Chances are you’re feeling the crunch at the moment. It looks like players are going faster in the IL than they are coming down, and you have just as much room to work with. If you’m lucky, your commissioner has thrown you an IL spot or two (or, um … five?), So that you do not lose a bench seat every time a player is on the sidelines, you may reach the point where even those begin to overflow.
Juan Soto is the youngest to go down, with a shoulder stretch on the IL. The news came from the left field about an hour before Tuesday’s game and so far no one on the Nationals beat could give any details. Given the quiet development, my guess is that it is quite small, but he will still have to consume an IL spot.
The good news is that some seasonal stations are now activated. Kyle Lewis, who has been training with a leg bruise in his knee since late spring, returned to the series on Tuesday, and the Padres finally built Dinelson Lamet to the point that they will release him on Wednesday. Ke’Bryan Hayes and Austin Nola are also on track to return.
But there is a downside if a player also comes from the IL. If you have him put up in an IL place, you have to cut someone, and sometimes – probably not in the case of the players I mentioned, but sometimes – the right player to cut is the one you activate.
It might make you wonder why you packed him away in the first place. This list is meant to advise you which injured players are best to keep away and which not so much, if you have to make difficult decisions. The criteria are a combination of how good the player is, how long he is expected to miss and whether the injury can have a lasting effect on his performance.
Too valuable to drop, period
Maybe in the flattest leagues
If you must, you must
Stashing is simply a luxury