Analysis of my final trade in the high stakes league.

My penultimate trade for Rafael Furcal worked out like a charm. For my opponents that is. As the league stood now, I was at approximately 150 points in the AL and about 130 in the NL. I still had a 30 point lead at the time, but strongly felt my position was weak.

After the failure of the Furcal trade, and David Ortiz’ power outage I thought my house was built on sand. I had gotten lucky so far with a few players that couldn’t be expected to continue; Jeremy Guthrie and Brendan Harris for example. My NL offense was floundering a bit and my NL pitching was smoke and mirrors after Jake Peavy and Tom Gorzelanny (Claudio Vargas and Sergio Mitre were my next best starters).

While in a very deep league these guys can be serviceable, I felt I needed to make a big move somewhere. As it turned out I was approached about my interest in A-Rod, and of course I was interested.

There are two ways you can go about handling your weaknesses. One is to try to shore them up, and this is what most players will do. Often it is the right strategy. But after Furcal flopped, I could not risk making another trade for an NL hitter. There simply weren’t any available that could make a big difference.

The second strategy you can pursue is to simply make your strengths unassailable. Rather than shoring up weaknesses, you make your strengths even stronger. When to choose one over the other is a matter of context and judgment.

The power of making oneself unassailable is referenced in Sun-Tzu as well as many other military geniuses. In a similar vein, Carl von Clausewitz also touted the power of a defensive strategy. He opined that defensive strategies are often to be preferred to attacking strategies. Why?

As he stated: “It is easier to hold ground than to take it. It follows that defence is easier than attack, assuming both sides have equal means. What makes protection and preservation easier? It is the fact that time which is allowed to pass accumulates to the credit of the defender. He reaps what he did not sow.”

In fact, many historians believe that the South could have won the Civil War had it recognized the power of defensive strategies. Jefferson Davis, near the end of the Civil War, demanded that the North be brought to battle, despite that fact that the South’s General, Joe Johnston, was a defensive master. If they could hold out until the elections Lincoln might be defeated, and the South could then win by politics what it could not on the battlefield. This is a perfect example of Clausewitz’ dictum that war is simply politics by other means.

Davis instead removed Johnston from command and gave it to an aggressive General, John Hood, who promptly took the North to battle and lost Atlanta to Sherman.

Back to Fantasy Baseball: the assets I gave up for A-Rod were Troy Glaus, Felix Hernandez and Tom Gorzelanny. All were eminently keepable. Felix is still a good pitcher, though disappointing. Gorzelanny I have talked about before as a hidden gem that two experts tangled over at the auction. He has clearly proven them correct (and the two guys are now one and two in the league)

When you have a chance to win you simply must do everything you can to win with no eye to the future at all. Trading future value to improve your chances of winning this year must be done in all cases, no exceptions. This is probably the most important strategy to pursue for a team in first.

As it turned out, it was a damn good thing I did the A-Rod trade. Since then a dark horse contender closed on the pack like Silky Sullivan. My once mighty lead was actually cut to four points, 289-285 at one point two weeks ago.

In fact were it not for the A-Rod trade there is no doubt that I would not win.

At the time, I calculated the AL standings. There are a total of 176 points for the team that can sweep first in all categories. I thought there was a good chance I could get 160 or more by obtaining A-Rod. In our league we have BA+OBP/2 as a category, and it counts double, so that each spot is worth two points. At the time of the trade I was in sixth but well within striking distance of first. Plus, as an ancillary benefit I could convert my second place position in HR, RBI and Total Bases to first place, netting a very valuable three extra points.

So, my calculations were that A-Rod could net me 10-15 points in the AL, essentially making my position unassailable. If buttressed by a turn around from David Ortiz so much the better.

It is rare that such a situation will present itself. The trade off was having to hold on for dear life in the NL, and pray that my underperforming team in July, which followed up with a terrible August, would turn it around in September. You simply can’t control everything. The NL teams were all relatively close in talent, so I thought there was no reason to think that I would finish the worst of the four or five teams in the hunt. And if I could even end up third in the NL that should be enough.

So my thinking was that getting A-Rod even at the cost of my second best NL pitcher was worth it. To be fair, Gorzelanny had been a bit lucky at the time. But the risk was that the NL ERA and WHIP categories were close, as was NL Wins. But you simply can’t ever predict everything. I took what I believed were “sure” points in the AL, hoping to make my position unassailable, and would roll the dice in the NL.

As insurance, I demanded Carlos Villanueva. Not only was he pitching well, but given that I had Claudio Vargas and Dave Bush, both of whom were on the rocks, I thought there was a good chance he would get some starts. This was a great bit of fortune, not only has he gotten starts, he has pitched great. At a minimum he was a great vulture win candidate at the time.

So far it has turned out well. I have, in fact, gained most of those AL points, and now sit at 160. In the NL I reserved all starting pitchers except for Peavy, Villanueva and Bush. This allowed me to hold my ground in NL ERA and WHIP, two hotly contested categories, at the possible cost of Wins. But it is a fool’s errand to chase wins anyway.

My second place opponent, delighted at seeing Sergio Mitre get shellacked in early September, was dismayed to see that he was reserved!

It is still very close and there are no guarantees. But all you can do is get as many points as you can. I felt that if I lost to a legit team (the colluders have all somehow fallen out of the race thankfully) with a point total 15-20 points higher than the typical winner so be it. Right now I am still in first, having been there since April, and am simply holding on.

Of course, if you are not in first you may think that defensive strategies may not be correct. But you may still find that they often are, at least in terms of hitting the money. You may not be able to win purely on defense, but you certainly can cash. And if the prize is a four figure payout it may be well worth it. Sometimes you need to honestly assess whether you can win and it may be better to take what is there and do the best you can. Better to be Joe Johnston than John Hood and Jefferson Davis.

In determining whether to go on the offensive or not depends upon your points gained calculations, risk factors and projections for the remainder of the year by the players involved and some hard thinking about the various possibilities presented. Few fantasy GMS I have met think about the fact that they may do better by rolling the dice on their weaknesses and should trade not from their strengths but to their strengths. Yet if the context is right
it may be clearly correct to do so.

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