Bailing is seems easy enough. Your team stinks, and you decided to play for next year. The harder part is who to focus on acquiring. With the inherent unfairness of the system
King Arthur: Bloody peasant!
Dennis: Oh, what a giveaway! Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about! Did you see him repressing me? You saw him, Didn't you?
Some rules of thumb that will insure you don't blow this decision the same way you blew your keeper list and draft is to stay away from (1) pending free agents,(2) current flashes in the pan and (3) older prospects. Often, the last two overlap.
You may believe Aaron Rowand is back to his 2004 form and his draft salary makes him a player who is under-valued by half (thanks to his 2005 and 2006 seasons), but you can't make him the centerpiece of your bail deal without knowing where he will be playing in 2008. This is a mortal sin in AL- and NL-only leagues.
Another example is Texas Rangers outfielder Victor Diaz. He has been a major league failure for a couple of years. This year he gets recalled and hits 8 HRs in 71 ABs while striking out 22 times and drawing just one walk. There is little doubt that a bailing team that makes Diaz the centerpiece will be trying to determine whether a 4th/5th outfielder is a keeper next March.
Diaz is an example of both a failed prospect and a current flash in the pan. Recently demoted Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz fit the bill as an older prospect last season when he was a Brewers farmhand. Given a chance to translate those AAA stats to the majors, we then knew why he was in AAA. He couldn't hit.
Now that I think of it, Rangers closer Eric Gagne is a better example of a pending free agent than Aaron Rowand.
But why pick-on Rangers?