Archive for Trade Possibilities

On Friday, Dave considered Troy Tulowitzki’s trade value in the real world, and today I want to consider his trade value in the fantasy world. As Dave noted, Tulo, who is off to a slow start, still has fairly rosy projections and is a good bet to bounce back. Specifically, his home run per fly ball rate is basically a third of his career rate, and his a rough strikeout and walk rates are too far out of line with his norm to continue.

He probably has at least 15 home runs left in his bat this year, if not 20. And while he may end up with the worst strikeout and walk rates of his career, it’s unlikely they’ll end up being significantly worse than they’ve ever been. You can expect him to be much more helpful in average and/or OBP going forward.

Now that we’ve established Tulo isn’t a dog (tough, I know), what’s his trade value? Read the rest of this entry »

The other night was just another typical evening for Clay Buchholz. Five earned runs, including four early, caused frustrated fantasy owners to see 7.11 ERA, 1.74 WHIP in the box score. A quick Twitter search for Buchholz shows the bandwagon (if there was one) has emptied fast. Mass media is feeding the frenzy, especially with the Red Sox performing so poorly over the first few weeks of the season. Buchholz continues to say things about not getting breaks, such as “…ground balls when you want to get them hit at guys for double plays. It seems like the ball is finding a lot more holes right now.” But is he lying?

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The days of highway robbery early-season trades are a thing of the past, but it’s rarely too early to kick the tires on making trades. I’ve identified a five players who make for strong trade targets — depending on league type and settings, obviously. A pair of sluggers who could be had at a discount are joined by a white-hot hitting veteran and a couple of right-handed pitchers with varying degrees of success thus far. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I started a review of the players I am targeting to acquire and trade away, going position by position through the infield.

Today we look 12 more players – outfielders and starting pitchers who will factor heavily in my trade talks.

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The ottoneu off-season is well underway and I know many leagues have been wildly active, making the Padres and Dodgers look dull in comparison.

My leagues, however, have had slow developing trade markets, so rather than being able to report on what I’ve done, I am instead going to provide a list of players, by position, who I am targeting (or would be, if I had a need) in trade talks. For good measure, I’ll add in a player I am trying to trade away, too (or would be, if I owned him). We’ll hit the infield today and I will follow up with the OF and pitchers.

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We’re heading toward the end of August, which means there’s only about a month remaining in the regular season. Though I’m sure many of your league’s trade deadlines have already passed, I’m quite confident that a lot of yours have not, but are certainly coming up soon.

For the first two months or so of the season, I’m all about trading for value. That is, my preseason dollar values guide my trade offers and responses. It’s far too early to determine what my team’s strengths and weaknesses are at that point, so I just want to accumulate as much value as possible.

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I own Max Scherzer in three leagues right now. Three different formats, three different sets of rules, and three different places in the standings. And I am working on trading him in not one, but two.

The problem is trying to find the right value. And valuing a guy like Scherzer is not easy.

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I have been a fairly regular advocate of targeting injured players in keeper and dynasty leagues. To a team competing, they are no better than a prospect, but to a team building for the future, they are far more likely to pan out.

A few weeks ago, Prince Fielder was cut in the original ottoneu league and re-signed for $24. He is a free agent in the FanGraphs ottoneu Experts League. And I am in the midst of trade talks around him in a non-ottoneu dynasty league. And I am really not sure what to make of the Ranger 1B.
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For the past few years, we’ve grown accustomed to a steady diet of high on-base, high-average, moderate power output from Billy Butler. In the early going, 2014 hasn’t been nearly as tasty.

Terrible breakfast puns aside, Butler’s numbers are down across the board, and anyone lining him up in a util slot has got to be concerned. So is Butler a buy low or a guy you should be trying to get rid of?

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In the preseason I used Zach Sanders’ method for deriving fantasy value from roto category statistics to see how the Steamer projections valued players from a fantasy perspective. The system essentially compares each payer’s production in each category and assigns standardized values for each player in each category. When you add those numbers up, you get a player’s fantasy value above average. After a quick adjustment for positional scarcity, you’ve got fantasy value above replacement (FVARz). In the preseason this was helpful to get an idea about who might be over or undervalued. Now I’ve taken the Steamer rest of season projections both to see whose value has changed the most in the month or so since the season started and to potentially help with making trades.

Today I want to highlight a few players that were not included in the original Steamer projections. Next week I’ll take a look at the players whose value has increased the most since the start of the season. Read the rest of this entry »