Is there anything more frustrating than scanning your league, finding a team whose weaknesses fit your strengths and making an offer that helps the owner (but helps you more), only to get a simple rejection, or worse, getting no response?
In leagues where you know all the owners, you can hunt absentee owners down and browbeat them into at least listening to offers. But for many of you in public leagues on websites that start with "ESPN" and end with ".com", there is no recourse if someone drafted a team and then left it like Moses amongst the reeds.
So when you've got a hot sell-high prospect burning a hole in your pocket, to whom you're offering is just as important as what you're willing to trade.
Casing the Joint
Reader Zach Endres recently wrote me a 900-word e-mail (this entire column will only be 1200) where he confessed to making 11 trades this year. He asked, "Am I worthy of GTR? Or am I just a trading machine who should get help?"
The answer is, "Yes and yes."
But Zach isn't alone. There are transaction junkies in this world and when it comes time to deal, you're a fantasy fool if you don't call them first. A simple check of your league's transaction counter will show you which owner has an acquisition addiction and a few minutes studying the transaction log will even show you what their particular vice is.
Just like every hair or fingernail holds your genetic code, every fantasy transaction you make contains your fantasy DNA. So when you notice a player making moves like he gets airline miles for each transaction, you only need to do a little "CSI" work to decide what kind of crime is about to take place.
Let's profile the usual suspects.
If you come across an owner who has added Elijah Dukes, Ryan Doumit, Josh Hamilton and Philip Hughes, and has dropped Alex Gordon and, tellingly, Dukes, you know you're dealing with an owner who is aware of top prospects and likes them, but also isn't terribly patient.
So who are you offering to this suspect? Hunter Pence, if you can afford to do without him. Pence's batting average will fall a bit once the league catches up to him a bit, though he certainly has the eye to stay near .280 for the year. However, I don't think he'll be any better than Vernon Wells the rest of the way, so if the rookie-loving transact-a-holic is disappointed with Wells, spend your Pence and make the offer. The worst he can say is no.
On the other side, maybe there's an owner who has picked up every struggling established player who has been either dropped or shopped. They've acquired Carlos Zambrano, Lance Berkman and/or Paul Konerko in the last three weeks, clearly believing the "players usually do what they're supposed to" mantra of ESPN.com's own Matthew Berry.
Paging Mr. Zito! Paging Mr. Barry Zito! Please report to the nearest GTR courtesy phone. Of all the players I've named, Zito is the one guy that I don't see bouncing back in a meaningful way. See if you can make Zito, coming off seven innings of one-run ball, part of this guy's "buy-low brigade" and net a starter like Bronson Arroyo, who no one seems to respect even though he's been a fine NL pitcher for well over a year.
In deeper mixed leagues, or shallow monoleagues, you might find an owner who has grabbed Odalis Perez in the AL or Livan Hernandez in the NL. As for adding hitters, you'll notice they're the ones who snapped up resurgent sluggers like Sammy Sosa and Tony Clark. Their fantasy DNA reveals a proclivity towards fading and forgotten stars who suddenly are showing their old skills again.
These are the owners whose rosters are just begging for Damion Easley or Carlos Pena. Both are playing at a level that rivals anything they ever did in their respective primes, and both are guys likely picked up off the waiver wire in the last month. What should you ask for back? Frankly, it doesn't matter that much. You're betting that Pena won't continue to bat 60 points above his career average with an OPS of .900 and that Easley, who has hit one homer for every 33 at-bats in his career, won't keep bashing at triple that pace. Getting an upgrade or a player with upside for either will feel GTR-ific.
Take a look at your league's transactions, sniff out the clues and you could lock up a sweet deal quicker than you can say Deoxyribonucleic Acid.
Pulling the Job
Only made one deal this week, and to be honest, it was more about me testing out my acquisition addiction theory.
I noticed an owner in my 10-team, NL-only roto league had made twice as many moves as the average team in the league, including six adds and drops in the past week. He fit my profile of someone itching to shake things up.
I decided to see if I could buy low and consolidate talent, so I offered up Chad Tracy, who had just gone on the DL, Tim Hudson, whose slide back to reality has begun after his rough outing in Boston, and Bill Hall, for Garrett Atkins and Aaron Harang, both of whom I like to outperform their current numbers by a wide margin.
The three-for-two nature of the deal also was designed to free up a roster spot for me to grab Angel Guzman, who I believe could be the Cubs' closer by late next week. The fact that the offer was accepted wasn't that remarkable. The fact that I got my reply in less than two hours was, because it reinforced my point about why active owners are great targets.
So what did my Consigliere, Zach Messler, think of this deal?
I don't think this is a GTR at all, but I do like this trade from your perspective, especially considering it's a public league where getting a response to anything in May can be difficult. Being able to add the soon-to-be closer for the Cubs makes this deal though.
If this were not a public league, you might have done better than you did. Hall is no slouch; he hit 35 bombs last season and has positional flexibility (shortstop, outfield and soon, third base) which is golden. Also, Hudson has been nothing short of phenomenal. But Atkins hits at Coors, and Harang, despite pitching in a bandbox, should be every bit as good (or better) than Hudson the rest of the way.
So although it's not necessarily what you want to hear
nice deal
for both teams.
I don't disagree. I could've gotten more had I started with a lowball offer, but knowing that Guzman probably would disappear off the free agent list in the next few days, I decided to act fast and test out my theory as well.
On the same day I made this offer, I made a very similar one to a team that has made very few transactions this season and still haven't gotten a response. If the deal I did is Exhibit A, consider the other offer Exhibit B.
To steal your league, sometimes you need to find trading partners who just can't help themselves
because they can help you.
Shawn Peters is a fantasy baseball and football analyst for TalentedMrRoto.com and ESPN.com, as well as a regular contributor to the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He can be reached at GrandTheftRoto@TalentedMrRoto.com.