Need feedback on Pujols trade

[sparty37]

1st post so be patient with me.

I'm curious what others think of this trade I made in my 10 team H2H keeper league. I traded away Pujols, Utley, and Ervin Santana for Ryan Howard, Crawford, and Cole Hamels. Howard will be my util man.
The rest of my team is:
Posada
Miguel Cabrera
Asdrubal Cabrera
Evan Longoria
Ryan Braun
Nelson Cruz
Ben Zobrist
Andre Ethier
on the DL Carlos Quentin and Jose Reyes

My pitchers
Cueto, Scherzer, Edwin Jackson, Porcello, Price, Volstad, Matsuzaka, Kawakami, Pavano, Parra, Lindstrom, Franklin, Gonzalez

Thanks for the help.

[jake_twothousandfive]

Welcome to the Cafe!

Interesting trade. At first glance, it looks like you got fleeced. As you traded away the two best players in the deal. Though looking into it further I wouldn't say that it was a terrible deal, but it certainly isn't something I would have done.

It looks as though your OF and pitching staff have been struggling so you did this trade to help solve that problem. That's all fine and good, but you still have to make sure you get good value for the players you're trading.

In terms of value:
Howard < Pujols
Crawford < Utley (due to position scarcity)
Hamels > Santana

I'm also concerned about if your team is going to be able to maintain a competitive BA with Howard. It doesn't look like you have enough high average players to compensate for his low average. Also, Crawford probably isn't the ideal top tier outfielder for your team as you already have another speedster who should give similar production in Reyes. (I think you should have gone after someone else). But Hamels is a huge addition to your pitching staff so he's more valuable to you than he would be a more balanced team.

All in all, as I said before, it certainly wasn't a terrible deal but you probably could have done better. You still have a lot of studs on your offense and if Quentin and Reyes both come back fairly well, you're going to be in very good shape.