The old adage with trading in fantasy baseball is: “Make sure you get the best player in the deal.” It’s a simple concept but, other than with rare exceptions where each player thinks he or she is making out like a bandit, it’s not possible to make any deal workable for both sides if everyone holds to that maxim.

Personally, in anything deeper than 10-team leagues, I’ve never subscribed to the “get the best player at all costs” concept. There are plenty of times where you are not only forced but should strive to give up the best player in the deal. For example, if you’re looking at multiple weak spots in your lineup, adding solid depth to your roster at the expense of a better player is often the way to go. Perhaps you have several injured studs and are unable to make your roster work absent moving one of them to open a spot, even at the expense of downgrading a player in a vacuum.

The only principle to follow in trades is: “Make a deal that makes your team better.” Everything else is window dressing.

And to help you make the right choice in any trade, you should consult our rotisserie league trade chart below. Updated every week, the trade chart is an easy way to evaluate any trade to see if you’re getting a fair deal.

Import your team to My Playbook for season-long advice

 
The majority of pitchers who saw changes in their value did so simply because of tiering. Max Scherzer’s porous bullpen behind him and inability to tack on wins — and yes, they, like any other rotisserie category, need to be considered — moves him from his own mini-tier into one with the other big six. And Patrick Corbin’s continued excellence, along with Hyun-Jin Ryu’s total dominance, vaults them into the same trade value tier as Aaron Nola and Walker Buehler.

But it wasn’t all about tiering for pitchers. David Price’s and James Paxton’s outstanding returns from injury positively impact their value, as does Brandon Woodruff’s run of excellent starts and Lucas Giolito’s torrid run of late. But German Marquez’s struggles at home and Chris Archer’s inability to get settled in after his thumb injury drop both pitchers in value.

As for hitters, some notable injuries had large negative impacts for certain hitters, including Jose Altuve’s leg fatigue, George Springer’s hamstring strain, and Carlos Correa’s fractured rib. The Astros’ large division lead means they can, for the most part, wait out these injuries, but the same probably is not true for fantasy owners.

Finally, it is impossible to ignore the recent play of Josh Bell, Austin Meadows, or Pete Alonso. Bell ranks near the top of the league in every statcast metric and already has 17 homers and 51 RBI. He has been a steady riser over the last several weeks and should continue to move up. Meadows has four straight multi-hit efforts and five in his last six games and is batting an incredible .360 with the metrics to back it up. And no one other than Gary Sanchez hits the ball as consistently hard as Pete Alonso, who bounced back nicely from his recent slump and now has an impressive 19 home runs.  There is little reason to doubt any of the three.

Import your team to My Playbook for custom advice all season

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | TuneIn

Dan Harris is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter @danharris80.