Greetings all. I will warn you in advance that I write like I am being paid by the word. It's a curse, but at my age (old enough that I drafted Vince Coleman and Tom Glavine as rookies in fantasy baseball) it's not changing any time soon...
I joined six weeks ago, and during that six weeks I have been researching both this league and the assets on my new team. I've had a lot of trade offers (many of them hilariously bad) but it looks like the first three deals I am making here in this league happen to be with folks I have been playing with in FBL for some time. Don't worry, I'm a slut when it comes to trading, and I will get around to everyone soon enough.
My team is clearly a "win now" team for a variety of reasons. There's a very strong competition window available to me in the next 2-3 years, and then soon after that the White Sox are headed for a rebuild. My predecessor did a spectacular job of acquiring talent that is peaking in this window. But many of the moves that brought in the current talent were at the expense of the not-so-distant future. The choice to trade away future draft picks to consolidate value in the here and now was likely the smart one. But it has firmly established the course the franchise needs to follow going forward. The franchise has made just 2 FYPD picks total in the last 5 seasons, and none the last 3 consecutive years. That steady, slow drain of future talent is catching up, as there are pieces missing from every level of the pipeline. My predecessor was a wizard in the Dispersal Draft, and clearly was a skilled trader, because the cupboard is fully stocked for today (even if the farm outside is thinned).
It also bears mentioning the landscape of the league. Any AL team that hasn't looked into a crystal ball and seen what the Angels are poised to become has blinders on. That's the strongest, deepest farm system I have ever seen in any league, in any sport. When Kiriloff is "only" your 3rd best OF spec... Well... The writing is on the wall, that if I hope to bring a title to the south side, it's either before the Angels begin their rampage, or it's after 2028 when they fall asleep after wrecking the league like a drunken Godzilla.
So here I am... seeing what assets I can pull from the future and supplement the present...
Among the earliest priorities was getting rid of as many negative contracts as possible, to give me the cap flexibility to supplement exactly where I need to once this initial flurry of trading is complete. I have three deals already in place, and am working on 3 or 4 more. But at the end of that I will need cap room to fill out the missing pieces to give me the best shot possible at a title during this window. Phillies was willing to take on essentially every bad contract I possessed, provide me three useful pieces at minimal present salary, and bring me the flexibility I needed.
I'm giving up one big name spec, in Luis Robert. Robert has a very sexy ceiling and a very unsexy floor. My personal preference is for players with strong plate discipline, and while I am willing to hold my nose and accept the stats that Joey Gallo has already proven he can put up (much as I would love to trade him for someone "comparable" with different tools), the bust rate for toolsy guys with bad plate discipline is high. Make no mistake, if Robert puts it all together he can be a player in MVP consideration. But players like Byron Buxton have shown that no matter how toolsy a spec may be, the hit tool is ultimately worth more than all the rest combined. Fangraphs ranked him 43rd this morning, and suggested there is a 1 in 6 chance he matures into a FV 70+ player. But they also suggested there's a 60% chance he never even makes it to average regular (FV 50).
I'm also giving up my FYPD 1st and 2nd in 2020, plus the low DD picks I have in the current draft, and my DD pick next year. Obviously if my plans work out, the 2020 picks should be very low indeed.
There is obviously a modicum of value in the four "cap dumps" I am sending. Pineda is returning from injury this season, and there is a chance he performs at an average level over the roughly 45-50 starts he might see during the two remaining years of his contract. But I use the term "might see" deliberately. Because Pineda started 28 games in his rookie year and has started just 89 big league games in the 7 years since (an average of less than 13 starts per year). While there is some ceiling here, the floor is nonexistent, and if I am making a run at a title, I can't invest 10% of my cap budget in him the next 2 years. Garrett Richards is in essentially the same boat, but I am paying $10m for his surgery recovery this season and then hoping for a rebound in the two remaining years. And at that point he will have made just 28 starts in the preceding 4 seasons combined. Tyler Clippard has been the pitching Iron Man the last 9 seasons, with more appearances than any pitcher in baseball over that time, and no season with fewer than 67. But he doesn't have a job yet, and this offseason has seen teams sign RP after RP while they ignore other positions. He's not one I am willing to invest in. The one "dump" that has a puncher's chance of bringing value is Moustakas. FG Depth Charts still projects him for a solid season, but he is a man without a team at the moment, and I would prefer to bid on someone else than risk having 15% of my cap invested in a part-time player.
While the "cap dump" part of this trade was critical to me, I am also receiving three pieces that should be quite useful to me.
Eric Lauer is a starting pitcher at Petco with 5 years of control. His peripherals aren't exceptional, and he will certainly eventually be supplanted by some of the sexier prospects coming up through the system. But those gentlemen aren't likely to be here in the next two seasons, and when they do arrive, Lauer will likely be traded to another team where he will continue to get starts. He's the epitome of a 4th starter (albeit with a ridonkulous pickoff move) and those guys get jobs.
Maikel Franco is a somewhat risky piece to plug in as my 3B starter. He isn't projected for the kind of stats Moose is, and it was announced earlier today that the starting 3B job is an "open competition with Scott Kingery". But Franco hit righties well last year (wRC+ of 118) and his abysmal stats the previous year were largely batted ball luck (BABIPs of .234 don't repeat). I think he will have a job often enough to assist. And if I buy a better 3B in FA this offseason, he doesn't cost me meaningful salary while sitting on the bench.
Hector Neris has the biggest upside of any of the three. His numbers in the second half (after returning from a demotion to AAA) were insane. His K-BB% was 43% down the stretch, and he was the 21st best RP in the second half per Roster Resource. The contact numbers, swinging strike numbers, and chase numbers are all far better than his atrocious ERA (which was essentially torpedoed by two outings in late June when he allowed 5 HR on just 14 batters faced resulting in his demotion). His August-September run saw 20 appearances with a K/9 of 17.83 and a FIP of 0.05. Those are "Edwin Diaz" numbers, and I am happily taking the chance he breaks out this season.
In all honesty, I never researched the other two guys I am getting back. Phillies indicated he needed to include a couple random guys for cap balance and I let him pick.
All in all, this is "mortgage the future for assets today", with those assets being three useful MLB pieces to assist me the next couple years, and $90m in cap room spread over the next three seasons, $40m this year and next plus an extra $10m off the books in 2021. Even with this league's inflation rate, I am confident I can turn that room into a couple pieces that will be VERY useful for me as I make a run for a title.
Sorry for making your eyes bleed. I did warn you.
Thanks for the easy talks, Phillies. Won't be our last deal.
