Fantasy Baseball Today - Fantasy Trading 101; Adam Eaton Deep Dive (04/15 Fantasy Baseball Podcast)

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

We're giving you all the tools you need to make trades in your fantasy leagues, but first we honor the great Jackie Robinson on Jackie Robinson Day (2:35). How would Jackie Robinson's 1949 MVP season rank in today's game? ... Another day, another deep dive and today we're taking a look at Adam Eaton (6:25). Is Eaton just a guy? Is he undervalued for 2020? ... We begin our trade discussion with trading etiquette (16:15). What are the dos and don'ts when trading? What is a "classic Frank two-for-one"? ... What are the biggest differences when trading in a points league vs. roto league (26:35)? ... Are there ethics involved when trading in Fantasy (34:20)? Is it okay to take advantage of the worst owner in your league? ... How should you approach trades in dynasty/keeper leagues (41:42)? Find out how Scott stays ahead of his competition in those formats. ... Email us at [e-mail]. 'Fantasy Baseball Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox and wherever else you listen to podcasts.  Follow our FBT team on Twitter: @CBSFantasyBB, @AdamAizer, @CTowersCBS, @CBSScottWhite, @Roto_Frank Join our Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/fantasybaseballtoday For more fantasy baseball coverage from CBS Sports, visit https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/baseball/ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Download our printable Draft Kit from CBSSports.com/draftkit! To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Fantasy Baseball Today podcast from CBS Sports. One, one pitch, basketball pulled and passed. Alvarez and twilight. Got a fantasy question? Email Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. Get ready to win your league. Where fantasy becomes reality. Now here's Adam, Scott, Heath, and Chris.

Welcome everybody to Fantasy Baseball today. It's Wednesday, April 15th. Frank here, joined by Scott and Chris. And it's not just any Wednesday. It's Heath Cummings's birthday No, Heath isn't on the show today But make sure to tweet at him And send him a happy birthday message

And tell him Frank sent you Guys, we get lots of emails about Heath So I just thought, you know, we'd start off the show With a little shout out here at the top I would ask if you guys miss Heath But for the most part, you guys still work with him At least Chris does at least Well, you know, if

If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic that has shut the whole country down. Scott would see Heath. No, probably not. Heath took off pretty early and you get there pretty late when you're in there. So I don't think you would be seeing Heath much anyway. Heath and I go long stretches without seeing each other. That's for sure.

Although I tend to think of today more as my mom's birthday, but you're not going to be able to shout out to her on Twitter. So yeah, just stick with Heath. That's good. All right, happy birthday, Heath. Happy birthday, Mrs. White. And it's also Jackie Robinson Day. So on a more, you know, serious note, you know, it's obviously, it's a huge day.

I mean, it's, you know, you broke the color barrier back in, back on April 15, 1947. And, you know, sports, everything, how we kind of know it now today in 2020. I mean, Jackie Robinson remains a pillar of hope and bravery and opportunity. So I just wanted to, you know, kind of remember Jackie Robinson here at the top. It is Jackie Robinson today today. It's unfortunate that we can't watch, you know, baseball on a day like today and have everyone running around in number 42 jerseys.

But I thought that I would give you guys a little fun fact about Jackie Robinson. Since 1947, Jackie Robinson's 1949 season is the ninth most valuable fantasy season for a hitter since that time. In 1949, his MVP season, he hit 342 with a 432 on-base percentage, 16 home runs, 122 runs scored, 124 RBI, 37 steals that was worth $46 in a 5x5 roto auction. To put that in perspective,

Ronald Acuna was the most valuable hitter in 2019, which was just the 65th best offensive output since 1947. Acuna last year hit 280 with 41 home runs, 127 runs, 101 RBI, and 37 steals that was worth about 3,000. $39 in a 5-by-5 roto auction. So, based on the numbers, they don't lie, Scott. Jackie Robinson would be a first-round pick if he were playing in today's game. Did you figure this out yourself, or did you find, did you see it somewhere?

No, so this is according to Razball's Player Raider. So you can look from, you can basically sort it from like 1903 to 1946 and then 1947 through present day. and they kind of, they map it out in terms of like auction value, how much each season was worth. And yeah, Jackie Robinson has the ninth most valuable offensive fantasy season since 1947. That sounds like a fun tool. I might have to check that out. Those razzballers, they're good for more than just razzing people, apparently. Chris.

Yeah, just, Jackie Robinson was, like, they're, I almost feel like he's a little underappreciated as an actual baseball player. because he was such an important figure and such a great man. But just as a baseball player only, he was an unbelievably good player, one of the best of all time. And really, Major League Baseball, in my opinion, didn't start until Jackie Robinson played his first game. It's not the game we know until then. So it's an incredibly important day. I wish we had baseball today to celebrate him.

right now. Absolutely. Today on the show, we are going to deep dive at a meeting. We're going to give you a little bit of a crash course on trading, a little trading 101, if you will, how to make a trade in each format, what you should be looking for in a trade partner in Roto, in a points league, in Dynasty. I want to get your thoughts, guys, on fire sales in Keeper Leagues, because that's become a bit of an issue in some of the Keeper Leagues that I plan. So we'll do all that today. And listener questions. Fantasy baseball at CBSI.com. We will get to your questions. I promise. I'm not promising to try my best. I promise that today on the show, we will get to your questions later on. But first, a deep dive. Uh-oh. Scott. Broken promises. I can feel them coming. Go ahead with your deep dive.

No matter where we are at the 50-minute mark, I am cutting you off. I'm cutting myself off. And we are getting two listener questions. Adam Eaton in 2019. This was, was one that was requested via Apple Podcast Review. Again, continue to send those in. Last season, Adam Eaton hit 279 with 15 home runs, 103 runs scored, just 49 RBI, and 15 stolen bases. He was one of 29 players who scored 100-plus runs last season. He was outfielder 37 in Roto.

He averaged 3.0, 3 on the dot, fantasy points per game in points leagues, and that was tied for 30th among outfielders with Ramon Loreano and Shinsu Choo Choo. He currently has an ADP of 202. He is the 56th outfielder off the board, according to fantasy pros. And it was really just a matter of staying healthy, I believe, for Adam Eaton last season. He played 151 games. That was the most he's played since 2016. That was back when he was on the White Sox.

So this is the most games that he's played in a season with the Washington Nationals. and I've heard Adam Azer, not Adam Eaton, mention the splits for Eaton, but he actually hit 290 with a 787 OPS against Lefties in 2019, and for his career he owns a 713 OPS versus Lefties and 803 Ops versus Righties. So I don't think the splits are all that egregious. Scott, what are your general thoughts of Eaton, and do you think there's a chance that he will platoon? because I would think that he'll just get a maintenance day here and there,

maybe against a tough lefty, just because he's an injury-prone 31-year-old outfielder. I don't necessarily think that he's just going to be a straight-up platoon player in 2020. Man, Adam loves his splits. He is a, that is right in his wheelhouse, the splits angle. Yeah, I think it's more of a maintenance thing, like you suggested, particularly in 2018. when he was

he was kind of recovering while playing yeah I mean he lost so much of the previous two years to injury that he the momentum completely left him for fantasy purposes and he really did have a nice bounce back season last year especially if you're talking

a points league context but even even in 5 by 5 5 categories a 15 homer 15 steel season certainly has value it's just the main thing for Eaton right now is he has a ceiling problem. And while I don't doubt if he's healthy,

he will end up starting in most fantasy leagues before the season's done, it's hard to get that enthusiastic about drafting him when you consider the upside plays you're going to pass up. Upside plays that aren't all going to pan out. So like I said, eventually somebody's going to have to turn to Eaton. But when you can't count on 20 of either

the home runs or the steals, you're just not going to be that impactful of a player. Serviceable, but not impactful. Chris, Adam Eaton posted a career-high launch angle last season and a career high 40% fly ball rate. It still only led to him hitting 15 home runs. In the second half last season, he raised his hard hit rate and his line drive rate, about 6% each and posted an 848 OPM. during that time. Is there anything to see there, Chris, or is it just a player getting on a hot streak, the weather heating up for Adam Eaton last year in the second half?

Adam Eaton is who he is. He's 31 years old. There's no reason to think Adam Eaton's all of a sudden. I could see him hitting 20 homers in like a best case scenario, but there's no reason to think Adam Eaton is going to be a 25 homer guy. But who he is is really good. And there's really been no point when he hasn't been really good. You know, even in 2017, I mean, 2017 before he got hurt, you know, remember he tore his ACL after about a month of that season and missed the rest of the year. He was off to a really good start. He was on pace for like 150 runs at the top of the Nationals lineup.

Obviously, he wasn't going to get that. But he comes back in 2018, hits 301, doesn't play every day, but puts up another good season, finally plays every day in 2019. And it was a really nice, solid, reliable. fantasy option. I think that's what you're going to get. Like Scott said, there are guys being drafted after him with more conceivable upside. But I just, I think he's a great value right now for this kind of player. Like, I don't really see. Yes, there's upside. Yes, Andrew Benintendant and Ramon, Loretna are two guys who could conceivably turn into, let's say, 20 to 25 homer guys,

maybe 20 to 20 steel, 20 to 25 steel guys. you could see that happen. The most likely outcome is Adam Eaton gives you something similar to them for a much, much cheaper cost. And at some point, yes, you need upside, but having a guy that you're going to start and not have to worry about it, pretty nice too. He's not someone you should target,

but he's a nice player to end up with. What I think happens a lot with Adam Eaton, because I'm seeing now his ADP, according to Fantasy Pros, is 200 second overall, which would mean he's getting drafted in virtually all leagues. And I feel like that hasn't been my experience as somebody drafting as well.

But he's also just 56th among outfielder. So I think that's, these ADP values are reflecting a five outfielder league. And in the three outfielder leagues, Eaton probably doesn't get drafted. And he's probably more somebody who, you can count on being there on the wafer wire when your higher upside outfielder goes bust.

Chris, would you rather have Adam Eaton or Fran Mill Reyes in a points league? Eaton in a points league. Hmm, all right. I have Scott's rankings pulled up here. I was a little surprised to see. And I know Fran Mill Reyes is like, his batter profile does not fit what you want from a head-to-head points league player. He doesn't walk all that much.

He's going to strike out nearly 30% of the time. But if he hits like 45 home runs, like he's going to be. be a better player than Adam Eaton, right? Yeah. Even in a points league. Yeah. I mean, his frame, Mill Reyes' point per game average last year was pretty terrible. It was. It was like 2.4, which I think

caused me to undervalue him at first, because I kind of use points per game as the starting point for my rankings. But you have to remember the Padres were pretty all over the place with Fran Mill Reyes' playing time for much of the year. And I think that

had something to do with it. Obviously, the poor walk rate and high strikeout rate didn't help either. But if he's playing consistently and hitting a ton of homers, that's going to be more valuable than a guy who just happens to specialize in the things that a points league rewards more than a Categor's League. That's fair. So, Scott, can we get you to move Fran Mill Reyes ahead of Adam Eaton in points leagues? Oh, I thought I already did.

I thought I already did. Yeah, I probably should. All righty. That was like my first. I guess I didn't really bully you. I just kind of nicely asked you to change your ranking. So that was the first instance of me doing that here on the show. Before we get into the Trading 101, I do want to remind everyone to sign up for our Fantasy Baseball Today newsletter, which emails out our latest articles and draft results straight to your inbox. Sign up at cbsports.com slash newsletters slash fantasy baseball today. and with that, Chris, I have to highlight this fantastic shirt that you are wearing today. No one else listening to the podcast can hear it. Maybe, you know, I kind of got you to tweet out a picture of your dinner on Friday night. Maybe I can get you to tweet out a picture of your shirt today to show everyone what you're wearing because it's a fantastic shirt.

I'm a huge fan. It's a, we do a family tradition as we buy pajamas for Christmas every year. It's the only time that I have pajamas, really, for Christmas. and this one is a menagerie of animals preparing for maybe a Christmas slash New Year's party. So you got like a kitty wearing a Christmas sweater and an iguana and he's got a little scarf on and a puppy and he's got 2019 sunglasses and I think there might be a hamster on here as well. And so it's just it's very festive. I'm wearing, you know, the classic work-from-home outfit of a pajama top, button down obviously because I'm working. And then gym shorts.

Yeah, never know when you're going to have to pop on camera, so you've got to have the button down going there. But yeah, big fan of this shirt. He wants to sleep in buttons anyway. Like, why is that a thing? A button-down pajama shirt? I don't know. You know, you see the old time. I've never actually been able to sleep in this.

pajama top, I always have to take it off. I don't like to be restricted. And so, yeah, I'm with you on that. Do you take it off and put on something else, or are you just sleeping with these little clothes? Okay, I'll usually sleep shirtless. Yeah. Good image. Great image. I don't own any pajama button down shirts, but if I did, I would want it to be that shirt in particular. And I could relate because my, my mom gives me Christmas pajamas every year, although I don't really, you know, I don't really enjoy pajamas, but I appreciate them. So I see where you're coming from here. Chris, Trading 101. Now, this is going to be more of a, I guess, fantasy philosophy question, discussion that we

could talk about here throughout the course of the show, just to try and give people an idea of what they should be looking for, depending on the league format that they play in. If you know, they play in a Roto versus Points League, you know, how does that change what you should be looking for in a trade. If you play in a dynasty league, I wanted to start off first and foremost with trading etiquette, right? And I know that there's an email that we received and hopefully we'll get to it by the end of the week. We do have a mailbag coming up later on in the week. But someone basically asked us about, you know, someone trying to trade them a bunch of depth, like giving them, you know, four or five debt players for, you know, two of their better players.

And to me, that's just part of fantasy trade etiquette. I have been accused of this at times, so that's why I wanted to bring it up where... Well, the placement for Adam Azer. It's the classic, you know, in my league, it's actually become called the classic Frank two for one, where you give up like the two depth players to get the best player in the deal.

But in my defense, I am realistic. I am a realist. And I have, you know, in the past, I've done reverse trades like that. Like, when I. realize that I need depth, I will easily go out and trade away my, like one of my better players to get depth in return if I realize that, all right, I have holes in my team that the waiver wire is just not going to fix, that I can go out and trade my best player for two players.

So that's why I kind of have that thought in my mind that, all right, it's okay to trade depth for the better player at times. But most people do not respond well to those trades. At times. At times. And certainly it depends on the depth of the league, the deeper the league the less clear cut this rule that I'm about to give you is. And that's the rule is typically the person who gets the best player in the deal wins the deal. And that's especially true. And if you're talking like a standard 12 team context,

certainly anything shallower than that, like 10 teams or whatever. That's how you go about winning a league through trades. Because with every trade, you're improving your team's bottom line by getting the best, the most impactful player to your starting line. lineup. And then if you can replenish that depth off the waiver wire, which is obviously a lot more common, that's that that obviously makes sense. But you play and we play with a bunch of long time

fantasy players. They're obviously going to be wise to that. What frustrates me is sometimes I will throw everything I can at a deal just because I like, I want to overwhelm them. So it's more likely they say yes, but I think they actually get suspicious of the amount I'm throwing at it and assume I'm just making a depth trade like that. And so they just reject it outright without even considering the merits. So there's a lot of, a lot of psychological stuff to consider when you're making a trade. And that's why I feel like the leagues where I have the most, the league's where I have the most, success trading these days and where it trades or trading is most active most people are involved are the ones where there's an actual trade discussion that happens over email or whatever else

um and i think if you can if you can just be a real person to somebody as opposed to like a bot sending out an offer with like a one-sentence description of why they should make that trade, which is always a bad idea anyway, like trying to make a sales pitch for your trade. Like that's just like let people figure out for themselves why the trade would be a good idea for them. Also guilty of that. Yeah. You don't have to play analyst for somebody. If you are, it means it suggests to them you don't respect their ability to manage their own team.

and nobody likes that. So that's my biggest pet peeve with trading. In one of my fantasy football leagues, I'm playing with a bunch of friends from college. We all worked at the college newspaper together. We started a league back then, like 2010. And we're still going strong 14 team league. Like four of those guys actually work at CBS Sports.

And one of them who I will name Igor Mello, MLB editor, a system managing editor for CBSports.com, is the guy who will send you a trade offer and then immediately send you like five Facebook messages explaining why you need to accept this deal because it's such a good trade for you and it's just like even if I didn't do this for a job that would be an obnoxious thing for you to do but this is my job and you're trying to talk me into it it oh saying as little as like it's best to say nothing if you're just going in blindly with an offer if you want to draw attention to one very specific thing.

thing, I think just as minimally as you can do that. Like, for example, the team you're trading with has a need at second base, and one of the players you're offering them just picked up second base eligibility. You can say, such and such as second base eligible now. And that's it. Don't

say, I really think you need a second baseman. Like, let them connect to the dots. It's just like, if you want to draw attention to something that may be flying under the radar, I think that's a but you have to do it very minimally. I'm actually taking notes while Scott is breaking this down so that I can remember things not to do once fantasy baseball starts back up.

To get back to the larger point I was trying to make, if you can get in an actual back and forth with somebody about a trade and be as real as possible with them, just come across as a real person who has legitimate concerns about their own players that they're offering up and behaves as, if he doesn't have it all figured out and not trying to be like a used car salesman, I think you get a lot further that way in making trades than if you're just tossing offers back and forth and both parties are suspicious of one another and both are behaving in ways that people don't behave in real life. That tends not to go as well. Chris, what's the best

way to execute a trade? What form of communication have you found is the best in terms of making a trade happen. Like, do you actually dial up the phone, you call somebody, or do you just send them a few texts, or do you just send the trade with nothing? Like, what have you had the most success doing? Because I've, I've known people who do it all different ways, and I've had people call me and try and talk to me on the phone for 30 minutes and try and figure out a trade to make happen. What has been your best way of communication in terms of actually executing a trade, Chris? It depends on the league. Depends on the person. You know, I'm in most of my more serious leagues, we do have, like, a dedicated channel for discussing things. We've got a Slack channel for one of my leagues.

So it really, I do think just sending a trade offer with nothing else isn't likely to work particularly well. Your most likely outcome is a rejection with no follow-up, which that doesn't really help anybody. And so I think you probably want some kind of communication, but you just got to know what the situation with the people in your league is, I think is the most important thing to keep in mind. You can't treat every person you're trading with like they're your best friend back from fourth grade. Because I think one thing that comes up a lot, I've asked people, I've pulled people on Twitter about what their biggest trading pet peeves are. And one thing that comes up a lot is people overreacting to a trade offer that they don't like. Just completely trashing the offer and trashing the person that made the offer, which is very unhelpful.

If you're the one doing that, I mean, you're basically closing a trade, a future trade channel for yourself because like nobody wants to be treated that way. and they're just going to be less likely to make you an offer in the future. And I understand, like, you don't like getting bad offers and it's annoying and a waste of time and whatever. But, like, there are more productive ways of doing it. Like, if you really can't think of, like, sometimes I think just a very quick rejection, like immediately after you send it and immediately rejecting it and just not even adding anything, it gets the message across enough. and then maybe if they come back again with another offer,

you can just say something simple. Like, I really don't see a match here. And that's, if you do think that the offer they're making obviously has somewhere they can go with it, of course, you can counteroffer, you can say, you can just be honest with the person and say, you know, I don't like this guy so much, but I do have a need here and do you have interest in this guy?

Obviously, just follow through on the negotiation if you do think the trade has potential. but if you really don't see it going anywhere, but you don't have to lamb-based them over it because chances are you're going to want to make a trade with them at some point in the future. So, Scott, you're not one of the people that when you receive a trade offer that you don't like,

you counter-offer your Adam Eaton for their Ronald Acuna? Yeah, make an even more ridiculous offer. That happens all the time in fantasy. It happens all the time. I know. I know. And like, I think anybody saw somebody else do that, they would say, wow, that's a jerky thing to do. But for some reason, they don't, they think like everybody's the hero in their own life story, right? So they can't see themselves

coming across that way. You know, I wanted to ask you guys, how do you approach trades differently maybe in a roto league versus a points league? And, you know, at first, it might sound a little silly, like, no, you know, you just kind of, you're still kind of looking for someone's needs and you're trying to give them what they need and you're trying to acquire something that you need on your team. But I mean it in the sense that I think it differs in Roto versus points

for this reason. I think in a Roto League, more often than not, yes, you can have a positional need, but I think more often than you are chasing a categorical need, like you realize, okay, I'm light on stolen bases.

I rank very highly in batting average. Let me try and offer, you know, DJ LaMayhew for Victor Robles. That's something that would help both sides. Like you find an owner that needs help in batting average

somewhere that you have excess value and you're trying to up your stolen base category so you try and acquire stolen bases in return. Whereas in a points league for me,

I mean, you're not chasing categories. You're just trying to accumulate as many points as you possibly can. I feel like in a points league you're trading more for positional need where you can say, all right, well, I have a lot of depth

in outfield. I can trade my John Carlson. I need a first baseman. let me try and acquire Matt Olson. Whereas in a Roto League, that might not make all that much sense because both guys just give you a lot of power, but I feel like in points you're looking for position and in Roto, you're chasing categorical need.

Does that make sense, Scott? Yeah, I think it makes sense, especially now, going after the categories in a trade as opposed to the position. Now more than ever, as we talked about position eligibility, I mean, position scarcity isn't so much of a thing anymore, but I actually don't like that. Like, I love trading,

but I really don't love trading in a rotisserie league. I just find, I just feel like I'm a lot more unsure of myself because it's, and I know there are tools out there online and they can help calculate to weigh this, but I have a difficult time processing what removing this advantageous piece from my lineup, where, you know, I'm doing well in these categories and going and get something in the categories

where I'm doing not as well in, you know, kind of the collateral impact of taking that strength away in order to fill that weakness. And, you know, already it's difficult to make a trade. It's difficult to find a match where what you're giving up is going to be as useful to someone else as what you're getting from them will be to you. but I think that that extra layer of uncertainty

kind of takes it over the top so that I rarely end up making trades in rotisserie leagues I do sometimes I talked about the trade I made in in Tout Wars last year getting you Darvish but like that's it's just not as common for me to do that where in head-to-head leagues I'm trading all the time you're more likely to have access to in head-to-head head leagues, which is probably part of that. I mean,

lineups are smaller. That makes it easier to have a surplus to trade from. But I don't know. I just don't love trading in roto leagues. As a general take away from those. Who do I have to talk to at CBS Sports to expand the

head-to-head points roster? Because I want to make that happen. The commissioner of your head-to-head... Yeah, you can set it up any way you want. I just meant for, like, default. I feel like the default league should be like four outfielder and maybe a middle infielder, corner infielder, I don't agree with two catchers.

So one catcher perfectly fine with me, but I do like the deeper roster construction. Chris, you've mentioned that head-to-head categories is your favorite format. So that's kind of, I guess it's the blend of both formats. It's the blend of roto, head-to-head points. You get that head-to-head aspect, but you're still kind of chasing categorical need. need. I would say that trading in a head-to-head categories league is probably closer to Roto than anything. You realize you're light in a category and that's something that you seek out in your trade partner. Agree or disagree. Definitely agree, although in a head-to-head categories

league, your weakness is not necessarily the same every week, which is always an interesting thing that you have to keep in mind is that, you know, if you feel like you're particularly weak in stolen bases, well, that might be, like, if you're the worst in stolen bases, okay, that makes sense. But if you're like the eighth worst in stolen bases, I don't know how much it necessarily makes sense to go out of your way to give up value to acquire stolen bases when, you know, really you're going to be competitive roughly half the time in that scenario. area. So it definitely takes away some of the positional need, although you still, you're going to know what your team doesn't need. I'll give you an example of a trade I made last year in a head-to-head

categories league. I think it was six by six. We included OPS. I punted stolen bases. I almost always punt stolen bases in category leagues in head-to-head categories, not in Roto. I don't like to punt any categories in Roto. But last year I traded, I had Pete Alonzo and I had Freddie Freeman, and I traded Alonzo away. I needed pitching and I got Steven Strasbourg and that's an example of a trade where there doesn't always need to be like a clear winner where you're like oh I got the best of my trade partner.

It worked out for both people. He needed a first basement. He needed power. I gave him Alonzo and I needed pitching and I wound up with Strasbourg and it was one of those trades that works out for both people and I think people fantasy owners lose sight of that at times where they're so obsessed with I need to win the trade that they're not just what works best for everybody in the trade. And I feel like that might be a detriment for some people at times

when trying to make a trade happen. Like they're just so obsessed with, I need to win this trade. Yeah. You should, I mean, for your trade, you should try to win every trade you can't. And you shouldn't necessarily, like if someone offers you a trade where you clearly win,

you hit that accept button. But if you, more real, realistically, you should be looking for when you're trying to make an offer, you should be trying to make an offer where your team gets better. But if you want it to actually be accepted, you're not going to almost always, you're not going to get a trade that's accepted. That's an obvious win for you. The whole point is both sides should look at it as something close to a win for their side. I think there are I think there are two reasons you make a trade one is that you just feel like that's a way you can get an edge over your competition you can help your team stand out stand apart that way and obviously you're going you're trying to win the trade in that scenario and I would say that's the majority of the trades I try to make there's also the needs based trade where you have a specific need and you need to fill it stat and a trade is the only way you can count on doing that.

And in that scenario, I think you can't necessarily afford to wait for the perfect offer that is a clear win for you. And that's why I don't like making those trades as much. That's why I try to avoid making those kinds of trades. But of course, they're necessary sometimes. Scott, are there such thing as fantasy ethics? Like, if you know that there's a really bad owner in your league, like, he's the worst team owner and you try and trade with that player.

Is that wrong? Oh, man. I, I, man, that's tough to answer because I've been there before where I was the guy consistently trading with one owner who continued to give me advantageous deals. Bullies, God. Well, this is like back in, you know, 15, 20 years ago. It was a long time ago before I was a professional.

And obviously I don't have to play in leagues anymore with somebody who's obviously lagging. And that makes it difficult to relate to the average listener out there. Because the easy answer is that guy shouldn't be in your league. And the temptation isn't there. But that might not be an option for everybody. So I don't know. Because if you don't, if you're not doing it, chances are somebody else in your league is going to do it. And then you're just taking the loss for no good reason.

I think you just have to play as hard as... I do think there's such thing as an ethics, but I think the specific scenario you're bringing up is you just have to play as hard as anybody else. And sooner or later, the rest of the league will get annoyed about it and try to find a replacement for that guy. Scott should be a politician because that was a really long answer for saying, yes, take advantage of every bad owner in your fantasy league.

Chris, is that something you do as well? I mean... Or do you have remorse when you do it? Look, that's... See, it's hard. It's the commissioner's job to worry about the best thing for the league. And that's why being a commissioner is difficult. And if there is an owner who is messing with the sanctity of the game,

the commissioner has to keep that in mind and consider taking steps to alleviate those concerns. But as an individual owner, you don't really have to take into account like utilitarian ethics. You know, like if everybody made lopsided trades with the same team, it would be bad for the league. But at some point, you just have to make your team better.

And, you know, when you have your off-season league meeting or whatever you do, maybe consider suggesting kicking that person out of the league. Professor Towers has returned with his utilitarian ethics. So many questions are just popping into my mind now too because you brought up, you know, the commissioner is in charge and that kind of led me to wondering about how you guys feel about vetoes. Like should there be vetoes in leagues?

And I think that there shouldn't. Like it should be every owner looks out for themselves. unless something is completely, completely lopsided where the commissioner needs to step in and kind of question the integrity of the trade. Like what is actually going on here? If you are willing to, as a commissioner, veto a trade,

you should be willing to at least discuss whether the people involved in the trade should be kicked out of the league. Because you shouldn't really be vetoing trades unless you think there's a competitive issue with the players involved. Other than that, people got to be able to fail on their role. I know Scott isn't quite as extreme as Heath and I on that,

but I'm pretty much at the same place. If 99% of cases, you just got to trust the people in your league will be acting in their own best interests. And that's the only thing you can do. Right, right. Because when you say a competitive issue, it could be collusion, which obviously is grounds for dismissal. But it doesn't necessarily even have to rise to that level.

It can rise to the level of one owner constantly being taken advantage of. But that's still an issue where the commissioner has to think about removing the player from the league. I am generally opposed to making leagues, having leagues be. you run democratically trading or otherwise, even when it comes to like rule changes. I think, I think that should be,

I think the commissioner, um, has to be the one who is accounting for the way the leagues, the way all the rules in his league work. And it's like, a rule change can have a lot of far ranging effects that may be the average player who is,

voting on it wouldn't see or or grasp the full weight of. And like it's the commissioner's league. He's running it. He is, everybody's free to leave if they want. Or she. Or she. Yes. Everybody's free to leave if they want.

And, you know, the commissioner has to be the one in looking out for the best interest of the league and putting everything up for a vote just because a couple people are annoyed. I mean, that's, that opens the door to really throwing off the competitive balance of the league. So I just, I don't like really doing that. Obviously, a commissioner should weigh the opinions of everybody else in the league, but just putting everything up for a vote, including trades. I'm not in favor of that. The thing where, where you put a trade up for a vote before it can go through is it's, it's children stuff. Like that, that, that, is just I can't believe there are still people who do this in 2020.

Because all you're doing, look, each owner should be acting in their own self-interest. This is, each manager in a fantasy league should be acting in their own self-interest because you are in direct competition with one another. This is not a case like Major League Baseball, where franchises in Major League Baseball are in competition with another to an extent. to a certain extent. It would be bad for the New York Yankees if the Tampa Bay raise were insolvent and had to go out of business, because they would lose a team that they schedule 19 times a year, and they would lose the gate revenue for that. And a fantasy football league or fantasy baseball league, you're actually just competing with one another. It doesn't matter. Like, your goal is to win. You don't have to take into account any other. There's no higher, like, we have to do something for the good of the league. And so when you introduce democracy, into that, into a situation where everybody is looking out for their own interests first and foremost, you're going to have a situation where the second and third place team are just going to vote against a trade that makes the first place team better. And that's not how it's

supposed to work. You've heard from the bully Scott throughout today's show. You've heard from the authoritarian Scott there, no democracy in fantasy baseball. And that's how he runs his dynasty league. He has decided that there is. is no offseason trading, which brings up the discussion of trading just in general. We're going to call Jimmy Lanister. You take care of this issue. Which brings up the discussion of trading in dynasty leagues in general. And I used to play in a dynasty league. I don't play in one right now. I have a very competitive Keeper League where we keep up to four players, and that's my longest standing

home league. It's very fun. It's not a dynasty league. Trading in a dynasty league is just a completely different beast. So I just kind of wanted to give you the open floor here, Scott for a second, just to kind of talk about the differences in trading in dynasty, how to value draft picks. If you have an example of a trade that has, like, gone down in your dynasty league that you can kind of use as an example for people to realize. Because I think the hardest thing playing in a dynasty league is almost realizing

when your time is running out. Like seeing the writing on the way. wall and knowing like, okay, my team's getting old. It's time to rebuild. Like, I had a few years where I competed, but now's the time where I have to sell off some of my older players, acquire draft picks, acquire some younger players, and kind of start from scratch. And I think that that might be one of the hardest things for someone playing in a Dynasty League to realize, Scott. Dynasty leagues are the best leagues to trade in. I've been in three of them for several years. now I just, I'm in a fourth one that just started up.

I would say that probably more than 90% of the trades I make in fantasy baseball are made in those, have been made in those three dynasty leagues the past few years. Because there's obviously another variable to consider, and it's the most important variable of all weighing present needs against future needs. And you can always find, you can always find a trade parter who's on one end of that spectrum or another. As far as as far as like rebuilding goes

where you feel like the window is closing have to have an influx of cheap young talent trading off all your expensive pieces, more established pieces. I, something I've talked about in various places and it's actually in my Twitter bio is that I'm a I'm a waves, not windows guy.

And what I mean by that I don't really believe in the window of contention being open or close and having this constant cycle of rebuilding and not rebuilding, like, back and forth, back and forth. I do think rebuilds are necessary and highly effective on occasion, but the only time I've ever had to resort to them in a dynasty league is when I'm just taking over a team that really is just, just in an untenable situation. It does not have a stable enough nucleus for me to supplement and have like a long-term contention plan there. And that's when I resort to the rebuilds. But I think once you get started with a lot of young, cheap talent, and what I end up doing

trade-wise in a dynasty league once I'm in that position is I am constantly trading for tomorrow. And I think if you're constantly trading for tomorrow, your today eventually rises to a level where it can afford to take some losses in the today for the sake of tomorrow.

And you're still competitive while also looking out for your long-term future. So I like sustained success in dynasty leagues. I think it's possible. I think how likely it is obviously depends on the rules of your particular league, how, you know,

because a lot of dynasty leagues, everybody's kept on equal terms. And then the concept of a cheapkeeper doesn't really apply in that scenario. But if it does, I think that's something you can make work. And so far I haven't had to resort to a rebuild except when being very new to a league. So a competitive, not necessarily rebuild, but it almost sounds like a competitive rebuild, right? It's like... Well, no, it's constant. Pretty much every trade I make in a dynasty league,

is with next year in mind. There are exceptions, of course. But usually those exceptions when I'm looking to, for an immediate boost, I wait until I get great value there. It's not something where what I'm borrowing from the future really feels like a great loss. But I'll give you an example of, with Chris, actually,

and in the Dynasty League I'm in with him. The Dynasty League I wrote about just a few weeks ago, where I was, this was two years ago, It was when Glabre Torres, either he had just gotten called up or he was on the verge of getting called up, very cheap keeper, versus my Zach Granky, 24-team league. So high-end starting pitchers, rare and high demand. Chris was fighting for a playoff spot.

I offer up mid-season my Zach Granky for his Glaber Torres, a trade with tomorrow in mind, and that hurts me a little today. But I felt like I had, because of past trades, built up the pitching depth to withstand the loss of Grinky, even though it made me a little worse today, I made that trade. I ended up winning the league that year.

I ended up winning the league the following year, too. So that's, we see real-life teams do this sort of thing sometimes, and I think there's a lot of resistance to it. Cleveland, for instance, trading Trevor Bauer last year. And I don't know that that specific trade was the right move for Cleveland to make, but I do think if you're looking for sustained success, you have to be willing to take a little bit of a loss today

for a big gain tomorrow. And I'm willing to do that in these dynasty leagues. Now that there's no 2020 season, you look like a fool. I don't know. Look what the Dodgers did. They're the ones that are going to look like the fools. Yeah, potentially trading away Alex Verdugo

to get Mookie bets. If this season does not play out, they've already confirmed that, know, this is going to count as a season. So, you know, Mooki Betts would enter free agency without ever playing a game for the Los Angeles Dodgers. I wanted to ask you guys real quick because we're coming up on the, we must move on to tradesmark. I might make like a sound on the board here, like a create like an alarm that once we get like a 50 minute mark every day, I'm just going to start ringing the alarm and no matter what we're doing,

we're moving on to emails. How do you guys deal with fire sales? I don't know if they happen in your dynasty league, Scott, but you mentioned in your article that every year the trade deadline is so active. And the same thing happens in my Keeper League, except you see these, and honestly, they're egregious trades. Like, you will see somebody give up, let's use a Glaber Torres, for example. Say, Glaber Torres from a couple years ago in my league,

you add $5 of auction value the next year. Say you draft them for a dollar at the end of the auction. We have minor league spots. He's a $6 keeper the next year. In my league, that Glaber Torres will be traded to a team for that team's four best players. That is out of contention. How do you stop something like that from happening? Because in my leagues, we've struggled with that.

Do you put a limit? Like, you can only have two players included in return of a keeper. Like, how do you kind of police those trades? Because these fire sales have been evident in my leagues. and frankly, they've been a little egregious. Yeah, and I don't think in a Dynasty League you're ever going to completely do away with those, and I don't think you want to.

I mean, part of the appeal, the Dynasty League is being able to plan and build for the long haul, and that's going to mean bad teams trading good players to already good teams. But a couple of deterrence that I've put in place in the Dynasty League that I think have worked pretty well, and maybe they wouldn't both work in your league, but they're definitely something to consider.

is instead of assuming it's a head-to-head format, obviously. Instead of, not necessarily points, but even if it was head-to-head in any way, head-to-head categories, instead of just having the playoff teams compete for something at the end of the season, make a consolation bracket with the bad teams that determines draft order for the following year.

In my Dynasty League, it's really just a minor league draft we're talking about, but certainly if you have a major league draft, that would be an even more effective deterrent, have the winner of that consolation bracket get the first pick, and don't make the draft a snake draft anymore. Just make it, you know, so the team that wins that consolation bracket

has the first pick every single round, and that'll create more incentive to keep winning, even for a team that knows it's out of the playoff picture. Two, disallow off-season trading. It's a big, part of it because that creates a deterrent for the teams trading off long-term assets for a big boost at the ends. Part of their thinking there is I can't just trade off these extra pieces that I can't really keep, these expensive guys to keep, that help me win today. I can just trade them off in the off-season for prospects, then get back nearly what I gave away to get them in the first place.

and if you disallow off-season trading so that people are having to plan for tomorrow, having to plan for next year while also weighing their what a trade would mean for them the rest of this year, then they're going to think twice about giving up their long-term assets,

even as they're competing for a title. Yeah, so I actually have that consolation bracket in place in my fantasy football keeper league, and it still hasn't necessarily done the job job. It has, I think, curtailed things a little bit, but it hasn't completely stopped these crazy fire sale trades that we see. But, you know, if we do give that the person who wins that consolation bracket the first pick in every round where it's not a snake draft, that might actually change things. So something... It would make a big difference because, I mean, I'm personally that

way where particularly if you're talking about a league where players are being kept and like the first round isn't even going to be a bunch of studs necessarily. Who cares if you're picking early in one round versus early in the other round. I don't that much, but if you're picking late in every round, that changes things. Some fun trade discussion there, but we've got to move on to your emails. Send them in Fantasy Baseball at CBSI.com. This one comes from Tony and Indy to your Hulk, Steve, Dwayne, and Brett. Those are Avengers.

They are Avengers in the wrestling community. Yeah, WWE. Hulk Hogan. That was a serious guess. Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, and Brett, the hitman, Hart. I guess. What's Hawkeye's name again? It wasn't Brett, was it?

Hawkeye. Oh, Hawkeye is Clint. Clint. That's right. Clint Barton. I'll go off and be embarrassed now. Clearly not a wrestling guy. Go ahead, Frank.

Everyone has their thing, Scott. It's fine. Not everyone's into wrestling. This one probably, maybe even more of a question for you, Chris, as our... resident Marlinsman. Sixthos Sanchez was an absolute stud for a good chunk of last year. Any chance he will be up this year, assuming we have a season. Can you talk a little bit more about Sixo Sanchez, Chris? I would expect him to be up this year. Yeah, he was at double A for most of or all of last season, I believe. Scott, he didn't have any injury issues last year, did he? It was

the year before. He made it through last year, okay? I believe so, yes. Yeah, and so the concern with him been the innings. You know, I think his career high in innings is just above 100, if not too much more than that. And so, you know, he's still building up the workload. But yeah, I would expect we'll see the Marlins make a spot in their rotation at some point this season for 6thos Sanchez. I have, I'm not sure what to make of him of him as a fantasy pitcher because the scouting reports are excellent. The numbers are mostly good, except he doesn't. He doesn't. He doesn't, doesn't get that many strikeouts. You know, not necessarily, you know, about 22 to 24 percent strikeout rate most years, K per 9 under 9 usually, although he does have a low, an extremely

low whip most years. So that, you know, makes the K per 9 look a little worse. But for the most part, he just hasn't been much more than just a pretty good strikeout pitcher. And it's, it's hard to project fantasy stardom from someone who doesn't get strikeouts in the minors. Now, that being said, the stuff should be good enough to get strikeouts. You know, he throws in the high 90s. He has good secondary stuff. So it's, it's a question of will the, will the stuff lead to the strikeouts that haven't been there? And if so, why haven't the strikeouts been there? Scott, I think you still have him as like a top 25 fantasy prospect this season. So you value him pretty highly. Yeah. I mean, that strikeout issue's been there.

throughout his minor league career, and it doesn't seem like the scouting reports have really soured on him. But it's curious. I mean, Casey Mize, the number one pick in 2018, had the same issue last year while dominating AA, at least until he got injured. So I think it's kind of a theory of mine, but I think that I think it's possible that a minor league pitcher

can be so efficient against those bad minor league hitters that he just doesn't face enough of them to get a great K per 9 rate. It's kind of the opposite of how you say a pitcher with a good K, a bad pitcher with a good K per 9, that's not the best way to measure him because he's facing so many batters because he's a bad pitcher, you know? The one thing I'll say. The strike rate, like the strike percentage is still relatively low.

It's above average, but it's not elite. Right. The one thing I'll say about a pitch. prospect who doesn't get a ton of strikeouts is that if they do have good command and they get a ton of ground balls in the miners, that's something I do like just as a counter, you know, a counter to that argument is that, you know, they can still, you know, kind of make their way through because they get a lot of ground balls. They don't hurt themselves with, you know, giving up a free walk. Someone like Mike Soroka. So that kind of is what I'm looking at with, he doesn't have the same

type of groundball rate as a Mike Soroka, but I can kind of see him taking a similar path there, just to have any fantasy success. Plus, it's always worth remembering, particularly for such a high-end prospect that you know where they're going. You know they're going to wind up in the majors. They're not really competing for that. Minor leaguers are mostly about development. You don't know if he's going for optimal pitch selection, pitch sequencing, as opposed to

just working on some of his worst pitches to make them better. Yeah, and so to put a final point on Sixto Sanchez, I'm looking it up, looking at the baseball prospectus top prospects, because I remember they had this note. Of the pitchers listed in their top 101 prospects, nobody had a lower strikeout percentage in 2019 than Sixtho Sanchez. So he's a weird prospect. I don't think he's a fantasy. Ace in the making. And if I had him in a Dian Sea League, I'd probably try to move him before he got to the majors, but I think he'll probably be pretty good.

You know, I'll just throw this out there since we brought up the trade discussion is just kind of piggybacking off what you just brought up. Chris, maybe wait until he actually gets called up because at that point, there's never more hype on a prospect. Yeah. Like when they first get called up, you can basically trade six Los Angeles. I feel like that's probably the height, the height of. their prospect. Unless they hit their

90th percentile. But yeah, generally speaking, for a good percentage of prospects, that is when they are at their highest peak for trades. This next one's from Sean. I'm in head-to-head 10 categories league, and I took Dakota Hudson

with my last pick. In reviewing the waiver wire, these pictures are still available. John Gray, Cole Hamels, Miles Mikolas, Michaelos. Is it Michaelis or Mikola? I think it's Michaelis, right? It's Michaelis. Michaelis and Adrian Houser,

would you drop Hudson for any of those four starting pitchers? Any of them. So I think John Gray first. Yeah. I'm not really a John Gray. We've had a rocky relationship, pun intended. But Cole Hamels is close. I'm fine with John Gray, but I think Cole Hamels is close there.

This next one's from... I mentioned Cole Hamels on yesterday's Hall of Fame show. He is fourth among active pitchers in war. It's kind of wild. Yeah, I saw his name. You know, Cole Hamels and someone else tweeted about John Lester, I believe. Yeah. Like, Cole Hamels and John Lester to me are just, they're great players.

They're the whole of great. They're just not in the hall of fame. They didn't have, their peaks weren't peaky enough. And you're not really counting on them adding to their war at this stage of their career. Oriams was just not quite there. Well, Amles was like the seventh or eight best pitcher in the league for like nine years. Yeah. This next one's from Andrew. Hey guys. Worried I just got taken.

I joined a new 16-team Dynasty Points League, 32 keepers, large bench. After the draft took place, I guess the guy that drafted didn't want to do it after all. His team was terrible. Barely any pitching. He has Michaelis, Bassett, Ross Stripling, Michael Pignetta, Tyler Malley, a few relief pitchers, nothing else great. So I made a bold move. I traded Francisco Lindo. and Michaelis for Zach Gowan, Mitch Keller, and Jose Orkidi.

Grade the trade in a points league. 16 teams. I mean, obviously Francisco Lindor is the best player, and we just talked about how the best player usually got the best side of the deal. I do think you gave up probably too much,

but I do think you gave up too much. I don't know what your alternatives were. they probably weren't great. And you were dealt a bad hand here. But I feel like the only bankable pitcher you got, and it's even questionable whether he's bankable, is Gallin. And the other two could be, you know, they might not be on your team for long,

or they might be. It's hard to say. But the only bankable one is Gallin. And you gave up a first rounder type in a Dynasty League forum. That's just, I feel like there had to be somebody less than that. on your team that you could have given up to get a Zach Gallen caliber pitcher.

So this is probably a D for me if I'm giving it a grade. Yeah, I think that's fair. Let's go with D plus. I'm feeling a little bit generous here, but I don't love it either. I would have liked to, if you could have given up Lindor and Michael is for

a more proven starting pitcher plus Zach Gallin. You know, someone like a Shane Bieber, I feel like that is something that would have made more sense and would have been fair. And this is one where only time will tell, because, you know, maybe Mitch Keller and Jose Orkitti and Zach Gallen all turn into studs,

and then it turns out to be a great trade for you. But I just think based on what we have in mind for projecting those guys, like, yes, Mitch Keller might turn out to be a top 30 starting pitcher. But, you know, we still do have some concerns there with all of those names. Not really, not really Zach Gallen as much, but the rest of those guys. All right, that'll do it for today's show. A really fun trade discussion today. A little bit of a deep dive on.

Adam Eaton for Scott and Chris. I am Frank. Thank you all for listening to Fantasy Baseball today. We will see you again tomorrow.