Harang & Polanco: Chronicles of ottoneu
Our first trade! The FanGraphs/ottoneu Experts’ League has finally consummated a trade. I gave Andy Behrens my $1 Aaron Harang, and he gave me his $1 Placido Polanco. Early polling on the ottoneu Facebook page (like it! doooo it!) did not favor me, so I’ll do a quick defense. For your reference, the full post-draft rosters are listed in the introduction post here.
I realize that on value alone, I’d rather have Aaron Harang for my team. There, I’ve got that out of the way. Harang, perhaps finally healthy after two years where he only managed about 270 innings combined, is looking good. He’s got his trademark control back, and just enough strikeouts to make the package work. Polanco is also playing well, but his .128 ISO would be his best number in eight years, and his .375 BABIP will surely regress. I’ll take the ZiPs RoS and take a .300-ish batting average with 13-15 combined steals and home runs.
And that’s the key. I’ll take those numbers. I’m not sure Harang would have cracked my lineup too often. He’s still an extreme flyball pitcher – his 33% ranks 12th-worst among qualified pitchers and fits right into his career line (37.8%). As such, he’s probably a confident start about 60% of the time in mixed leagues. On my team, he fit in right behind Josh Johnson, Mat Latos, Ricky Romero, Jaime Garcia, John Danks, Wandy Rodriguez and Derek Holland. You have enough innings for about 6 starters’ worth of work, so basically I was betting that Rodriguez and Holland could handle that final starters’ worth of a workload. That’s a bet I think I can win.
We already looked around at the league and determined that there were only a few teams with extra MIs available. With Ryan Raburn looking like a platoon bat in real life and fantasy, I needed an MI. I offered Aaron Harang for Howie Kendrick (ZiPs RoS .280 with 24 combined HR and SB) and was quickly rebuffed. The best other deal I managed to find was a $5 Alcides Escobar for my $2 Matt LaPorta. I didn’t mind the deal, but my firstbasemen, in a 12-team league, are Gaby Sanchez, Mitch Moreland, Justin Smoak and Matt LaPorta. I think I need to keep all of those guys to see who works out – they’re all flawed.
So, in the end, I traded away a cheap superfluous older player to another team for their cheap, superfluous player. Kudos to user DScott for predicting Behrens as my trading partner. It seemed like a good match. Participant Chad Young (Amateur Hour), when writing about this league on his blog, agreed for the most part – even though it cost him a chance at Matt LaPorta. What do you guys think?
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Polanco is a mediocre, but steady, producer. He should help you on average. He scores a reasonable amount of runs and RBIs. He doesn’t hit many homers at all, and doesn’t steal much, but for a $1 middle infielder the fact that he can help you more than he hurts you make this a good trade. That and the fact you didn’t really need Aaron Harang makes this a fine deal for you.
Also, as a side note, I think the focus sometimes is too much on “winning” the trade. You don’t need to rape the other guy all the time when you make a trade to win. This was a perfectly equitable trade that addressed both of your needs with players of similar value. That’s fine.