Baseball Articles
Every new baseball season brings us big stories, big names doing
big things, small names doing big things, major milestones,
unexpected stars, and unexpected flops. 2006 promises to be
no different, and may give us a few things we’ve never
seen before.
In anticipation of the upcoming season, I’ve compiled
a list of the Top 10 Stories to Watch in 2006, arranged in no
particular order. New issues could emerge at any time, but these
ten should certainly capture our attention at some point in
2006.
Making Deals to Maximize Your Keepers, Too Few Keepers?
As we have just discussed, even if you are short on keeper talent,
you can make a trade that will improve your team. Since you
are short on talent, what you must do is turn the few talented
players you have into the number of keepers you need. Your trading
partners will try to capitalize on your weakness, but by offering
them a better keeper than they offer in return, they will feel
as though they are getting the better end of the deal. In many
ways they are, but keep in mind that this is about maximizing
your “profit” potential heading into the draft and
not maximizing your talent. Your team is better off with two
players that only “profit” $10 each than having
one player than “profits” $15. Remember, this trade
can, and should, be a win for both teams.
In order to make this kind of trade, you will need to
do some preparation.
As described previously, you will need to rank your own players.
After that, you will need to rank the other teams probable keepers
to determine which teams would make good trading partners. For
this type of trade to work, you must be able to trade them a
player that increases the value of their keeper list. Remember,
you want to increase your quantity of keepers and ultimately
improve the overall value of your list as well.
Lastly, you need to evaluate your league’s rules as described
before. If, for example, your league allows six keepers, you
may be better off with six keepers even if their total value
is the same or slightly less than the five keepers you started
with. It helps in this analysis to include the sixth player
that you considered a non-keeper in the total value of your
keeper list prior to making the trade. By doing so, an apples-to-apples
comparison of the total value of your keeper list before and
after the trade can be made. The illustration below describes
how this can work to the benefit of both teams. Again, for simplicity,
it is assumed that only six players can be kept.
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