By Jim
This post is going to be another example from “Year 1″ in the keeper league (I have a feeling there will be many of these this year).
One of the philosophies I have played the last couple of years is punting saves. In my expansion draft I ended up selecting Matt Capps but never selected another closer to pair him with. Knowing that I will not make any serious gains in the saves category, I decided it was time to see what I could get for Capps.I contacted a couple of owners in the league about Capps and also “placed” him on the trading block in our Yahoo! league. The owners I talked with were willing to part with some talent but most of the players were HUGE injury risks. Hoping to get a player to build for the future with, I was content to wait another couple of weeks to see if panic would up the offers any more.
Then I received an intriguing e-mail from an owner I had not contacted about Capps. Asking what I wanted for Capps, I gave the owner a list of four players from his roster that I found most appealing. Figuring I would have to do some more back-and-forth to come to a deal, I was completely caught off guard by what was offered. The owner offered me Nate McLouth (one of the guys I had singled out) for Capps and Pablo Sandoval.
At first I was hesitant to make this deal (and I know most of you will think I am crazy) but let me explain. I have a roster flush with outfielders and recently just completed a deal brining me Andre Ethier. Most of my infield talent has underperformed so far but I am not ready to give up on most of these players for the long run. Sandoval has been one of the few bright spots in my infield so it seemed that trading him would weaken an already troublesome spot on my roster.
I slept on the offer (which seems like it should be a no-brainer) and after a conversation with a trusted fantasy baseball source, I realized I was an idiot for not jumping on this as soon as it was sent. While in the short term this move doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, over the long term this deal actually accomplished what I had set out to do – add an impact bat.
Granted I have added another player to an already crowded outfield, but in the long term McLouth is a potential 30-30 guy year in and year out that I can build around and now I have more flexibility in terms of players to trade. Building a fantasy baseball team can be a quick process but if you want to obtain long-term success, the building process takes a lot more work and usually takes more than a couple of months.
So as you set out to build your fantasy empire, just remember to look at things in a long-term perspective, not one year at a time.
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