Three Deals and a (Very Expensive) Keeper

The ottoneu trade deadline has come and gone, and Friday was a busy deadline day for the original ottoneu league. While there had been a number of deals weeks or even months before the deadline, two big stars with rather large contracts remained on non-contenders, and a number of other teams were still trying to get over the top.

Between 8:00 p.m. ET and 10:45 p.m. ET, we had three deals go down and had another owner make the call to hold onto a rather expensive star.

We’ll start with the deals that did happen, and leave you to guess who the identity of the $60 who did not get moved.

8:03 p.m. ET – Freeport Pretzels (also known as my team) gives up: Yadier Molina ($3) and Felipe Paulino ($5)
Tiger Striped Dick (TSD) gives up: Prince Fielder ($63) and $55 in loans

I had been pushing for Prince for months, particularly since OBP is the category I have the most opportunity to gain on offense. With Justin Morneau manning my Util slot, I was getting rather solid production, but not what I could be getting, and certainly not the on-base skills provided by Fielder. Now I have Fielder at first with a Paul Konerko/Justin Morneau platoon at Util. The big chip moving the other way was Molina, and I will definitely miss Yadi, but this was a perfect example of trading from depth. I was platooning Molina with Miguel Montero, as is, and slotting Yasmani Grandal in as my new backup is nothing to sneeze at. Of course the other owner walks away with a stud catcher and a bit of a flyer of a SP. And he was not done dealing.

9:42 p.m. ET – Overpaid Scrubs gives up: Jarred Cosart ($3), Daniel Strailly ($1), and Brandon Belt ($6)
West Coast Wellness gives up: Craig Stammen ($2) and Carlos Beltran ($10)

In the deal sandwiched by the TSD trades, the current first place team tried to bolster his roster by adding Beltran…only to have Beltran find himself out of the lineup for a couple days. Beltran is unlikely to miss too much more time, but the bigger question here is did the Scrubs need to make this move at all?

As of today, this team is in first place with 85 points – the two teams tied for second (who also made deals at the deadline) are at 74.5 points. The Scrubs have been getting progressively more expensive all year, aggressively targeting acquisitions and making their moves. You could argue that this deal isn’t just about this year, but while Beltran may be keepable at $12 in 2013, he is unlikely to provide much surplus value at that price. In the meantime, the current 5th place team added much needed innings and had the OF depth to give up Beltran at little cost. I think it will be hard to find fault with this deal this year, but the 2013 and 2014 Scrubs may look back on this with some regret.

10:45 p.m. ET – Dave Stewart’s Balls (DSB) gives up: Michael Wacha ($3), Yasiel Puig ($4), and Dan Vogelbach ($3)
TSD gives up: Josh Johnson ($30), Chris Perez ($6), Alex Gordon ($31), Hanley Ramirez ($50), and $107 in loan

TSD again made a move for the future, bringing back a pile of prospects for an even larger pile of likely unkeepable players. DSB is the team tied with me for second place, and this haul has been hard for me to judge. On the one hand, those are some big names and solid talents. On the other, which of those four players is the one you really want to count on carrying your team down the stretch? None is having a great year, though Alex Gordon has been quite good and Perez has been fine outside of his 3.59 ERA.

And, to some extent, this deal was just about DSB getting back to full strength. Hanley replaces the long-injured Troy Tulowitzki; Gordon is on the bench today, sitting behind the newly returned Curtis Granderson; and Perez is the stop-gap 6th reliever now that Kenley Jansen has left the DSB lineup. This move was more necessity than luxury, and if DSB can hold me off for 2nd place, he’ll likely have this trade to thank.

Interestingly, the day before the deadline, the deal I had one the table for Prince included Josh Johnson and would have also cost me Matt Garza. I offered up the deal without the pitchers when the other owner was slow to respond, hoping to spur something to happen. Had I not offered up the deal without Johnson, it may have side-tracked this deal…or could have side-tracked my deal. In either case, the impact on the race would have been huge.

Finally…the $60 player being held by a non-contender? ottoneu founder Niv Shah decided to keep Ryan Braun on his roster for next year, with a 2013 price tag of $62. Shah had offers on the table (I offered Molina, Garza, and a $5 Matt Joyce for Braun and a $21 Brandon Phillips), but decided that Braun – the third highest paid player in our game – was a better value than that package (or any other he could have gotten).

His argument is primarily that stars make a team, and that it is REALLY hard to get stars. Considering the year-to-year inflation we have seen in our league, Braun’s price tag next year likely climbs to $65-$67 if he ends up back in the auction pot. Instead, Shah’s Negative EV gets a bit of surplus value and a guaranteed star OF to lead the offense.

My opinion is that the option to spend even $70 on Braun next year plus the group of Garza, Molina, and Joyce for $30 provides more value than Braun at $62 (basically, I am arguing that $38 isn’t enough to buy the production of Garza, Molina and Joyce from the free agent class).

I kept you guessing who the non-traded star was until the end of the article – determining if that was the right move will keep us guessing much longer.