Okay, thank goodness it’s FRIDAY!  Woot!

Let’s get into this.  As some of you know, yesterday I touched on my poor start in my main leagues and that my two more casual free leagues were doing OK.  I also stated that, since a good chunk of the league members condoned an owner who was blatantly plagiarizing several websites and blogs on a daily basis, I would be leaving that Yahoo league.

Well, here’s a little update.  Turns out one of those owners read my blog yesterday and cut-and-pasted a portion of my post and put it up on the league message board.  He also added his personal opinion on your beloved fantasy writer.  Let’s see, to save time…the best way to describe his comment… is to say …he was… soooo proud of his opinion that he wanted it to be quoted for all to see!  I’m touched and honored.

This owner is known to a lot of you out there, not by name, but by his fantasy style.  It’s extremely easy to tell who his favorite MLB team is because his fantasy team is loaded with Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano, Mickey Mantle, C.C. Sabathia, etc…  Yeah, he’s that guy.  Since he can no longer afford to see the Yankees in person, thanks to the outrageous prices at the new ballpark, he just owns as many as possible on his fantasy team.

I have a tremendous sense of satisfaction after reading Yankee-boy’s post, though.  Remember, my problem with the league was the massive amount of plagiarized stuff on the message board.  You see, Yankee-boy correctly posted a link directly back to this blog giving proper credit to the source. *wipes a tear*  ArchiveMan has accomplished his task here!  Up, up and away!

On a serious note, there is a ton of good information out there on fantasy baseball.  If you are going to copy and paste something you find on the web, do the decent thing and at least post the source and add a link.  I know for some people it may not seem like a big deal.  But believe me it isn’t as easy as it looks to write a blog on a consistent basis.

Don’t fall into the trap of saying,”well I just read the posts, I don’t actually copy-and-paste myself”.  If you enjoy the content, then don’t you want to know who the true author is?  Maybe that author has even more stuff that you’d find enjoyment out of reading?  Maybe the guy cut-and-pasting will stop and you won’t know where to find it on your own.  At the very least it’s common courtesy to give credit to the creator of content, but when people take it and then claim as their own then it’s that much worse — and technically it’s illegal if the content is copyrighted.

Again, I understand, nobody wants to be lectured to about rules, laws or how to treat each other.  But I can assure you, if you put the time and effort into writing a good article and then you found out someone was taking credit for it, you wouldn’t be very happy.

Moving on to some meaty fantasy baseball strategy talk.  Yesterday, I spoke about what I was going to do in my NFBC leagues, where you cannot trade.  Today, I want to discuss my other leagues, mainly my J.A.I.L. and FSWA leagues, where trades are allowed.

First step was to look at the rosters, not only mine, but the other owners’ as well.  Spotting potential weaknesses with my team is only half of the project.  I have to then find an owner who has a strength on their roster and ideally has depth so they would be willing to perhaps part with a player I covet.

For example, if I need a 1B and I find the team with Albert Pujos, but they have no other 1B eligible players then I know that I will either have to include a 1B in the deal or else there’s no way the owner will be able to accept my offer, regardless how good it is.  So, before you shoot off a bunch of offers make sure they make sense, not just for you, but for the other guy, too.  Not only will it save time, but it will demonstrate that you are serious about these negotiations.

I talked to Ward P. in the J.A.I.L. about the availibility of C.C. Sabathia and got the typical “anyone’s available”.  While that maybe didn’t seem like much, at least he didn’t flat out say “no way” I’m keeping C.C.  You see, Ward, is a fan of the pin-stripers and I was curious if he was angry over their recent homestand where they gave up a bunch of runs.  Sometimes, people will get frustrated with their fav’ MLB team and the players on their fantasy team who happen to also be on their favorite MLB team.  Sometimes they are more willing to move these players out of spite.

The guys in the J.A.I.L. are pretty experienced players, but with the struggles of Sabathia and the Yankees overall, even loyal fans have to be a bit concerned.  With a glimmer of hope about the prospect of obtaining Sabathia, I took another look at my team and realized pitching was not my most pressing issue.

I was actually stunned that I had forgotten that my hitting in the J.A.I.L. is not good right now, wait that is not accurate, my hitting is atrocious.  I’m last in HR/AVG/RBI.  So, I decided to put the C.C. quest on hold.  Let me add this though, sometimes when I go shopping and start opening up dialogues with owners I stumble onto a situation where a player I like is tossed my way.  I will do a deal even if I don’t technically need that player right now.

So, don’t be absolutely averse about any aspect of your team when talking trade with a league mate.  Just like in the draft, you always want to have your eyes open for value.  Getting a solid 2nd or 3rd component in a trade who is undervalued is sometimes the key part of a trade.

Another issue I have is when you are in last place, guess what?  Yep, you have players who aren’t playing particularly good and thus don’t have the highest amount of interest.  I have to decide is it worth it to offer up one of my elite guys like Ryan Howard — who not exactly on fire right now — or Curtis Granderson — who is on fire — in hopes of being able to get maybe a couple of players who could help me?

That question takes me back to my team.

Do I have a team I like that is filled with players who are simply struggling now, but I still feel will be fine once they get going or was my original valuation flawed when I drafted these players?  I’m going to take a little break, then I’ll be back and we’ll run down some players on my teams and review their current values and how far off that is from what I orginially thought of them prior to the draft.

Be back soon…

-Johnny Archive