When Plan A Fails

There’s a saying – nobody cares about your fantasy team. Generally speaking, it’s true. When people in the real world find out I’m a fantasy baseball writer, they’ll start telling me about their team. Usually, they play in a hopelessly shallow format. My eyes glaze over. I nod in the right places. I think about the chores I need to finish in the next few days.

So, I sympathize. This post is going to be about one of my teams. It’s going to draw upon other articles about this same team. If that usually bores you, I’m sure Paul Sporer wrote something perfect for you.

However, I find that there is a loophole to the saying. Challenging or unique scenarios are interesting. I’ve happily sat in a bar and discussed strategy and tactics. What I don’t want to hear is that you picked up Coco Crisp because he has a four-game hitting streak.

I get emails asking me to continue writing about trades and other strategic considerations in my advanced leagues like ottoneu and dynasty. This intro is my long-winded way of telling you I will continue to do so.

As you may know, I traveled to Vietnam over the holidays for about three weeks. I didn’t once check email, my teams, or anything fantasy baseball related. Not even MLB Trade Rumors. It was wonderful.

The off time also served as a pivot point for my ottoneu strategy. I have an expensive roster with stars like Mike Trout, Clayton Kershaw, Paul Goldschmidt, and Zack Greinke. They’re all on keepable contracts – it’s just hard to fit them on one team.

I spent the early portion of winter attempting to trade one or more of them for cheaper talent. Last offseason, a similarly priced Trout and a throw-in returned Steven Souza and Corey Seager. Rather than than two cheap high risk, high reward players, I aimed to acquire one medium risk, high reward stud. If it was the right player, I was willing to include a $7 Lance McCullers too.

My proposals met with a lot of resistance. So much so that I publicly threatened to give away the good players I couldn’t keep. I don’t want to risk my closest rivals adding my former players at a discount.

That’s the background. I’ve since decided that Trout and Kershaw will stay put. They cost a combined $126 (of a $400 budget), but I’ll have to make it work. Nobody offered more than peanuts for either of them. I’ll be damned if I’m letting somebody beat me with a cheaply acquired Trout or Kershaw.

I’ve moved on to Plan B. To cut costs, I needed to expel my mid-tier talents by selling low on Yasiel Puig, Anthony Rendon, Kenley Jansen, and others. In a series of three trades, I’ve started down that path.

Trade #1

I receive:
$5 Luis Severino
$5 Alex Reyes

I give:
$24 Puig

Puig was a painful sell. He’s one of my top picks to breakout into the elite category. I had hoped to rehabilitate him on my own roster. Alas.

The additions of Severino and Reyes grant me some flexibility. Not only are they good, cheap assets to own, they also make for fantastic throw-ins for cheap, elite talent like Brandon Warne’s $12 Carlos Correa. Warne, by the way, has told me he will not trade Correa for any return.

Trade #2

I receive:
$4 Aaron Nola

I give:
$17 Jansen

As much as I love Jansen – even at this price – I was never going to be able to afford him. I sent out about 25 offers involving Jansen. This is the one that got accepted.

Nola isn’t much of anything yet, but his profile has a similar smell to Cliff Lee. Plenty of pitchers start at the same talent level as Lee and never develop beyond there. It’s a long term gamble. In the interim, he can also be used as a valuable throw-in.

Trade #3

I receive:
$32 Jake Arrieta
$5 Andrew Miller
$3 Danny Valencia

I give:
$27 Rendon
$17 Jon Lester
$15 Alex Cobb
$4 Frankie Montas
$3 Ryan Madson
$3 A.J. Reed

And here’s the blockbuster. This deal happened mostly because an owner wanted Reed and I could benefit from cheap producers like Miller and Valencia. I think for both of us, the biggest components of the trade were incidental.

I actually went a little ways backwards in my goal to cut costs. It was worth it as I blocked top rival Chad Young from acquiring Arrieta and Miller. While in a vacuum I would happily keep all the players I traded away, reality had already whittled the list down to just Lester and Reed. So I scored two big pieces, a nice role player, and a $20 headache for players I couldn’t possibly keep.

Parting Blows

The end result is what’s shaping up to be the Stars and Scrubsiest roster of my life. I have a hyper-elite pitching staff and position players for most spots in the lineup. I’m also on track to roster over 10 $1 players. I expect most of those will be prospects – players I hope to later convert into more win-now talent.

As it stands, I need to trim about $20 from my roster. It shouldn’t be too hard. I can do it in one fell swoop using Goldschmidt or Greinke. Alternatively, trading away two of Matt Kemp, Matt Carpenter, and Jonathan Lucroy should also do the trick.