Trade: TBD | Off-season Double Stuffs

PRE sends: RF JD Martinez ($55), $55 Auction Budget
LB sends: RF Austin Hays ($5), LF/CF Lewis Brinson ($1; cost controlled), SP Brandon Woodruff ($1; cost controlled), SP Adrian Morejon (minors)

Andrew’s thoughts: When this trade first popped up I thought, “dear God, please tell me this is not the package Ferns is going to pay down JD’s entire salary for.” But guess what? It is!

I love, conceptually, a team in a punt year offering to cover a star player’s entire salary in a deal. I think its a creative way of extracting max value, and in this case, potential long-term value for a guy that, at least in 2018, doesn’t really matter if he’s there or not. And this is definitely one of those trades where, a year from now, everything I’m about to say could look very, very stupid. But… I don’t think these players are a compelling return at all for a free year of JD Martinez.

Martinez is pretty much a lock to be an elite hitter. He’s had some injury issues and maybe his skills won’t hold up as he slinks into his 30’s, but a single season of an elite player where someone else pays the salary is enormously valuable. Like, super super valuable. I believe he outproduced Paul Goldschmidt on a Pt/PA basis last year. So just imagine your team and your budget, but with Goldschmidt magically on it at zero penalty. I don’t think his free agency limbo matters, because his power translates to any park. I don’t worry as much about health or age, because the production is of zero question, and production is what matters.

I don’t think Lewis Brinson, who just got handed a full-time job but also a ballpark downgrade in Miami, is that interesting. Scouts like his power potential, but the balls are juiced. Everyone has the potential to hit homers. He’s got 60-grade speed, but SBs aren’t that valuable. I know he’s one of those toolsy, if-it-all-comes-together upside guys and he’s been ranked highly on all the lists, but I just can’t get overly excited about him. And how much of his list pedigree is defense-based? He’s got great defensive scouting grades. Again, he could blow up and I could look dumb. Of course, if he blows up in 2018, well, then his $1 season will have had very little impact for you because you’re punting and he’ll cost a few bucks more the following year (not enough for it to matter probably, but still). His projections currently peg him as a below average outfielder in 2018, which is fine, he’s a prospect, the projections rarely love them. He’s just not a prospect I’m crazy about. I also think, as many injury concerns as you may have about JD, Brinson’s got them too. At least JD can blame his on age.

Austin Hays is a guy I like, but he’s actually very similar to Brinson except he gets to hit in a friendly park. And he’s not cost controlled which, starting with a $5 salary, probably doesn’t matter much. Maybe he gets hit hard with greed next year. Who cares? I think I also may have talked myself into Hays because he’s an Oriole and I want to believe in the Orioles’ ability to occasionally develop a good prospect. I wonder if he’s going to get on base enough to provide a safe floor. He doesn’t walk at all, even in the minors, and seems like a guy that could strikeout a bunch. So really, the two cornerstone pieces of this deal — and I’d argue a team paying you to take JD for a year is maybe the most valuable singular asset ever traded — are very, very high risk. Like, all ceiling, no floor, and the ceiling is questionable in an offensive environment where both guys’ calling card tools are shared by anyone who can figure out launch angles.

The pitchers are, to me, meh. I’m a fan of Brandon Woodruff, picked him up in another league and felt like he had value, but he’s also a pitcher in Milwaukee. The home park could be an obstacle and frankly, I’m not even sure he’s got a rotation spot locked up. Roster Resource currently says he’s out. The Brewers are expected to add a pitcher. I mean… is Woodruff a swing man? Does he come out of the bullpen? I don’t know. Adrian Morejon, meanwhile, is a guy I know very little about. He’s on lists. He’s also not even 19-years-old yet and a pitcher. Dude doesn’t have 30 innings at A-level ball yet. I just don’t see it.

For an asset as valuable as $0 JD, I just don’t want every single asset coming my way to have this many question marks. I think if there’s no budget involved here, it looks a lot better, because it gives the Double Stuffs some options to add talent via auction or trade for an overpriced player before then and still gives them the lottery tickets.

Reading back over this, I feel bad for being so negative. I don’t think I really dislike the guys Ferns got back as much as it probably sounds. I kinda hope someone digs up this review in a year and we can all laugh at how stupid I was. I just don’t think this package is enough. If its me, Eloy Jimenez is in it as well, or no deal. I’m getting an unquestioned elite fantasy prospect back. I probably even want a little more still. I traded Aaron Judge (to be fair, I shopped him and no one wanted him!) for Matt Holliday last year. So eh, what the hell do I know?

 

Hustle’s Toxic $.02

I’d like to say I admire Ferns for being one of the most active members of the league over this awful time of year called “the offseason”. If you think I started this by saying something nice so I could I say I don’t like the trade for him, well yeah you’re right… but it’s also true. I always respect someone putting thought into their team and actively trying to make it better and it its better to have someone reject your trade offer 71 times and throw in some counters than just let it sit there.

The trade ironically  makes TBD the preseason favorite.  It’s a pretty no brainer to trade 4 prospects for a paid JD Martinez, especially when they didn’t have to include their best prospect, perhaps not even 2nd or 3rd depending on your taste. Ferns was in a hurry to make the deal, but I’m not sure why, especially with the season almost 2 months away. Surely if he signs with Boston/Arizona the price goes up, if he signs with the Giants, I can’t imagine this offer not still being on the table.  Paying for the contract in full, the trade doesn’t even have to be made before the Auction, you’re out the $55 either way. If Ferns knows something about JD’s health that we all don’t, kudos to him on the ultimate hustle.

As for the return?  Brinson is the most attractive piece. He’s been traded 3 or 4 times in this league, 2 times in real life, and in the least attractive ballpark  now. If he breaks out this year, which is possible, he’s in his 3rd mlb year next year already. The best part of having a good prospect is the upside of getting 2 amazing years for basically $1 like we will most likely see Bailey get with Bellinger. That’s not to say he wont have a lot of value if he’s good, but a chunk of it is certainly gone.  Looking at Ferns roster, I think he can objectively say it might be a struggle to compete in 2019, if thats the case, that’s even more value out of Brinson (we’re also still just assuming Brinson is good and stays healthy which is no given for either).  Hays being immune to walks curbs his upside, but if he hits well enough he’s a useful piece.  I actually do like Woodruff a little bit, and the fact that he might not get many starts on a crowded Miluwakee team in 2018 doesn’t really hurt Ferns at all unless that happens in 2019 too.  That being said, same issue with Brinson in terms of losing potentially the most profitable year or two because your team isn’t competing those years. Adrian Morejon is  a guy I think may be overvalued. He will be a starter down the line (unlike all the relievers Hydra seems to be drafting), but he’s also a guy who’s upside may not worth waiting on for that long.

These are prospects and I am not a scout. The scouts get them wrong all the time and I’m willing to admit I know far less than them. I agree with Bailey saying this will be an interesting trade to look back on. They are all interesting guys and could hit.

Ultimately I do think this trade comes down to patience. Ferns wanted to get a trade JD Martinez for prospects ASAP. Meanwhile TBD put Hays/Brinson on the block all offseason long, patiently waiting until someone bite on prospects that have value, but they clearly soured on.

God Speed

 

Trade: Long Ball to LF | TBD

 

TBD trades away
O’Neill, Tyler
2018 Draft Pick, Round 4 (Capital City Ironmen)

Long ball to LF (Johnnywise) trades away
2018 Draft Pick, Round 3 (Who’s Your Haddy?)
Foltynewicz, Mike

Bailey’s Championship take

I think this is a toss up, matter of preference trade. Third and fourth round picks are fairly interchangeable, because that deep into a draft the prospect tiers are gigantic and all the players run together. Yeah, you’d rather pick sooner than later. TBD got the better pick, so hooray.
Foltynewicz, meanwhile, is a cheap pitcher with some upside. He’s super erratic though. But as a $5 spot starter, he could be of use. He’s in the NL East, so hey, just start him against the Marlins!
O’Neill, meanwhile, is one of those fringe prospect types with a lot of variance on lists. I don’t know a ton about him to be honest. My impression is he’s one of those low contact, power happy guys. But that’s what they said about Aaron Judge! He could be just a guy, of course. The balls are juiced, so everyone hits homers.
Again, team preference here. Foltynewicz is combustible. O’Neill’s a prospect with an iffy profile, so he’s risky. Pick your poison.”

 

 

Hustles Toxic $.02

First thing that stands out about this trade is that these two teams have the worst team names in the league. And that’s say something when we have a The Wilfred Brimley Fighting Diabeetuses.  It’s been over 2 years and Joe/Fito haven’t bothered to come up with a team name and/or somehow think TBD is acceptable.  For Long Ball, I actually like the team name, I’m just confused why “JohnnyWise” is in parentheses after.  As for best team names in the league I like Who’s your Haddy and In Line for the Win.

The picks involved in this trade are pretty meaningless. It’s nice to pick earlier, but they are just wildcards at this point.  I thought it was interesting that neither pick that was traded was their own.

As for Folty vs Tyler O’neil, it’s a pretty even trade. Long Ball certainly needs the hitting help more than TBD. I know Joe has coveted getting Folty for a while now, so congratulations are in order. I don’t think the price dropped off much despite a poor overall season for Folty (he did improve his k rate, but his command got worse)   The Braves have a lot of arms coming up from the minors, so he’s going to need to prove himself in his age 27 season. Tyler Oneill is a guy who is pretty blocked at the moment (Pham, Fowler, Bader, Grichuk, and Ozuna all in front of him).  Perhaps this is a reason Joe decided to move him.  Oneill has been touted as a future 25-30 home run hitter, and can probably get there if given the shot.   This trade doesn’t have a clear winner now, but I’ll lean with the major league talent.

Maybe it’s the holidays, but I’m  genuinely happy for both these teams because they got a guy they like. Merry Christmas.

From worst to first

Per Dan Beachler’s request, here is a “how I went from worst to first” post. I suppose technically I wasn’t worst last year, and by head-to-head record I wasn’t first in 2017 either. (I was first in points!) But hey, here we are.

I should preface this by pointing out what should already be obvious: there’s a ton of luck involved in fantasy sports. Even if you talk fantasy sports a lot, for example, you’re going to find that you won’t uncover all the answers.

I thought the team I assembled in 2016 would compete. Then, Miguel Cabrera (.340 wOBA in April/May) and Joey Votto (.276 wOBA in April/May) started painfully slow. They were supposed to be my offensive anchors. Tyson Ross, a 32.52 points per game starter in 2015, got hurt in his first start and missed the season. Carlos Carrasco, my best pitcher, missed all of May. Sonny Gray turned into a pumpkin. Alex Rodriguez had a .293 wOBA in April/May. Of the first seven guys I won at our inaugural auction, only Johnny Cueto was good or even useful through the season’s first six weeks or so.

All of that is blind, dumb luck. I don’t control injuries. I don’t control Votto, one of the best hitters of our generation, hitting like Jose Peraza for over a month.

I certainly left money on the table that first auction and probably relied too heavily on boring, useful bench types as starters. I legitimately thought a cheap Trevor Plouffe was an acceptable starting 3B option. I thought I could platoon the White Sox catchers last year, an idea that played out so poorly I may as well have just played the year without a catcher slot. But mostly, my team went bust in 2016 because of random stuff that could happen to anybody. Even if they’d all stayed healthy and produced early, I probably wouldn’t have been a great team. But because that stuff did happen, I decided in May to start reworking my team by trading Cabrera and Gray for picks and prospects. That was the first step in climbing out of the cellar and to the top…

Step 1: The Miguel Cabrera/Sonny Gray trade

Sending Miggy and Gray to the Preseason Double Stuffs for Cody Bellinger, Ian Happ, Brett Phillips, Jorge Soler, and draft capitol is really what ignited my team into 2017. Bellinger, as a rookie, hit at a 1.737 points per plate appearance clip for me at a $0 cost. That’s elite production. Again, I can’t control that Bellinger hit. But he did and it helped.

The one thing I will say is, I targeted prospects that I thought would debut in 2017. Because (a) my team sucked in 2016, so if they debut and their clock starts, that’s a ding in value; and (b) points now are better than points later. I’m not super interested in an 18-year-old prospect in Single A when there’s a comparable 22-year-old prospect on the cusp of the majors. In the case of this specific trade, the Double Stuffs happened to have a few near-MLB guys that fit the bill. And I love Ian Happ, so. Obviously, there’s no science involved. The Cubs could’ve promoted Happ last year. The Dodgers could’ve called Bellinger up in September. I can’t control that stuff either. But I do think it’s possible to hedge within reason and if your goal is to get better quickly, you won’t do it with teenagers unless you’re using them exclusively as trade currency.

Happ, Soler, and the draft pick acquired from the Double Stuffs — which I assumed would suck but became the second overall pick — didn’t score me a ton, really. I did have Happ in my lineup 25 times at 5.76 points per game, so that’s pretty good. But 25 starts isn’t swinging things much one way or another. But these pieces ended up helping later on.

My other big trade was swapping Cueto for JP Crawford, Aaron Judge, and a first round pick. More on Judge in the step below. But also, damn, I had and traded Judge. Frowny face.

I should note here also that not going full scale blow-up mode helped. Hanging onto Votto and Carrasco is as big a reason as any that my team got good. The offers I got for these players were, frankly, pitiful, so that made things easy. But I could have very easily dumped them for picks and lukewarm prospects and gone into auction with $350 or whatever. I’m glad I didn’t.

Step 2: Acquiring good veterans from over-budget teams for picks and prospects at below market rates

I think this was more impactful to my team than Bellinger. Because I “tanked” the season, I was able to build up a solid minor league system and a nice cache of draft picks. But picks and prospects rarely score points. So in the off-season, when teams way over budget shopped quality veteran players, I cashed out some of those assets and bought. And because I’d sucked so badly that I had loaded up on picks and prospects, selling some didn’t mean leaving the cupboard bare.

I acquired a way overpriced Andrew McCutchen for Soler, Travis d’Arnaud, Billy Hamilton, and I think a second round pick. Cutch mostly bounced back in 2017 (1.438 PT/PA), thankfully. I couldn’t have controlled that either, but I’m comfortable betting on a player with an elite track record. It paid off. I think that’s the key to a quick rebuild. If you’ve got budget space, use it ahead of auction and buy low to lock in a guy you think can bounce back. I think budget space is worth much more pre-auction than during auction, when you’re left picking through the risky players no one wanted. I also think if your team sucks like mine did but you want to quickly improve, you need to gamble. You need to overpay a guy or two and hope for a return to form. Also, you won’t likely have an opportunity to buy a recently elite talent at auction. And if you do, there may only be one or two of those guys, so you’ll have competition.

I also bought Russell Martin for a second round pick. Martin’s another efficient, boring veteran player. But my catcher position was the worst in the league in 2016. Martin helped fixed that.

One other trade was working a three-way swap with The Foundation and Hustle Loyalty Respect that effectively landed me Neil Walker and the 16th overall pick for the 4th overall pick. HLR used the pick to take Blake Rutherford, who I think got hurt. I took Franklin Perez with the 16th pick. Today, I think Perez is more valuable than Rutherford, though to be fair, Rutherford got hurt. Even if Rutherford’s more valuable, they’re both top-100 guys. To me, any difference is negligible. But even if Rutherford hadn’t gotten hurt, there’s no chance he (or whichever other available prospect) was scoring at a 1.338 PT/PA clip like Walker did, and doing so right now. Points now > points later, and prospects are fickle, so the guy who goes 4th and the guy who goes 16th could very easily switch fortunes over a single season. At the time, I just felt like I was slightly downgrading a prospect in exchange for making a big upgrade to my current 2B spot, which was a big weakness in 2016.

Then I acquired Nelson Cruz and Adrian Beltre, who presumably had affordable prices because of their age and their team’s budget situation. Again, if you’ve got budget space, attacking the trade market is worth it. Beltre cost me Amed Rosario, an elite prospect, but that’s really where stacking prospects in 2016 helped. Having JP Crawford meant feeling more comfortable shipping out Rosario.

Of course, both those old dudes could’ve fallen apart. But my team was garbage in 2016. If they did fall apart, oh well, I’m in the cellar again in 2017 and then I just cut those guys and have the cap space back. But there weren’t hitters this good in the auction (granted at the time of the trades, the auction pool was a mystery), or at least players less risky. The highest paid hitters at auction were Adam Jones, Adrian Gonzalez, Troy Tulowitzki, and Lorenzo Cain. There’s some hindsight present, of course, but I’m not sure pre-auction anyone would’ve honestly felt like any of those guys were better, more efficient hitters than Cruz or Beltre. If you’re cool with a multi-year rebuild, by all means, ignore trading for old dudes like this. But I think it’s prudent to do it if you want to try winning money instead of just sinking money into a multi-year plan.

I also traded Judge for Matt Holliday, and that proved very stupid. In Holliday, I saw a one-year rental with a Giancarlo Stanton-esque batted ball profile and a cheap ($10) salary. I ended up starting Holliday 57 times for 5.9 points per game, so while he didn’t go bonkers like Judge did, he did help the cause. And with regards to Judge, his 2017 season was something I don’t think anyone saw coming. I offered him to several teams and no one bit. I had to include Grant Holmes along with Judge to secure Holliday. So yeah, sometimes trading prospects for vets will backfire, but in general I think it’s a solid, less risky strategy. I’d be curious what Dan thought he was getting with Judge when he made this trade, especially since I know he’s an old guy lover as well.

One thing I’m curious to see this off-season is if over budget teams continue selling their guys short to “get something instead of nothing,” or if teams feel more comfortable dumping to auction. Cruz was had for Dan Vogelbach and a first round pick. I liked Vogelbach as a prospect and obviously Team Hydra did too, but in retrospect, might those guys have figured out a way to keep Cruz’s bat? Or might they have been better sending him to auction and seeing if maybe they could buy him back cheaper? I’m not convinced giving teams discounts on good players is effective, even if the alternative is cutting and “getting nothing.”

Step 3: Not screwing up the auction

I notoriously left like $21 on the table at our first auction. But I also made some awful bids. Buying into A-Rod’s resurgence was dumb. I came away from auction with two 1B’s and  UT player, effectively destroying all my lineup flexibility.

I did a lot better, I think, with my buys in 2017, adding Jaime Garcia, Francisco Cervelli, Lucas Duda, Chris Owings, Ryan Zimmerman, and Charlie Morton.

Once again, luck played a role here. I didn’t expect almost 900 points from a $1 Zimmerman. I liked his batted ball profile, but come on. I also didn’t think Morton would be more than a back-end starter, and he ended up being my most consistent pitcher and a solid SP2. I didn’t even want him. It just ended up being the end of the auction, he was the last starting pitcher available, and I wasn’t leaving money on the table again. Owings filled multiple crucial positions for only $8. I overpaid for Cervelli at $17, but he was a nice compliment to Martin because, again, my catcher spot needed help.

The thing about the auction is, all the players are supremely risky. Teams will find ways to keep or trade “sure things.” And so if you rely too heavily on auction, you’re lending yourself to luck. If Morton and Garcia don’t give me quality starts, my auction stinks and my team suffers. But I started Morton 21 times at 30.43 points per start and Garcia 14 times at 24.04.

But hey, guess what? Matt Harvey, Drew Smyly, Jordan Zimmermann, Collin McHugh, Carlos Rodon, Felix Hernandez, Garrett Richards, Francisco Liriano, and Shelby Miller were all in the same auction. At the time, not sure how any of those guys were too different from Morton and Garcia. I got lucky the guys I won didn’t injure their arms. I got lucky my darts landed where they did. I mean, I wanted Liriano really bad and just screwed up my bid on auction day. Bullet dodged. Blind, dumb luck.

The lesson here, maybe, is to just give yourself fewer dart throws to botch. Acquire talent you have conviction about pre-auction rather than finding yourself in a spot where your money is going to Shelby Miller or Francisco Liriano, and you’re totally uninspired either way. Your mileage may vary, of course. Having a bunch of money at auction is fun, if nothing else.

Step 4: I love you, Giancarlo Stanton

As part of that Cabrera/Gray trade, I secured the second overall pick in last year’s draft. I took Nick Senzel. I like him a whole lot. But I love Giancarlo Stanton and his moonshot home runs. And so in mid-May, I landed Big G for Senzel, Blake Snell, and a future first round pick.

From May 11 forward, Stanton was the third-highest scoring hitter behind Votto and Charlie Blackmon. As much as I like Senzel, you simply have to trade guys like him for elite production now. It helps that Stanton finally stayed healthy, but even if he hadn’t, we all know what he does when he is. In our format, he is an elite fantasy producer on a rate basis. It was a no-brainer for me.

As for Snell, well, I like him still, but if I wanted to win this year I knew I couldn’t sit around waiting and hoping that he learns how to throw strikes and pitch deep into games. The downside to young pitchers is they sometimes are slow to put everything together. If next year Snell’s awesome and cheap, oh well. I’ll still be happy with several mammoth months of Giancarlo.

Step 5: Keep on buying stuff that helps

During the course of the season, once I saw that my team was pretty good, I just kept trying to add. In a series of deals, I sent prospects Corey Ray, Albert Abreu, Julio Urias, Happ, and Jake Faria off for the likes of Max Scherzer, Miggy, JA Happ, Jason Vargas, and Danny Salazar. All those moves did not pan out.

Reunited on my team, I slotted Miggy into my lineup 31 times and he scored at a 2.61 point per game rate. That’s abysmal. Despite his highest hard hit rate since 2014 and the best line drive rate of his career, Miggy gave me nothing. He performed worse than any random bench player I already had, in fact. In Urias, I paid little. But I felt like I had to take the gamble. I expect Miggy to get his back right this off-season and return to an elite level in 2018. He reminds me a whole heck of a lot like McCutchen last year. His price seems way too high (he’ll get a raise to $75), but how can you easily bet against one of the best hitters the game has seen in the last decade plus? Like, would you really rather two $35 lottery tickets at auction (in the 2017 auction, Adrian Gonzalez + Carlos Rodon = $76) than one player a single injury-hampered season removed from being an elite hitter?

Meanwhile, Happ was a fantastic addition for me, scoring 28.04 points a game in 14 starts. I started Salazar seven times for more than 30 points per start. Scherzer didn’t do much for me in the playoffs, but in total, he logged six starts at 32.67 a pop. Net total, these were good, albeit short-term, trades for my team. Corey Ray wasn’t scoring me 392.5 points like Happ did. Albert Abreu didn’t drop a 65 point start on my roster like Salazar.

Again though, these trades could look brutal in just a few months. What if Scherzer gets hurt? What if Urias overcomes his injury? What if Ray ascends and JA Happ grows old quick? I don’t know. But I think if you’re in a spot to seize a chance to win now, you need to be okay with these types of calculated risks.

The other thing to note is that the in-season trades didn’t necessarily have a ton to do with going worst to first. The Stanton trade, sure. The other trades just bolstered a team that had been mostly assembled in the off-season.

In closing…

I think the biggest reason my team got it’s shit together so quickly was simply putting in the work to do it. When a good player became available, I asked for a price tag. When I saw a team was way over their budget, I inquired about expensive players with good track records. I wasn’t too worried about riskiness because well, my team was a dumpster fire. Getting worse than bad isn’t much of a risk. Staying worse, and paying into a league to not even try to fight for wins now, seems way riskier to me. I placed the highest value on today and worried less about if the prospect I’m sending away will be a fantasy monster in 2021 (or in Judge’s case, 2017) or if all the old guys will decide to retire simultaneously.

Clearly, there’s a strategy to this game. If there wasn’t, we probably wouldn’t play. What’d be the point?

But ultimately you only control so much. I think the only way to really approach things is to give yourself the best hand possible and hope for the best. In hold ’em poker, a 2/7 will beat a K/K, for example, some of the time. But the odds say more often than not, the stronger hand will prevail. So I just tried to do stuff that I thought made my hand stronger, then accepted all the luck I could get.

Trade: Beach Bum | Capital City Ironmen

Beach Bum sends: 1B/LF Matt Holliday ($10)
Capital City Ironmen send: RF Aaron Judge ($1; cost controlled), SP Grant Holmes (minors)

Jordan’s thoughts: Aaron Judge got his chance last year and was short of inspiring. He’s still a prospect and he does carry some level of potential that is very enticing. Grant Holmes is in the same category of prospects. That category being the catch-all level 40-45 future value grade group.

These guys exist. They have good qualities. They have one or two talents that could truly make them stars. Unfortunately, they have other levels of talents that are more likely to hold them back, causing them to potentially be less than valuable.

These kinds of trades are weird. Matt Holliday is a great hitter, aging, and just signed a fantasy hitter’s favorable deal. There’s a lot to like. His floor is generally high as long as he actually sees the field. His ceiling is high-ish, but that is also held back by how many games he plays.

The keeper price for Holliday is a good buy. I think he’s 100% kept at that price for the next two to three years, short of some dramatic fall off. Cutting him in the end or keeping him for a year too long is hardly a penalty here. That makes him quite valuable to me.

Sure, could either of these prospects that Bailey sent turn Bailey’s decision into regret? Absolutely. The fact that Dan got two of these kinds of guys who are close/in the majors, is a bit surprising.

In a vacuum I’d rather have Holliday, but given the situation for both teams, it is hard to come away with an opinion other than liking the deal for both teams. Losing Holliday doesn’t hurt Beach Bum all that much and the prospects could be useful. Adding Holliday helps Capital City a lot, and losing the prospects that are (at this point in our dynasty) easily replaceable, isn’t much pain to suffer.

Andrew’s defense: I like Matt Holliday a lot. The biggest question mark with him, really, is health. He’s old too, but he should mostly just DH now in a hitter friendly park. He had a solid .335 wOBA in his 426 plate appearances last year. If he can simply duplicate that, he’ll be good for me in LF, as it’s a fairly shallow position. And keep in mind, he did that despite a .253 BABIP and a really good looking batted ball profile (38.5% hard hit rate). If he just has neutral luck, he should hit that .355 wOBA Steamer has him pegged for.

For Dan, he sheds one of his many LFs and adds a couple promising young guys, one of which (Judge) plays RF, so that fills a need. Judge’s power is prodigious and should play up at new Yankee Stadium, but he also struck out 44.2% of the time last year. Small sample, sure, but the K’s have always been a concern. I wasn’t overly concerned about them personally (for fantasy, a strikeout and a ground out are the same, so whatever), but it just means his floor is a little lower than I like and it could jeopardize his playing time. Not a bad bet for Dan.

And Grant Holmes is just sort of an interesting grab. He’s an Oakland A (for now), so maybe Beach Bum was being a bit of a homer. Either way, Holmes is a top-100 prospect on most lists and profiles as a middle of the rotation guy. In our format, that’s alluring.

Trade: Team Canada | Capital City Ironmen

Team Canada sends: SP James Shields ($28), SS J.P. Crawford (minors), RF Aaron Judge (minors), 2017 1st Round pick
Capital City Ironmen send: SP Johnny Cueto ($60), RF Michael Reed (minors), 2017 3rd Round Pick

Andrew’s thoughts: Reviewing my own trade again!

First things first: after dealing away Miguel Cabrera and Sonny Gray, I was content to sit back for a while and hold my pieces for a bit. But Team Canada and I had sent a few offers back and forth for Cueto, and then a deal very similar was proposed to me that made me change my mind.

I’ll keep this succinct because I write about my team plenty: I love Cueto. He’s a top-10 starting pitcher and at $60, he’s one of the best values n the entire league. He pitches in arguably the most favorable park in baseball and in a league where half the league is rebuilding. He’s awesome.

But I viewed this deal as essentially saying this: the difference between Cueto and Shields is $32, two top-25 prospects (Crawford was taken 6th and Judge 27th overall in our inaugural minor league draft), and a first round pick (likely late, because Team Canada is really good). To me, the gap isn’t nearly that big, so the deal just made too much sense.

In Shields, I get a pitcher that chews up innings and keeps my team competitive in the short term. Even at $30 next year, he’s worth keeping. He’s also worth something in trade, so Cueto could keep giving in that regard too.

Michael Reed is an interesting prospect for Team Canada to get back, but I had picked him up from free agency not too long ago, so it’s not as if he was highly valued within our league.

Jordan’s thoughts: This is why we’re in a dynasty style league. Given the format, which it likely to be under discussion next year, it is not hard to understand the pressure to sell here. Bailey was looking at 1 win and 5 losses before coming back and winning in week 6. Even with the week 6 win, he stood a extreme long shot to get into the top 4. When you’re left with two options, spend to attempt to give yourself some better sliver of a chance, or sell to setup for 2017, I think he makes a reasonable call.

Standing pat for Bailey, who before both of his trades stood with the “5th” best projected line up, really was not an option. It was already under performing, he lost two pitchers to injury, and its still only 5th best. Just four make the playoffs. Bailey got back four huge assets for Cueto. Judge and Crawford may or may not make an impact in 2017. The chance that either do is enticing. The first round pick here does not project terribly well, but it has some value.

I really like that Bailey got back Shields here. Shields the last two years has floundered some, but this season Shields has regained some promise as a reliable starter. This means Bailey got back someone he can keep for a reasonable price, or sell yet again. Fun stuff.

For Team Canada, they paid one hell of a price for Cueto. Canada is in the drivers seat to get into the Championship Bracket and added a big piece to that ride. Cueto will certainly be a big help, but this price that Canada paid is extremely aggressive. You have to like it for them, the prospects can be replaced.