Tough Trade Decision: What Would You Do?
 

I am managing a fictional historical team playing in 1901, and I received a surprisingly good trade offer. But it's a classic question of getting an older veteran to help win a championship or keeping my team's top prospect.

My team is now in first place by 3.5 games, and it's probably going to be a battle to stay in front and win the pennant. In this league, there is no World Series. It's all-or-nothing in the regular season.

We already have a strong four-man rotation, particularly in the top three spots. But a team is offering me one of the top pitchers in the league, who is 33 years old and has been leading or near the top in a number of pitching categories.

He seems to be outperforming his ratings, so I'm not sure that he'll continue to perform at the same level. But all I've been asked to trade away is a 37 year-old catcher who is on my reserve list, plus my top prospect. My prospect could be headed for a future as an outstanding second basemen, and he's been the subject of numerous trade offers from other teams. But he still needs time to develop.

It's a tough decision. I would be giving up my only outstanding young prospect to get the luxury of having another excellent starting pitcher, but one who is 33 years old. It would be great insurance against an injury to one of my top three starters, and it might secure the pennant for us. Then again, it might not. Plus I already have quite a few players on my team who are in their 30s and are probably due to start declining at some point.

I have a very good player at second base right now, but he could start aging in the next couple of years. And my prospect has the potential to be better offensively than my current second baseman. But the youngster would need a good amount of defensive improvement to be as good with the glove.

What would you do in this situation? Trade away a bit of the future to create a dominant 4-man rotation, hopefully pull away to win the championship, and use free agency in the future to compensate for losing your top prospect? Or keep the top prospect because you may not really need another great starter, you don't have any other excellent prospects, and you won't have high draft positions?

NOTE: Ratings are on a 10-point scale in my game. Scouting accuracy is 100%

Veteran SP to Be Received
https://i.postimg.cc/bG8P9t7V/Joe-De-Wispelaere.jpg

Prospect to be Traded Away
https://i.postimg.cc/8FHSKCDp/John-Butler.jpg

How much better is Joe De than the player he's replacing?

Maybe he doesn't help your team win many more games, but more that he helps you lose fewer games. Which (as you alluded to) isn't the same thing. He helps protect against disaster.

What's the contract situation for Joe De? And what's your team's financial situatuon? You said you expect to have low draft pics, so I assume this isn't this team's only chance to contend for a championship. How important is it to win this year versus winning in future years?

You said there have been multiple offers for Butler. Perhaps there's a deal for another starter that would also improve your rotation, but for multiple seasons (assuming Joe De is a pending free agent) lessening the trading the future for the present impact of this deal.

If he's not in your top 3 he's not making a significant number of starts so not worthwhile. I'd just skip my fifth sp as often as possible.

Even for a fourth sp, that's a high price. How many more starts would you expect this starter to make? How much of an upgrade is he over your current 4?

I'd probably pass. It would be different if he was a top 3 sp for you.

That's a big part of why I've hesitated to make a decision. Statistically, he would immediately become my second-best pitcher, and he's a #1 starter in terms of overall league talent. But I happen to have the best starting pitcher in the league in terms of ratings and ERA, and my #2 and #3 starters have done extremely well too. He is definitely an improvement over the two pitchers I've used as my #4 starter, but it's not as if they're pitching poorly or losing a bunch of games.

If I knew everyone would stay healthy and pitch like they have been, then I wouldn't make the trade. But if I lose one of those top three starters, it will become considerably harder to win the pennant. There are four teams that could catch up if my team stopped winning at its current rate.

His contract is set to expire after this season, but we can afford him, and I expect that we would be able to extend or re-sign him. I would be looking to do that ASAP. But I would say it's pretty important to win this year because you never know if you're going to be in this position for the next couple of seasons. Plus the league is brand new and teams have very few prospects yet to replace players who start declining. We haven't had our first draft, and there aren't many young players on reserve lists.

That's the issue. None of the other offers have been reasonable. They always center around an older veteran player, often a few years older than DeWispelaere, and none of them have been worth considering until this one. That's why I've been surprised because no other team has offered anything near this kind of value. I haven't tried shopping around my prospect, but I doubt other teams are going to trade me a similar pitcher who's a fair bit younger.

Well, agreeing with ThePretender, I don't think this deal strictly makes sense on a talent level. Especially if prospects have increased value because of their scarcity

But...if winning the championship carries added weight and you'd want to sign him longer term, then go for it. Flags fly forever.

Maybe you can ask for something more, maybe a prospect

This is something I often struggle with as my team's GM. In order to give you a response I was 100% sure is the move I would make, I would need a lot more information and that's not reasonable in a forum thread.

I'm attracted to youth, probably to my detriment. You claim that you already have a very good 2nd baseman who you say could start showing the effects of aging soon. You didn't say will start showing. So, I'm assuming that you've got 3, 4, maybe 5 years left in your current 2nd baseman. If you decide to keep the prospect at 2B are you planning on moving him up to your big league club next season? What I mean is, will you end up having two 2B players and forced to make that decision - who starts at 2B? - next season or two seasons from now? Plus, you said your prospect 2B still needs to improve to be better than your current 2B (mostly defensive improvements are needed).

Unless his luck changes completely, you know that if you take this pitcher, you're gaining a potential #1 on some teams and he'll slip right into your #2 rotation spot, right? Plus, #3 and #4 SPs are pretty darn good too, right? Sounds like you could have a nasty rotation the rest of the way. Are the other 3 pitchers young/healthy enough to be around for a handful of more years?

I know these aren't answers...they're questions I'd be asking myself, but ultimately, I think it all comes down to what you wrote and I highlighted at the top of my response. There are never any guarantees in baseball, but to me, it appears that trading for that pitcher could possibly help you earn more than one championship. Keeping the 2B still needs some work... With what I know, I think I'd go for the bada$$ pitcher now. Pitching is so important and this cat is going to be responsible for 25% of your starts. I think that's a bigger & better impact than a 2B that still needs some development that no one can guarantee will happen.

I wish I had better advice. Good luck! Please, let us know which direction you take.

I would do it. I play a lot in the dead-ball era, and that plays a factor. Guys with average stuff are rare during that time period, which helps explain why the pitcher has been an effective pitcher. Defensively, errors are plentiful in that era, and that second baseman looks like he will make many of them considering the high error rates and low strikeout rates of that era. Lastly, the second baseman has a good combination of contact and power, but power is worthless in that era. I think he’s overrated considering your environment. I always look to trade guys with average error ratings and good power when playing in the dead ball era because the AI will overvalue them.

Thanks for the great posts. Everyone is hitting on the exact questions and considerations I've been trying to sort out.

Fuzzy_patters is particularly on point with the fact that I'm playing in the dead ball era. My prospect will need to improve significantly in his error rating for me to ever use him as a regular. The error totals are amazingly high across the league, even for players who have good defensive ratings. I'm glad that I made sure I had no weaknesses defensively because opposing teams have repeatedly handed me runs and helped me win due to errors.

My prospect also needs to improve his offensive ratings quite a bit before he'll be worthy of being on my roster. That's never a given, although he looks promising. But, yes, I have a 29 year-old second basemen who's probably the second or third-best player on my team as far as batters go. His contract is set to expire at the end of the season, and I'm negotiating an extension with him. It looks like I can get him for 6 years at a small raise, with a team option in year 6.

Taking all of this into account, I think I'll end up making the trade, especially if I can sign the contract extension. I have 9 days left to make my decision in the game.

Alternatively map out your schedule. Are you likely to be facing tough teams, or do you have a soft schedule? That plays a part too. Who is the SP facing?

I would pull the trigger and win the title. I have no idea what your development settings are at but it isn’t a guarantee the prospect even hits his full potential. You would be trading for a known commodity. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter what era you play you can never have enough pitching. Also, there will always be another prospect next season or the one after.

Unfortunately, my current star second basemen still hasn't responded to my contract extension offer, although he originally said the deal seemed pretty good. So I'm down to one day to make a decision, and I'll probably have to do it without knowing if I'll have his services for several more years.

We've also moved out to 7 games ahead of second place, and our pitching continues to be really strong. So maybe I don't need to make this trade. But my star center fielder just went down for a couple of weeks with an injury, and my top hitter just inexplicably dropped from a 10 contact rating to 9, even though there's been no scouting update and his history tab doesn't show this change. Maybe it's a temporary fluctuation.

Our offensive production has been the best in the league, but if we're going to lose some of it due to injuries or development, or if we lose one of our top three starters to injury, having more pitching would be great. However, the pitcher we'd be acquiring would have a contract due to expire, and some of my players have been demanding contracts that are way too long to justify. One of them stopped negotiating after I tried to go halfway on the number of years, so I'm nervous about bringing someone in who might be gone in a matter of months. This new pitcher would be 33 years old, and if he asks for something crazy like a 7-year extension, I would not match that demand.

As it turned out, I took CBeisbol's advice and ended up trading for another SP who isn't quite as good as DeWispelaere but is only 24 years old and is one of the best young pitchers in the league.

I have been having too many problems with older veteran players asking for far too many years on contract extensions and being unwilling to accept fewer years, so I decided to see if I could get someone much younger.

I also decided to increase my trade difficulty from normal to hard because I thought I was only getting the DeWispelaere offer because the AI was being too easy on trades. After adding to the difficulty, the AI was still willing to do that deal, even for only my top prospect and not the extra catcher from my reserve list. It was probably because DeWispelaere's contract was expiring and he probably wanted too many years at too much money.

Instead of trading for him, I went for the 24 year-old pitcher but had to give up my top prospect and a solid but 36 year-old starter who was on my reserve list. Now I have four great starters, plus two pitchers in my bullpen who are also starters and have been very good in that #4 spot.

Now I can worry less about having so many 30+ year-old pitchers on my staff, and we have a lot of insurance against injuries in my rotation. But let's hope we never have to use it!

Here are the profiles for my new pitcher and the veteran starter that I had to add to the deal.


Newly Acquired 24 Year-Old Pitcher
https://i.postimg.cc/tYqM2Cc4/Adam-La-Belle.jpg

Veteran Reserve List SP Traded Away with Top Prospect
https://i.postimg.cc/FdXPc9cm/Brad-Bowden.jpg

:thumbup1:

I can't really see the the images you post, that website doesn't appear to allow users to zoom to larger than the size of the screen for some reason, but this pitcher for multiple seasons is almost certainly more valuable than the other one for a few months.

It provides that option for me. If you are hovering your cursor over the image, it should show a + sign that allows you to zoom in. Or you can right-click in your browser and choose to open the image in a new window, which renders it larger, and you can zoom further from there.

I agree on the trade assessment. The only drawback is that LaBelle has a 1 for hold runners, whereas every other pitcher on my staff is well above that. I tend to use pitchouts to help keep top base stealers in check, but my two catchers have also done a great job throwing out base stealers under other circumstances. I'm sure their success rate will be much lower with LaBelle on the mound.

Negotiate. Include current SP (the one being replaced) and an OK prospect.