JASON COLLETTE BLOG

Three of the six months of the baseball season are now behind us. I will pause a minute to let you shed a tear - especially if you are a Mets fan or a fantasy owner of Jimmy Rollins or Jose Reyes. Cheer up - football season is right around the corner! Anyhow, here are the June Studs and Duds:

For pitchers with at least 20 IP in June, a peek at the Top Ten list for WHIP includes the likes of Jose Contreras, Bradley Bergeson, and Kevin Correia. All three were freely available on June 1st in nearly every league. Never underestimate the power of the free agent pile during the summer. Conversely, Derek Lowe had the fifth worst WHIP of the month thanks to a .366 BABIP. Lowe is one of the steadiest pitchers year by year in this game so it is a great time to ask for him if you don't own him yet.

I will give you five guesses as to what pitcher led all of baseball in K/9 in the month of June. Nope, not Jon Lester. Nope, not A.J. Burnett. Nope, not Tim Lincecum and nope, not Yovani Gallardo. Try Chad Gaudin. He is still 4-6 on the season with a 4.97 ERA but 74 K's in 70 innings on the year is quite nice and if he can improve his LOB%, he has even more value in the second half.

Did you enjoy the 2.48 ERA from Tommy Hanson this month? How about the 3.72 from Micah Owings or the 1.30 from Kevin Millwood? I hope you got your fill of them because those three pitchers had the three largest differences between their ERA and their FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) ERA in the month of June. Hanson's FIP was 2.63 runs higher than his ERA, Owings 2.39, and Millwood 2.32. Flip it around and Paul Maholm's 3.24 FIP is much better than his 5.52 ERA in June - and the aforementioned Chad Gaudin's 3.66 FIP beats the 5.23 ERA he had this month. Go buy.

For hitters with at least 40 at bats this month:

The KungFu Panda, Pablo Sandoval, finished second on the month in OPS trailing only King Albert Pujols because MLB must have sent out a note to teams to throw Pujols as many strikes as possible so he can break Bonds's single season home run record. How else can you explain why pitchers even bother to throw him strikes with the crap the Cardinals have hitting behind him?

Congrats to Adam Rosales, Ronny Cedeno, Austin Kearns, Willy Taveras, Ben Francisco, Kelly Johnson, and Ryan Roberts who all had OPS's below .400 in the month of June. Kelly Johnson continues to debunk the Age 27 theory all by himself in a very big way.

Chris Snyder, Austin Kearns, Adam Rosales, and Ronny Cedeno went the entire month without an extra base hit. Good lord - even Jason Kendall had an extra base hit in June! Conversely, Miguel Olivo finished second behind guess who with a .419 IsoP in June. The KungFu Panda was third while the red hot Andre Ethier came in 4th with a solid .362 IsoP score. A quick did you know - for all the talk of Ben "The Zorilla" Zobrist this month, Travis Ishikawa has a higher Isolated Power than both Zobrist and even Russell Branyan.

A special congratulations to Jack Cust whose strike out total was more than twice his hit total in the month of June which led to a .173 batting average. Still, nobody drafted him for that so the six homers and sixteen RBI this month is in line with what people drafted.

One of the best things I love about the fantasy baseball community are some of the friendships I have made throughout the years. Some of these friendships grew out of debates in the old fantasy sports newgroup and some have come from my days as we grew RotoJunkie from a HTML project into the message board it is today. One such friendship I have is with my buddy John Hoyos. He was a prolific poster and writer at RotoJunkie before his lucrative career in micro-brew sales (could there be a better job?) took off. He has always been one of the writers I enjoyed reading because he has a sharp wit and I have always found his pieces to be quite engaging. Of course, I have been begging him to come out of the darkness to write again and lo and behold, the following piece shows up in my inbox this morning. I am hoping this is a sign of more things to come from one of my fellow Tout Wars participants, my Boxscore Hungry Freaks mixed league, and most importantly, my friend. With that, I bring you, "What Fehr is Fehr"

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Anyone who knows baseball knows that Mondays are generally a slow baseball night. If you're lucky, once a month, there's a full slate of games. This is not one of those Monday nights. I'm stuck with the Cardinals at the Mets or Game 7 of the '65 World Series between the Twins and the Dodgers. Frankly, Sandy Koufax is much more interesting to this Yankee and Nationals fan.

But the predictability of the 44-year-old World Series lost a lot of its luster when Zoilo Versalles came to the plate in the 4th inning. I instantly said, "Who?" and then raised my eyebrows even further when MLB Network flashed on the screen that Versalles was the AL MVP in 1965. Later research revealed that teammate Tony Oliva was the only person besides Versalles to receive a first place vote - Oliva got one and Versalles got all the rest. (Versalles was the AL leader in triples from 63-65 and hit 273/319/462 with 19 HRs and 27 Steals in 1965 all at the age of 25. He got hurt in 1966 and was never the same again. He was out of baseball by the time he was 32.)

So I searched through the on-screen guide to find that Versus was showing Eight Men Out; the movie based on the book that first told a good portion of the story of the gambling scandal involving the 1919 Chicago White Sox. John Cusack did a nice job of protesting Buck Weaver's innocence. DB Sweeney did a nice job of making folding chairs look intelligent through his portrayal of Shoeless Joe. You've seen pictures.

An enjoyable flick nevertheless and it reminded me of what baseball was going through at the time. The world had been through some trouble and Americans were turning to baseball as either an escape or a distraction. Baseball had been deterred and limited the year prior and owners shortened the number of games in the schedule. The players felt they were being paid an unfair wage because there was no free agency; teams had reserve clauses that they could use on players as many times as they liked. The governing body of the Major Leagues had very little real power mainly because they had looked the other way on previous gambling problems, not wanting to garner the negative publicity. Yes, power and greed were running somewhat rampant at that time. Some players were so disgusted with the lack of respect and appropriate compensation from owners that they did something about it.

Donald Fehr, head of the MLB Players Association, announced his resignation on Monday after serving that capacity for more than 25 years. Odd timing, I think, to make public these intentions during a baseball season. It seems that like many other times during Fehr's career, however, it's not about public perspective, it's about his perspective. His perspective is that he wants to prepare the union for the transition to his successor. With the current labor agreement set to expire after 2011, he doesn't want to go through another set of negotiations. Creating new leadership over this coming winter will allow the union to go forward with negotiations after the 2010 season. More importantly, it will give time for the new union head to get used to playing with the marionette strings attached to Bud Selig.

I realize this seems a little disjointed so far, but there's a method to my madness; let's see if I can't tie it all together for you. Over the past fifteen years, we've had major world events that have forced war twice. These helped drive baseball attendance back through the roof because people have been looking for an escape or a distraction. Baseball was forced to cancel a third of one season and shorten the following season. The governing body of baseball has very little real power mainly because they looked the other way when steroids were running rampant through baseball. Owners did not want the negative publicity and the increased power displays were drawing more crowds. Power and greed were running rampant at the time. The players were so disgusted with the lack of respect and appropriate compensation from owners that they did something about it.

Wait a second - this all sounds really familiar. Granted, the circumstances are really different and the players weren't that grossly underpaid as they were 90 years ago. (By 1994, player salaries had doubled since 1990. They've tripled since 1994 to the point where the average player is making more than $3.2 million this year.) But some feel that players have cheated, just as they did then, and there's some question as to which players have cheated - so much so that we may never know the real truth.

Some players have been punished for their actions albeit not to the same severity. (Free Joe Jackson. Free Buck Weaver.) Some legacies have been forever tainted by scandal.

And lest we forget and ignore the owners, these were the biggest control and power freaks of all. Manipulating the legal system to their benefit and cheating players out of bonuses that could have easily been earned. Some might argue, and with good reason, that baseball is in the mess it's in now because of the actions of the early owners of the game. They were practically begging the players to unionize with that reserve clause. Had they not been so greedy, baseball would definitely be in a better position today.

In fact, it was because of the Black Sox scandal that the office of Commissioner was created, instituted by owners who wanted to clean up the game. Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis did that and much more, creating rules and discipline in the best interest of the sport. While not everything Landis did was great for the game, the game needed an authoritative hand - a parental unit to slap the child upside the hide. Baseball prospered in the years following the 1919 gambling scandal. Perhaps this is what baseball needs now to clear itself of the steroid "era" once and for all - an independent third party that will unilaterally rule in the best interests of the game.

Of course, you'll never get the owners or the union to agree to give so much power to the Commissioner and you'd probably need a court order and a crow bar to remove Bud Selig. True, it's unrealistic in our current litigious society that a commissioner of MLB would be able to rule without question or challenge the way Landis did. But I know I'm not the only one that thinks something needs to change. I just wish I knew what that change was. Here's hoping we find out sooner rather than later.

Good-bye Donald Fehr and thank you for riding off into the sunset. Your self-serving interests have helped damage our national pastime to a point from which we may never be able to recover. May your successor be willing to do more for the good of the game. Somehow, I doubt it.

If you would like to discuss this article more, please do so here.

Dear Mr. Gardenhire,

On the behalf of Scott Baker owners in rotisserie leagues everywhere, I would like to file a formal complaint in regards to your handling of Scott Baker in late innings.

I understand the desire to conserve the bullpen for later in the year or even to hide a bullpen that currently sits in the bottom half of the league in overall production, but the statistics argue against your usage of Baker in last night's game as well as other games this season. Admittedly, some of Baker's faults this year are definitely his own doing, but some of his ERA and a few losses by the Twins can be directly attributed to his usage.

According to the splits provided by Baseball-Reference.com, Baker's splits are rather drastic once he reaches 75 pitches in a contest. The table below shows the splits at that break point:



As you can see, there are some dramatic jumps in Baker's statistics starting at pitch 76. Opponents hit 40 points higher slug 76 points higher, and Baker's normally stellar strikeout to walk ratio plummets down to a pedestrian level. This is why it was rather surprising to see Baker come out to start the 7th with his pitch count already at 93 pitches. Three batters later, you were forced to yank him with two runners on and then the pen was unable to strand those runners. This is a pattern that we've now seen for a third time this season when you include last night:

May 3rd - Baker comes in to start the 7th at 84 pitches holding a 4-0 lead. Two different sets of back to back singles book end a three-run homerun by Guillen which chases Baker with 2 runners on and Ayala fails to strand either of the inherited runners furthering the damage.

May 29th - Baker was at 85 pitches when he came out for the 6th in a 1-1 tie game. Back to back singles followed by a home run, then a double after a pop out and a strikeout chased Baker at 96 pitches.

By my count, your management of Baker has cost your team three wins - not to mention some inflated ERA's for us fantasy players. If you had removed Baker in these three situations and handed it over to the pen, Baker would have a 4.23 ERA on this season despite his early season struggles and his problems with homers this year.

While I understand the pen has had it struggles, nearly all of them have better odds in doing better with their first 25 pitches than Baker has doing with his last 25. The next time the situation presents itself, take Baker out of the game and let the bullpen do what they are paid to do. If we assume the Twins win each of the three games in which Baker has been extended into his statistical danger zone, the Twins would only trail the Tigers by a half a game at this point.

Signed,

Concerned fans.

So far in the month of June, baseball is collectively hitting twelve points lower in June than the previous two months, slugging twenty points lower, and are on pace to drive in around 600 runs less than they did in the month of May. Here are some players that we all have in our lineups right now that are contributing mightily to the June swoon in offensive production:

Mike Cameron has struck out in 46% of his at bats this month and owns a .122 batting average along with a .489 OPS. A two game suspension should be a blessing for his fantasy owners.

Aubrey Huff has a .000 Isolated Power rating in June. He has zero extra base hits and it hitting .225 on the month. His last homer was on May 15th and his last extra base hit was on May 28th.

Until earlier tonight, Willy Taveras was 0 for the entire month of June!

Russell Martin still is disappointing many fantasy owners with his .111 SLG% in the month of June.

Miguel Olivo has not earned a walk in 35 at bats this month but has struck out 12 times, including at least once in each of his last 5 games.

Now that David Ortiz is hitting again, it is time to start leaning on Vladimir Guerrero. The .302 average is nice for June, but the .075 Isolate Power rating is way off what roto owners drafted him for.

The Twins have given Delmon Young 38 at bats in June and like Olivo, has yet to earn a walk and has struck out in 34% of his at bats while "slugging" .316.

Lest we forget the pitchers who are stinking up the joint this month:

Bartolo Colon has permitted 5 homers, and 7 earned runs in just over 10 innings.

Wandy Rodriguez has been worse - 9 homers and 14 earned runs in 16 June innings.

Before his promotion to AAA, opponents were hitting .439 against Manny Parra.

Diasuke Matsuzaka might have a good strikeout rate this month and a low walk rate (finally), but a .357 opponent's batting average and a 1.84 WHIP has led to a 6.14 ERA. Part of his troubles - a 40% line drive rate.

Johan Santana's 9.56 ERA in June has the New York media scampering for explanations.

I will admit that I am totally perplexed by Manny Parra. He was one pitcher I tried to acquire in a lot of leagues this year because I was quite impressed with how he ended last season. Ignore the fact that I even traded him in a league this past off-season to a guy who still leads our NL league despite the fact he has had Parra active for most of this disastrous season.

For those not familiar with Parra's career path, he was a 26th round draft pick who was ranked as high as the 69th best prospect in baseball back in 2004. He had an awesome 2003 season in the Midwest League going 11-2 with a 2.73 ERA and a 1.09 WHIP but ran into some injuries after that and didn't really resurface until the end of the 2006 season in AA with 31 strong innings. In 2007, he picked up where he left of and between AA and AAA, went 10-4 and struck out 106 while walking 33 in just under 107 innings. 2008 was up and down and 2009 has been way down.

Let's take a look at his month by month breakdown since last June:




If we look at Parra'stats in a month by month breakdown, some disturbing trends emerge. Take away the short sample size of this current month and Parra's walkrate has been climbing since the end of last year from 2.7 in August to 5.8 at the end of May. His 3.3 K/BB ratio in August fell all the way down to 1.4 and he has not stranded an acceptable number of runners since last August. To compare his 2008 stats to his 2009 stats, you get some rather unpleasant results:

Hit rate up from 9.8 to 11.6
Homerun rate up from 1.0 to 1.3
Walk rate up from 4.1 to 5.7
Strikeout rate down from 8.0 to 7.
WHIP up to 1.92 from 1.54
K/BB down to 1.3 from 2.0
LOB% down to 60% from 71%
BABIP up to .367 from .337
Opp BA up to .313 from .279
FIP up to 4.77 from 4.11
G/F down to 1.30 from 1.94

When things are going that wrong, there are a few things we can look at such as velocity, pitch types, and a peek at pitch f/x data.

According to fangraphs.com, Parra's fastball velocity is averaging 90.9 mph this year which is down from the 92.4 he avaraged last year. His second most frequent pitch is his changeup, and last year, he had a full 8pm different in the velocity between his fastball and his changeup. This year, he has less than that and a pitcher typically wants at least 8mph separation from their fastball velocity on a changeup. His pitch selection has not varied too much as he is using his fastball the same amount, but has cut down on his curves and splitters in favor of his changeup which he is throwing eight percent more than last year.

Brooksbaseball.net provides great pitchFX data and here is what they have for Parra's release points in his disastrous start yesterday:



while here is one from a solid start back on August 10th of last year versus the Nationals:



He appears to have dropped his arm slot somewhat as last year, his release point was often between 0 and 1 feet while this season it is almost always between 1 and 2 feet. I will leave the true injury analysis to the experts but when I see a loss in velocity and a change in arm angle, I wonder if there is a shoulder issue that is holding Parra back? After all, Parra had a history of shoulder-related troubles as a minor leaguer and had shoulder surgery back in 2005.

Of course, all of this is really for naught as the Brewers have sent Parra down to AAA today as I was just about to publish this and they are not guaranteeing he will be back up when the club needs a fifth starter later this month. Maybe the time in Nashville will give him time to rediscover what he had for a time last year - like it did Ricky Nolasco last month - or we might have seen the last of Parra with the Brewers for awhile. His fantasy owners who have witnessed him personally destroy their ERA and WHIP totals will not miss him.

If you want to quickly get my blood boiling, start talking about trade vetoes. Personally, I think a trade veto is the worst thing in fantasy baseball by far - far worse than being forced to roster Adam Eaton. To me, it is a deal breaker because I see vetoes as restrictor plates to fantasy leagues that do not permit them to grow to their full potential. Trade vetoes prohibit owner improvement and do more to foster ill will within leagues than they do to promote goodwill in the league.

I do not read many books because a huge majority of my reading comes from online sources but the books I do enjoy are motivational type books and my favorite motivational author is Larry Winget. What I like about Winget's writing style is that he is brutally honest. He will call you an idiot when you need to hear it and I am about to lay some brutal honesty on you about vetoes. I have run this meme before - about six years over at RotoJunkie.com and a good e-friend of mine, after reading my theory, said I was the type of person he would run over if I walked out into traffic. I have several reasons why vetoes are the worst decision a league can make and here they are:

It is MY team. I am paying anywhere from $50 to $250 to have the privilege in the league so I should be able to as I choose with my team, especially if it is in a keeper league. If you want to tell me what I can or cannot do with my roster, then pay my league dues for me. Look at major league baseball - we have seen some awful, awful, awful trades this decade and we have not seen baseball exercise its veto power since Charlie Finley was running a team. When I pay a fee to join the league, that should give me the right to do with my team as I see fit. If you do not like what I do, do not invite me back last year. I will give you my favorite trade veto story - and it comes from an NFL league in the 90's. The league had a trade review rule in place but it was so extreme that it required 10 of the 14 owners to complain to have the committee convene. Two owners struck a deal where one traded Jerry Rice and a second player to get Randall Cunningham - who was still the backup in Minnesota. As soon as it happened, the message board lit up with charges of rip off and ten owners filed a protest. We had to convene the trade committee and then told the two owners the trade would only stick if the other owner would give him Brad Johnson in the deal and the two teams ended up killing the deal. Not a week later, Cunningham took over the starting job in Minnesota and went nuts with Randy Moss and Cris Carter while Jerry Rice struggled that year.

Do not protect owners from their own stupidity. Fantasy owners will never learn from their mistakes if you do not permit them to make them. My first ever fantasy trade was dealing a hurt Larry Walker, who was in Colorado, for Steve Trachsel. I had no idea what I was doing but I needed pitching when I took over a team in the middle of the year so I made that trade. It was the dumbest trade of the 1990's in our league, but I learned from it - kind of a crash course in fantasy trading if you will. You have to permit owners to make bad trades so they learn how to better evaluate players before trading for them. If you continue to shelter owners with vetoes, your owners and your league will never reach its maximum potential.

Vetoes are for whiners Every league has owners with mixed attitudes toward trading. I am a very progressive trader - I'll trade just about anything on any day if you catch me in the right frame of mind. I have owners in my league who have made the same amount of trades in the past five seasons that I have made in the past five weeks. I am not saying that any one persuasion to trading is better than the other but there should be a separation of your beliefs from the league beliefs. If you are a staunch conservative who believes that you win with the team you drafted, that does not give you the right to veto every trade that comes across the wire. If you are an ultra liberal trader who would trade your own kids if it meant winning a league title, that does not give you the right to veto a trade that does not involve you. The best way to avoid this problem is to always keep the trade lines open. I am not advocating throwing out a bunch of crappy offers to owners, but keep asking about player availability throughout the season. If you do not ask, you do not know if that owner is willing to move a player. If the dumping team knows you are interested in that player, they'll reach out to you before making what could be perceived as a very bad offer with another team (see Pirates and McLouth deal this week). I guarantee there are a couple of general managers in the league that are irritated for not talking to the Pirates about McLouth.

If you think back to the trade vetoes in your league, they've probably led to some epic message board back and forths as well as an owner eventually leaving the league out of frustration. I don't blame them - I've done it. The only reason a veto should ever be enacted in a league where the rule exists is if you can prove outright collusion. If you exercise a veto on me, you are making a personal attack on my character accusing me of cheating my friends in the league to earn some percentage of the final league payout whether it be the first place purse or a side payout after the league from the gracious first place team. Tell me how I am not supposed to take that personally?

OK, enough blood boiling. My flight is landing and it is officially time to start my well deserved vacation!

Remember what I said the other day about shopping players around before trading them? Apparently the Pirates front office is not a fan of my blog. I am trying to figure out what the motivation was to sell Nate McLouth so quickly because his contract was affordable - even for the low budget Pirates organization.


Cot's Baseball Contracts site has McLouth's deal as:

2009: remaining on $2,000,000
2010: $4,500,000
2011: $6,500,000
2012: $10,650,000 or $1,250,000 buyout

If the Pirates bought out that last year or waited to trade him until the 2011 off-season, McLouth would have only cost them $13,000,000 over the next three years. One would assume that type of contract would be able to bring in a bigger return than Jeff Locke, Charlie Morton, and Gorkys Hernandez. Can Hernandez and McCutchen co-exist in the same outfield? Hernandez should be a future leadoff hitter for the Pirates in a couple of years once he arrives - a lot like Nyjer Morgan is doing for them now. He had shown good leadoff skills prior to 2009 but he's struggling in AA this year with a walk rate down to 7% and a strikeout rate up to 26%.

The Pirates are continually in need of pitching so Locke and Morton make sense in that regard. Morton is 25 years old and probably goes into the rotation now. He is 12-4 in his last 23 AAA appearances with an ERA below 2.50. He struggled mightily last year when the Braves had him in the rotation and his minor league career ERA is 4.24 with a 4.2 walk rate and a 1.43 WHIP. Locke is 17-20 with a 4.01 ERA and a 1.29 WHIP in 278 minor league innings. He is pitching at the very friendly Myrtle Beach park this year but his numbers do not show it as he is 1-4 with a 5.52 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP. He has struck out 43 batters but has also walked 26 and has given up 6 wild pitches in just under 46 innings.

It was doubtful that McLouth was going to stay in Pittsburgh but I just don't see the "WOW" factor in this offer that would make me take it without shopping McLouth's contract to contending teams. This is one of those deals you have to wait out 18-24 months to fully grade out but it definitely tilts heavily toward the Braves through at least 2010. Meanwhile the Braves made many fantasy owners pitch a tent in their pants by calling up Tommy Hanson, who will start in Saturday's game. Hanson has been dominating in AAA so the move is not surprising. Kris Medlen will move to the pen to make room for Hanson. Sadly for the Braves, the moves also required the Braves to release icon Tom Glavine. Here is to hoping the hall of fame voters do not count this as an active year and put Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine in the hall at the same time.

Speaking of the hall of fame, I will be there in person on Sunday for my 5th visit so I will have some pics and stories to tell once I get back.

I know it looks like I am on this kick about trades right now, but that's where my own fantasy life is right now. In the leagues I am in, I am either high on the hog or in the trough this year so I'm both the dumper and the dumpee in leagues right now.

Given the mix of leagues I play in, I have to be sensitive to the personalities - especially in the leagues where my offers can be made public fodder by other fantasy experts :). This year, I am involved in six different leagues:

-AL Tout Wars with 11 of the best guys in the business. I have some incriminating pictures of some people in charge so I got a spot.

-Twitter #roto experts league. Me (@jasoncollette) and many other of the #roto people on Twitter decided to put a league together. It is a 12 team mixed league

-I was invited to do another expert AL only league by the nice guys at fantasypros911.com and the prize for winning was a 3 day cruise to the Bahamas. As someone who has lived in Florida for most of his life but has never been on anything
more than the Rivership Romance cruise on the St. John's river, how could I say no?

-My local 10 team AL and NL only leagues with guys I have known dating back to my undergraduate days at UCF.

-A 15 team mixed league with the former owners and staff from RotoJunkie.com and some of their buddies they've known going back to college.

I am dominating my local AL league and am in a solid second place in the 15 team league after falling out of my seven week hold of first place to start the season. In the other leagues, I'm no better than 9th place and I have a bunch of excuses I can give you but that's all they are - excuses. Everyone deals with injuries and
under-performers but it is a perfect storm when they all end up on your roster at the same time. That said, I have been doing a lot of work with trades in the month of May as I try to fix problems or strengthen up my team to distance myself from my competitors. In my last blog entry, I talked about the importance of shopping around because the worst thing a guy can tell you is "no."

In my local NL league, I have thrown a lot of bodies at the problems on my roster, but it has been comparable to plugging a leaky roof with duct tape. For every hole I fixed, two more would be created. I missed draft day because it connflicted with Tout Wars so my roster wasn't exactly how I would have liked it to be, but then again I could not have planned for all the malaise that hit my roster. I tried to fix it and
traded studly prospects like Madison Bumgarner, Pedro Alvarez, Jason Heyward, and Michael Taylor (if you don't have the last one on your roster - get him now).

However, when I woke up Friday and saw my squad in 8th place - 23 points out of a money spot and 22 of the 40 guys on my roster either had the dreaded red cross or the slumping along with a last place standing in four of the ten categories, it was time to call it a year.

I put up quite a list on the auction block which included guys such as Vazquez, Wainwright, Lidge, Gregg, Hart, and other guys that can help teams make the money. I have my eyes on two particular players that happen to be on the same team - Joey
Votto and Justin Upton. This team is dead last in wins and saves but has excellent hitting. Of course, if I had a 2nd year Votto and Upton at $4, I would not trade them either but again, the worst thing this owner can say is no. Meanwhile, I am lining up other deals with other competing teams as I do not expect the Upton and Votto owner is going to take too long to give me a response.

The responses I have received so far have covered the spectrum from very competitive offers to headscratchers, but I approach them all with the same tact.

Step 1: Thank the other owner for taking the time to send the offer. I do not care how bad it is, but compliment before criticizing. Fantasy owners are finicky people and if you napalm a bridge over an offer you perceive as bad, that bridge may never be rebuilt. I know of one fantasy owner in my league who has not made a deal with another one going on five years now over a slighted comment that did not sit well. Personally, I have never let any kind of comment stick in my craw that long, but to each their own.

Step 2: Constructively criticize the offer. When I send an offer, I will always offer how I see it helping out both rosters and I appreciate it when others do the same. However, that is not always the case so when I perceive an offer as a lopsided one, the second part of my reply will be to say, "I think this could definitely help you
in _____ and _______, but I am not seeing where it really helps my team out nearly as much. Am I off-base here?" This gives the other guy the opportunity to defend him position on the trade or realize it might not have been something that should have been sent out in the first place.

Step 3: Counter. Negotiations are always a back and forth. Dismissing a trade offer out of pocket with a quick comment does not do anything to build the trade talk. A good strategy is to offer something back to the owner that you feel is equally slanted in your favor as his offer was to you. There is a chance that this back and forth can bring you both to a common ground, or you agree to disagree and move on.

The key is - trades are the best way to fix your team in season and if you have poor trade skills, you can quickly lose your best supply chain during the season.

Birds are chirping
The sun is shining
Rainbows highlight the sky
People actually want to attend a game at Camden Yards again
Expectations - could not possibly be higher. Well, expect for fantasy owners who have been sitting on this guy all season crying for his callup.

Enjoy folks - he's here.



image from ianolandwaydesign.com

No offense to my female readers, but men, here me out. I know you have, at least once in the last month, had to chastise your better half for an impulse buy. If your significant other is like mine, she cannot walk out of a Target empty handed. She will see some cute shirt for our daughter or some toy for our son that wasn't on the shopping list but some how ends up in the shopping cart. Maybe it is just me because I am the worst shopper imaginable for a retailer. I will run the numbers, look at unit costs, and compare prices online before I buy anything. I got burned with a couple of impulse buys in my younger days so I am now very analytical with each dollar I spend when I allow it to leave my grubby little hands.

If you think I'm tight with money, you should see me with players on my fantasy roster. I can tell you the exact date of my last impulse trade in fantasy baseball - it was April 26th, 2004. It was the 2nd season of our local NL-Only league and I was the defending champ. I got off to an awful start in homers and in an impulse move I traded for J.J. Hardy, Ryan Klesko, and Brian Buchanan. I gave up Odalis Perez, David Aardsma (I was 5 years early on him), and some prospect named David Wright who I thought was another 18 months away from contributing. Oops.

I don't recall if I did that deal over some beers on a Saturday or what but I let my guard down and did an impulse trade that still haunts me to this day as David Wright is finally in the last year of a deal in our league this season. Did I mention I had Wright at $4 once he started in the majors?

Enough about my issues - back on topic. Fellas - I implore you to treat your team as you treat your wife at the store. One of the biggest mistakes I see fantasy players make is taking the first offer that comes across the inbox to them when they decide they want to trade a certain player. I will see several trades each year where my first reaction is, "that's all he went for? I would have given him ____________." I'm sure others have that same reaction when they see a deal as well. If you are at a point this season where you are dumping or looking to take advantage of someone dumping, do not be in such a hurry that you take the first thing thrown at you.

In my highly competitive 15 team mixed league, an owner sent me an unsolicited offer of highly priced David Wright and Ichiro Suzuki for my very friendly priced Joey Votto and Jay Bruce. I declined the offer and said I could consider trading Bruce but I needed help in batting average, WHIP or ERA - the three categories that have combined to earn me fifteen points this season. He countered with an offer of Ichiro Suzuki for Bruce that clearly fit one of my needs. I liked the offer a lot but with a valuable Bruce, I decided to shop around to the league before pulling the trigger. Fifteen minutes after my league-wide trade inquiry, I had five offers for Bruce to review and I ended up trading him, Matt Capps, Shairon Martis, and John Baker for Victor Martinez and Derek Lowe. Just by shopping around a player before buying him, I was able to get two players that addressed all three of my needs.

If you are going to take the time to make a deal, take the extra time to make sure it is the best deal you can get.