I made a pretty good trade in the Fantasy Sports Trade Association (FSTA) Sirius/XM League to start last week, with Vlad Sedler and Charlie Wiegert of CDM Sports.
In the league, where Charlie and Vlad presently rest in second with 110 points (five-and-a-half behind leaders Glenn Colton and Rick Wolf adn 115.5) while my squad is hanging tough in fifth place with 88. Brent Hershey holds third with 108 points and Howard Kastman and Steve Gardner guarding fourth with 90.
That means I have a pretty good and competitive team, but barring anything miraculous — like a shot in the arm — I was going to have a tough ride catching up to Rick and Vlady, although at present there are roughly 25 points my squad can realistically pick up while there are seven areas I could lose points. Note the league is a 14-team 5X5, and potential category improvements are:
- Batting average (.251.62, currently sixth) +2/-1
- Home Runs (148, currently tied for third) +3/-0
- RBI (490, currently seventh) +4/-1
- Steals (66, currently fifth with the leader at 68) +5/-0
- Runs (485, currently ninth) +3/-1
- Wins (41, currently tied for seventh) +4/-1
- Strikeouts (645, currently ninth) +0/-1
- ERA (3.29, currently second) +0/-0
- Saves (34 currently tied at fourth) +1/-1
- WHIP (1.666, currently fifth) +3/-1
As you can see, I can grab the bulk of potential points on offense, while my pitching is pretty stable. Add in that I owned Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler — both on the DL when we swapped — while Aaron Nola, Mike Foltynewicz, and Gio Gonzalez are the mainstays of my rotation, and thanks to that troika, pitching is pretty good.
Since my pitching was strong without much of a Kershaw contribution, I felt like Clayton and his nervous-making back were expendable. So, I swapped Kershaw to Vlad and Charlie for Matt Kemp and Cesar Hernandez hoping the pair can boost my runs, RBI, homers and steals — which is where the bulk of my needed points lie — to push me past the top four teams.
For indeed those teams are the ones ahead of or near my totals, meaning the points I can gain in said offensive categories are points Glenn, Rick, Howard, Steve, Brenth, Vlad, and Charlie can lose.
The thing is, once Vlady announced the swap, folks were quick to say “looks like you won the trade” to him, meaning he got the best of the swap.
To tell you the truth, comments like that make me crazy. Not that I mind the criticism, or even being on the ostensibly loser side of a swap.
What makes me crazy is simply by looking at the numbers one can see that my squad was sixth overall in pitching without any help from Kershaw, and were he to return, even to form, there are not a lot of points I could gain on his behalf. And his presence would not necessarily make my hold on sixth in pitching any more or less stable.
However, the addition of Hernandez and Kemp portends perhaps 15-20 more homers and swipes between now and the end of the season along with 40-50 more runs and RBI, and if both guys perform — even with a little less effectiveness than thus far this season — those goals are achievable.
And, should they indeed give me that boost — filling slots that had been populated by Jose Fernandez and Danny Valencia — I should indeed be competitive.
So, maybe Kershaw does perform like the first-round pick he was (for me) on his new team managed by Vlad and Charlie, and maybe there are a handful of points they can gain. It could be enough to pass Rick and Glenn, but he now has more of a hole in the offense, making him much more vulnerable to my ability to gain points.
So, per the tweets, maybe Vlady and Charlie win the trade, but if things work out the way I am projecting, I will win the league. And, well, that is fine with me.
For, the object is to win the league, right?
