Dump Profile #1

Before I get started, a quick note. I'm having trouble with my Internet at home (it's a long story not worth getting into here). For those of you who rely on my FAAB logs, it's possible that they might be up late this week, as I'm waiting on my ISP to get their act together and get my service up and running. Hopefully, the problem will be fixed by tomorrow, but it's all on them right now.

As Toz promised last week, I thought I'd start looking at teams in my A.L. and in the N.L. I'm profiling to look at teams that formally gave up this year, what they get in return, and how they did in building a contender for 2008.

This first team is an A.L.-only team that finished 2nd in 2006 and emptied all barrels in doing so. He auctioned knowing that he was playing for 2008, and even though he never announced this, he made his first dump deal in April.

One significant advantage of moving early is that he arguably acquired the best player on the board by moving Vlad Guerrero ($44) and Miguel Tejada ($35) for Grady Sizemore ($20). A nice bonus was the acquisition of lightly regarded Tony Pena Jr. at $1. Pena has little power or speed, but his batting average is positive enough that he will probably turn a nifty little profit at that price.

His second trade netted him another cheap player in Nick Markakis ($4, contract year). Ironically, the throw-in here was a $2 Matt Stairs, who outperformed Vernon Wells ($34), the key player in the trade, for some time. He also gave up Jay Gibbons ($13) in this deal.

Finally, he moved Jay Payton ($3 option year) and J.D. Drew ($20) for uber-prospect Cameron Maybin.

The return this owner received in his first two deals was excellent. Sizemore and Markakis at a combined $29 or $34 next year is an excellent start for a team. However, I would quibble with the third deal. I love Cameron Maybin long-term, but Payton and Drew might have grabbed more combined with Akinori Iwamura ($15) and Lyle Overbay ($18). He also bought Roger Clemens for $80 FAAB and didn't move him before the trade deadline. While this certainly wouldn't ruin this owner's year next year, moving Clemens for anything of value prior to the deadline, even a draft pick, would have helped.

This profile does a good job of showing the advantages and disadvantages of dumping early. Sizemore and Markakis were two of the best gets in this market. However, this team drops off significantly after these two, and might get stuck in a three-year rebuilding plan without a deep auction next year. He didn't acquire any cheap starters or closers for 2008, and it is very hard to win a league when you must purchase most of your pitching at inflation values.