Feature Articles

The Art of Trading By Russ Hinnen

Ok, so we are now officially one month into the season, and your team is starting to take shape. Whether you are dominating your league in first place, mired in dead last, or somewhere in between, I am sure you are thinking every day how to improve your team via the trade market. Below I have laid out some general guidelines to follow when analyzing all the potential trade possibilities you encounter.

Each and every trade you make should help your team

That makes perfect sense, right? And yet I am amazed at how many trades are made that do not help people’s respective teams. If you play in a traditional 5x5 rotisserie league, and your team lacks SB’s, why trade one of your best SB threats this early for a HR guy? The last thing you want to do is bury your team so far back in the standings that you simply cannot catch up in any one category. I know some like to prescribe to the “dump one category theory”, but that type of theory is more likely to hurt your team than help it in the early going. Remember, there are still 5 months left in the season, and you are very likely to pick someone up off waivers or via trade to help you with a category like SB’s or Saves. This rule is much more relevant to those playing traditional Rotisserie style leagues, rather than points leagues.

Do not sell low or buy high

This rule seems simple enough, but many people like to panic in the early going. A great example in the early going this season is Gary Sheffield. I wonder how many people traded him or outright dropped him just because he started off poorly. Conversely, how many people bought Chris Shelton this time last year, when he was well on his way to a 60 HR season? If you are buying Ian Kinsler right now, you are not sticking to this rule. Remember that fantasy baseball is a completely different game than fantasy football. Always picking up the hot hand via trade or free agency will be a losing strategy in the long run in baseball.

Try to always get the best player in the deal

Almost every single trade that occurs involves one team getting the best player in the deal. And guess what? The team that gets that best player wins the trade 95% of the time. You always have to look at replacement value. Let’s take a hypothetical example: My team trades Albert Pujols and Moises Alou for Andruw Jones and Carlos Delgado.

At first look, this seems like a pretty even deal. Alou is old and somewhat injury prone, and you can likely find a fairly similar talent in the free agent pool in a shallow 12-team mixed league. Jones is typically a good HR producer, and Delgado is just a solid, consistent contributor. But let’s take a deeper look. Keeping in mind we still have 5/6 of the season left, we can still look at this trade by looking at the preseason projections for each player. I will use a third-party’s projections that have a good track record (Zips). The stats are listed as “Player- Avg/HR/RBI/Runs/SBs”

Pujols - .320/48/122/125/9
Alou – .285/20/66/60/2
Jones – .257/39/110/88/4
Delgado – .256/29/98/73/0

So the side getting Pujols gets a blended stat line of .303/68/188/185/11, while the side getting Jones gets a blended stat line of .257/68/208/161/4. Who won this deal? I would argue on the face, the side getting Pujols won. But the blended stats do not tell the whole story.

Like I stated before, Alou represents replacement level talent within the free agent pool for shallow mixed leagues. We all know there are multiple players that “break out” every year and go have a career year. So if you had done this deal a year earlier, and assuming you are an active owner, you could have easily dumped Alou sometime in May and picked up Gary Matthews Jr. So guess what happens to that blended stat line? It increases for the Pujols side. And when that happens, it becomes even clearer that the side receiving Pujols is the side that wins this deal.

When making 2-for-1 trade, always factor in every change to your team

This rule can be applied for any trade where one team is receiving more players than the other team. Simply put, you have to look at replacement level talent and factor that into the deal. Let’s take a look at the trade we described in the section above, and let’s assume Alou is not considered in the deal, making it Pujols for Jones and Delgado.

The question of who wins this deal becomes more complicated. The answer lies in replacement value. What is available to pick up via free agency? If the answer is Alou, then you factor him into the equation to determine which side wins. If the answer is Terrmell Sledge, then you have to factor in the next section.

Always factor in the impact to your starting lineup

This is another thing a lot of owners fail to understand when determining whether to make a deal. A lot of times teams make trades to deal from a position and/or stat of depth to help address a weakness. So let’s say my team looks like the following:

C Russ Martin
1B Prince Fielder
2B Brian Roberts
3B David Wright
SS Michael Young
OF Vladimir Guerrero
OF Nick Markakis
OF Eric Byrnes
UT Jason Giambi
BN Carlos Guillen
BN BJ Upton
BN Mark Teahen

Let’s now say I receive a trade offer of BJ Upton and Eric Byrnes for Chris Carpenter. Upton has looked great so far and is establishing himself as a top-tier 2B, while Byrnes has also started off well and looking great early on. Meanwhile, Carpenter hurt his shoulder during the first game of the season, and has been on the DL ever since. Most people would say this is a bad deal, and that you should get more for those 2 great players you are giving up. I say that is total garbage, and I would be absolutely out of my mind to not make that deal.

Take a deeper look at this trade. Upton is a great asset to have, but where is he going to play on my team? He won’t be taking over for Roberts barring injury, and he won’t be taking over for Wright barring injury. So at best he’s a great injury replacement that is rotting on my bench. Plus, he qualifies as a “sell high candidate”. He is playing great right now, but he is also essentially a rookie that has yet to play a full season in the majors.

As far as Byrnes is concerned, sure he’s a good player. But really how much better is he than Mark Teahen? The answer is not much if at all. Byrnes is traditionally a hot starter that fades as the season goes on, so he’s the perfect candidate to sell this time of year. Meanwhile, Teahen is starting to warm up, and did have a really good year last year to establish a bit of a track record.

Now, we could talk about the injury risk for Carpenter, the fact that an injury to a pitcher’s shoulder is never a good thing, or that he is still yet to be fully healthy, but it is not necessary. Knowing that I have a replacement-level player on my bench for Byrnes, and knowing Upton is not going to play for me anyway, I am essentially trading nothing for Chris Carpenter. And when is that ever a bad thing?

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