Attention shoppers, make sure you check the price

By Jim

With the World Series now over and the Hot Stove getting ready to heat up, many keeper league offseasons are now in full swing. If your league is like mine, you have already seen a few trades go through as your fellow owners try to get a jump on next year’s championship.

But before you go out and spend like your a long-lost Steinbrenner, make sure you aren’t suckered into overpaying for the guy who ends up filling the last spot on your bench.Now, that’s not to say these guys won’t be useful – I just want to make sure you don’t pay too much. So here are six players you have to be careful of trading for:

• Aaron Hill, 2B – Let me be upfront by saying I am a Hill owner and I couldn’t have been happier to see the production I got out of this late round flier. Hill had been on a stats upswing until a concussion derailed his 2008 season and it seems obvious now that he continued his pre-injury trend. Here is the problem though, his power output spiked last year and the owner in your league likely knows this. Aaron Hill is a solid fantasy option but chances are he is not the 30 HR hitter he was last season and until he proves otherwise, you will probably have to pay for those HR to acquire him.
• Ben Zobrist, 2B/SS/OF – I like Zobrist and I am kicking myself for not finding a way to take both he and Jason Bartlett at the end of my draft last year. Zobrist’s power is legit, having had a nice HR binge in a September callup in 2008, and I think he is a great guy to have on a team. But because of his multi-position eligibility, he is likely to cost more than he should. If you are targeting Zobrist ask yourself how much you would pay for a 20-25 HR, 15 steal OF and see how that compares to what his owner is asking for. If it is anything like the first round MiLB pick the owner in my league is looking for, ask yourself if that really is the price you would pay. Personally I would not pull the trigger on a deal like that.
• Javier Vazquez, SP – I said at the beginning this was going to be a list of useful players, and Vazquez fits that caveat. Vazquez had a great bounce-back year and teaming with Tommy Hanson again this year, he should help pitch the Braves to the playoffs. If you are targeting Vazquez just make sure you don’t pay for 238 K’s, 44 walks, 20 HR allowed  and 1.03 WHIP that were all career bests despite a normal workload as he probably won’t be that good again. In fact, if I were trying to deal for Vazquez I would make sure I play up his 10 losses as a way to get him down to a fair price.
• Mark Reynolds, 3B/1B – This call is just too easy. Between the career year he had in 2009 and his propensity to set strike out records, fantasy gurus all over the industry will be telling people to dump Reynolds while still getting full value for a guy who has the potential to be a 40 HR, 20 steal guy. Don’t fall for it. Saying that Reynolds won’t repeat 2009 is easy, he will be like Lance Berkman was heading into 2009, a guy coming off a solid power season whose value is boosted by a ton of unexpected stolen bases. If you desire to roster Reynolds keep two things in mind: 1) pay for 10-15 and not 20-plus steals and 2) make sure you have Ichiro, Joe Mauer or some other high batting average hitters (and maybe even two or three) to balance out the fact that Reynolds will be chasing 200 K’s again next season.
• Joe Mauer, C – Speaking of Mauer, what he did this past season was fantastic, especially considering that he is a catcher. The problem with Mauer is he has never displayed that type of power before and he has become a media darling in wake of his MVP calibre season. Unless the Mauer owner in your league has been deployed in Antarctica for a year without Internet access, chances are he knows all of this too and will want a King’s ransom in return for Mauer. Mauer is definitely a guy worth building a keeper league team around for the next few year’s but unless you want him to be the only piece on your team, chances are you should look at other backstops for your squad.
• David Aardsma, RP – If you follow any of fantasy baseball expert (mainly any of those that play in leagues like XFL or Tout Wars) you will often times hear many of them talk about how you should never pay for saves. Well, the same applies to keeper leagues and Aardsma is a prime example why. Anyone speculating for saves out of the Mariners bullpen in 2009 had about 4 or 5 options they were selecting from … and none of them were Aardsma. Similar to Andrew Bailey in Oakland (another guy you should not overpay for), Aardsma was given an opportunity after his predecessors failed and did well enough to hold the job for the rest of the season. And chances are he is the incumbent heading into 2010. But just because he has the job in April doesn’t mean he will have it in June. Remember, he is still David Aardsma.

As you make and propose trades this offseason, just make sure you aren’t stuck with a guy you weren’t too excited to acquire in the first place. I personally find I have more patience with struggling players if I believe in them and when you are building for the long term, dumping a potential star because he hits the 15 day DL can set you back years, as can trading away multiple future talents to acquire a player who fails to replicate numbers from a career year.