Fantasy Baseball How To

Trade for a top prospect

Trading for a big name prospect might be the the most difficult thing to do in fantasy baseball. You have to think through how you value the prospect, how the other owner values the prospect and depending on how your trade rules are set up, how your fellow league-mates view that prospect (because they can veto trades and such).

Normally the person who has the top prospect will value him a little higher than everyone else (maybe a lot more)-I mean, they did pick that player before anyone else, so seeing eye-to-eye on trade value could be difficult. The best thing you could do would be to talk to the other manager, see his value, and try to temper his love for said prospect by using obscure stats and skewing the advice of fantasy experts to your advantage-like saying that you heard Peter Gammons say they were going to keep this player down til at least July or something. Is this unethical? It just may be, but if you can land a potential top player for a lot less than you would have had to give up, then its better for you.

After you have seen the other manager's expectations of this player and have tried knocking those expectations down, begin talks with him about trade offers. Offer him players that you value slightly less than the prospect, sending messages with reassuring points about the player you are giving up.

You may have to do some tinkering with the player(s) you offer, maybe even do a package deal, whatever the case is though, don't go over your expected value of your potential newcomer. Don't fall in to the trap that many fantasy sports managers fall in to-getting their sights set on a player and doing whatever it takes to get the player, regardless of whether or not it hurts your team.

Hopefully following these tips can help you land a Wieters or a Price for a much lower...price (sorry, had to) and also can net you a few steals in trades that don't involve prospects.

Fantasy Baseball early season tip...

Many of you may be in this scenarion right now; the first week of the season is almost complete and the 'studs' you have drafted like Jose Reyes, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, Tim Lincecum etc. are doing absolutely AWFUL. So what should you do when this happens-when your big name stars are struggling so terribly?

You see, baseball is unlike any other sport on earth. The best hitter in history could go 2 weeks without getting a single hit while on the other hand some no-name scrub could get a hit in 8 straight ABs. Does that mean you should drop greatest-hitter-ever for no-name-scrub? Definitely not. Instead, just roll with it and do nothing. They will right the ship eventually.

However, if your star player has gotten around 150 ABs or 60 IP and they still are destroying your team, it may be time to trade them (but never drop them, someone will almost always be willing to trade for a big-name guy)

One thing you can do to take advantage of your impatient fellow-fantasyers is to send out trades early for any struggling superstar and see if you can get lucky.