Week 12 Trade Possibilities
Hopefully you were able to pick up John Danks and trade Bobby Abreu last week. But even if you stood pat there are still plenty of acquisition targets and trade bait guys out there for you. So, here are five guys to pick up and five guys to move.
Acquire
Lance Berkman – It has been a disappointing season for Berkman so far, as he has failed to keep pace with last year in four of the five fantasy categories. Surprisingly, HR is the one category he is currently outperforming last year, as he has both a slightly higher FB rate and HR/FB mark than in 2008. It was unrealistic to expect him to match last year’s career best in SB and R. But his AVG and RBI numbers have been disappointing. But Berkman has just a .248 BABIP (he’s never been below .303 since becoming a full-time player). The past two years Berkman has been a different player before and after the All-Star break. There is a strong possibility we will see that play out for a third straight season as he should experience regression with his BABIP, leading to a better average and more R and RBI.
Cole Hamels – Few imagined that Hamels would be sitting with just four wins and a 4.24 ERA after 13 games but that is where we are. However, Hamels has Quality Starts in three of his last four outings. His K/9 and BB/9 are both improved over last year. Hamels has been dinged by the long ball and is suffering from a .355 BABIP. His FIP is slightly lower than it was last season and is 60 points lower than his current ERA. RoS ZiPS sees him getting eight wins and a 3.60 ERA from here on out, making him a nice buy candidate.
Vernon Wells – Coming into the season the big question with Wells was could he stay healthy. So far, the answer has been yes. But while he’s been a regular in the lineup, his production has been a disappointment. Wells has been hitting for neither AVG nor power. His FB% is a normal 40.3 percent but he is hitting only 5.8 percent HR/FB, compared to a career average of 12.1 percent. Also, his BABIP checks in at just .266. Wells is finally showing signs of life with a modest six-game hitting streak, with three multi-hit games. Hopefully, this is the beginning of an extended hot streak for him.
Javier Vazquez – Year in and year out, probably no pitcher confounds those who carefully monitor statistics more than Vazquez. Currently, he has a brilliant 5.85 K/BB ratio, a 0.91 HR/9 mark, a 1.05 WHIP and a losing record. At least this year Vazquez is able to translate his fine peripherals into a good ERA. Given his history, there is no guarantee that he will get more wins from here on out, but even if he does not, Vazquez is still a fine contributor in three categories and worth investigating if his current owner is fed up with him.
Daniel Murphy – All the injuries suffered by the Mets this year have helped Murphy keep regular playing time, despite his poor start with the bat. Last year in the majors he had a .386 BABIP and a 33.3 percent LD rate. This year he has an 18.6 percent LD rate and a .265 BABIP. There is room for growth in his AVG and Murphy has displayed more HR pop this year than previously. With the uncertainty surrounding Carlos Delgado’s return, Murphy is likely to have at least another month of regular ABs for his BABIP to stabilize.
Trade
Brad Hawpe – Throughout his major league career, Hawpe has used above-average BABIP to post good AVG and solid HR numbers. This year he has a .389 BABIP and a .335 AVG, which is 47 points above his career AVG. And even with that elevated AVG, Hawpe has a career-best .276 ISO. Either Hawpe has moved into elite company or the time has come to sell high on him. I am banking on the latter.
Dan Haren – Throughout the off-season, I encouraged everyone to draft Haren. So, I feel a little bad about declaring him a trade candidate now. But he has a 0.82 WHIP (the lowest mark in the majors for qualified hurlers), a .238 BABIP (again, the lowest mark in the majors for qualified hurlers) and an 86 percent strand rate (the second-best mark). Haren should remain an elite pitcher the rest of the season but his trade value will probably never be higher.
Adrian Gonzalez – According to ESPN, Gonzalez is on a pace for 55 HR this season. If he keeps that up it would be a mistake to trade him. But Gonzalez has a HR/FB rate of 29.5 percent, which dwarfs last year’s career-best 20.7 percent. Also, his .326 ISO is 95 points above last year’s career-best mark. Here is another guy we are trying to sell at the height of his value who will nevertheless be a very productive player the rest of the season.
Ted Lilly – The past three seasons, Lilly has been very good for W and K but with his ERA and WHIP (two of the three years) dragging him down somewhat. So far this year, Lilly sits with a 3.04 ERA and a 1.06 WHIP, both of which would be career-best marks. He has a lifetime 3.26 BB/9 mark and this year it stands at 1.96 so far. And his BABIP checks in at .256, 30 points below his career average. He is still likely to finish with 15 W and 175 K but both the ERA and WHIP figure to rise significantly the rest of the season.
Alexei Ramirez – A brutal start has dragged Ramirez’ overall numbers down but he has been hot in June with a .280 AVG and five HR so far this month. Owners were bullish on Ramirez, giving him an ADP of 70 (just a few spots behind Gonzalez). They were expecting him to build on last year’s numbers but instead Updated ZiPS has him merely repeating or falling short of last year’s fantasy output. Use his hot June to sell now and minimize the damage.
Print This Post
Does Coors affect BABIP, explaining his high career average? Hawpe is batting .404 at Coors, and so far the Rockies have played a lot of road games. I think he’s still valuable for RBI, AVG, and OBP.
Here are BABIP splits for Rockies hitters
2009
H – .308
R – .290
2008
H – .316
R – .300
2007
H – .333
R – .311
Now for Padres hitters
2009
H – .246
R – .295
2008
H – .284
R – .304
2007
H – .281
R – .299
In 2008, Hawpe had a .335 BABIP at home and a .348 on the road.
In 2007 it was .339 at home and .343 on the road.
Thanks. Those are the two extreme parks and the results look about flipped.
I own Haren, Vazquez and Verlander, and I’ve been trying to trade Haren for an elite hitter, as I’m light in HRs and dead last in RBIs. I recently offered Haren and Lowe for Howard and Lester. That makes sense, right?
I just dealt Haren today, along with Adam Jones and Matt Holliday, for Joe Mauer, Yovanni Gallardo and Ryan Ludwick. I then shipped Ludwick out of town for Zobrist and Brian Wilson.
How does everyone feel about Adrian’s prospects in a keeper league with regards to trading him at this point? I own him in a 7×7 6-keeper league (standard 5 plus Ks and BBs offensively), where he’s been more valuable with the league-leading BBs. I’m intrigued by the off-chance the Padres ship him out for prospects sometime next year.
Acquire Vernon Wells? I could argue just the opposite. His BABIP is .266… but judging by his BABIP, LD% the past 5 years, do you honestly believe he is simply a victim of bad luck? Looks to me like he is just not as good a hitter as he once was.
I see a guy who’s on the wrong side of 30, injury prone, and who’s best years are behind him. After a 6-game hitting streak, I’d be looking to get rid of him, not acquire him.
I see a guy who is due for an injury, not regression to career averages… and it appears ZiPS would agree with me.
HOWEVA, I am aboard the Daniel Murphy train, and think you are spot on there.
What’s the reason for selling Alexei Ramirez? He started out slow last year too and raked in the final 4 months. He’s turned it around and just might be great from here on out. Power and speed, hitting in the 2-spot, playing in a great hitters park, with a respectable average. That’s at least a nice recipe for success. He’s my Plan B for if/when Zobrist comes back to earth, loses playing time to a returning Iwamura, or if I sell high.
My reason would be that Ramirez was overvalued coming into the season and if you have him and can now sell him for the equivalent of his ADP – do it.
Brian…it seems like there are always a couple guys who just don’t make sense. Why in God’s name would any owner be fed up with Javier Vazquez? His value is as high as it has been in half a decade, and he is no guarantee to keep up this pace, so why on earth would I pay top dollar to acquire him?
Alexei Ramirez….so he struggles for a couple months, and now when he gets hot, it’s time to trade him to “minimize the damage”? Completely illogical. ZiPS projects 11 homeruns and 8 stolen bases with a .286 average on the rest of the season….which is very solid. If he continues the hot streak (which is very possible), selling him now will seem downright stupid.
You’ve never played in a league where someone needed Wins and was willing to trade a guy underperforming in the category?
Brian….nobody’s going to trade Javier Vazquez cheap because he has a few fewer wins than he should, whether or not they need wins.
It’s nice to know that you are aware of the trading patterns of the three million plus people who play fantasy baseball.
I have to say I’ve never played in a fantasy league where people sell their stud pitchers because they aren’t getting enough wins. That is completely unheard of
CBS Sports tracks all trades from their members and you can access them. The great Javy Vazquez has been traded around 100 times in the past five days alone in their leagues and 261 times since June 12th. The majority of these have been part of multi-player deals where you can twist around what the owner motivation is. But here are four deals from the past five days where Vazquez was traded straight up for another SP
Bronson Arroyo
AJ Burnett – two times
Edwin Jackson
CBS Sports is just one fantasy provider and probably not the biggest, either. I believe you when you say that you’ve never seen it happen in any league that you play in. But that is simply not something you can extrapolate to every other fantasy player on the planet.
Javier Vazquez is the 90th most traded starting pitcher on CBS since June 12th. 89 other starting pitchers have been traded more. 261 may sound like a big number without any context, but not so much when Santana has been traded 479 times in that same span.
Plus….
Bronson Arroyo – The guy is either a complete idiot or trying to lose.
AJ Burnett – Probably a yankees fan who has no idea what he’s doing. Burnett has been worse or the same in every category thus far.
Jackson – His ERA is 2.40, and he’s about 6 years younger. I don’t think the 1 win difference is why it happened.
Bad trades happen no matter what the value of a player…if you have a rookie or an idiot in your league, you can get a player for cheap no matter what his current value. The point is, among fantasy owners who know anything about baseball, Javer Vazquez isn’t going to have diminished value because he only has 5 wins.
I can come up with just as uneven trades for players without diminished value….in my 12 team league on ESPN someone traded Ryan Braun and Joe Nathan for Mariano Rivera and Carlos Delgado. Everyone got pissed, turned out he had never played fantasy baseball before. My point is, you can’t just take a couple bad trades without knowing the quality of the league and say that people are going to be able to buy low on a guy.
I was just recently a buyer on the Haren market. However, I did it knowing what I was getting into. Haren has inflated ratios in August/September the past few years, but even so, he’s very good and I need him to bring my ratios down. The trade went like this: I received Haren, Aramis Ramirez, and Jay Bruce and I gave up Ichiro, Gallardo, and Kendrick. I’m tops in AVG, and I LOVE Gallardo, but his WHIP isn’t the prettiest on the market. If Aramis can make it back healthy and produce, then I think this will have been a successful venture for me.
R M said:
“My point is, you can’t just take a couple bad trades without knowing the quality of the league and say that people are going to be able to buy low on a guy.”
And one of my points is that you cannot possibly know the “quality” of every league. Look, I get it that you look down on analysts and fantasy players that don’t share your POV. But there are all different kinds and levels of fantasy play and I’m deeply sorry that each one of the 10 players I toss out there each week don’t measure up to your personal standards.
You made a rational objection to Alexei Ramirez on this week’s list. That’s great – that’s what I want. But this holier than thou stuff that you’ve been doing with Vazquez is (maybe) one step above pointless. Clearly everyone in fantasy baseball gets traded. One reason why an owner might trade Vazquez is that he is not an elite pitcher in the Wins column. Is it the only reason? Of course not. There are probably as many reasons to trade him as there are leagues.
But the suggestion that nobody is going to trade him due to wins is demonstrably false.
That’s exactly my point. We can only blindly speculate what reasons managers might have had for trading Vazquez, so why would you use that information to base an argument that his value will be reduced because of his slightly low win total? Like I said before, I could find 3 lopsided trades for pretty much any player, and that doesn’t mean they’re a good buy low candidate for the vast majority of us.
I’m not even going to get into the other stuff you said. I am arguing civilly, and I haven’t made a single personal comment towards you.
Brian and R.M.,
You guys both make great points. People are going to trade players on a whim… Unfortunately luck plays into fantasy sports more often than I’d like. And the dumb people get lucky. I looked at Javy’s numbers and thought he’d make a great addition to my team. Now, admittedly, I’m a rookie to all this in-depth numbers stuff, but I’m starting to love it. True, Vazquez hasn’t been getting very many wins, but that could turn around very quickly. But who cares? As long as he continues the other great stats.
Brian, unfortunately I don’t see your logic with Alexei. It seems to me that you explain why to trade/acquire the players in your article and then support it with data. Except you did not do this very well with Alexei. The numbers/projections as far as I can tell (with my limited experience) are in his favor. And why would an owner who suffered through his deplorable start now try and ditch him? The damage, that you speak of minimizing, is done. Why not keep him and watch as he tries to fix everything he broke? I think you might be bringing a little too much emotion into this. Did you own him? Did you drop him and now someone else is reaping all the rewards?? With a webname like fanGRAPHS personal intuition, gut feelings, hairs on the back of your neck, little devils or angels sitting on your shoulder should not hold any weight in this forum and should not be discussed. Numbers/stats are everything!
Thanks for the insight, though. I love this site.