And We Build

And We Build is brought to you by friend and fantasy extraorinaire, Jason Riemer.  His series on fantasy baseball will largely focus on how to improve your team during the season and offseason.  Jason has traded Pablo Sandoval and Ben Zobrist for Hanley Ramirez, 'nuff said. 

Hello fantasy ballers and fellow fans of the BBB and welcome to the first installment of And We Build.  My name is Jason and in this segment I will be sharing my opinions and discussing the ins and outs of trading in your fantasy baseball league by providing tips and attempting to help L. Jonathan Reader build a championship team in 2011 and beyond.

Trading in your fantasy baseball league can be very simple.  See a need, fill a need.  Trade Jon Lester for Ryan Howard.  Easy like Sunday morning.  Neither team wins or loses.  Both get what they are looking for and theoretically have a statistical advantage over their other league mates moving forward.

I don’t know about you, but that booores me.  Fantasy baseball is a cutthroat game!  Herm gets it.  We’re on the same page.  He knows what I’m talking about!  When I deal, my goal is to cripple my opponent and continue to posture my team as a dominant, stat hogging beast.  Yours should be too.

Now that I am sweating, allow me to get into the basics of trading.

A trade begins from the moment that you look at your team and say, “Damn! Pablo Sandoval is sucking!  I could really use an upgrade at 3B,” or “Rats! I can’t believe I lost a point in steals today.  I gotta get me some of those before I drop in the standings!” or “Snap! I’m absolutely crushing saves right now.  I could probably afford to trade on of my 7 closers!”  You get the picture.  The trade begins when you realize that you have a need or an excess on your own team.

The first and most important step of the trading process is to know your own team.  In business school I learned about the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) which when applied to a product or business can give someone a better understanding of its value in a market.  Similarly, you can look at any fantasy baseball team and determine their relative value by assessing these 4 crucial pieces of information:

Strengths/Weaknesses:

Recognizing your strengths and weaknesses will not only make you realize how much you rock at fantasy baseball (hopefully), but it will also give you an idea of what your team needs and what you can afford to part with on your road to the top of the standings.  Understanding your team will separate you from the casual fantasy baller and give you an innate leverage in a negotiation over those who do not know their endgame.

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will tell you in what areas you need to improve your team while allowing you to identify your “carrots” (like a carrot to a horse, those players who you can dangle in front of other managers to interest them in trading with you).  Most importantly, this step will allow you to have a better understanding of the players that you can afford to let go of in any given transaction.  There are certain things that as a manager you won’t be willing to part with.  This could be anything from your ace to your 4^th outfielder.  It all depends on your team and how you see it fitting in with the rest of the league.  

Ask yourself:     

·         In what categories does your team dominate? 

·         Where can you be exploited/where can you improve?  

·         What categories do you lack in? 

·         Is your team overproducing in one or more categories? 

·         Is your team deep? Are there players on your bench that are producing and could be starting on your team or someone else’s?

·         Do you have an abundance of players at a shallow position? Do you have David Wright and Ryan Zimmerman and can afford to trade one?

·         ***Do you need to make a trade to improve?

***This question relates to leverage in a negotiation.  Maybe the single most important thing about negotiating is the perception that your opposing managers have of you.  The weaker or more desperate you appear, the easier it will be for other managers to hold out on you and make you sweat.  I will discuss this much more in a future post about negotiating tactics.

Opportunities/Threats:

Now that we understand a little more about our teams, the next step is to identify where you can find value in a transaction.  As opposed to the strengths and weaknesses of your team, opportunities and threats should have you focused on the future and your team’s potential to grow. 

Opportunity is a topic that I will continually touch on in my posts because it changes frequently and is completely relative to the texture of your league.  How far along into the season/offseason you are, where you lie in the standings and what the tendencies are of the other managers in your league can all play a part in how and where opportunities arise. 

Ask yourself:

·         In what categories can your team improve the most?  Where is your team at risk to lose points?

·         Can you pass your closest competitors in certain categories to increase your lead or shorten theirs?

·         Do you have players who are overproducing and can you get good value for them in a trade?

·         Are you in the thick of the money race or is it time to start preparing for next season by focusing on collecting keepers?

·         Should you take advantage of the fact that you’re in a league with rabid Mets fans who would shell out some quality players for an aging Johan Santana (yes, you should).

·         Are you in danger of losing points in a category?  

·         Does your close competitor have a big player coming back from an injury soon?

By understanding the ins and outs of your team and where it lies in relation to the rest of your league you will have a better grasp on what type of position and leverage you have in a negotiation.  To quote School House Rock, knowledge is power.  Know your shizz.