week 14 - Letting Go

Today marks the first day at daycare for my 8 week old daughter.  That is such a strange sentence to type.  I mean, really, there are only a couple of times in your life that you get to say something like that (if youre lucky, either to have kids if you want them or to not have so many kids that typing that sentence becomes semi regular for you).  So, this morning my wife and I took the girls to daycare (side note - if you have a chance to take your kid/kids to daycare and pick them up on their first day, do whatever you have to do to make it happen.  It is an amazing bonding moment for you and your spouse and it will make you feel better for some reason about leaving your child in the hands of someone he or she has never met before).  I had brought the older and my wife carried the car seat with the younger.  I am sure that an outside observer would have thought we looked silly...the entire family piling out of the car to walk 30 feet from the curb to the house.  When we got into the house I put the older down and took the younger from my wife while she hugged and kissed the older.  I handed the younger over to the daycare mom and the older went in the house and we walked back to the car...minus the two most important things in the world to us.  For my wife, this was a very difficult momemt.  She has spent almost every moment of the past 8 weeks caring for the younger (and the previous 10 months literally attached to her) and to now have her out of her care (and out of mine as well) is terribly worrisome and terribly frightening, even though we know that she is in capable hands.  To her credit, my wife held it together.
For me, it was a spectacularly bittersweet moment.  I worry about her (them both actually) constantly.  But today marks the beginning of the younger's introduction to the world outside of Castle Grupe (not Castle Greyskull...very different places) and the start of my daughters' relationship with one another without mom and dad looking over their shoulders.  Cece (the older) has been prepping for today for the past couple of weeks.  She tells us that she will make sure that the ther kids dont yell at Calli and always makes sure that she is right next to Calli whenever Calli cries, telling her that it is okay and that big sis is still there.  I dont have the right words to describe what it is like to see her taking her sister's well being as a personal cause.  It makes me hopeful that they will become close in a way that I never did with my either of sisters (I had to wait to understand that type of relationship until I got to high school, when I met Uncle Jimmy and a few others). 
Despite our reactions, both my wife and I knew that it is time to loosen the leash a little on our little girl (by choice or by necessity, the end result is the same), but loosening it by how much is always the question.

What's that got to do with fantasy baseball, you ask?  Well...probably not a whole lot, other than the ever present question of how long of a leash do we give our players before dispatching them to the bench and/or to the waiver wire.  As we hit week 15 (we are nudging up to being 2/3 complete), many of us seem to be in that boat.  Here is a list of a smattering of the not started players this week and their draft day cost:
- Anabel Sanchez ($25)                                       - Edwin Encarnacion ($27)
- Shin Soo-Choo ($32)                                        - Joey Votto ($41)
- David Wright ($36)                                           - Jean Segura ($37)
- Mat Latos ($24)                                                 - Yo!Anus Cespedes ($26)
- Pedro Alvarez ($2)

Each of those players is in the upper tier for salary (Votto has the 19th highest salary in the league, Segura the 26th), and each of them (besides Encarnacion, who has been a monster all year, #FreeEE-ed note: Bob just told me that EE hurt himself last night sliding and is set to hit the DL and be out 204 weeks.  I retract my previous #FreeEE) has been borderline replacement level for long stretches of the season.  Most of them have been injured as some point and are dealing with the effects of those injuries even though they are "healed."  Segura doesnt fit into that category, but I think my feelings on his talent have been made pretty clear (in case not...hes not terribly good at doing things like hitting a baseball).

For the owners of the above players, the leash is being let out a bit, but every leash has an end.  I would guess that in non keeper leagues, some of the above players would be out on the wire right now.  Will any of us talk ourselves into keeping the above (or any other underperforming high salary player) in hopes that this is a one year abberition?