Trade Blue Chip to dump contract?

[Sour Masher]

14 team mixed league, $400 budget, and 15 keepers, 30 man majors/20 man minors. I am stuck with Greg Holland and Lance Lynn for $15 each next year, taking up keeper spots and soaking up money. With our high caps and high keeper counts, the money and the spots are not huge deals, but I still hate wasting both on guys I will cut right after keepers are announced.

But of course, no one wants to take these guys on. I do have one interested party--someone with a weak set of keepers, and a ton of auction money, which with our inflation and deep keeper lists, doesn't go very far. So, in his spot, I think it is fair to give him Severino, who is $0 this year, and then $5 for the next two, after which he can be extended. So, basically, Severino would cost him $30 this year, which is about what he'd go for in the auction, but then $5 for the next 2 years. Seems fair. But the guy wants a top prospect too--Orlando Arcia or Tyler Glasnow. I really would love to dump these contracts, but it would be short sighted to give Severino and Arcia or Glasnow just to get rid of $30 in dead weight when I'll still have a lot of auction cash either way, right?

Making the move would allow me to keep two of Jon Lackey $7, Michael Taylor $5, or Erik Johnson $5.

[revo]

No way am I giving up Severino AND a top prospect to keep that crew. I wouldn't even part with Severino alone.

It sucks that these two are dead weight, and it sounds like your rules don't allow you to drop them before the keeper deadline even with a $$ penalty, so I'd just eat it and work around them, unless this guy gets a little more reasonable.

Who are your other keepers?

[Sour Masher]

Yeah, I was hesitant to just give Severino. I think he is just playing hardball and will take Severino eventually, but the longer I think about it, the colder my feet get. I guess part of it is that I think Severino may be a bit overhyped right now.

Now that I look at it more closely, I have room to keep Lackey either way. My other keepers are

Top 13:

Kris Bryant $5
Francisco Lindor $5
Michael Brantley $5--due for extension
Chris Davis $21 (last year)
Carlos Gomez $21 (last year)
Lucas Duda $5 (due for extension--thoughts?)
Corey Kluber $20
Jacob DeGrom $5 (due for extension--thoughts?)
Patrick Corbin $3
Kenley Jansen $19
Wade Davis $5 (due for extension--thoughts?)
Jon Lackey $7
Randal Grichuck $5 (late fade is injury relate I think, so I like him a tad more than Taylor and Maybin--right call?)

Maybes that trading Lynn and Holland would make room for:

Michael Taylor $5
Cameron Maybin $5
Erik Johnson $5
Daniel Murphey $19

I also have Severino, Matz, and Daniel Norris in my minors all under our generous call up cap for starters of 75 IP, so I can call them up for free right after the auction.

[revo]

You have a good list and good immediate call-ups, so I think I'd just eat the bad contracts and call-up Matz & Severino right after the auction.

[Sour Masher]

Yeah, extending Davis isn't wise, I suppose. I think it has taken me this long to learn that lesson, because I've been very lucky with pitcher extension. This is the first time I've had anyone go out for the whole year before the last year of their deals.

And if you are all saying don't trade Severino+ to dump these two, I'm convinced. Maybe I can get him to take Lackey and Lynn as a pair, with a lesser prospect as a sweetener. They add up to $21, which is likely less than Lackey would go for if I tossed him back.

[The Dane]

Yes, extending closers is silly. However, extending a cheap, but high-skilled, closer to $6-$10 is not foolhardy. I never pay top dollar for closers, but if I'd pay $10 for Davis at draft and feel like I hit the jackpot, I'd happily extend him to that. And it's still cheap enough, so that if he goes south, like most closers do, you aren't out that much.

[mjl]

I don't agree. I think if you're not willing to extend Davis to $10, you aren't willing to extend any pitcher. (Which is an opinion some people have, and that's fine.) Davis in 2014, when he wasn't the closer, was worth $19 in that format according to thomasgeorge prices. If the theory is just that he could revert to having a 3.5 ERA and 1.25 WHIP, sure, he's not worth it then, but you could use that argument on Lackey also. If Davis is the same guy he's been the last two years, he's worth double his price even without being a closer and triple if he keeps the role, and it's hard to imagine him losing the role without also completely losing his effectiveness, so now we're just debating whether he can keep up those numbers or something close to it.

And on the subject that they have less of an impact than starters - again I think you're underestimating his value. If you add him to an average team (1200 IP of 3.66 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, which was the average in both my 12-mixed and 18-mixed last year but with removing about 150 average innings) you end up with a 3.52 ERA and 1.221 WHIP. To get that from a 200 inning starter they need to have a 2.66 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP. So he had about the same impact on your ratio stats as Sonny Gray did last year, and about half the strikeouts and five fewer wins. Without the saves, he's still about 75% of Gray's value, and Gray at $10 would be a ridiculous bargain.

This is extending him to $7 in a normal league. I think this is a no-brainer.

(edited to add: I hope I remember this next year. I'm always the guy who runs Mike Leake and his 6 K/9 and average ratio stats instead of a really good middle reliever and then regrets it by the end of the year.)

[Gregg]

Yes, extending closers is silly. However, extending a cheap, but high-skilled, closer to $6-$10 is not foolhardy. I never pay top dollar for closers, but if I'd pay $10 for Davis at draft and feel like I hit the jackpot, I'd happily extend him to that. And it's still cheap enough, so that if he goes south, like most closers do, you aren't out that much.

I agree. I have a $1 Familia in my NL only 5x5 12 team keeper. I can play him out this year for that buck or extend him for $5 per year. I am tempted to give him two years. My roster and money dictate that I most likely will give him 1 year to take him to $6.

To not give him a raise would be foolish. For one thing it cuts down on teams that I can trade him to if I find myself needing to. Cheap closers are gold in almost any league.

[whalewang]

Closers in ONLY leagues go for a premium. Kimbrel was kept at $37 the last couple of years in our 9-team NL league ($260 budget). So, in Gregg's example, extending an elite closer who is priced low enough should be on option -- especially if the penalty for breaking a long term contract is not severe.

[Sour Masher]

Having exhausted the davis extension debate, does anyone have thoughts on my other extension decisions--brantley, duda, degrom? Part of the reason I extended Holland, even though I understand ElD's points about them is that with our cap and keepers, the value in extending cheap guys is really high, so the reward makes people take more risks. With that in mind, what kind of extensions would you give this trio?

[Gregg]

Yeah, you guys are nuts. I guess I'll bow out of this conversation because clearly I'm not on the same page as others. Giving two years to Familia? Jesus, I can't even think of a more foolhardy move than that. But then to claim that to NOT give him an extension is foolish, despite the fact that he's just a couple months removed from being some guy no one had ever even heard of? I hope it goes well for you but don't come crying to me when you're carrying multiple years of dead weight around despite mountains of evidence indicating just how risky that was in the first place. Closers aren't gold, they're fools gold. They're easier to pick up in-season than just about any role player in fantasy baseball, just like Familia was available for weeks into the past season.

Back to the topic at hand, don't extend Davis. Remember why you're even considering just donating Severino or another stud in the making to another team. The only reason you are in this position is because of the extensions you gave in the first place.

We are not forced to keep extended contracts. We can drop them at any time. We do have to pay a fine based on players salary and length of extension.

If I had to drop him after next year it would cost me 6 bucks (one year extension) of real money. If I did (which I am not) extend him two years to $11 he would cost me $22 real money to drop him after next season. In the scope of my hobby this is peanuts and has no effect at this price level for decision making.

Eld, you certainly make some valid points that should be taken into consideration and I do. In this case it does not make sense for me not to extend.

[mjl]

First off, as Gregg said, I'm in three leagues and in none of them is it that painful to get out of an extension. I'm certainly not in any leagues where they are unbreakable. To be fair, I hadn't thought about that too hard in the context of this post because of my assumption that all leagues were like that, but if SM is looking for a way to dump these contracts, maybe that means the cost of breaking them really is high in this league and therefore he shouldn't be so free with extensions. In one of my leagues, the only cost is actual money, in one it's $5/year taken off your salary cap, and in one it's $5 of FAAB per year left, which is trivial.

In a 14 team mixed, I'm only extending absolute studs. There is enough on the WW that you're not going to be screwed at nearly any position.

Isn't that backwards? Or do you mean guys who have the potential to be studs? If the cost of replacing someone is low, I'd think you should err on the side of potential.

The only one I'd consider extending would be deGrom. Duda is the kind of guy that you just take the profit and run. He's already 29 years old so wysiwyg. As for deGrom, I wouldn't extend him either, personally, because of his serious injury history. I'm guessing that others will think differently, and they're certainly entitled to their wrong opinions.

I assume you meant you'd consider extending Brantley. As for DeGrom... again, if you can just cut someone when their arm explodes, which maybe you can't in this league, it's automatic - you get your value from him by about June of the first year. But if you can't cut him, it's less obvious. I can't help thinking that having this hard-line "no extensions for pitchers no matter how underpriced" is a good way to finish in 4th place a lot.

[Sour Masher]

I guess context will help--our league is set up so that you have to keep a guaranteed contract until after keepers are due, and then you can cut that player, but you have to pay 100% of his first year's salary, and 50% of any remaining years. So, say I give Brantley a two year extension, he would be designated as a 15L3. If I wanted to cut him next year, I'd have to keep him first, and then eat 15+8 (50% of 15, 7.5 rounded up)=$23 in auction money that year. I get that sense that our set up falls on the side of being more severe that many other leagues, but we do that to try to give folks some pause on long extensions. Again, with our league size, caps, and high keeper counts, inflation is such that we generally take gambles on extensions, because we can afford to do that.

One final consideration--yes, this is only a 14 team league, but we balance that by upping the starters/roster sizes. We have 30 man major league rosters, and 20 man minor leagues. So it really plays like a 16 team league. Maybe thinking of it is a 16 team league will help in terms of advice on extensions. Is Degrom still a no-extend in a league that size? That is surprising to me, as I thought extending him was a no brainer. He would go for around $50 on the open market in my league (again, $400 cap, huge inflation), so locking him up for $10 seems like a good gamble, even with all the risk.

[Sour Masher]

Ha, I thought the same thing. Not only am I getting more feedback, but I am enjoying this larger ideological/strategy convo.

[mjl]

My thinking is that it's much more essential to lock down slam-dunk studs in shallower leagues because replacement cost for non-studs is relatively trivial. The risk in extending a non-stud is exacerbated by the notion that you can find his equivalent (or close to it) on the waiver wire. Now, this league isn't that shallow and is, in fact, deeper than I thought at first glance.

Again on the assumption that you can cut extended players, of course, I agree that you have to lock down the obvious ones but you should also keep the ones who have a decent chance of being studs - guys who had their first breakout year, for example - because if you guessed wrong it's not that painful to dump him. But you're obviously coming from a different starting point.

I still think you're looking at extensions wholly the wrong way and I think your last sentence reaffirms that for me. Even if someone adhered to a "don't extend pitchers no matter what" policy, and I certainly don't ascribe to that policy to that degree in the least, what are they losing by not extending pitchers? They lose a year of control and that's it. And they gain additional profit for the time they do control the player. Every $5 you don't add to deGrom's salary is $5 you get to play with for that year.

It's also possible that I make more trades than you. It is really rare for me to keep someone that I extended for the entire life of the contract, and not extending means you can only trade the player to a contender this year but an extension means that you can sell to anyone. If DeGrom is great again this year, having him at $5/expiring means that you can get a good keeper from a competitive team (which you may not even want to do if you're competitive yourself), but having him at $10/2017 means that you can turn him into two or three expiring contracts in June.