A little mail bag this morning but first a couple of things …
Football season is approaching (for some of you quicker than others) and some of you rookies may not know that Insiderfootball.com exists. You should. If you loved our baseball Draft Advisor Software this spring, you can see the next generation of it on the football side and get a nice preview of what we will be seeing as features in 2008.
Like the baseball software the Football Draft Advisor adapts seamlessly to your leagues rules, roster formats, and player pool top give you player values customized for your league. Like the baseball software there are projections, cheat sheets (again customized for your league including keepers or freezes), and all the stats you could ever want. And like the baseball software the Football Draft Advisor allows you to keep track on your entire draft including money, positions needed, available players by position and by level all on one screen.
And like here on the baseball side that is backed up by a great roster of writers and analysts hand feeding you everything you need to, right in your inbox each morning of the season. Of course all the great customizable and sortable tools you have come to depend on on the baseball site are available on the football side as well
Oh, did I mention Anthony Perri’s statistical reports and analysis? Or how about our running Gameday player status blog which has up to the minute info about who is playing and who is not, as well as the latest news on just how injured your RB is, right up until kick off.
Great stuff. Good check it out at Insiderfootball.com
Ok, here we go …
Greetings Lou,
I’m always reading your daily reports and I’m amazed how useful they are, but right now I’m trying to make an important decision on a team I’ll be protecting for next year season.
I would like to protect one 1B player and I have to choose among T. Helton, C. Kotchman or J. Loney, but I’m not sure if any of them worth a spot. I know there is no much data about the league, but I just want to hear your opinion, my team roster is below. I have up to 20 players that I can keep; which ones would you keep?
- LG
Sometimes it helps to look at these problems for philosophically. With any of these first basemen you are going to be behind the curve at that position in 2008, but Helton is at least representative at 1B.
If you intend to contend next year, with 20 protects for each team there isn’t likely to be a better option at 1B than Helton and there is a possibility that the
Still, James Loney is probably your guy because he, at least, has the potential to become a competitively productive first baseman. His power has not shown up in his stat line yet, but he hits the ball hard. James still hits the ball on the ground a lot but it’s not unreasonable to speculate that there is 25-30 HR potential in that package.
The rub here is that we said these same things about J.D. Drew all those years ago.
Barring a trade to get a first baseman, and considering the large number of keepers in your leagues format (and assuming you have more than 5 teams in the league) I think you have to keep at least Loney. The only thing that would prevent him from giving you 75%, 80%, perhaps 90%+ of Helton’s production in 2008 would be a lack of playing time or some unpredictable resurgence by Helton (whose power skills are deteriorating, and who will be 35 years old when we convene at this point next summer).
Hey Lou
May I ask you for your expert opinion on a few trade offers I have received? I have Johan Santana & Roy Oswalt on the trade block league-wide (keeper league).
I have offers of Miguel Cabrera & Scott Baker for Santana & Ian Stewart. - Mark Teixeira & Dontrelle Willis for Santana & Brad Eldred. Roy Oswalt & Luke Scott for Grady Sizemore & Sergio Mitre-- I really like that offer but will try to get a better sp like Cole Hamels by offering Johnny Damon. Your thoughts please would be much appreciated.
-T
Good trade question … And I especially like that T put Oswalt and Santana out to the entire league and just browsed offers from competitors. Making a trade with players of that caliber without having a full and complete understanding of what is the highest price that any owner would pay for them is grounds for dismissal.
Regular owners know I have my own ideas about open trading and those policies are for each league to decide among themselves. Nevertheless, when dealing players like these it is simply due diligence to make sure that the fact that you are trading these guys gets before very owner on the league, simply to ensure that you do not leave what would have been the best offer on the table.
It would be like selling your house and only telling three people.
You want everyone to know you are selling it, you want 2 or 3 or more people interested in buying it, and you want them bidding on it.
That having been said, I don’t think I trade Johan Santana at this point in time unless someone get absolutely goofy over him and makes you a Godfather offer (as I did in my football league to land Tom Brady). He is the Unicorn of starting pitchers. He is exceptional, he is exceptionally consistent, and he is exceptionally durable. And he does it in the best offensive division in baseball.
Of course, if you have him signed to some ridiculous contract that may change things, or if you are simply horrible offensively and ridiculously flush at starter I might think differently… And there is no info about your league or scoring format here. Basically my thoughts are that Johan is the best there is and I don’t trade him unless you are talking a name of the magnitude of Albert, A-Rod, Hanley, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Ryan Howard, Carl Crawford, Grady Sizemore, Beltran. Moreover, for most of those names, I would have to need the player badly too.
Miggy Cabrera is currently at that level, but he is 24 years old and he is huge. I have serious concerns about his physically make up. Right now, he is an elite offensive player, but two years from now he could be 280. That has to be a factor right in everyone’s thinking.
Like you T, I like the Grady Sizemore offer. I own Roy Oswalt and love him. The only reason I got him in trade two years ago was because his owner (a sharp guy) didn’t think he had much left in that arm. I didn’t either, but I needed his consistently and I was playing for a title, so if I just got one good year out of him I would be happy. I did and won a championship in which he played a huge role. I have gotten a good year out of him this year too. But I will be looking to shop him in the offseason. His K rate is in a three-year decline and is down to 6.5/9. His OBA is .267 this year, and that is mediocre. True he is throwing more GBs but he is morphing into simply a good pitcher and he will not be an elite pitcher for long.
Grady Sizemore is an elite offensive player and I would happily flip Oswalt for him (again, without knowing the roster structures around this deal and working in a bit of a vacuum). You are also right in that Mitre is static (so is Scott to some extent) and if dealing a failing Damon would get you an upgrade to Cole Hamels I would be very comfortable with that deal.
Best of all you are basically trading Oswalt for Sizemore and Santana because presumably you would be getting Grady and keeping Johan … That looks like a pretty good deal to me.
