Tim Anderson – Dynasty Grinders

Trade: Suplex City | Who’s Your Haddy

Mariners Moose Tracks, 9/20/20: Tim Anderson, Gary Hughes, and Players To Be Named Today - Lookout Landing

Who’s Your Haddy trades away

Clarke Schmidt – $0 cc
Taylor Trammell – prospect
Brett Baty – prospect
2021 Draft Pick, Round 3 Pick 3

Suplex City trades away

Tim Anderson – $7 cc

Suplex City continues trading at a feverish pace. This time he parts with batting champ Tim Anderson. Haddy makes his first move of the day and fills an obvious need at SS.

I think I give this one to Suplex City. The prospect package he got for Anderson is headlined by Clarke Schmidt, who I really like. It is pretty clear that the Yankees love the guy because they were super cautious with him in 2020 and made sure not to start his service time. He’s also already at the major league level. Even if they keep him in the minors to start the 2021 season to work on his defense or whatever excuse they use to manipulate his service time.. he’ll still be a $0 cost controlled starter that puts up quality innings. Just as you can read through the lines with Schmidt, you can do the same for Trammell. It is pretty clear that major league front offices value him quiet a bit less than the fantasy baseball community. If he was a sure fire stud, he wouldn’t have been traded twice before his debut. First he was traded in a deal for Trevor Bauer then in a deal for Austin Nola. Not a great trend. He’s already 23 and the Mariners have no reason to keep him in the minors. So maybe he gets his shot and overachieves like Kyle Lewis? That’s your hope here. As for Baty, I don’t think he makes enough contact to make a big impact and I worry the glove won’t keep him at 3B. He’ll hit homers, but if he’s relegated to RF he has to make even more contract to stay relevant.

Every year Tim Anderson is a threat to win the AL batting title. In 2019 he hit .335 and followed that up with .322 in 2020. I just worry that production doesn’t translate to elite fantasy points. In 2019 he won the batting title, it was good for 6.4 points per game. Which was 13th best among SS that year. In 2020 he was walking at a higher rate, which could mean better times are around the corner, and I hope that’s the case. While he’s be a star in the MLB and one of the leagues most popular players, he still unproven as a star fantasy asset in DG.

Trade: Suplex City | TBD

TBD trades away

Gavin Lux $0 cc
Kyle Lewis $0 cc
Orelvis Martinez

Suplex City trades away

Trea Turner $56
2021 Draft Pick, Round 4 Pick 4

I really don’t know what to think about Kyle Lewis. Is he the only Mariner that Squids doesn’t own, btw? I can’t decide if he is the always injured prospect who has tons or potential, or is he the guy that took the league by storm and is on his way to being a superstar? Either way, I like this gamble for Suplex City. If I had to guess, he’s probably one of those guys that is better in real life or in a roto league, like Mondesi or Tim Anderson. As great as his year was, it was only good for 5.8 points per game. Not spectacular. You’ll probably have to live with huge swings in production, but his defense is good enough and the team around him is bad enough that he’ll get a tooooooooooooooooonnnnnnn of leash from the organization if he struggles.

What an odd year for Gavin Lux. Everyone outside of the Dodgers believes he’s a future stud, but they treat him like he’s Chris Taylor 2.0. His numbers in the majors haven’t forced the issue, so that’s not great, but eventually they have to give him everyday playing time, right? In any event, this is a good buy low for Suplex. If Lux came up and started mashing, no way TBD moves him. The poor showing through 200PA took enough shine off him for someone to pry him away from TBD.

I’ve always been fond of Orelvis Martinez. The bat is exciting and I think the glove is good enough to stick at third. A couple years ago I heard someone comp him to Adrian Beltre, and that has stuck with me, true or not.

Now to the TBD portion. They get one of the best shortstops in baseball. Why they needed a fourth rounder to make this happen, I’ll never know, but upgrading SS from Jean Segura to Trea Turner seems like a good decision. I’d bet they wish that extra point per steal was approved during the recent rule voting. Not much else to say really. Turner is an absolute stud and TBD unloaded a lot of prospect capital to get him.

Trade: Rocky Mountain Oysters | Capital City Ironmen

Rocky Mountain Oysters sends: CF Clint Frazier (minors), 1B/2B/SS Ryan Flaherty (FA)
Capital City Ironmen send: 2B/3B Martin Prado ($4), SP/RP John Gant (minors)

Jordan’s thoughts: I love this deal for Dusty. Martin Prado has been good. He fills two positions that makes Prado’s floor look a bit higher. Prado is decent enough to fill in the utility role as well. John Gant is an interesting prospect, he’s close to the majors, he’s a pitcher, could he make the jump? Sure! Or maybe not, whatever.

Clint Frazier is tough to lose, he was a prospect on my target list on the draft, and post draft, but he does not appear to a transcendent talent. He’s 21, he’s primed, but he could still be another away. Frazier could turn into a replacement level fantasy outfielder, or be a decent one, who knows. I know that’s such a cop out with prospects, but that is the point of their value in fantasy is it not?

Prado could go on for 3-4 years being useful to various teams. Frazier could go on to be anywhere from nothing to extremely useful for a whole career. How do you weight that value? This trade marks the first one that I can recall that a betterish prospect gets traded for something for today. Sure Gant’s value is there somewhere, but that’s like trading lottery one cost slightly more, has better odds, but either one ultimately could be worth more. Is Bailey selling already?

Andrew’s thoughts: When I acquired Chris Coghlan a while back, it was in part to give myself the flexibility to do something like this eventually. At the time I thought my pitchers would be healthy and team competitive, so I didn’t anticipate trading a vet for a prospect, but here we are.

For the Oysters, Prado should be a good, inexpensive piece. Prado’s the definitive boring but productive player and starting at $6 in 2017, he’s got a couple years of good value left in him. Dusty can slot him into two positions, freeing up the versatile Josh Harrison to slide around elsewhere. What this move really does is boost his second utility spot, since he no longer has to play match-ups and lineup cards with guys like Sean Rodriguez, Ben Paulsen, and Ryan Howard.

He’s been absolutely lights out lately, including a streak of five straight games with multiple hits. But I also expect some regression from him, as he’s currently sporting a .440 BABIP that’s led to a .398 average and a .433 on-base percentage. He should still be good the rest of the way, but this was a good opportunity to sell at his peak.

For me, I feel like getting a top-25 prospect in all of baseball is a big win in a year where I’m struggling to score points. In February, Baseball Prospectus pegged Frazier as the 23rd best dynasty league prospect, slotted between Rafael Devers and Austin Meadows. Frazier was the 39th guy off the board in our minor league draft and I remember thinking at the time that it was too low. Some guys that went ahead of him that I don’t think should have: Tim Anderson, Willson Contreras, Brady Aiken, and Anthony Alford.

With Prado gone, I can plug in either Coghlan, Chase Utley, or Howie Kendrick at 2B and shouldn’t see too precipitous a drop.