I need some serious fantasy baseball strategy help

So, the deal is I'm a rookie in a 10 year old, 12 team, super competitive 5x5 league. I've been in 1st-4th all year which is great. My line-up really seems to mash.

The thing is, I lost the three closers I picked up at the draft due to injuries. I've only been starting one mediocre closer all year. Axford, while most other teams start 2 or 3 closers. Therefore I'm dead last in saves.

I've been in first or second place in Quality Starts (we don't do wins) for a lot of the year and strikouts as well. But that's because I've been starting more strarting pictehrs than other teams. I'm 7th in ERA and 8th in WHIP.

The guys in 11th place, 10th place, 9th place, 8th place and 7th place in front of me have 11, 17, 20, 23, 34 saves. Am I so far behind in saves that I should just PUNT saves for the rest of the year, and NOT try trading for another closer ??

OR should I trade for another closer, and start TWO closers from now on? If I do that, will I start to lose to many points in SO and QS that I begin to lose ground?

[overkill94]

Nah, it's early enough in the season where you could make up some serious ground in saves.

[Judge Jude]

where are the other lowly SV teams in the standings, and is there much chance you could acquire a closer from them?

also, what if you add TWO more closers to Axford, and upgrade at SP in another deal to keep afloat in the others?

last point is, if the likely winning total in pts may not be that high, you can worry less about SV. but if the winning total is likely high, you can't concede any ground.

I once had a rival win all 5 hitting categories (only owner ever to do that), but I beat him anyway because he finished 8th in Ratio and I was top 3 across the 10-category board (this was 106 to 102 in a 120-pt maximum league).

[virgonomic]

The bottom feeders will be dumping their closers, so you will be able to catch any non-contending teams in saves. 2 years ago I traded for 2 closers (Uehara and Holland) halfway through the season and won the saves category. Trade for one!

[revo]

I'll go against the crowd and say don't bother, you're too far behind. I don't know exactly how many saves you have but you must have 10 or less, so that means you need 25 saves just to add five more points -- and that assumes those teams don't get any more saves, which is unrealistic. Let's say you'll need 30-40 saves just to move up the five spots, so you'd definitely need two new closers to add to Axford. And that cost could be prohibitive, not to mention the fickleness of the role.

[Lucky]

Agree with revo. Don't trade a valuable asset at this point to chase possible points in saves. You would be better off trading Axford for help where you could get certain points.

Now, if you have sure excess you could trade for a closer, maybe. Otherwise, I would look at maximizing overall points. That's all that counts.

It is still possible there will be some closer changes. Do you have a read on that? Could you get closers really cheap a month from now?

Look at it this way...you aren't deciding to dump saves...your roster did that for you. You now have to do the other part, which is to make up the points elsewhere.

As for other closers giving you points in three categories, the ones you could get in trade may or may not help in whip and ERA. And they could snap a fetlock tomorrow.

[Judge Jude]

depending on the exact details, pretty much any of these posts could be the best advice. so there you have it....