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Friday, March 29, 2024

In the last column of this series, looking at fantasy baseball trades, I want to talk about two key components of trades in keeper leagues: minor league prospects and future draft picks to acquire more prospects.

There is no doubt that fantasy players love their prospects. And what’s not to love:  these are potentially All Star hitters and pitchers; players who can be at the core of your fantasy team for years. Well they all can’t be, and frankly the MLB draft process, like the best hitters struggles to get four out of ten right. But whether the prospects we trade for or hope to acquire are a first round pick, or an undrafted player who two years later is rocketing through the minor leagues on his way to a major league roster, prospects offer hope.

And, we all have hope that our team(s) will finally have a dominant season(s), so those minor league prospects – especially the really shiny ones like Bryce Harper or Mike Trout – are what we want to find. In keeper leagues they truly are the “coin of the realm.” So which ones should you trade for? And which ones should you trade away? That my friends, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

But, if you are the team making a run to win your league, don't let your fascination with a player who is perhaps years away from the major leagues hold up a deal that helps you win your league this year. Pennants as they say fly forever. Meanwhile the path to the big leagues is littered with failed prospects.

Keeper leagues have many different formats and rules. Hopefully you play in one where you can acquire minor leaguers, and ideally that would be in a separate draft after your leagues draft, preferably an auction draft. In addition to the complexity of allocating your resources to build your team, an auction not only sets the market for the players in the spring, it gives those Farm players more value along with the hope.

In ideal keeper leagues (at least for me) minor leaguers would have a $5 contract when they are finally activated by their fantasy team. (Actually my AL keeper league has $5 initial salaries for hitters and $3 salaries for pitchers which help to balance the risk with younger pitchers and also prevent only hitters from being drafted in the minor league draft.)  That would be in contrast to a $10 “retention salary” of a player who is acquired as a free agent during the season. One other rules note here – keeper leagues that have that or a similar salary structure should also have a special rule in place in September. If you allow players added as free agents in September when MLB rosters have been increased in size and many minor leaguers are up for the month, you have subverted the value of your minor league salary structure. There are two easy ways to avoid that: 1) have a $25 retention salary for any free agent added in September; or 2) have a rule that any free agents added in September like crossover free agents from the other league cannot be kept in the following season.

One further rule will help keeper leagues with the perceived fairness in the inevitable rebuilding or “dump” trades each year.  Allow teams to trade minor league draft picks for the following year to help balance those trades. Those minor league picks also give extra inducement to get those deals done – that first round pick next year could be Stephen Strasburg or Bryce Harper.  (One procedural note here is that minor league draft picks traded must always be an exchange – 1st for a 5th at the extreme. You never want a team having more picks than the other teams or a team having no picks in that draft).

Obviously the exact value of draft picks changes with league rules and participants, but here are some examples of trades involving both minor leaguers and/or draft picks made. In several of these it would be near impossible for the “contending teams” to acquire the player(s) they needed without using the minor leaguers or minor league draft upgrades as barter.

Trade #1 – minor leaguers Drew Pomeranz, Blake Swihart, Levi Michael, Andrew Sussac and 1st round 2012 minor league draft pick for Justin Verlander (37D11), Jason Kubel (14D09) and 2nd round 2012 minor league draft pick

Trade #2 – Aaron Hill (13D09) and (middle) 3rd round 2012 minor league draft pick for minor leaguers Lorenzo Cain, Aaron Hicks, and (low) 3rd round 2012 minor league draft pick (estimated draft picks based on finish this year)

Trade #3 – Derrek Lee (19D11), Adam Kennedy (10F11), Carl Pavano (6D11), mler Dennis Raben and 4th and 5th 2012 minor league draft picks for Koji Uehara (8D11), Edwin Nunez (10F11), Jayson Nix (10F11) and 1st and 2nd 2012 minor league draft picks

Trade #4 – Sam Fuld (1D11), minor leaguers Miguel Sano, Dellin Betances, Nick Weglarz and 1st round 2012 minor league draft pick for Neslon Cruz (46D11), Jon Lester (34D10), Corey Patterson (10R11) and 3rd round 2012 minor league draft pick

Trade #5 – Felix Pie (1D11), Kelly Shoppach (1D11), Joel Piniero (3D10), minor leaguers Alex Liddi and Casey Crosby and 2nd round 2012 minor league draft pick for Kurt Suzuki (10C11), Scott Baker (11C11), Alexi Casilla (10F10) and 3rd round 2012 minor league draft pick.{jcomments on}