Marshall Law trades away
$5 Auction budget 2020
2021 Draft Pick, Round 4 (Marshall Law)
2020 Draft Pick, Round 3 (The Process)
Long ball to LF (Johnnywise) trades away
Taillon, Jameson ($22)
hustle’s toxic $0.02
Really like this trade for Marshall. First and foremost, he gave up nothing. The picks are largely irrelevant. There should be a good sleeper available in the middle of round 3, but is LeavittBall going to be able to nab that one guy? History and track record says probably not. Marshall is committing $22 in Taillon’s salary for 2020 and $5 as a sweetener to LB for the right to own Taillon for $24 in 2021.
I think if Taillon was healthy and in auction for 2020, he probably goes above $50. Pirates cleaning house and having a new pitching coach can only be a plus for all Pirates pitching. Chances are you aren’t spending under $25 in auction and getting a good SP to keep. Last year I think Domingo German was probably the only pitcher in that range that actually seems like a great keep for 2020, and even he might have trouble getting a rotation spot.
Anyway, it’s a good allocation of basically $27 budget for Marshall, even if he won’t see meaningful points until 2021. Taillon won’t even count as a roster spot because he’ll have precious IL eligibility. There’s even a non zero chance that Taillon gets Marshall some meaningful points in September.
For LeavitBall, I’m not quite sure what to make of this. The $5 in theory gives him more ammunition to get a big name in auction, and I’m sure if that’s the plan, other moves for cash are probably in the pipeline. That being said, I’m not sure giving up an actual asset for a mid round pick and $5 makes much sense regardless of the plan. This seems more confusing to me because LeavittBall has plenty of budget due to his 2 best moves in DynastyGrinders history 1) Picking up Ronald Acuna of the waiver wire and 2) Picking up Juan Soto off the waiver wire. My guess is Leavitt was anxious to trade and Marshall was the only one willing to play ball. I think some of the other teams who have a lot of budget and have publicly/privately declared themself out for 2020, would have benefitted from a $24 Taillon in 2021. Keith, if you’re reading this review, let me know.
Anyway, this trade ultimately Seems Fine (TM), but I do like the forward thinking by Marshall here, and I’m not quite sure it even puts a dent in his present, which a trade like this generally should. I look forward to Leavitt’s public explanation of this trade, maybe I am missing something.
Leavitt’s public explanation: Good review. Maybe after reading it I should have been a little more patient, but as much as I like Taillon he is out for the year with no guarantees to be the same after a 2nd TJ surgery. I wasn’t about to waste 25 dollars of my budget on a 0. I tried to acquire a few prospects I liked but that didn’t go anywhere so I added a few dollars to his draft pick offers and took something for nothing in my view. I bought Garrett Richards for 5 dollars last year, I don’t think a guy out for the year was getting much more than 20, specially with this auction primed to be better with the new rules in place.
BAILEY’s Thoughts
Hustle stole most of my thoughts about this trade, much like I stole Max Scherzer in a trade once.
The picks are nothing. The $5 is nothing (yay, $5 extra you can throw at Mike Leake!). Granted, for 2020 at least, Jameson Taillon is also nothing. But a year ago he was roughly a top-25 overall SP and he’ll be back and still young, albeit with a laundry list of injuries, in 2021. So for Marshall, this is a long-term investment of just auction budget and no actual acquisition cost. I like that. We see every single year that the auction is brutal. Teams bring in tons of cash thinking they’re going to land someone awesome and instead overpay mediocre players that won’t be kept beyond that year anyway, like $63 Yusei Kikuchi or $32 Adam Jones. So Marshall essentially flushed some percentage of his future auction cash now rather than later but added an asset that feels a lot safer and with more upside.
Hustle noted that “if Taillon was healthy and in auction for 2020, he probably goes above $50,” but I would actually throw out that if Taillon, in his injured state, made it to auction this year, he’d go for at least $30 just because there’s a half dozen teams with more than $200 to spend. So kudos to Marshall for sniffing that out and getting this done now.
For Long Ball, I hope this is just “I want to cut this dead 2020 salary anyway, so I may as well take this and be done with it” and not “I listed a bunch of stuff on my trade block and the thing with the cheapest salary is the only thing anyone wants because oMg SaLaRy AnD cOsT cOnTrOl.” There’s no telling. I do think he got effectively nothing and might have done better waiting around for some of the tankers with budget space to check in. But maybe not. Sometimes the bird in hand is just better.
Thank you to both owners for taking a brief break from FANTASY FOOTBALL SZN to partake in this trade.