Fantasy Baseball Week 1 Roto Trade Values (2024)

Many are calling for MLB to encourage some of the flare that we saw in the World Baseball Classic. They want bat flips and no-look tags, more emotion. They think we need the fun to spice up the six-month long journey that is the baseball season.

I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just glad we have no such need in Fantasy Baseball.

On the arduous path from Draft Day to the playoffs, we already have our hidden source of joy. Amidst waiver wire claims, lineup decisions and dissecting the matchups we have trades.

Maybe it’s because many of us grew up trading baseball cards that we get so excited about trading baseball players. There’s the thrill of trying to get the deal done, followed immediately by someone overreacting over who “won the deal”. Never mind that we may need three months to declare a victor -- someone lost and we must mock them.

The best measure of how much you all love trades is the number of emails and tweets we receive asking for our evaluation. We could dedicate an entire day out of each week and it wouldn’t be enough. So i’ve put together a trade chart for you to misuse and ridicule. OK, I’m hoping you don’t misuse it, but the ridicule is all but guaranteed. As an attempt to impede the initial wave of complaints, here is your guide to using this trade chart:

1. Know your league. These rankings are based on a standard CBS Rotisserie league (Chris Towers will have a chart for points leagues next week). That means 12 teams, five outfielders, two catchers, a corner infielder and a middle infielder. Any variation in your leagues roster or scoring system will have an impact on the value of the players.

2. Don’t settle when trading stars. Yes, technically you could trade Mike Trout for 20-$3 players and the chart would say it’s a win. Obviously, that would be a really dumb trade.

A more reasonable example would be a recent trade offer I received from a good friend in my longest-running league. He offered me Yoenis Cespedes and Stephen Strasburg for Jose Altuve. The trade chart says that’s a win. I passed. Partially because I hate giving up the best player in the deal. Also because it’s a 10-team league and in those types of leagues the star is almost always the better play. Now, in a 14 team league where I’m weak on pitching I probably take the deal.

As a general rule, if you’re getting more players then you need to feel really good about the deal.

3. Ties are like kissing your sister.

One thing I’ve never understood about trading is the expression that you want to make a good deal for both teams. That’s not your responsibility. Unless you spend each week setting your lineup to make the game as close as possible it’s also completely contradictory. Your goal is to defeat your opponents.

That also doesn’t mean you have to make Aizer offers.

Make reasonable offers that you think make your team better. Let the other guy decide if it makes his team better.

That should do it for now, although I’m sure I’ll add more caveats as the season progresses. Something else I’m going to try to do (as we did in the video above) is grade your trades. Let’s take a look at one I received on Twitter.

The trade chart below shows this as a loss for the Springer side, giving up 32 points of value for 28 points. I would have to agree. You’re clearly giving up the best player in the deal and I just don’t see the two pitchers making up for what I think should be a No. 1 outfielder. While this chart is based on a Rotisserie league I would pass in a points league as well, because closers are less valuable in that format.