It’s that time again – time for our weekly Grading Trades column, and you know what that means. That’s right, we get to take a look at this week’s trades that went down across the fantasy baseball world and decide how much or how little we like them. We had quite a few fantasy baseball owners submit their trades and prospective trades to us, so thank you for that.
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I’m in full rebuild mode after having just taken over a team so I’m making a lot of moves early on to set my team up for success down the road. I traded away Nelson Cruz (OF/DH – SEA) and Ian Kinsler (2B – DET) for Charlie Blackmon (OF – COL). Grade my trade.
Yeah, we’ve all been there at some point or another. You take over a new team in a league and you’ve got your work cut out for you because the previous owner stopped caring about the team. For me being able to tear down and rebuild a fantasy baseball team is just an opportunity to showcase your skills as a fantasy baseball owner and knowledge of the game and your league. You get to effectively reshape a team to your liking and you are typically able to sell off older assets for cheaper, potentially better ones.
In this trade, that’s exactly what was done. Older assets such as Cruz and Kinsler were traded for Blackmon – someone that can hit for a high average, maintain a high OBP, hit for power, and could easily steal 30+ bases. On top of that, Blackmon was one of just seven players to provide above-average value in all five standard roto categories. He is a legit five-tool player for fantasy purposes and playing half his games at Coors Field will help lessen any impact of regression in speed and BABIP as he enters his age-30 season.
This trade isn’t just a win for the owner receiving Blackmon, though. The other team who received Cruz and Kinsler are going to be able to squeeze out the last bit of quality fantasy production from both these players for this season – likely helping them to compete for the playoffs.
12-team, H2H points redraft league. I have Michael Brantley (OF – CLE) and am considering trading him for Matt Harvey (SP – NYM).
I’m all for trying to buy low on Brantley and avoiding Harvey like the plague. And not just any standard plague – we’re talking Zika virus degrees of avoidance here.
Look, no one really knows whether Harvey will ever return to the form that made him a perennial Cy Young contender. In the final days of spring training Harvey’s fastball topped out at 97 mph and he was able to effectively throw his slider to both righties and lefties. There’s no question he has the stuff to perform at that level again, but the question you should be asking is how long will he hold up.
Thoracic Outlet Syndrome is no joke and has many causes, but for athletes it can be brought about by injuries or repetitive strain to a portion of the upper body (typically the arms). It’s unpredictable in the sense that Harvey could deal with serious fatigue or dead arm issues at some point this season. For me, I wouldn’t want to be the one left holding the bag on another season that is forced to end early for Harvey regardless of how great he could potentially be for the first however many weeks or months of the season.
Tyson Ross, Luke Hochevar, Phil Hughes, Mike Foltynewicz, Chris Carpenter, Jaime Garcia, Josh Beckett, Shaun Marcum, Matt Harrison, Clayton Richard, Noah Lowry, and Chris Young are all players who have dealt with this condition. The success they had after rehabbing or having surgery to correct the issue is certainly a mixed bag.
Finally, even though Brantley has been dealing with a lengthy recovery from a major shoulder injury and operation, he at least appears to be fully recovered and is more likely to stay healthy and contribute a full-ish season of baseball than Harvey in my opinion. Before his injury, Brantley was a legitimate five-category player in fantasy. He likely won’t be again, but don’t be surprised if he hits 15 home runs, steals around 10 bases, and gets on base at a top-10 rate for outfielders.
I’m in a custom scoring H2H league and we had a trade go down on Opening Day. The two people who made this trade have been accused in the past of making questionable trades and would like to get an opinion on it. Lance McCullers (SP – HOU) and Greg Bird (1B – NYY) for Corey Kluber (SP – CLE).
These kinds of situations are always tricky for fantasy baseball leagues to figure out. On the one hand, you have two owners who have a history of making questionable trades with one another. On the other, you don’t want to overreact to any trade they agree to because of any instances in the past.
For this particular trade, I’d say the value is close enough to where there isn’t any real collusion going on that would ruin the integrity of the league. However, it does strike me as a trade where one team owner is valuing the potential of two players a bit much given the season literally just started.
Bird, so far, is only owned in roughly 78% of fantasy leagues to begin the season and although he had a strong spring and is the starting first baseman for the New York Yankees – he’s also someone that you could likely find on the waiver wire at some point throughout the early parts of the season. Additionally, our ECR has him pegged as just the 18th best first baseman to begin the season and his expected production falls in line with the likes of Mike Napoli and Tommy Joseph.
As far as McCullers is concerned, if he were to pitch something close to 190 innings he could very well match Kluber in strikeouts. However, McCullers probably won’t get anywhere close to matching the innings Kluber contributes each season for at least another two seasons. Due to injury he made just 14 starts and pitched 78 2/3 innings last season. He was still really good, but health has to be a concern going forward.
That said, McCullers is also just 24 years old and plays on one of the best young teams in baseball. As long as McCullers stays healthy he could easily finish in the top 10 for strikeouts and ERA even if he were to only work 160 innings this year.
I wouldn’t call this collusion or even a grossly unfair trade. But, it does effectively feel like a swap of McCullers for Kluber with Bird acting as a throw-in piece considering there are other first baseman/corner infield types that are likely to match his offensive output to some degree this season that could be found on the waiver wire.
To satisfy that fantasy baseball itch that is making trades, we’re grading them as you submit them. Tweet us at @FantasyProsMLB with the trade details and use #FantasyBaseballTrades and we’ll let you know what we think about the deal.
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Lance Rinker is a correspondent at FantasyPros. For more from Lance, check out his archive or follow him @LanceMRinker.
