Stanton is a power pickup,
There seems to be something hard-wired in fantasy baseball owners’ DNA that makes them suddenly start thinking about trading once the calendar flips to June.
It must be something about the season reaching the one-third mark that makes us think what’s happened already is no longer just a product of small sample sizes.
Mookie Betts has scored more than 50 runs and is on pace for 153. That would be the most in a single season since Lou Gehrig scored 167 in 1936. (Though shouldbe Hall of Famer Jeff Bagwell did have 152 in 2000.)
Clayton Kershaw is a third of the way to a second consecutive 300-strikeout season, something no one has done since Randy Johnson. (Thank you, Baseball-Reference Play Index.)
For some reason, those and other numbers seem real now.
As the late Yogi Berra once said, “It gets late early out there.”
Maybe that’s why many fantasy owners are ramping up efforts to improve their teams before it’s too late.
One of the ways to do that is by acquiring players who have underachieved in the early going but still have significant upside. By now, it’s fairly easy to identify them because we’ve spent most of the first third of the season trying to figure out what’s gone wrong: Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, Jose Abreu, Carlos Gomez, Troy Tulowitzki, Dallas Keuchel, Chris Archer and Michael Wacha, to name a few.
If you’re in the bottom half of your league, a bold move to acquire one (or more) of these underachievers might be your only hope of getting into contention.
Research done many years ago for the old Baseball Weekly Hot Sheet found that there’s an 80% chance the winner in any 12-team Rotisserie league will be one of the top three teams June 1. If you’re in fourth, your chances are 8%. In fifth, 4%. Beyond that … it takes a minor miracle.
That doesn’t mean we can’t swing for the fences.
I found myself in that situation last week, mired in 13th place in the 15-team LABR mixed league. Sitting last in home runs and RBI, I inquired about the one player who could single-handedly make my team more competitive: Giancarlo Stanton.
So I touched base with RotoExperts’ Jake Ciely, whose team was a few slots ahead of mine in the standings. To see if I could pique his interest, I sent him a cryptic email: “Danny Valencia, Kyle Hendricks and Jose Reyes for Stanton. Who says no?”
Ciely, the Stanton owner, did say no — even though Stanton was hitting .214 with 12 homers. But he added that we might have some common ground if I’d started with Todd Frazier instead.
When we held our draft in mid-February, I already was bullish on Frazier maintaining his power stroke with the Chicago White Sox. Sure enough, he’s among the major league leaders in homers with 17. But making a major move in the standings is going to require even more power.
I offered Frazier for Stanton straight up. Again no sale, and we agreed to part ways.
“Guess it’s a pipe dream,” I wrote back, “but I’d just love to have a share of Stanton when he busts out like El Chapo here very soon. It’s gonna happen.”
A few days later, Ciely wrote back wondering if I would trade Frazier and Valencia for Stanton. But that was just as Stanton was in the process of missing several games with a rib injury.
To even out the two sides, our conversation turned to pitching. And he just happened to own another disappointing but high-upside player: Matt Harvey.
For a team in 13th place, that represents the best of both worlds. Stanton and Harvey could be the answer! Sadly, he wouldn’t take Frazier, Valencia and Jake Odorizzi for them. And the deal officially fell through when Harvey rebounded the next day by throwing seven scoreless innings against Frazier and the White Sox.
And Stanton’s impending bust-out? We’re still waiting for it.
Perhaps that’s just enough to give desperate owners the time to acquire him.
SHIELDS ON MOVE
Major league general managers also might have a similar trading gene in their DNA, because the season’s first big interleague trade happened during the weekend when the White Sox acquired pitcher James Shields from the San Diego Padres.
If the best time to make a trade is when you’re buying low, the White Sox picked the perfect moment to acquire the veteran right-hander.
Shields, 34, allowed 10 earned runs in 22⁄3 innings against the Seattle Mariners on May 31. That outing dropped his record to 2-7 and catapulted his season ERA from 3.06 to 4.28.
If one word best describes Shields, it’s “workhorse.” He has thrown at least 200 innings in each of the past nine seasons, the longest active streak in the majors.
However, not all of those innings have been good ones. Shields tied for the major league lead in home runs allowed last season with 33, an average of 1.47 per nine innings. And that was with pitcher-friendly Petco Park as his home base.
In Chicago, the home run could be an even bigger issue.
U.S. Cellular Field has played 4% above average this season when it comes to home runs, according to ESPN’s Park Factors — compared to Petco’s figure of 8% below average. However, the news isn’t all bad. U.S. Cellular has decreased scoring overall by 19% compared to the major league average, which puts it in this season’s bottom five. (Of course, those park factors are likely to change as the weather warms up.)
One note of caution: Shields’ average fastball velocity has gone from 91.0 mph in 2015 to 90.1 mph this season. That has corresponded with a decrease of two strikeouts per nine innings (from 9.6 to 7.6). Moving to the American League could make that gap even greater.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Shields trade marks the first time a player of fantasy significance has switched leagues this regular season. Fantasy owners in AL-only leagues likely spent a decent portion of their FAAB (free agent acquisition budget) this weekend to pick him up.
Of course, many other owners will want to save their funds in the event someone even better crosses over as the Aug. 1 nonwaiver trade deadline gets closer. (This season, it has been moved a day later because July 31 falls on a Sunday.)
Although Shields might not carry the same kind of impact Yoenis Cespedes, Johnny Cueto, Cole Hamels or Troy Tulowitzki offered at the deadline last season, the benefit of spending early is that it secures a player’s services for eight additional weeks. In AL- or NL-only leagues, that can be a significant advantage.
This season, there might not be a ton of players switching leagues leading up to the deadline. That’s partly because several pending free agents, most recently pitcher Stephen Strasburg and catcher Francisco Cervelli, signed contract extensions rather than wait to test the market.
As a result, the free agents at the end of this season — veterans who are most likely to be dealt at the deadline — don’t have a lot of star power (Josh Reddick) or are on teams that likely will need their services to make a playoff run (Cespedes, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, Kenley Jansen, Aroldis Chapman).
One player to keep an eye on is Oakland Athletics left-hander Rich Hill. Following up on last season’s fantastic finish, he’s 8-3 and has a 2.25 ERA with 74 strikeouts in 64 innings. If there’s one player worthy of hoarding your FAAB dollars for a possible interleague trade later this season, Hill is it.