This week’s question:
What’s your approach to early-season trading?
Larry Schechter (Winning Fantasy Baseball, @LarrySchechter): If I have a need, I don’t wait trying to trade. In Tout Wars this year, I ended up drafting overkill power and was weak with SB. I knew even before the auction ended that I would try to trade power for speed. I did make one trade before the season started. I even gave up a few dollars in overall value to make the trade, because I know that winning HR’s by 30 or so is going to be more of a waste of value.
Perry Van Hook (Mastersball, @): Early in the season I would just be looking to fill weak position slots or perhaps replace a DL player, so the trade would be aimed at equal value assets on each team – trying to trade a good extra SP for perhaps a MI or mid level OF. The best approach to these is to look at individual rosters and “find” a trading partner who has a need you can fill and a player you can use in roughly the same tiers.
Doug Dennis (BaseballHQ, @dougdennis41): Mostly, I am looking for easy win-win type deals this early. Dynasty/keeper leagues allow for rebuilds to match with win-now teams. Redraft leagues it is very tough–owners love their guys in April. I shop my surplus, though, if I have it, and seek to balance my team from whatever mess I might have bought in auction.
Gene McCaffrey (Wise Guy Baseball, @WiseGuyGene): It might be a flaw in my game, but I am rarely looking to trade early. If I’m having injury trouble that’s another story, but generally I buy players I like and I like them for (I hope) good reasons. I like to give them some time to be themselves. Once we get into May, I start taking my team’s weaknesses seriously.
Tim McCullough (Rotoexperts, @Tim_Rotoexperts): Unless I identify a specific need or screwed up my draft in the first place, I will rarely make a trade in April. I like to give my hitters a good 100 at bats and my starting pitcher 4-5 starts before I start looking for trades. Once May rolls around, though, I will almost always start looking to better my team and make trades to do so rather than looking to the waiver wire.
Patrick Davitt (BaseballHQ, @patrickdavitt): I’ll make a deal, especially in a year like this when I came out of the auction with an imbalance toward pitching. But the value has to be there, too. I’ve received one offer that led to a longer e-mail convo, but we couldn’t agree on relative value.
Robert Leibowitz (Rotoheaven, @rob_leibowitz): In a redraft, AL or NL only league I might look for more statistical balance. On draft day I draft for value, but when the season starts its all about stats. I might also choose to build up stats in the categories my strength lie within for a little but, not too long and trade later. Going into a keeper league draft, you have a sense before you even sit down at the table what your chances of winning are depending on everyone’s keepers and budget available to spend. I usually take a few weeks to see if player development or injuries alter that situation, but whether you are dumping or going for it, it benefits you to be among the first, if no the first to make your move. You’re either targeting top keepers in the case of dumping or players to fit key areas of need before other teams can acquire them to increase your odds of winning. It is important in either case, not to advertise that you’re looking, but to inquire after specifc players and push to make a move while everyone else is still assessing what to do with their team.
Justin Mason (Friends with Fantasy Benefits, Fangraphs, Fantasy Alarm, @JustinMasonFWFB): This early in the season I am mostly looking to address any deficiencies that I may have left my draft/auction with. I am not overreacting to early numbers, but filling holes that I noticed after draft days or ones that have opened due to injury. I also try to avoid the cliche “sell high” situations. 1) It is rare in leagues with competent owners that you can pull these off. It often leads to more hurt feelings from bad trade offers than actual deals. 2) Even if you can swindle someone, then you may have burnt a bridge you may need in the future.
Ray Flowers (Fantasy Guru Elite, @BaseballGuys): Deals early in season are extremely difficult to execute if you’re in a league with folks that know what they are doing. Provided you didn’t pooch the draft, you should have a squad of players you like. Since we have barely two weeks of data to analyze, there are really only two instances where player values should change – if there’s an injury or a playing time change. Otherwise, I personally want to let me team breath a bit, meaning I would only take a trade that was a clear win – and those aren’t usually offered by folks that understand that Nick Ahmed and Preston Tucker aren’t the answer.
Mike Podhorzer (Fangraphs, @MikePodhorzer): I generally stick with my pre-season team projections to determine what my strengths and weaknesses are, but I’m not too concerned with trading early on to balance out the categories based on those forecasts. With injuries, breakouts, and busts, often your team ends up performing significantly better or worse than expected, so it’s extremely difficult to be sure of what you need after just a couple of weeks. Instead, I want to trade from depth to upgrade somewhere else. If I have a capable guy sitting on my bench not helping me, I want to either trade him and a starter for a better starter, or trade my starter for an upgrade somewhere else to allow me to now start that capable bench guy. In addition, while I would love to buy “low” and sell “high”, it’s far harder to execute than it used to be. I’ll make attempts after several weeks, but am rarely successful.
Andy Behrens (Yahoo! Fantasy Sports, @andybehrens): If you entered the season with apparent weaknesses (as most of us did), the early numbers offer confirmation, then you should explore all possible options for improving your roster. I’m not going to wait until some far-off date to address known roster shortcomings. The earlier you act, the greater the benefit. It’s also worth noting that in most hometown leagues, there are a couple of dead-money owners who overreact to April events. You want to take advantage of those owners today, right now. Do it before football mags hit the shelves and they become less attentive to their baseball rosters.
Clay Link (Rotowire, @claywlink): I’m not aggressively pursuing trades at this point in the season, mainly out of courtesy to my league mates. It also seems like a waste of time generally, as few are going to want to sell on someone they invested a lofty pick or significant auction dollars in, even if they are getting 90 cents on the dollar. And you’re not going to pry away found money. If I see a swap as logical for both sides, I may touch base, and I’m always willing to listen, but I’m focused more on adding talent through FAAB than trying to makes trades at this stage. If you are looking to wheel and deal, don’t lowball people — it’s rude and you run the risk of shutting yourself out of future talks if you disrespect an owner bad enough.
Jeff Boggis (Fantasy Football Empire, @JeffBoggis): I love a good trade, especially if it benefits both teams. The question that always comes into play is the perception of player value. For example, if a player is drafted in the first 4 rounds of your draft, yet their stats are terrible after the first month. Let’s examine Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher Chris Archer. He had a pre-ranking of 61, but he now owns an ERA of 7.84, a WHIP of 2.50, and only 1 win on the season. His current ranking is 829. What value can you get for him if you own him? What would the current owner be willing to take in exchange for Archer? In expert leagues, owners tend to be more patient and don’t hit the panic button versus a newer league manager, so it’s more difficult to make early trades in Tout Wars.
Peter Kreutzer (Ask Rotoman, Fantasy Baseball Guide, @kroyte): I’m always open to a deal, if it makes sense, but in the early season we mostly still believe our guys off to slow starts will get better, and hope our guys off to good starts are en route to career years, so it’s hard to reconcile values with someone else who isn’t similarly invested. In an AL only league in which I need pitching, (and 4×4, so no K category) an owner offered me Andrew Triggs (three good starts!) for Adelberto Mondesi (on the DL!). I like Triggs, to an extent, but that’s not a trade I can consider at this point in the season. There was a reason Mondesi went for $7 in the auction, and Triggs lasted to the reserve rounds.
Michael Rathburn (Rotowire, @FantasyRath): If its a minor deal involving players that I did not invest a lot in, then I have no problem trading early. Esp if it was because of injuries. But for the most part I am willing to ride things for 6 weeks then assess.
Steve Gardner (USAToday Fantasy Sports, @SteveAGardner): I’m unlikely to initiate trade talk this early in the season because I prefer to give my roster at least a month or so to reveal its strengths and weaknesses. The differences in stats categories can change so quickly in the early going. That said, I won’t turn down an opportunity to discuss a trade if someone else expresses interest. There can be times when both teams match up well and I never want to discourage another owner from coming to me with a trade idea. Those lines should always be open, no matter what point it is in the season.
Scott Swanay (FantasyBaseballSherpa, @fantasy_sherpa): It’s never too early to make a good trade, but in my experience most of the trade offers that get sent out this time of year involve someone offering to trade a B-level player (or three) who’s off to a good start in exchange for an A-level player (or two) who are off to slow starts. Or someone hoping to take advantage of an owner whose team has suffered a key early-season injury (or three). In most of the leagues I play in, meaningful, mutually-beneficial trades don’t get made until June at the earliest.
Michael Beller (Sports Illustrated, @MBeller): I like being aggressive early in the trade market early in the season. In competitive leagues, even the best among us are going to enter the season with obvious weaknesses. Why wait until June or July to address those? Plus, by being aggressive early, you can take advantage of the natural tendency many people have, as evidenced in this ToutTable, to wait and see how things shake out. As much as we all want numbers to back up what we’re seeing, in real life sometimes guys break out without any advance warning. Sometimes, established veterans fall, if not entirely off a cliff, then at least to a lower level of performance, despite playing like a star the previous season. Aggressiveness gives you the opportunity to exploit that proclivity in leagues with experienced, savvy owners.