Fantasy Baseball Trades: Never be Afraid to Pull the Trigger
As we saw in “Moneyball”, Jonah Hill knows to not be afraid of trading. Photo Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
For the first four illustrious years of my Little League career, I was coached by none other than my dad. In one of the first practices every year, we’d be going over hitting and he’d ask us all a simple question. “Who do you think struck out more? Me, or Babe Ruth?”
Of course, all of us kids would instantly say “Yoooouuu” and the answer was obviously Babe Ruth. The overall message was that you can’t be afraid to swing the bat. Sabermetricians may critique my dad’s coaching style, noting that’s it’s okay to take a walk. But the overall message was quite simple. You can’t be afraid to fail on the baseball field.
When you look at the career strikeout list for hitters, you’ll see Reggie Jackson — a Hall of Famer — at the top. Which pitcher has lost more games than any other? Cy Young, who’s in the Hall of Fame and if I’m not mistaken, has a pretty prestigious award named after him.
Yup. Sometimes the best fail. It’s not something you can be afraid of. Really, that’s always something to remember in life, but we don’t need to get too philosophical. But the same idea applies to fantasy baseball trades, and I feel okay talking about that here.
Every Trade is a Gamble
I drafted Will Venable in one of my leagues. Thus far, he’s been a bit of a disappointment. It’s a league that uses individual outfield positions and in the first month of the season, I signed Marcell Ozuna, made a trade for Dexter Fowler, and am constantly checking other rosters for a potential trade I can make for a CF.
Of course, one center fielder that I could try to trade for is Mike Trout. Just for fun, let’s say the guy who owns Trout was not only willing to trade him, but willing to trade him straight up for Venable.
Guess what? If I was completely unwilling to take a gamble, I wouldn’t even take that trade. What if Venable turns things around and has another 20-20 season? What if (knock on wood), Trout suffers a season-ending injury (knock on wood again, that would be awful)?
If a trade looks like it makes sense for you to make, you can’t worry so much about the risks that you talk yourself out of making the trade. You’re doing your team a disservice if you do that.
Sure, sometimes a trade won’t work out well, even if it was a no-brainer when you accepted it. But you can’t let that keep you from pulling the trigger at the right time. Remember, the results of the trade aren’t what makes it good or bad. The realistic potential of the results is what does that.
It Will be Okay if Things Don’t Work Out
Everyone wants to win the championship. Everyone wants their trade to work out like Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas did for the Orioles…and then some. But what if you get the Reds part of that trade? You take a chance on a trade and it fails miserably.
You know what? The world will not end. The fate of the universe does not depend on the success of the trade.
This might seem like an incredibly obvious statement, but you’d be surprised how some people act when emailing us asking for trade advice? They’ll ask us if we think they should take a trade that looks like a good one. We’ll say “Yes” and they immediately try to talk us out of it.
“What if this happens?” “What if that happens?”
Then you make another move to counteract whatever this or that was. The world will still spin if you make a bad trade. You can still play fantasy baseball if you make a bad trade.
If a trade looks good, make it. If for whatever reason it doesn’t work out, make another. On that note…
Don’t Let a Bad Trade Make you Afraid to Make Another
Everyone makes a bad trade sometimes. Maybe it was a trade that made no sense when you made it. Maybe it made perfect sense and just didn’t work out. If you play the game long enough, you’re going to make a bad move or two.
If you do happen to make a good trade, the worst thing you can do is get overconfident and rush into making another one. If you still need the help, go for it. Otherwise, don’t try your luck.
Similarly, the worst thing you can do if you make a bad trade is be afraid to make a new one. If you do, then you not only made a bad trade, but you were potentially afraid to correct it by making another.
Trading should be one of the best things about fantasy baseball, and I’ve never met a player that I would even consider halfway decent that was afraid to make a trade.
We often make fun of Nash because he is incredibly active on the trade market but the truth of the matter is that guys like that are not only very fun to play with…but very successful in this silly little game.
Now that the season is in full swing, the contenders are starting to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. In every league I’ve ever been in, the most successful owners were the most active. The most active owners are the ones that understand all of these ideas and make trades.