Man!!!  Is this guy in a 12 team league with 11 dummies?  I mean, how in the world do you draft A-Rod, Mark Teixeria, Grady Sizemore, Ian Kinsler, B.J. Upton, Dan Haren?  And if he didn’t draft all of those players, then he traded for them and his league mates are still dummies.  Man, if this guy is not in first place with this team then he is the biggest dummy of them all.

Chris, I’ll pick the worst roster I find in the submissions just for you next Thursday.

Amusing saracsm aside, Chris’s point is entirely valid.

My comment if I was in your postion, Paul? Nice job; now find a more competitive league next year!

He’s got 5 players normally drafted in the top 25, plus Granderson and legit top tier pitcher in Haren. He also managed to roster the top prospect in the game. Further, he currently has four guys who went undrafted who were annointed closers at some point. That indicates that not only were his leaguemates unsavvy at the draft, but they are inactive on the wire too. (And, if he garnered some studs through trades involving closers, he must also have been able to draft some higher level closers as well).

Frankly, analyzing this roster is a waste of your time, Paul. And, reading it is a waste the time of those serious players in highly competitive leagues who a site like THT is specifically positioned to draw. 

I think another requirement for roster doctor submissions is you indicate, in addition to your roster, at what overall pick you drafted each player (or if they were scooped as a FA).

Sorry to be so negative, just my opinion.

Selection bias could very well be a problem; I can see that. Chances are, if you are reading THT, in general, you know what more about baseball, and specifically statistical projections, true talent, etc. and that other stuff than most of your peers anyway. In-depth sabermetric analysis is a goldmine of fantasy-relevant info.

FTR, I don’t see my comment as being overly critical, except perhaps to the leaguemates of the person who submitted the roster - though I’m pretty comfortable in my assertions about their fantasy baseball acumen - that is to say, accurately critical. Saying that reading an analysis like this is a waste of my time is a simple objective statement for which it is impossible for me to be overly critical (though possibly dishonest, I guess) due to the nature of the statement. (And, it doesn’t say anything about your ability to dissect and analyze said roster, btw) Claiming that this might be a waste of your time is actually subtley flattering, if anything…

The point of writing this (and the reason why the commenting isn’t a waste of my time) is because it gives insight to you into what the readership of the “Roster Doctor” column wants to see. The beautiful thing about the [fantasy] baseball geek community is that there is little gatekeeping. The whole landscape is open enough that you can talk to the vast majority of thought leaders, give meaningful feedback that will be heard, insert yourself in conversations, and sink or swim on the merits of your ability to contribute to the discourse.

Five years ago, the knowledge gap was whether your leaguemates knew about rotoworld or not. Now, rotoworld is totally mainstream - it’s owned by CBS, isn’t it. THT is one of those next level sites; it caters to the serious fan, those who incorporate a scientific mind into their pursuit of appreciating the game. Analyzing a team w/ five first and second rounders is probably a diversion from your core audience. And, asking for advice when you have that team is like the a group of summer camp counselors playing the kids in basketball and then running the full court press…

I’m not trying to be a jerk; I’m just a faithful THT reader voicing a strong opinion. Keep doing your thing guys; you’re my favorite site of your kind!

I need to add one SP to my lineup.  After exploring several trade possibilities—no takers—I am left to select one of these from
our waiver pool:
        Joe Blanton
        Vin Mazzaro
        Matt Palmer
        Jeff Niemann
        Randy Wells
Blanton would appear to be the obvious choice.
Your opinion would be greatly appreciated.

FWIW,

I’d probably go with go with Wells, though it’s not so far from a pick-em situation with Blanton. Blanton pumping out the Ks is kinda encouraging, but I’ve just seen so much mediocrity from the guy that I’d rather bet on the lesser known quantity in Wells. For me, that would be an easier “fail” to live with, if it didn’t work out.

Blanton’s K jump is rather strange. Sure we see power pitching numbers develop in guys as progress, but Blanton seems old for that ship to still be in port. He’s a tough guy to figure out. Wells has had a pretty good K rate throughout most of his minor league career. The success he’s had seems to mirror his skill set. That’s a good sign. (Mainstream sports media snickers as we refer to the “success” a pitcher who is 0-3 has had)

Drew is the lucky owner of the team featured in this article if that did not become apparent to you.

Concerning “laddering” which is an interesting strategy, usually I am against making a trade that nets me a player I want to trade right back. I mean if the quantum leap from Jackson to Teixeira cannot be done in one maneuver and instead requires those “baby steps” then you did the right thing to get what you want.

In general, though, shopping players you just acquired in a trade tends to annoy other people (maybe I am just in leagues with grumpy people)and can lead to you to be stuck with a player you never really had the intention of keeping for a long period of time.

If you do choose to ladder your way to a better player, one way to help you see if the net gain of the multitude of deals was positive, is to only look at the players you had in the beginning and who is new to your team at the end. Any players that were an intermediate step can be ignored, since their net + then - cancel out.

Drew, you mention trading multiple times per week; I find that if you get to the point of trading to often, the other people in your league will start to realize you are somewhat desperate to get a deal done and maybe hold off accepting a deal until it becomes too lopsided in their favor. Obviously this did not happen in your league, but I am talking from my experiences.

Regarding your star method, I always advocate getting top players in relatively shallow formats (12 team mixed is relatively shallow) but as you get into deeper formats and/or larger rosters depth does have its benefits.

Psychological games do play a large part of trading and a lot of times I hear about people who were negotiating with a team and could not reach an agreement. Then, they check the league homepage and find that team traded the player they were negotiating for and become pissed off at the other team.

Sometimes it is an unnatural bias towards the players the successful dealer had to offer, but other times it points out that you need to work on your “salesman skills”.

One last note: your strategies are contingent on being in an active league, and for some that means they are useless since the other people won’t give them the time to negotiate deals every week. Some people are too busy with their lives or do not want to spend so much time on fantasy sports.

Thank you for your post Drew, a lot of people can learn from what you did with this fantastic team.