It's never wise for a real major league general manager to run his team like a fantasy outfit, but that's what the Toronto Blue Jays seemed to do over the weekend. The guy who led your team in home runs, RBIs and walks a season ago was given three weeks to prove himself in 2008. Struggling? Fine! We'll just cut you.
The Jays have a contingency plan in releasing future Hall of Famer Frank Thomas, and who knows, it might even work out this time around with Adam Lind. But this kind of impatience is exactly what we preach to avoid in fantasy sports, because three weeks just isn't enough time to properly evaluate a player, especially one who has been a notorious slow starter the past few years.
In fact, while looking at what Thomas did -- or didn't do -- the past few Aprils, it's kind of hard to believe he ended up with the final, decent numbers he did. In fairness to the Blue Jays, if such a thing is warranted in this case, Thomas isn't exactly known for being a great teammate. Once he was informed on Saturday he would be losing at-bats, if not fully benched, he lashed out at the team and sealed his fate. In fantasy baseball, we don't care if the players on our teams are good or bad guys, or at least we shouldn't care. Obviously major league teams have more to worry about than mere stats. Still, the move screams of panic.
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Eric Karabell
