Trades That Make You Go Hmmm...
For those that have been reading from the beginning of the season, you'll remember that I have a rival GM with whom I take great pride in finishing ahead of in the standings each year. Well, just like when he overhears a debate over bulding your team around A-Rod or David Wright, he wants to stick his two cents in here. I say, by all means. The more the merrier, and a differing opinion is always welcome.
So with that, the following article was written for RotoBuzz by my colleague and new father of bouncing baby Stuart...Mr. David Graeber.
Trades that make you go hmmm
Inevitably, during the course of every baseball season there is a trade that makes you scratch your head and wonder why it is you have that sappy desk job and certain GM’s have your dream job which is to swing trades and create a contender!
Trading is an integral part of both fantasy baseball and real baseball that we, as fans and as managers by proxy, should be able to scrutinize a trade for its legitimacy and value. Will you be the Mets and trade a future superstar in Scott Kazmir for a waste of roster space in Victor Zambrano or will you be the Houston Astros and trade Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell. While we never can say with much certainty how a trade will work out for sure, we surely can speculate!
Our main goal in participating in fantasy or rotisserie baseball is to “be” a GM and assemble a championship squad at any cost. Let us, for the purposes of this article, use a keeper league as the model because this type of league closely parallels what goes in real baseball. We try to build a team from year to year under all kinds of circumstances. Some years we will be gunning for the title, others will see us rebuilding for the future. So, how can we characterize a bad trade in fantasy baseball when there must be a certain amount of subjectivity brought to the table when examining deals?
Let’s put a model deal on the table and inspect its validity. Here’s the situation, we are in a deep mixed keeper league and a team that feels it is out of the race for the current year looks to rebuild. They approach a team that is competing for the crown and inquires about acquiring one of their workhorse players—let’s say Miguel Tejada. In return, the dumper offers to give the competing team a plethora of solid guys that will not only supplant Tejada’s production, but help him in other lacking areas like pitching or replacing a weak 6th outfielder. Here’s what the deal looks like:
Team A trades:
Josh Barfield
Jorge Cantu
Rich Harden
Reed Johnson
Corey Patterson
To Team B for:
Miguel Tejada
Edwin Encarnacion
Jason Marquis
John Rodriguez
Casey Kotchman
In keeper leagues, we cringe at the term, “dump-trade” because we automatically think that someone is ruining the integrity of the league or being collusive. However, if we are talking about a keeper league with no restrictions (i.e. salary, years, etc.) then the question that must be asked is what is the dumping team’s incentive? If the league has been around for a number of years then the incentive is clearly to build on the basis of competing long term; even though you give up present value- you are building a team for the future.
The dumping team here is giving up a nice amount in present value with players like these, but who is the best player in this deal? Miguel Tejada. And when all is said and done, is getting Miguel Tejada—a perennial stud at the thinnest power position in fantasy baseball—for a couple of 1st or second year players and an oft-injured pitcher terribly unbalanced? Maybe, but if the dumping team gets Tejada for the next 5 years or more, doesn’t his worth far outweigh the other players who might help this competing team climb in the standings, but will never be protected because they aren’t sure things.
That begs the question: what is a sure thing? This is where subjectivity comes into play. Maybe some people in the league feel that a 70 time DL’ed possible stud pitcher in Harden is a keeper, maybe some think Barfield with his middle infield speed is. We can go back and forth forever and debate who has what value to whom. It would be more prudent to look at the norm across all kinds of leagues. What players are considered keepers? Is it a guy with promise like Barfield, or a guy who has played in 1000 plus straight games and has put up 30+ homeruns year in year out? This is where the arguments always start and should always end. They are unanswerable. That is why when dealing with trades that make you go hmmmm, always ask yourself, who is the best player in the deal and are they worth dumping a season to build around for years to come?
So with that, the following article was written for RotoBuzz by my colleague and new father of bouncing baby Stuart...Mr. David Graeber.
Trades that make you go hmmm
Inevitably, during the course of every baseball season there is a trade that makes you scratch your head and wonder why it is you have that sappy desk job and certain GM’s have your dream job which is to swing trades and create a contender!
Trading is an integral part of both fantasy baseball and real baseball that we, as fans and as managers by proxy, should be able to scrutinize a trade for its legitimacy and value. Will you be the Mets and trade a future superstar in Scott Kazmir for a waste of roster space in Victor Zambrano or will you be the Houston Astros and trade Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell. While we never can say with much certainty how a trade will work out for sure, we surely can speculate!
Our main goal in participating in fantasy or rotisserie baseball is to “be” a GM and assemble a championship squad at any cost. Let us, for the purposes of this article, use a keeper league as the model because this type of league closely parallels what goes in real baseball. We try to build a team from year to year under all kinds of circumstances. Some years we will be gunning for the title, others will see us rebuilding for the future. So, how can we characterize a bad trade in fantasy baseball when there must be a certain amount of subjectivity brought to the table when examining deals?
Let’s put a model deal on the table and inspect its validity. Here’s the situation, we are in a deep mixed keeper league and a team that feels it is out of the race for the current year looks to rebuild. They approach a team that is competing for the crown and inquires about acquiring one of their workhorse players—let’s say Miguel Tejada. In return, the dumper offers to give the competing team a plethora of solid guys that will not only supplant Tejada’s production, but help him in other lacking areas like pitching or replacing a weak 6th outfielder. Here’s what the deal looks like:
Team A trades:
Josh Barfield
Jorge Cantu
Rich Harden
Reed Johnson
Corey Patterson
To Team B for:
Miguel Tejada
Edwin Encarnacion
Jason Marquis
John Rodriguez
Casey Kotchman
In keeper leagues, we cringe at the term, “dump-trade” because we automatically think that someone is ruining the integrity of the league or being collusive. However, if we are talking about a keeper league with no restrictions (i.e. salary, years, etc.) then the question that must be asked is what is the dumping team’s incentive? If the league has been around for a number of years then the incentive is clearly to build on the basis of competing long term; even though you give up present value- you are building a team for the future.
The dumping team here is giving up a nice amount in present value with players like these, but who is the best player in this deal? Miguel Tejada. And when all is said and done, is getting Miguel Tejada—a perennial stud at the thinnest power position in fantasy baseball—for a couple of 1st or second year players and an oft-injured pitcher terribly unbalanced? Maybe, but if the dumping team gets Tejada for the next 5 years or more, doesn’t his worth far outweigh the other players who might help this competing team climb in the standings, but will never be protected because they aren’t sure things.
That begs the question: what is a sure thing? This is where subjectivity comes into play. Maybe some people in the league feel that a 70 time DL’ed possible stud pitcher in Harden is a keeper, maybe some think Barfield with his middle infield speed is. We can go back and forth forever and debate who has what value to whom. It would be more prudent to look at the norm across all kinds of leagues. What players are considered keepers? Is it a guy with promise like Barfield, or a guy who has played in 1000 plus straight games and has put up 30+ homeruns year in year out? This is where the arguments always start and should always end. They are unanswerable. That is why when dealing with trades that make you go hmmmm, always ask yourself, who is the best player in the deal and are they worth dumping a season to build around for years to come?
posted by Howard Bender at
8:38 AM
