Week Six Trade Possibilities
Here are seven players for your consideration to either acquire or send packing.
BUY
Shin-Soo Choo – The current owner may look at Choo’s .392 BABIP and figure this is as good as it’s going to get, especially since Updated ZiPS projects him to finish with 17 HR and 16 SB. But Choo has always posted ultra-high BABIPs so he may not drop off as far as some might predict. The current ZiPS forecast seems especially pessimistic, considering that he went 20-20 last year and is on a current pace for 22-32.
Chipper Jones – He is very brittle and currently carries an uninspiring .230-2-7-13-2 fantasy line. But Jones is not one to look at things through rose-colored glasses and he considers himself to be seeing the ball good and just experiencing bad luck. “When I’m drawing walks you know I’m seeing the ball good,” Jones told David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Everybody points to the RBI, but when there’s not a lot of opportunities you can’t help that.” Jones is 6-for-19 with two doubles, seven walks and one strikeout in his past six games. Health is always a factor but Jones feels good about himself and he has been on a mini hot streak. It could all add up to a nice pickup for a low price, especially if his current owner is concerned about Jones’ current groin injury.
Johan Santana – This marks the sixth straight season that Santana has seen a rise in his xFIP and his K/9 continues to fall, down to 7.56, his worst mark since he was a reliever in 2001. Santana’s average fastball velocity has dipped below 90 for the first time in his career. But so much of Santana’s poor overall numbers this year (velocity excepted) is the result of the horrific outing against the Phillies in which he allowed 4 HR and gave up 10 ER in 3.2 IP. In his other six games, Santana has a 2.61 ERA with 9 BB and 34 Ks in 38 IP. Now, you cannot just throw out starts that you do not like, but you should not panic about one bad outing, either. Check to see if his current owner is doing the latter.
SELL
Tim Hudson – While never a big strikeout pitcher, Hudson generally gave fantasy owners good numbers in the other three categories for SP. But this year his K/9 is down to a dismal 3.45 or nearly half of his lifetime mark. His ERA sits at a nifty 2.64 but both his FIP and xFIP are around two runs per game worse than that. Right now it seems on the surface to be a typical Hudson year where he is good in three categories. But it is unlikely that either his ERA or WHIP will remain this low going forward.
Jeff Niemann – Like Hudson, xFIP paints a much bleaker picture of Niemann’s early-season results than his ERA. Both his FIP and xFIP are nearly identical to 2009, when his ERA was 1.67 higher than his current 2.27 mark. Niemann is throwing his splitter twice as often as last year, and with good results, too. But it seems unlikely that his fine pitching early in 2010 has more to do with the change in his repertoire than Niemann simply being the recipient of good fortune.
Justin Upton – One of the first outfielders off the board in fantasy and likely gone by the second round in most leagues, Upton is off to a poor start. Whenever I recommend to sell a high draft pick not performing well, people comment that now is the worst time to trade him. Obviously, Upton will not be this bad the rest of the season. The key is to get more in return than he will produce the rest of the way. It seems to me his trade value is greater than the .274-20-70 that RoS ZiPS projects for him. In one recent CBS Sports league, he was dealt straight up for Matt Holliday, who seems likely to outperform Upton in AVG, R and RBIs going forward while it should be relatively close in the other two categories.
HUNCH
Nick Swisher – His BABIP is 56 points higher than his career average and his 17.5 HR/FB rate is 0.4 away from his career-best mark. But I predict that Swisher will keep up his strong performance throughout the season and exceed the Updated ZiPS marks of .264-28-94-92-1 at the end of the year.
Being patient only makes sense if you are competing for 1st and have a slumping star. You can afford to wait as the rest of your squad is making up for it. If you are middle of pack and waiting for a star to turn it around, face facts, you likely have no chance to make up any ground. Selling low but getting decent value can make all the difference. Don’t be that guy who kicks himself for pinning his hopes on a star who doesn’t get it done. Cut bait with losers before they infect your whole roster.
It appears Justin has come down with BJ-itis, and not the good kind.
jeez a recommendation to trade for Glass Chipper? The only way it makes sense to trade for him is if you already have a Longoria or Zimmerman at 3B. He makes sense as a CI (i guess), but thats about it…
It was just 2 years ago in 2008 when Chipper Jones posted a .364/.470/.574 line. This year and last year he’s been down for some reason.
He’s still making contact and walking at the same rate he always has and his swing percentages mirror what he’s done in his successful years. The only two things that are down from the past are his BABIP (currently .247) and his ISO (currently .138). Last year was the first year since 1997 Chipper had a sub-.200 ISO. It was also the first year since 2004 he had a BABIP under .300. His career BABIP sits at .316, so if his mark from this season he should still be able to post a line around his normal .300/.400 mark. That should also increase his ISO a little bit, but it’s still a question.
How much of his reduced BABIP and ISO is due to him making weaker contact, and how much of it is just bad luck? I wouldn’t be completely surprised to see him break out and hit .300/.400/.500 or something like that for the rest of the year (on days he’s in the lineup), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him post a line more similar to last year’s .264/.388/.430, either.
Either way he isn’t a useless player, especially if your league counts OBP.
Brian,
I was just offered Ellsbury and Marmol for Justin Upton. Should I pull the trigger? That would make my starting OF: Adam Lind, BJ Upton, and Jacoby Ellsbury. Is that losing too much power?
Anyone else’s opinions appreciated.
I would definitely pull the trigger, especially if you have good power out of your infield. Hopefully Lind turns it around. If not, power might be a bit rough.
I’d keep Upton or ask for more. I wouldn’t sell for that price though.
If you want to gamble that Ellsbury doesn’t get hurt again, then take the trade and don’t look back. That’s a big IF. Depends what place you are in.
so we should buy santana because his k/9 is his lowest since 2001, his fb velocity is way down and his swinging strike % is 5 % below his career average and down 3 % from last year. i think ill get my advice elsewhere.
I’m not going to touch Chipper Jones, dude can’t stay healthy and hasn’t posted good numbers in well over a year. Johan’s owner most likely paid a high price for him and given his name value would still ask for more than he is worth, the price for Johan would be too much to buy him. Shin Soo-Choo, is a nice guy to buy, but his numbers have been good all year so he will likely cost you quite a bit as well.
It’s also easy to say Sell Hudson and Niemann, but for what? In a competitive league no one is going to be buying either guys at more than their draft day worth so what could you reasonably get for them?
If you sell Justin Upton now, you will regret it in a month or two. Not only is his value low at this point, but he started slow last year and turned up quite a bit as the summer went along. If you are going to sell, wait until he gets hot and maximize your trade value. In a keeper league, if you trade JUp for Holliday you should have your head examined. In a yearly league they should give you comparable numbers and JUp’s ceiling is definitely higher and its not like a lot of his counting stats are bad at this point.
Erik clearly has a man-crush on Justin Upton and would rather have a better team for next season instead of competing this season. This common disease, man-crushitis, infects many fantasy pools these days. Rather than conceding that your players won’t live up to their over-rated expectations, you would rather lose than admit that your preseason scouting about a player was incorrect. While maximizing trade value is great in theory, it relies on the sell high, buy low notion. Good luck with hoodwinking someone with that. Thanks to information overlaod, when one guy gets hot, he is on everyone’s sell high (or do not buy) list within a day or so.
While I am not saying Justin Upton should be sold for chump change, Getting a guy like Holliday is a very good return considering there is no guarantee Upton gets hot. Look at BJ, other than his steals, his stats are horrific. He never ‘broke out’ last season and looks to be the same player this season!
OK, seriously: Please tell me what similarities Justin and B.J. have besides both being african-american baseball players with the same parents? BJ is a lanky speed merchant who showed glimpses of having, perhaps, 20 HR power. Justin is a stout slugger who is a pretty good bet for consistent 30+ HR seasons with some decent SB totals to boot.
I get it: They’re brothers. As baseball players, though, they’re very different, and using one as a comparison point for the other is as silly as comparing Sandy and Robbie Alomar.
Hi Erik – thanks for reading and commenting.
Last year on August 15th, Chipper had a .301/.414/.496 slash line so it is not been well over a year since he had good numbers. It is close to half a year now, but that along with the injury risk is why you can get him cheap today.
After going 0-for-4 on May 12th last year, Upton had a .295/.378/.552 line. While Upton did get off to a slow start last season, he started the year 0-12, he was a good hitter from April 14th to the rest of the season. In the final 14 games in April, he had a .910 OPS. The starts to the two seasons for Upton have been completely different.
Through April of last year Upton line was 8 runs/ 2 hr/ 8 rbi/ 1 sb
his line this april: 18 r/ 3 hr/ 10 rbi/ 4 sb
These are the stats fantasy players care about, not slugging or obp or ops, sure those are nice to know but most leagues are standard 5×5. Also, for this year JUp has 22 runs/ 5 hr/ 16 rbi/ 5 sbs/ .229; Holliday has a line of: 19 runs/ 4 hr/ 13 rbi/ 2 sbs / .301 average. You trade for Holliday all you want (who has less stats in 4 of the five roto cats), what do you think Upton’s line will look like when he actually starts making contact with the ball?
Chipper Jones has hit above .250 one time since last June. If you want to split hairs and say that isn’t a year ago fine, but the dude is done, he is injury prone and you can buy him all you want.
Last Player Picked has Upton worth $12 and Holliday worth $11 so they’ve been essentially even up until this point.
RoS ZiPS has them producing the following lines:
MH: ..307-20-93-82-8
JU: ..274-20-70-65-9
So yeah, I’ll make that trade.
You seem convinced that Upton is going to revert back to 2009 contact levels. But Pizza Cutter shows contact rate stabilizing at 100 PA. Upton has 147 PA and a 68.2 Contact% – almost exactly the same as 2008s 68.1%.
As for Chipper, he played in 143 games last year and has played in 27 of 33 games this year, a pace for 132.5 games. His injury history should be factored into any deal but I believe he can still hit. YMMV.
As for Chipper, I’ll buy for the right price. I don’t think he’s totally through producing solid numbers.
In the case of Justin Upton, I won’t sell unless I get top 20 value for him. Sure, I’d like him to be hitting now, but aside from the average, the stats are still coming in and really his peripherals don’t look too bad. The Z-Swing% is down and the K-rate and contact% are at 08 levels, but I expect him to settle in closer to 09’s levels than 08. Of course, Holliday’s not bad either, and Upton’s power/Holliday’s average make them seem like a wash to me… I’ll give my slight preference to Upton.
Most leagues are 5×5 but I’d imagine a lot of avid readers of fangraphs are in leagues that use more “advanced” stats. I’d be surprised if the distribution of standard 5×5 and more creative leagues for readers was the same as the general population.
I was offered Felix Hernandez for Justin Upton. I already have Soriano, Rios, and Sizemore in my outfield. My ace, Brett Anderson, is on the DL. Good deal?
If you don’t do that deal, I will hunt you down. Also look to deal Soriano for Uptons replacement.
Haha I already accepted the deal a couple of days ago, don’t worry. You mean sell high on Soriano?
Would you deal Starlin Castro for Chipper if you could? assuming positional value isn’t really a factor?
what kind of crazy Cubbies fans are you playing with? of course you’d trade Castro to get Chipper. Within seeing what the trade was, it would have taken me approximately 4 seconds to accept that.
Yeah I second that. Chipper won’t give the numbers he once did, and he’s made of porcelain these days, but…yeah. Chipper in a landslide (assuming you have a feasible SS option).
I understand there are a lot of leagues that aren’t 5×5 as my two leagues are either 7×7 or 8×8. I didn’t want to start a fight as obviously I enjoy this site or I wouldn’t be reading the articles. I guess I just disagree on selling Upton or buying Chipper. I would buy Santana if he came at a discount but I know in my leagues that wouldn’t be the case. I’m not saying Holliday isn’t good either, but if Upton were hitting even .275 I don’t think there stats at this point would even be close. Upton is a career .270 hitter in the majors with a .300 season last year and close to a .290 hitter in the minors so whether his contact rate goes up or not he will start to get more hits and raise his average which will only help his counting stats. We don’t have any idea what his ceiling will be and at only 22 I doubt we have seen it. If I owned him, I wouldn’t want to miss it by selling after a slow 5 weeks but each their own.
Would you guys trade Niemann straight-up for Starlin Castro? I’m in a 14-team H2H re-draft league. I’m a bit weak in the Middle Infield and have the same concerns as portrayed in the article about Niemann regressing to the mean. Do you think Castro is worth it this season? Thanks for any advice.
I got J Upton and Headly for Zimmerman. League counts OPS and K too. Thought I made out originally. Starting to question it. Not a keeper
I wouldn’t give up on Hudson QUITE yet. His velocity still looks solid and he is generating swings outside the zone (o-swing 28%).
Notice his f-strike % is 50, his career rate is 60 – leading to hitters counts (z-contact 94.3, career 88) and even o-contact (70.2!%) should normalize.
If he can get his command tightened up, I would think his contact rate of 85 would get slightly closer to career levels (around 80).
I have Upton and Hudson on my team. My second basemen are Gordon Beckham and Brian Roberts. Do you think I should attempt to trade those two for an Utley or Cano or do you think I would be giving up too much?
Chipper is too fragile to be counted on as a starter, end of story. You have to carry 2 3b just to roster Chipper. So unless you have a decent platoon-mate, it doesn’t matter that his % numbers will come around, if the counting stats aren’t there.
Just offered Ethier for Johan. Good buy low-sell high? I’m in a points league where pitching rules. Halladay went for $41. I know Ethier is going to be awesome, but he has to come down, and Johan is pretty awesome too.