What do I do now????

My team:

C - Varitek; 1B- Derrek Lee; 2B- Ray Durham; SS- Nomar; 3B - Alfonzo; OF - S. Green; OF- Klesko; OF- L. Gonzalez; UTIL's: J. Cruz, Jr; K. Millar; Mark Ellis; Bench: C. Crawford; B. Giles

SP - R. Johnson; M. Prior; J. Vazquez; K. Benson; J. Schmidt; Ramon Ortiz; Ted Lilly;

RP- E. Guardado; K. Foulke

DL: J. Isringhausen


O.K, now that you know who I have, here is my question. It has been reported that Isringhausen had a setback, and that he won't be returning at least until the beginning of May. Brian Giles also went on the DL, and he could be out anywhere from 2-6 weeks. We only have 1 DL spot in our league. Here are my options:

1) Keep roster as is: Isringhausen on the DL, keep Giles on the bench, and I still have an extra hitter to rotate in/out, but no extra pitcher.

2) Drop Isringhausen, move Giles to the DL and pick up another relief pitcher, available include: Mike DeJean; Rocky Biddle; Joe Borowski, Brandon Villefuerte; Steve Kline; Jorge Julio; Matt Anderson; or Lance Carter.

3) Drop Isringhausen, move Giles to DL and pick up a starter (scrap the whole 3 RP idea because I've got two good ones). Available SP's include: Esteban Loiza; Jeff Suppan; Kurt Ainsworth; Brad Radke; Ricardo Rodriguez; Brian Anderson; Joe Mays; Darren Dreifort; or John Halama.

4) Drop Isrighausen, move Giles to DL and pickup SP/RP Johan Santana. While Santana is neither a starter or closer, he posts very good numbers that could help my pitching staff across the board.

I guess the main question is: Should I drop Isringhausen and pick up another player moving Giles to the DL, and if so, which route would you go, a pitcher for the bench; or another hitter to rotate with my starting position players?

Available hitters include: Rondell White, Xavier Nady, Mark Kotsay, D'Angelo Jimenez, Jay Gibbons, Aubrey Huff, Nick Johnson, Josh Phelps, Geoff Jenkins, and Alex Sanchez.

Any opinions welcomed....

I would say keep things how they are... If you drop Izzy your not going to get him back.... even if he doesnt come back for a while your still going to get 25-30 saves with him.

I am really close to pulling the trigger on Isringhausen. I just read an article today that said that he won't pick up a baseball until at least this weekend, if then. They said that he is definately several weeks away from returning.

Giles injury not expected to require surgery, but no official timeline has been given, still expected to be best case 2 weeks, worse case 6 weeks.

Someone in my league just picked up Rocky Biddle, who I really wanted. Relievers now in F.A. are Joe Borowski, Lance Carter, Mike DeJean, and Jorge Julio, and Steve Kline.

(Alfonseca and Hoffman are also on the F. A. list, but are on the DL. I was thinking of dropping Isringhausen, picking up Borowski, and then picking up Alfonseca, when / if he gets the job back, as I am starting to fall behind in saves in my head to head matchups. Foulke and Guardado haven't been getting in as many games lately with both of their teams struggling.

Leader,

A note on Kline... since he's a lefty he may only get about half of the save opportunities. It appears that Larussa may be grooming Dustin Hermanson and Russ Springer to take on the RH closer duties. This is mostly speculation, but there has been talk throughout ST that these two would get a share of save opportunites. Kline may still get more save opps then some of the others available since he is on a winning team though. Another bit on Izzy, I fully expect him to return to his old form eventually, but it may take him a few weeks even after he returns to be fully effective. Izzy had the same surgery as Kile did in the last offseason, and it took Kile a couple of months of starts to recover completely.

Thanks for the "insider" information, Matty. I was hoping that you could provide some information for me. Thanks again for your input. I think what I'm going to do is drop Izzy, pick up Borowski. When Izzy is about due to return, I'm going to pick him back up (if he's still out there). If he's not out there when Alfonseca returns and Borowski moves back to middle relief, I'm going to pick up Lance Carter, Jorge Julio, or Mike DeJean (whoever is doing good), or I will pick up Johan Santana if these guys are struggling.

I'd seriously consider looking at Radke or Mays. Both are off to bad starts, but they have a good history behind them. Mays WHIP is not bad, either, so I would expect a turnaround.