Trading Late

For many Rotisserie leagues - particularly carryover leagues - the trade deadline has come and gone. At this point, your hopes are mostly pinned on the players you already own. Sure, you might get lucky via FAAB or waivers, particularly on the pitching side. However, if you don't already have 13 or 14 every day players in your line-up, chances are that FAAB isn't going to make up for this deficiency.

Some leagues, though, do allow for later trading. Most of these leagues aren't carryover leagues, but a small handful do allow what's commonly known as contiguous trading - meaning that you can trade with the teams directly above and below you in the standings. So if you're in 3rd you can trade with the 4th place team and the 2nd place team.

The idea behind this rule is to allow trading without allowing a very late dump trade to destroy the integrity of your league's pennant race. If you're in 3rd you're probably pretty close in the standings to the team in 4th and 2nd...you're not going to give up in mid-August if you've gone this far.

All of this being said, contiguous trades rarely happen. Non-contending teams typically have checked out and figure they can make the same trade next year in March that they're being offered in August. Contending teams are reluctant to help their fellow contenders unless there is obvious statistical excess - and such excess is dealt with by stronger teams earlier in the season.

I bring this up because the team above me in the standings offered me Asdrubal Cabrera for Hank Blalock. His rationale was that I could use a bump in speed and had a 12 HR lead over the next team (he has a pretty strong SB lead as well) in the standings.

This was my reply:

I can see why you may have been frustrated with the brevity of my explanation. I was on my way out (or on my way to sleep, I'm not sure whether I'm coming or going these days) and I could see how my comment about how Cabrera won't help in BA enough for me to make the trade was insufficient from your vantage point. So I'll try again.

With about 30% of the season left, it's very difficult for a 1-for-1 player trade to have a lot of impact in mid-August. If you simply take Cabrera and Blalock's current numbers and pro-rate them for the rest of the season:

BLALOCK 110 AB, 27 H, 7 HR, 17 RBI, 1 SB
CABRERA 109 AB, 34 H, 2 HR, 14 RBI, 5 SB

I can see why you smartly offered Cabrera (besides the fact that I bought him for $19 last year and got the chaff)...he's driving in runs at a decent clip and there's a good possibility that I might only lose a handful of ribbies if I move you Blalock.

However, the 4 SB boost that Cabrera's likely to give me is going to gain me - at best - a point. As I said in my initial e-mail, getting seven extra hits obviously provides a BA boost, but I don't think it provides enough of a boost to justify the trade. If my math is correct, I jump up .001. That would be intriguing if I were in the middle of the BA scrum, but at this late date it's going to take a lot to pass anyone.

Obviously, a lot depends on your own circumstances and how tight the categories are in your league. But - generally speaking - these late season trades don't do much for either team.

Except when they do. I'll talk about that tomorrow night.