♫ Pitcher bunt attempts forever, for the union makes us bat ♫ – 2021 ILX Fantasy Baseball!

My team had a day yesterday.

nothing Earth-shattering, but I finally cut ties with Dylan Carlson :,/

And I have finally been forced to end the Mike Soroka experiment.

Couldn't pry Corbin Burnes from CorbinBurneson, couldn't pry Soto from BillyChildishBambino

Like trying to get Lajoie from the Naps!

(The Naps did eventually trade Lajoie but only after he requested it)

just got this roster alert on my phone: "Your starting lineup has several potential issues you should review." no shit

Yes. Yahoo has been negging me for two months now.

couldn't pry Soto from BillyChildishBambino

― ✖, Monday, July 19, 2021 12:38 PM (four days ago)

Lol... you were offering me table scraps tbh.

I'd consider Vlad Jr. + Brujan if you're serious.

Adam Frazier (2021 All-Star 2B/OF from the Pittsburgh Pirates) is now on the fantasy trading block... he is on the IRL trading block as well. He will probably be batting leadoff for either SEA or CWS by end of month. Looking for a comparable 3B in return.

I was offering a better deal than what I paid for Vlad! Though I regret waiting until Soto got out of his slump to make an offer

If anyone else is interested in a package around Bryce Harper/Aaron Judge (+1 year of control for both), Carlos Rodon, Justin Turner and any of my relievers I am all ears. There's also a young keepable Zac Gallen if you're interested in him after last night's start.

Brujan isn't keeper eligible btw

Also pretty much anyone except vlad and Seager lol

Taking Frazier off the trading block as he is going to San Diego which is enough of a game-changer for me.

Well like I told you ✖ in the DMs, I admire you for trying to rebuild your team but I'm in the midst of defending my championship title (currently in 3rd, but should be 2nd by end of month). Perhaps it's a bit of a different mentality for those who play to contend... eg, I'm not going to stockpile borderline redraft OFs like Judge/Harper who wouldn't even be starters on my team.

Judge and Harper wouldn’t be starters?!

All OFs ranked season to date:

https://i.imgur.com/v3Ky5qG.png

The irony is that I kept Haniger for the 2018-2019 seasons (during his testicular trials & tribulations) only to finally release him and now he's a top 4 outfielder in MLB according to our metrics.

whoops, i was looking at the wrong team!

you don't need to have all of those at OF though? with the trade i offered, even after getting castellanos back your bench would be gleyber and adames

and harper is only that low because he missed time this year, if you sort by "season (avg)" he's the third most valuable OF in the league behind buxton and acuna. and judge is the 12th most valuable by average, ahead of everyone on your team except castellanos and JDM

francisf: i am considering your offer! i've been away all weekend so i haven't had time to really dig into it

k cool, no problem ✌️ lemme know!

i am also all ears if Vlad is back on the trading block!

uh vlad is definitely not on the trading block... my offer to broccoli was strictly a my-present-value-for-your-future-value kind of deal, same as the freeman/ryu for vlad trade, but i think i spent too much time talking about years of control on the guys i was offering and that sent a message that i thought he was trying to rebuild or something. (i was really just trying to soften the blow of losing all those future years of soto.)

i take back that seager is off the table though, i didn't realize he was about to come back and could reasonably help someone competing this year. it would take a lot though as he has 3 years of control left and i've definitely been planning on keeping him.

i honestly feel bad about the vlad trade, like it opened up a floodgate that wasn't opened before, and now these big kingmaker trades are gonna happen every year. it feels un-kosher, like the year end standings are going to be determined by whichever bottom-rung teams were willing to juice up whichever contending teams with uncontrollable stars. right now i have one of the best pitchers in the league, who will probably finish at least 2nd in AL CY voting, and he's completely worthless to me because i'm out of contention and he's unkeeperable. same with justin turner and bryan reynolds who are super valuable in this league. i'd feel pretty shitty if i was competing and all the teams around me were having all their holes plugged in exchange for a single young player, but there are so many game-changing players who just don't have any value to half the teams that own them. not that i was expecting broccoli to trade him, but even after soto finally got hot, a trade of harper/rodon/turner/a reliever would've been so completely lopsided in the short term it would immediately make broc the 2021 favorite, i would think. 7 years of soto is a lot to give up, but in the short term that seems unbalanced.

maybe something could be adjusted in the offseason to disincentivize blowup trades. either by expanding things to make more players keeperable, adjusting which players are keeperable, or adding an incentive for failing teams to keep trying to improve short term (might be hard to do without adding real life money rewards to the equation)

I think the trade market in our league was slow and boring over the past few years. The big trades this year added some much needed fun and excitement.

Since becoming a keeper league (10 years ago), team managers (much like real life GMs) probably overvalue their young talent and are reluctant to make big trades. Obviously I'm not excluding myself from these habits.

ya, you blew the doors off and i thank you for that! i like the big trades and they have been far and few between for most of the leagues history.

i honestly feel bad about the vlad trade, like it opened up a floodgate that wasn't opened before

my ears are burning lol

but nah even if you hadn't made that trade i would've been hustling like i did during that month anyway. i feel like it's really rare for a team to have as many good unkeepable players as mine did and somehow still shake out to be as bad as it was in the standings, but some enormously bad pitching in april and may kinda nailed my coffin shut. tbh the kingmaker trades have actually been around? i just feel like the first salvo just happened a little early this year.

maybe something could be adjusted in the offseason to disincentivize blowup trades

i feel like the most elegant fix (if it were a problem that needs to be fixed, which i don't think it is?) would be to limit the number of players you can keep via trade to 2 of the 5 or 3 of the 5 or something. but yeah in a roto i kinda like the buy-sell dynamic. i hate it in a h2h league because sometimes you get playoff-bound teams entering an arms race, to the point where... lower playoff-bound teams start to sell, which is just sad (see: my football league every year)

that said i uh i still have 6 top-60ish dynasty league players on my team so if anyone is interested in a 2 for 1 hit me up - turner (8), mookie (9), wander (22), bieber (24), eloy (28), castillo (60) per fantrax today (i picked their dynasty rankings arbitrarily)

that said the trade would probably involve castillo+1 out for a player better than the +1 and i doubt anyone wants to do that

team managers (much like real life GMs) probably overvalue their young talent

my ears are burning lol

tbh the kingmaker trades have actually been around? i just feel like the first salvo just happened a little early this year.

buuuuuuut if everyone's cool with it then that's cool. it does keep things a little more interesting

i believe the season i won (two years ago?) i made one trade? devers and franmil reyes for verlander. this season has definitely had more trades, especially of big names, than any since i joined ILX fantasy. i generally think it's fun, though i might find it more annoying if i was anywhere near contending.

Im already psyched for next season when i can unveil my amazing new team name

Great pennant race we've got going on here.

oh wow – you're right. I'd been so focused on my other team i hadn't paid much attention to our standings! i wish yahoo did like a visual timeline for standings.

oh they do!
https://baseball.fantasysports.yahoo.com/b1/8949/viewstandingschart

pretty basic tho. animated would be more fun (like at the end of a game of CIV).

been a while, but i updated the 2022 keeper sheet with all of the adds/drops up until a few mins ago, probably the last update til the offseason! all of the trades included now as well.

Thanks dude

Thanks!

Two of my starters got shelled yesterday to the tune of 14 combined ER in 5 IP, and my team ERA went up by about .1. Still managed to move back into first place, somehow.

1.5 points separating 1st and 2nd with 6 days left!

I'm not posting anything (well, besides this post) for fear of jinxing my season.

Saw you making some lazy afternoon moves. Was expecting the both of you to be making some panicky early morning transactions!

for the record i don't think i've ever maxxed out any position and my outfielders and ss are done as of today. crazy.

I have been near the bottom of the league in #moves all season long. My middle name is "don't panic" ... but my first name is "I traded away seven more years of Vlad Jr. and if I don't win the season I will die".

Looks like yours to lose really, seeing how jq is maxed out in so many slots (just 7 innings left to use aswell)

Congrats NoTime!! Your insane gamble of trading away your home-team-superstar-best-hitter-in-baseball-and-also-only-22-years-old player paid off!!!

Thanks I know! (*laughs and then cries for the next seven years of keeper eligibility*)

congratulations to NoTimeBeforeTime!

I can't believe I finally won in our league after seventeen seasons of trying (and three second place finishes). I didn't have high expectations going into the season but had a great/lucky draft which really helped when injuries started piling up (not to mention the suspension of my perverted/psychopathic ace SP). It was one of those years where most of my roster moves worked out and a few key players overachieved (Ohtani!!).

Congrats again, dude.

A lot of my top players stank this year - Lindor, Yelich etc.
Was a seller this year for the first time in a while (I think I’d been second place two or three years in a row) and dealt Bryant before he became a FA, along with a few other deals and somehow my team started doing better after dumping talent?!

Congrats to NTBT! My big ol trade mostly paid off but it wasn’t enough. A relatively low OBP led to relatively low runs despite great hitting elsewhere, and like any good baseball fan I’ll also blame my starting pitchers for not WINNING despite great numbers elsewhere. I also mostly think NTBT was just too good.

most of the issues this season were in offense. i was particularly hurt by using early draft picks on DJ LaMahieu (who was bad all season) and George Springer (who was injured for big chunks of the season). at least i traded a non-keeper-eligible Aaron Nola for potential hotshot prospect Adley Rutschman, who is keeper-eligible.

forgot to wish NTBT a hearty congrats! hearty congrats to you NTBT!

also came back to say that i remembered to do the final update on that sheet with all of the september drops, here.

Thanks Will! And thanks again for your work on the keeper spreadsheet.

My keeper situation isn't as bad as I'd feared ... Dylan Cease showed legit #1 or #2 starter potential this year, so he and Bichette have me covered for solid <27 keepers. I doubt Ohtani will be as good next year, but obviously I have to keep him. That leaves five players (all of whom were really good last year) for two keeper spots. It's going to be a tough decision!