Taking Advantage of hot starts....

[RynMan]

I jus received Joe Borowski and gave up Danny Graves....gotta love his hot start. And on another note, i traded Graves and Beltre for Keith Foulke (and yes i have alot of depth at 3rd). I think i did both of these owners an injustice......oh well.

How have you taken advantage of hot starts?

[Ender]

I traded Peavy and Graves for Borowski and Oswalt this week, that would be my best job of taking advantage of a hot start. I think Peavy will be a good pitcher this year but Oswalt is well Oswalt and is a step up. Borowski seems like a much safer long term bet than Graves.

[INKcogKNEEdough]

biggio,overbay,bautista

for

Winn, S.Green.....


I thought at the time was taking advantage of hot starts......Overbay and Biggio are making me wonder


ink

[The Indestructible]

I traded Hidalgo and Vinny Castilla for Huff and Padilla.

Then I traded Carl Pavano for Carlos Lee.

[Bukoski77]

I've been relatively slow on the trade front in my 2 $$ leagues this year. Boone wasnt exactly tearing it up but being a keeper league I think I made a savy decision this year on the buy low with Abreu. This was the last year I could keep Boone, I had to either trade him bye the deadline or release him into next years draft. Hopefully Abreu will have his typical May heat up and start provideing stolen bases to offset the position scarcity I gave up in tradeing Boone for him 1-1. Loretta is my starting 2B now, and hopefully Cintron will get it together before I have to scourge waivers for a 2B/Utility-man backup.

Last year as I was rebuilding in the same keeper league I just referred to, I made 3 hot start trades that I feel helped me very well. Remember these next three I refer to are going back to last year. The 3rd was somewhat late in the year but was still the classic buy low/sell high.

#1. 2003 at the end of April Erubiel Durazo was pushing a .300AVE along with 8HR and I believe around the mid 20's for RBI. A different owner that was pitching heavy offered me Hidalgo and Pettitte for him straigh up with him giving the 2-1. I'd like to jump up and down and decree my genius........but that would be a lie. I was extremely shallow at pitching and I viewed Hidalgo (at the time.........) as an adequate enough replacement for Durazo. Virtually no one had predicted the year Pettitte would go on to have.

#2. 2003 The second week of May I gave Garry Sheffield for Bartolo Colon and Byung Hyun-Kim. As I already mentioned I was extremely shallow at pitching even with haveing just recieved Pettitte (amongst most message boards and fantasy rankings Pettittes value was pretty much still considered as a really good #3 fantasy starter but quesionable #2), so even with haveing added Pettitte I need pitching. At the time Sheff was haveing an unreal start even bye his standards, Colon was mediocre to be somewhat civil (high whip/era as well as below.500 record, K's where his only consistent). He didnt improve too much but got serviceable enough to start most weeks after the all-star break. Byung-Hyun Kim, the to the-RedSox trade as the Sox needed a closer rumors were just starting and I felt he was underated even if he remained in the SP role. on a yearly basis I think it was an even trade given mine our team's respective needs, but I feel it was really a keeper league heads up on my part.

#3. The second week of July I trade Mussinna and Furcal for Javier Vazquez and Tejada. At the time Mussinna was the leading candidate for the cy-young at around 10-2 with unreal K's, Furcal had already cleared 10HR's with a super high AVE, RBI's (for a leadoff SS), Runs, and SB's. Bye years end the guys I recieved were performing on par if not better than Furcal/Moose. This year being a keeper, I think it is no question I have come out really good on that trade.


I'm in the middle of the pack this year but not feeling too much need to really shake my team up like I did last year. Its a H-H league that has a point system so advanced your best off ranking player value identical to 5X5 roto. I dont think I have the best team as I'm not too sure which owner has the best team in the year this early. Between the trades I made last year and a few I made during the offseason, I'm content to sit tight thus far and feel I will end up with one of the best 4 teams in the league when its all said and done.

[login]

I took advantage of Pavano's hot start and traded him for Aubrey Huff. I another league I traded Mark Teixiera before he landed on the DL for Brandon Webb.