I figured I'd take a look at Spencer's trades so far this season. Before giving up on the season Spencer's keeper situation looked something like this (age; draft pick forfeited for remaining time as a keeper):
1. A-Rod (33; 1)
2. Teixeira (29; 1, 1, 1)
3. Felix Hernandez (23; 2, 1, 1)
4. Kevin Youkilis (30; 9, 8)
After that there were some big question marks with Joba Chamberlain, Francisco Liriano, or even Johnny Damon.
After his latest batch of trades, Spencer has a lot more depth and value, but also less high end talent. I'd view Nelson Cruz and Carlos Quentin as fairly risky keepers as well, for performance and injury reasons, respectively. They also both have the potential to be spectacular values.
1. Kevin Youkilis (30; 9, 8)
2. Dustin Pedroia (25; 8, 7)
3. Nelson Cruz (29; 22, 20)
4. Matt Wieters (23; 24, 22, 20)
5. Carlos Quentin (26; 22, 20)
6. Nolan Reimold (25; 24, 22, 20)
Reimold is much more of a "In Case of Emergency, Break Glass" kind of keeper, as he has limited upside. If Spencer ends up keeping Reimold, something has likely gone wrong with one of his other keepers. With Travis Snider, Brandon Wood, and Matt LaPorta on his bench Spencer has some potential break out players as well. Spencer will be very reliant on the draft to construct a good team around his "value" keepers. I'm not sure his deals make his team better for next year, but it does give him a lot more "upside" then he did before. While on average I would say his team is likely going to be worse next year than if he had kept Teix, A-Rod, and Felix, oddly enough I think he's more likely to win a championship next year thanks to his trades. But for the rest of this season the questions become 1. Can he find any useful keepers from the waiver wire or his bench? and 2. Just how low can he go? My money is on 19 points.
5 comments:
Yeah, although I wouldn't say I'm uber excited about the end result of all this trading (I sort of view Cruz as a mistake, although I'm good with all the rest of them), my view of the league is basically that in order to win, you need to have killer value keepers. In order to win the league, everything has to go right, and Bill's point about this set of keepers potentially being a total failure, but also potentially being amazingly valuable is right on.
Also, in terms of the A-rod trade (I'm told Caleb is not a fan), let's not forget that I will almost certainly going to finish last this year, and thus will have by far the best chance at the first pick in the first round next year. So is the difference between A-rod and whomever I can hopefully pick first worth having the #1 prospect in baseball for the next 3 years at an extremely low value? I say hell yeah. Wieters doesn't have much of a track record, true, but he's about as sure a bet as you'll get with a prospect like this, and Andrew doesn't make this trade 2 months from now if Wieters gets hot this summer. And I guess my general hypothesis is these are the type of risks you need to take to win the league.
I totally understand the desire for late-round keepers, but I'm left wondering who Spencer is hoping to get in the first and second round next season that will even come close to Teixeira and A-Rod.
Well, that was awesome timing. I get the trade, I do. In addition to buying low on Weiters, though, you also sold pretty low on A-Rod, which might not have been the case a month from now. And throwing in a solid young MI with as much major league experience (and better ML, though not mL, number), just seems like a little much to me. But that's the nature of a dump trade, I suppose. They always seem insane to me, but maybe in a few weeks I'll be making them too.
I'll kind of agree with both of you. If Wieters gets hot in July, Andrew would hold on to him because of his keeper value and all of a sudden his production is a positive and would need to get replaced in the lineup. Wieters is the kind of player that Spencer should be targeting. I'll also say that the inclusion of Beckham, especially now that he's been hitting, is a bit of a head scratcher. In a league that is so thin at middle infield a guy who hits .290 with 15 HR and 15 SB is really worth something. Of course, with all unproven young players, the question is whether or not he'll show enough this year to even consider him a potential keeper. The upside is there though.
Keep in mind Beckham has yet to play a single game at SS or 2B. I doubt he'll be keeper worthy this year, and he may not even have MI eligibility.
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