined Runs and RBI.
As a Cub fan I hope I am wrong. I hope Soriano starts cranking it. I hope that the player the Cubs signed for something like 7 years can be just a glimpse of what he was in Washington but my faith in that happening is 0 on a scale of 1-10. Soriano reminds me of Eric Davis. Both players had the same skill sets. Both were considered Top 5 players in baseball and seemingly overnight became mediocrore at best. In my unproffesional opinion I feel that age simply caught up with these players. Neither hit breaking pitches with regularity but both feasted on fastball's. Once the age caught up with them the bat speed just wasn't there to hit fastballs with any consistency. So now average to above average fastballs eat Soriano up so a typical Soriano at bat now goes: breaking ball in the dirt for a strike, fastball by him for a strike, now Soriano is without hope so the pitcher has mercy and will mess with him to give him hope before he finally will either blow anohter Fastball by him or have him slap at a Curveball before it bounces into the dirt.
Eric Davis became a solid 4th OF for several seasons after his heyday. In todays game it is very unlikely with the hefty contract for Soriano to be appointed to that role. As much as it pains me to watch Soriano 5 times a week I understand why he plays. Though you likely paid a premium for him you don't have any financial commitment. Rid yourself of him and watch another owner snag him up from the FA pool. Let them live with the 0'fers.