Saturday, March 29, 2008

Trade advice - Pujols & Furcal for Rollins?

So, even though it's more fun to take reader questions & post feedback, I figured I'd start with a real world trade question of my own, supply some feedback, and ask for reader thoughts.

The first trade offer I'm going to look at is the following:

Trading away Jimmy Rollins
Receiving Albert Pujols & Rafael Furcal
This is a standard 10 team 5x5 roto league, which was autodrafted. I've already made some changes, but my current roster is below:
C - Jason Varitek
1B - Nick Swisher
2B - Dustin Pedroia
3B - Adrián Béltre
SS - Jimmy Rollins
OF - Carl Crawford
OF - Eric Byrnes
OF - Jason Bay
Util - Troy Tulowitzki
BN - Troy Glaus
BN - Aaron Hill
BN - Franklin Gutiérrez
BN - Conor Jackson

SP - Erik Bedard
SP - Jon Lester
RP - Takashi Saito
RP - Todd Jones
P - Tim Lincecum
P - Jeremy Bonderman
P - Edison Vólquez
BN - John Lackey
DL - Brad Lidge
Generally speaking, I'm not too pleased with my team, especially since it's only a 10 team league. I have already put out some feelers on what it would take to get Martinez, Mauer, Martin, or McCann to help improve at catcher, but the owners all seem to be expecting too much in return. I obviously have SS depth, and would be fine trading either Rollins or Tulowitzki for the right players in return.
Before this season & under normal circumstances, Puljos for Rollins straight up might have a trade in my favor. But given the fact that Albert will eventually need Tommy John surgery, I'm a little more hesitant.
Pros:
-Get an all world talent in Pujols
-Get a great source of steals & another top 10 SS in Furcal
-Give away a player at a position where I have depth (SS)
-Pujols has been unreal this spring, and appears ready for a huge season; unreal to the tune of a .407 Avg, 5 HR, 18 RBI, 1 SB, 11 BB, 2 K in only 59 AB. Wow.
Cons:
-Pujols' health
-I'm still sitting on SS depth, although that's not necessarily a bad thing
-If Pujols is healthy & produces (like he did in spring training), Swisher now has no place in my lineup
-I hate 2 for 1 deals where I'm on the 2 player side - usually this means you gave away the best player in the deal (although that may not be the case here)
So, what would you do? I'm leaning towards doing this deal, as it would still give me tradeable depth at SS while allowing me the ability to trade Swisher in the future if Pujols puts up good numbers & isn't too bothered by the elbow. I see Swisher having a really solid season, and I would then have the option to either move Furcal or Swisher, since they both can't reside in my Utility spot.

And quite simply, I think this makes my team stronger (although it is incredibly tough to give up the reigning NL MVP).

What do you all think? Please post your thoughts here; and I'm always up for answering reader questions - simply email me at rotoadvice@yahoo.com & I'll either devote a post to the question or respond via email.

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