Recently I have been neglecting my duties as Subway Chatter’s resident Mr. Fantasy. I am still the subject of countless women’s fantasies, but I haven’t provided any fantasy baseball advice since the season began. That streak will (sort of) come to an end today. But before I help you make your team better, let me help you make your league better.
It is probably too late for this season, but in the future do NOT provide the option for the league to vote down trades. Far too many people want to reject trades that, in their minds, are not COMPLETELY even. “These two players are pretty equal in AVG, OPS, steals and runs, but I think Player A will hit 2 more home runs than Player B so I can’t possibly allow this trade to go through.” In such a world nobody gets traded, and let’s face it, fantasy baseball without trades is boring – it might as well be fantasy NASCAR (yeah I was shocked to learn there was such a thing too). These “gods” of the fantasy sports world don’t allow for the fact that often times, owners are willing to accept a slightly lesser player in a trade in order to shore up a weak position or gain production in a stat they are lacking – therefore improving their team as a whole. And they can’t even fathom that perhaps they aren’t the authority on relative player values. Seemingly one-sided trades happen quite often in real sports – and sometimes they actually are one-sided, why can’t they be allowed to occur in fantasy sports?
Unless there is evidence of collusion, trades should NOT be rejected. Give the commissioner the power to reject the trade if there is such evidence, but otherwise, worry about your own damn team and let the other owners try to improve their teams in any way they see fit. Just because you weren’t able to detect Rob’s man-love for Ryan Braun and offer up a good trade before I got Hanley Ramirez and Cole Hamels from him for Braun and Barry “81 MPH fastball” Zito doesn’t give you the right to rally the other owners together and void our deal.
Here’s an example of why you should let trades go through: Many years ago I was in a league with a bunch of friends and after the draft my one friend who had man-breasts (not important to the story but I like to point it out when I can) was very unhappy with his second baseman situation – he didn’t have one. I, being the kind-hearted individual that I am, generously offered up Brett Boone for some pitching help. We did not have a league vote on trades in place. However the league message board immediately filled with whiney complaints about how I was ripping my top-heavy friend off. The commish put it to a vote and the trade was vetoed. Well that just happened to be the year Boone broke out with an MVP type season and the pitcher I tried to acquire went .500. Now you tell me, who would have had the better end of that deal, me or man-boobs? The moral of the story is: Don’t veto trades and if possible, don’t allow voting on trades in your league. And work out so you don’t have your man-jugs referenced numerous times on a website that sees 2-50 thousand (and hopefully climbing) hits a day six years after you got rid of them (for the most part).
We’re going to stay along those same lines while trying to help you improve your team. This isn’t going to be anything profound or season changing, but it could help put you over the edge. If you are like most players, you won’t make a trade unless you are clearly getting the better end of the deal. The problem is, unless you are playing with idiots, you won’t be able to pull off too many trades with that mindset. By now we’re more than a month into the season and you can certainly begin to see which categories and positions you are strong in and which ones could be your downfall. In need of a good closer because you put all of your eggs in the JJ Putz basket? Why not offer up your backup catcher that could start for most teams in the league to the team who’s relying on Jason Kendall to provide stats out of the catcher position but has six closers and is running away with saves. Who gets the better player? Who cares? Both teams improve. And if you are on the receiving end of this offer, TAKE IT! So what if you think K-Rod would be ranked higher overall than Joe Mauer, you don’t get extra points for doubling up on the second place team in saves. Think this is pretty obvious? Clearly it’s not, because not enough people do it. Peruse your opponents’ rosters and look for opportunities to offer up trades that will improve both teams. Also, if you are sent a trade offer that seems outrageous, instead of lambasting the jackass who had the audacity to send you such an insulting offer, simply make a counter offer using the player on your team that he is after, because now you know who this jackass wants, and maybe he’ll pay a premium for him. When you berate people for offering you Heath Bell for Chase Utley, though they deserve it, you discourage them from trading with you for the rest of the season. If you do that enough, you won’t have any trading partners, and trading is a critically important piece of fantasy baseball. Very rarely is the winning team made up of the same players its owner drafted.
There you have it, some simple advice from SC’s own Mr. Fantasy. Now about being every woman’s fantasy…
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