Long time readers will remember columns on trading where I introduced the concept of “addition by subtraction” as it applied to category standings in fantasy baseball.

Simply put, you could make a trade that a) wouldn’t gain your team any points in the standings, and b) where you would take the short end of the trade and still gain points in the standings by taking away points from one of your competitors.

The Jerry Beckham League, as noted in the draft prep article that Todd Zola and I pen in January, is a league where all the parameters mirror the NFBC format. Of course, that is done so that the drafters can get a head start on their research and strategy for the NFBC by drafting in a much cheaper league with the same setup in December.

And, part of mirroring the NFBC leagues is that the league is a “no trade” league. But what if I could make a trade in that league? Actually, I pose the question only to give you a nice example of an addition by subtraction trade.

First, here are the overall standings as of the morning of July 31. (Perhaps the column is also a birthday wish for my late brother Rod, who died way too early several years ago).

As you can see, I have a very tenuous lead in this league.

Captain Hook 113.5
Risky Business 113
Liquid Hippos - JBL 111
Central Park Muggers 111
Hoboken Generals 105
Goldilocks 103.5

But, let’s take a look at the strikeout category:

Captain Hook 969
Central Park Muggers 917
Goldilocks 909
Risky Business 895
Liquid Hippos 880

With the base of my staff consisting of Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Hisashi Iwakuma and Patrick Corbin, I have enough strikeouts that I could trade some if this were a trading league. So the play is to trade one of those starting pitchers to Goldilocks and getting back something that will help my team in another category and will help Goldilocks overtake the Muggers in strikeouts (with a nice bonus in this example of also preventing Risky Business or Liquid Hippos from gaining a point by passing Goldilocks.

Look for a category where you can make a trade like this to help your team.

Unfortunately, I can’t help this team with a trade.{jcomments on}