Fantasy owners are quick to try to improve their teams through the trade market, but it should rarely be a first option. When Andrew McCutchen is lost for the season or Tyler Glasnow is suddenly set to miss several weeks, fantasy owners feel like they need an immediate fix.
But there are plenty of ways outside of the trade market to survive. Check the upcoming schedules. If Ian Desmond has a seven-game stretch at Coors Field against mostly lefties, he’ll be able to provide some relief that week. Mike Fiers is undoubtedly available in your league and can easily be deployed in a home start against the Orioles. There are often ways to get by in the short term.
But sometimes, your waiver wire options just won’t cut it, and it is then, as a second resort, that you can and should look to the trade market. And to help you along the way, we provide our rotisserie league trade chart.
Updated weekly, the chart helps you evaluate any rotisserie league trade. Simply add up the values on both sides of the trade to determine which side gets the better of the deal.
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Aside from the obvious movers because of injury developments (Giancarlo Stanton, Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge, and Justin Upton rise, Noah Syndergaard falls), there was plenty of recalibrating going on this week.
Walker Buehler and Hyun-Jin Ryu rise as much for their continued excellence as the lack of truly reliable stud pitchers left in the game. Buehler has been electric of late, allowing just one run over his last three starts combined with 26 strikeouts. He’s allowed one earned run or fewer in six of his last seven starts. Dialed in and far past the issues that plagued him early in the season, Buehler moves even further up in value.
As does Ryu, whose insane run shows zero signs of slowing down. If we knew Ryu would stay healthy for the rest of the season, he might be the top-ranked starter, as his 1.26 ERA and 0.82 WHIP are historic. The fact remains, however, that Ryu hasn’t surpassed 152 innings pitched since 2013. That injury risk keeps him just a shade under the top-five aces.
Other pitchers moving up include Trevor Bauer, whose complete game shutout calmed some nerves a bit, Charlie Morton, who, despite the rare dud, remains one of the most reliable starters in fantasy, Lucas Giolito, who despite his rough start on Wednesday deserves to continue to move up in value, Masahiro Tanaka, whose increased fastball usage and success portends good things, and Frankie Montas, who might be the most underrated pitcher in all of fantasy.
Plenty of hitters saw their trade values move this week, including Charlie Blackmon, who had five consecutive games with at least three hits and is now batting .341, Ketel Marte who is on pace for 43 home runs and is batting .298, Hunter Renfroe, who was not even on the chart before his massive weekend made him one of the league leaders in home runs, and Yordan Alvarez, who continues to show that major league pitching can’t hold him. At this point in the season, small bursts like each of these players have shown do not in and of themselves move the needle much. But they can and should cause fantasy owners to take a closer look at their underlying metrics and data and, when appropriate, cause them to adjust their values.
Finally, note that a few players, including Rich Hill and Trevor Story, sustained injuries on Wednesday night, and the significance of those injuries is unknown. Take both players’ values with a grain of salt until we learn more.
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Dan Harris is a featured writer for FantasyPros. For more from Dan, check out his archive or follow him on Twitter @danharris80.