Another Trade - Minor

Got offered a deal last week that I did not need by any means, but the value was too good to turn down. I got offered in my keeper league a $4 Kelly Johnson, signed through 2011, for a $6 Matt Capps. I have four closers, I'm first in saves, and Capps' value will never be higher. I clicked "accept" immediately, it just made too much sense. Then I dropped Marco Scutaro who was filling my middle infield spot. This will absolutely help my offense, particularly power/speed numbers and I will always be on the lookout on the waiver wire for another closer. You can never have enough of those guys.

Trade!!

Just made a borderline blockbuster deal in my keeper league here are the details (salary and contract expiration in parenthesis):

I traded Yovani Gallardo ($9, 2011), Ted Lilly ($6 2010), and Chris Coghlan ($10, 2010) for Ricky Nolasco ($17, 2010) and Carlos Pena ($18, 2010).

The explanation:

Okay, here is my mindset. I am on first place by 16 points (granted, I know that means nothing for now but its worth noting) on the strength of my pitching staff while my offense has been just good, far from special. Coghlan has been a total drain on my batting average and has 1 extra base hit on the season so far. He's been, in a word, awful. I think Lilly will improve, he's been a little below average so far, and if he weren't coming off knee AND shoulder surgeries then I'd be more optimistic on him. But I think there is more downside with him than upside going forward. Also throw in the fact that I am currently on pace to go over my 1450 innings pitched limit and I need to chill on my IP's for now. So, the point with this is that losing Coghlan and Lilly will not hurt me in any conceivable way, they were essentially dead weight at this point. On the other hand, giving up a guy like Gallardo, at a price like $9, with ownership of his rights for next season too, was really really really really tough. This guy is a bonafide stud. BUT, he walks too many guys for my liking. I've been watching him since 2007 and his control has not improved one bit, and this is what prevents him from joining the upper echelon of pitchers. His high strikeout rate enables him to get out of jams and strand all those batters he gives free passes to, which is nice, but at the same time he builds up monster pitch counts and rarely goes more than 5 or 6 innings, which in turn limits his Wins potential. Not great.

So, what did i get? In Pena, I got the masher my offense has been lacking. I had Pena penciled in for 40 homers before the season started. He got off to a bit of a slow start, with only 5 homers to his name so far, so I'm fairly confident I have about 30-35 bombs coming my way from him, plus 100 or so runs batted in. Word. This guy is cash money in cleats and I welcome him to the squad with open arms.

I also get Ricky Nolasco, who heading into the season I liked more than Yovani. He isn't off to as good of a start, but he is a high innings guy who doesn't walk anyone and has a track record of high strikeout rates (that part is down to start the year, but he'll get it up as the season goes on). I owned Nolasco down the stretch last year when he was rollin' and there were only a handful of guys better then. I think he will at least match Yovani's output going forward and has a good chance to exceed it.

I also freed up a roster spot by trading two guys for three which enabled me to activate David Freese from my Minor League squad. This guy hits 5th behind Pujols and Holliday and has been scorching the ball lately. He still won't make my everyday lineup as I have more faith in Troy Glaus at my 3B slot and superior options at my Utility slots, but this is a daily start/sit league which allows me to get Freese in on days where some of my players have the day off (like today). Welcome to the Bigs, David.

I'm sure all of you math whizzes noticed up top that I gave up $25 salary and took on $35, a whopping $10 difference. This comes out of my FAAB and can only be recovered if I make another trade where I ship out more salary than I take back. The $10 hit hurts, no doubt, but I look at it like I swapped Yovani for Nolasco and picked up Pena off the waiver wire for $10 which would be a bargain. It's a little far fetched but its good enough.

All in all, I will see a HUGE increase in home runs and RBI's. On the surface it looks like I'd take a big hit in batting average, but Coghlan was only hitting .200 to Pena's .190, I shouldn't take a hit in average at all. In fact, assuming Pena can even hit .240 going forward this will help my average.

And call me optimistic, but I believe Nolasco will match Gallardo's strikeouts going forward, way outperform him in WHIP, and be in the same ballpark in ERA. For this year, given my position to go for the title, I think it was a great deal for me. For next year, however, I'll be hard pressed to find a pitcher for $9 that will give me what Gallardo is capable of.

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Fantasy Insurance

I was listening to a podcast the other day, and one of the guests was the owner of a website built on maybe the most interesting premise I have ever heard of: fantasy sports insurance. The site works with a legit insurance company, everything is underwritten and everything from getting a quote to filing a claim is run like any other type of insurance, i.e. car or homeowners. You can then choose one of three packages: a one player package, a two player package, or a three player package. There is a pre-picked list of players that you can choose from, not every player in the Major Leagues is an option. The list is relatively short with roughly fifty names on it.

So here is how it works. First you choose which package you want. If you want the one player package, then that player needs to spend at least sixty days on the disabled list for your policy to kick in and collect on your claim. If you do the two player package, then the two players must combine for at least ninety days on the disabled list. If you choose the three player package, then the three players must combine for at least one hundred and fifteen days on the disabled list. If you choose one of the multi-player packages, the time on the disabled list does not have to be split proportionately amongst the players, one of your three players can spend the full amount of time on the DL while the other two remain healthy all year and you will still be covered by your policy.

The next step is to choose which players you want covered. As I mentioned above, not all players are eligible. There is a predetermined list chosen by the operators of the website. These players are generally the top fifty coveted players heading into the fantasy baseball season. The idea is that most fantasy teams are so dependent on their top two or three draft picks that if one or two of them were to go down, their season would be lost (this logic is inherently flawed in its own right). By getting insurance for these fantasy studs, in theory, you can sleep easy at night knowing that you have mitigated risk if these guys were to get injured.

Step three: tell the site how much your league's entry fee is. There is also a separate line item for additional expenses, such as online fantasy related subscriptions, books, magazines, etc. Any expense you deem related to your fantasy season can be included.

Finally, you get your quote. I went through the process just to see how it worked, and I (fake) insured a three pack of Nelson Cruz, Aramis Ramirez, and Shane Victorino. My league fee is $500, and I spent an additional $120 on prep materials. My quote? $66, which is 10% of my expenses plus a $4 processing fee. This seems extremely reasonable to me. If I am spending 500 bucks on a baseball league, what's another $66 to insure against the worst case scenario. If your players meet the disabled list threshold, then you are paid your league entry fee plus expenses in full. For once it would be nice to not feel so helpless when one of my guys gets injured.

All in all, this is a super interesting idea, but not without some flaws.

First off, I have no idea if/how/when they validate the customer's fantasy information. For instance, if I went through with the above mentioned policy, and my players combined for the requisite 115 days on the DL, does a claims adjuster ask for my Sportsline login info and make sure these guys are actually on my team? Who is to stop me from looking at the list of players available to be insured, doing thorough research on their injury histories, and putting together any number of packages of guys I deem injury risks and just playing the injury market like its the Dow Jones? This can essentially be viewed as legalized gambling, no? Further, it is not like the players have different values. If you are on the list you are on the list and that is it. So, for instance, Aramis Ramirez has spent 73 days on the disabled list in the last three years. Jose Reyes? 173 DL days in the last three years. On the other hand, Hanley Ramirez has spent zero in that same time frame. All three of these players are on the list and are weighted equally. What is to stop me from taking out a policy on Reyes and A-Ram, saying I play in a $1500 entry fee league, and playing the odds that these two guys who spend more time on the DL than I do on Xbox Live will accumulate just ninety DL days?

What about verifying league fees? I don't get a receipt from the commissioner of my league, do you? It just seems to me like this can be used for other reasons besides insuring your fantasy team. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. Was this their intention? I'm very curious about that answer.

One more thing - for the most part, as with all insurance, I think this is a suckers bet and I will tell you why. The baseball season is roughly six months long. 180 days. A minimum DL stint is fifteen days. For a player or group of players to reach the minimum DL requirements in order to cash in on your policy they would most likely need to be out for the season as this is just as likely, if not more, than a forty or fifty day DL stint. But here is where the sucker bet comes in - on September 1st of every year MLB rosters expand their rosters from 25 players to 40. This is so clubs can call up minor leaguers and give them a taste of the Majors. However, when a player gets injured after 9/1, 99% of the time (unofficial stat) the player DOES NOT go on the disabled list due to all of the new found roster room and flexibility. No team needs forty roster spots, so there is no need to place an injured player on the DL and clear space for a fill-in. Can you imagine if you are not going to win your league, you're a few DL days short of hitting your insurance lottery, and on September 8th one of your insured players gets injured? Guess what - you're screwed. Really.

One more tangent - I think there should be insurance not only for injuries but for players sucking. Like, if you took Carlos Lee in the 3rd round of your draft, projected him to go .300/30/100 like he does every year, you should be able to get some money back when he is currently hitting .198/1/5 five weeks into the season. This seems more logical to me. Maybe the insurance company can create a projections system and you can insure your top players against coming within 30% of their projection or something like that.

Anyway, very cool idea and I wish I came up with it first. I just think there are latent agendas within the business model as well as some serious sucker bet potential.


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I Hate Injuries....On Mondays

In my non-keeper league (Team Cool HWIP), rosters lock for the week ten minutes before the first game on Monday. Last Tuesday I had two of my players, Nelson Cruz and Brett Anderson (my best hitter and pitcher, respectively, to date) hit the disabled list on Tuesday. Would it have been too much for their teams to make these transactions on Sunday? Or Monday morning? If I had known that Anderson would go on the DL, then I would have put Ian Kennedy in for him who pitched eight strong innings with seven strikeouts and got a win. All would have been huge for me. If Cruz, who had been battling hamstring issues for ten days, had gone on the DL twenty-four hours earlier, then I could have inserted Martin Prado into my lineup. I understand Prado is no Cruz, but I would have added an extra twenty-five at bats, five runs and two runs batted in to my season totals. Every single everything counts. So while you might think that playing with a couple of dead spots for a week is not the end of the world, I would disagree and tell you that I will remember this in October if I finish in second place by two points and an extra win and five strikeouts are the difference.

Fortunately, both of these players have relatively optimistic outlooks. Cruz, who was dealing with this hamstring issue on and off for a week or so before he hit the DL, is already running and taking batting practice and will be ready to return to action on or around his first day of eligibility, May 12th. Anderson's a little more tricky. When he left his start last Saturday, he claimed he had a cramp in his forearm and would make his next start. The A's officially called it a flexor strain in his forearm and put him on the DL three days later, which scared me to death. Reports are that the A's are just being super cautious with their young lefty ace and he should miss about four weeks total (one down, three to go), which means he should start throwing in about 7-10 days and then make a rehab start or two before returning. I am hoping for a Memorial Day-ish return.

Even while playing these two dead spots I was able to tread water and only lost a few spots in the standings over the week. Some guys picked up the slack (Adam LaRoche, Kelly Johnson, Hiroki Kuroda) while some continue to struggle badly (Aramis Ramirez, Brandon Phillips). The strugglers are seasoned vets who I have absolutely no worries about and within the next four to six weeks will have people hitting themselves for doubting them.

I had a strong start to the week last night with a big performance from Scotty Baker (7 ip, 3 ER, 6 K, W) and some contributions from all hitters (Kevin Youkilis homer and three runs, Adam LaRoche with a two RBI double, Denard Span with a two run triple) on a light scheduling night. I am currently at 103 points, about 27 out of first. My goal is to get up to 110 by the end of the week. Eventually that first place team will fall to the pack and the top three teams will battle in the 110-120 range. Assuming I can get Cruz and Anderson back relatively soon and then stay relatively healthy throughout, I have no reason to believe I won't be one of those teams. My team is built for the marathon. When healthy I do not have one non-catching weakness on offense (just picked up my fourth catcher of the year this week, Miguel Olivo with fiver homers and a steal so far - keep it up Miggy!!). I do not think i will dominate any one category, but I believe I can be fifth best or better in every category, which gives me a floor of 110 points. Pitching can be perceived as a weakness on paper, I guess. Especially with Anderson out. But I think Cole Hamels, who is pitching much better than his numbers indicate, will get back to ace status sooner rather than later. I think Kuroda and Kevin Slowey are such underrated, solid back of the rotation guys who will finish with sub-four ERA's, minuscule WHIP's due to their inherent pinpoint control, and fifteen plus wins due to playing on above average teams. Scott Baker, last night notwithstanding, is off to his usual slow start but he will find his groove (maybe last night was the start?) and settle in as a nice number three.

One random note from my keeper league where waivers run only once a week and we do a blind bidding auction process where every team has $35 to spend throughout the season, meaning there is a maximum of 35 add/drops you can make. Due to the limited transaction number, long term contracts, and no DL spots, there are some good players on the waiver wire and you need to weigh the pros and cons of cutting ties with certain guys. Last night I think I made what could be a big move. I picked up Erik Bedard, who had shoulder surgery last August and is due back at the end of this month. I cut Jason Hammel, who I had at $2 signed through 2011, so next year $1 of his salary will count against my salary cap. That part sucks, but I can take a $1 hit, especially for the upside that Bedard brings to the table. He is the classic "when he is healthy...." guy. If I can get eighty innings out of this guy I will be happy, because they will come with eighty plus strikeouts and good ratios.

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