Spell it out for them.
That’s the message this week: If you’re going to make a trade, you need to explain the benefits to the other fantasy baseball manager. Make sure you explain to them (in short… no one wants to read a novel while they’re looking at their roster) how your proposed deal can make their team better right away.
The process starts by looking at your leaderboard. This is especially true in roto competitions, where each category tells its own story. Your goal should be to find a cluster of managers in a chosen category and offer some of them the opportunity to break out of the pack by acquiring one of your players. For example, Steven Kwan is featured in this week’s article. As a Kwan manager with some breathing room in batting average, my goal would be to find the cluster of teams in that category and offer him to at least a few members of that group. My proposal starts with: “I noticed that with a small improvement in batting average you could get past several other teams. Kwan can make that possible for you.’ And then you can finish your proposal by explaining why the player traded away by the other manager is less important to his success than Kwan.
This isn’t rocket science. Spending some time analyzing your league standings can lead to sensible offers where you improve the overall value but your leaguemate gets someone who fits his or her roster. And now let’s look at some men who are high sales candidates for various reasons.
Sales high
Steven Kwan (OF, Cleveland Guardians)
Kwan should be very attractive to those in a tight race in terms of batting average, as his .385 mark would make him the runaway leader in baseball if he had enough at-bats to qualify. There’s no doubt that the career .297 hitter is effective at racking up hits, but he’ll still experience a noticeable decline when his .395 BABIP drops to a reasonable level. Kwan, who is helpful but not special in the cumulative categories, has recently been part of some big trades on the Yahoo Trade Market, and wise managers will try to move him while his value is at its peak.
Anthony Santander (OF, Baltimore Orioles)
Those who have escaped the middle tier of the home run category in their league might try to move Santander based on the fact that he is an energy producer who can help another team move up a few spots in that category. While the slugger is fourth in baseball with 21 long balls, the 62-point difference between his SLG and xSLG suggests he may undergo some power regression in the coming weeks. Camden Yards is definitely not a launching pad for right-handed hitters like Santander, and the slow-footed career .246 hitter is hitting .232, making him a marginal producer when not launching round-trippers. Like Kwan, Santander should be quite valuable the rest of the way, but we may have already seen the best of both players in terms of 2024 production.
Garrett Hook (SP/RP, Chicago White Sox)
Crochet has become this year’s waiver wire gem as he currently ranks second in baseball in strikeouts and sixth in WHIP. Heck, Crochet has pitched so well that he’s even managed six of the White Sox 21 wins. But this seems like the best time to move the southpaw for a king’s ransom as the innings count is already dangerously high. Crochet hasn’t thrown more than 65 innings in any NCAA season at Tennessee, and his season-high as a professional entering 2024 was 54.1 frames in 2021. He’s already at 94.1 innings this year, and it would be wise to conclude that the last-place White Sox will slow his pace in the second half or shut him down completely. An early end to Crochet’s season would be devastating for the mutual managers, who would have to drop him during their play-off weeks. And while the situation in the roto formats is less dire, there is still a good reason to trade Crochet for a player who has underperformed so far in 2024 but has greater potential to provide stable value throughout the summer to keep.
Luis Gil (SP, New York Yankees)
Gil got off to a disastrous start against the Orioles on June 20, but most managers will write off a brutal performance as bad luck in a tough game, especially when it comes to a pitcher who has been outstanding this year. But Gil’s walking pace gives some cause for concern. The right-hander ranks third in baseball with 41 walks, and the only player with similar ratios and an inflated walk count is Tyler Anderson, the current poster boy for impending regression. Gil has a lot of value on the trade market because he is an exciting young pitcher working for perhaps baseball’s most iconic franchise. Additionally, he is well supported by an excellent Yankees roster, which has helped him rank fourth in baseball with nine wins. And like Crochet, there are innings concerns regarding Gil, who returned from Tommy John surgery in 2022 and threw fewer than 30 total innings in the 2022-2023 seasons.
