Category: Trade

Derek Carty Retools in TOUT NL

Tells how at Baseball Prospectus (no subscription necessary). Derek may well have a top-three team this year after the trades he made, as he says another apple-polishing Tout NL owner told him after his FAAB last weekend, but there are a lot of teams within 11 points of the top who have made a lot of changes in the last month or so. Tristan Cockcroft has to be considered the favorite because he’s held onto the lead for more than the last month, but he’s likely to have a fight on his hands.

Should non-contenders make trades at this point in the season with contenders?

Todd “Lord” Zola asked the experts in Tout Wars and LABR about their approaches in non-keeper leagues, and got an earful.

Read all about it at KFFL.com, here.

We took a look at last year’s August trades in Tout AL and NL, just to see what actually happened.

In the NL there were seven trades:

(6) traded Coghlan and U Jimenez to (9) Carlos Lee and Lannan Continue reading “Should non-contenders make trades at this point in the season with contenders?”

Fred’s Flurry!

Two weeks ago 2012 Tout Mixed champ Fred Zinkie was in second place, one point behind Cory Schwartz. Some might have feared messing up a good thing, but not the indefatigable Fred. Since then he’s made six trades, and in this piece he explains what, how and why.

A Significant Trade in Tout Mixed

This morning Fred Zinkie traded Dan Haren and Gaby Sanchez to David Gonos for Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Thole. Zinkie immediately released Thole.

This is a classic deal between someone in the scrum at the top (Zinkie) who can dump an underperforming starting pitcher and underperforming hitter to an also-ran (Gonos), who is nearly 60 points off the pace and hopes to catch lightning in a bottle, twice.

More FAAB Talk, by Steve Gardner

USA Today’s fantasy columnist follows up on past stories about the midseason FAAB spree and the perils of trading.

Of special note in Steve’s piece is Ron Shandler’s comment that by opening up FAAB bidding to minor league players, Tout teams have more options than just loading up for the big bear promotions of prospects and midseason league changes. In fact, the early poaching of minor league talent before promotion may be one reason there were few big ticket purchases during the season. Players like Cowgill, Goldschmidt, and Giavotella were picked up by savvy players well before their big league teams promoted them.

Last year, I picked up the Nationals’ Danny Espinosa the week before September callups. I was the only bidder, and was rewarded by a huge game right off the bat. If he had been a free agent at that point, some team would have spent all their FAAB on him. What a difference a week can make.

One other note: As for the problems with trading FAAB dollars, most if not all of them would be eliminated by ending FAAB dollar trading a couple of weeks before the major league nonwaiver trading deadline of July 31. I’m thinking the All Star Break makes sense. Such a change would muddy the waters and make it more difficult to see what the benefits of having the most FAAB would be and remove much of the asymmetricality of FAAB trades that give a team first position at the deadline. I like having as many different tools available to take a team from the start of the season to the end, but when we discover that a rule may lead to wildly different motivations by various teams for arbitrary reasons (that can be exploited to the detriment of third party owners), I think we have a good reason to make changes.

The FAAB Issue: Rotoman Speaks

Brian Walton wrote a story earlier this week about his attempts to trade with a nameless owner who caused him fits. Brian was peeved and let the owner know it, but when he told the story he scrubbed it of any identifying information, to save the owner from embarrassment. It was a gracious gesture but unnecessary. The owner felt his actions were, with one small exception, above board and proper. I should know, the owner was me.
Continue reading “The FAAB Issue: Rotoman Speaks”