There is a new team in one of my leagues, and based on their recent trade postings it appears that they have little in the way of a cohesive plan.

When he was charged with the duty of taking Mexico from the Aztecs, Hernan Cortes came up with a unique plan. He was faced with an army that was outnumbered, that was grousing about their plight, that was undercutting him to each other. Essentially, his army still had the hope that they would go home to Spain. Cortes had a problem; how could he galvanize this army into fighting a winning battle against a superior force? He started burning their ships, so that they had no choice but to fight. With no ships the army would have to abandon all hope of returning home and would now be forced to fight to win. This plan succeeded.

There are two lessons for the Fantasy General from the story of Cortes, both of which were not followed by the owners mentioned above. The first is to actually have a plan. This is the simpler part; you need to decide what your goal is and then how to tactically achieve it. How to do this is not so easy, but the effort must be made.

The second is to have an all out commitment to attaining the goal. If you decide to go for the title, then all moves must be made with a view to furthering that goal. If your goal is to rebuild then all moves must be made to that end. But these are goals of the type that are almost mutually exclusive for a new team in a tough league.

So, the team in question posted the following sequence of trades:

1. They, as a new team, would trade Ian Snell at $3, who can be kept for next year at 3 or any additional years at a salary increase of $5 per year; Andy LaRoche at $1 with the same contract parameters as Snell for Chipper Jones at $25. For emphasis I would add that this team is 150 points out of first place, and 100 out of fourth (which is a cashing position). The top point total is 290, they have 143 points.

2. This gets countered. Now they are offered Chad Tracy and Heath Bell for Snell. Apparently the difference between Tracy and Chipper to these owners is Heath Bell. At least in this version they get to keep LaRoche.

3. This gets countered again. Now, they reworked the first version to one where they would get Eric Byrnes, whose contract status is such that he is not keepable next year, but would throw in Carlos Delgado (!) who has a $28 salary and can be kept next year if they so desire (he was kept coming into this year).

What is clear from these postings is that this team has no coherent plan, a failure of the first precept of the Fantasy General. Why would any new team in a tough league against skilled opposition do these trades?? I have no clue. In poker, it is impossible to read a player who has no plan, but this is not meant to imply that such an opponent is tough; on the contrary they are usually easy pickings. Why a team with rebuilding chances would acquire Chipper Jones for Ian Snell and Andy LaRoche is beyond the ken of anyone to decipher.

Second, they are not committed. Once can envision that whatever plan they have can be helped by the first trade; perhaps they calculate that they will gain the 100 points. So, if so how is this helped by adding Byrnes in place of Delgado??

I can only hope that any readers of this blog will not follow this example.