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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