One team was loaded with money and prospects, and I also have Abreu, Adams and Tanaka all already signed through 2016. I may regret this later, but I am trying to convert all this money and prospects and "win now". These are the trades I made: Traded Addison Russell for Pablo Sandoval Traded Matt Kemp for Max Scherzer Traded Carlos Correa for Shin-Soo Choo
There just are not many good 3B's people are willing to trade. I paid a steep price to fill that hole, but it needed to be done. Then someone offered me Scherzer for Kemp. Kemp's salary is cheap right now, so perhaps he has more "value" than Scherzer, but now I have a bona-fide ace. Losing Kemp put me in need of an OF. So I dipped back into my prospect pool to trade Correa for Choo.
In this league, young players have their most value for their first 2 years, 3 if you can afford to extend them early enough. So you have to look at it as "I traded 2-3 years of Correa for 2 years of Choo". Choo is cheap right now, coming off a down year. So I can extend him for next year cheap, too. This overlaps with my "win now" years. Too bad, but Correa wasn't quite ready. Scary, but I didn't even empty the farm yet! I still have: Kyle Schwarber, Blake Swihart, Luke Weaver, Domingo Santana, Rymer Liriano, Courtney Hawkins...Possible trade chips at the deadline, or I could just keep them.
This team still has a ton of money left to sign free agents, too. I really only have 5 holes to fill (I need 1 more OF, 1 SP, 2 RP, and 1 utility bench guy). I still have $21 mil to spend. In this league, an "average" everyday MLB player ranges from $2 mil to $3 mil. Star players are around $4 mil and up (from Matt Holliday at $4 mil to Mike Trout at $8 mil)....So do the math...It depends on what free agents became "unaffordable" to teams. I should be able to land 1 or 2 more star players, maybe more.
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