Are you a man or a mouse? I’m asking because there’s a good chance your keeper league has a trade deadline coming up. You have to decide if you’re going to be man enough to either (a) admit this year is not your year or (b) have the cajones to go for it all. Both take some testicular fortitude (or some serious “girl power” for our female readers). Or you can be a mouse and meekly decide to do nothing and hope everything works out.

Of course the question then becomes: what should be done to determine whether you should go for it all or play for next year?

We’ll come back to that shortly. I’m going to let you in on a little secret: we as fantasy writers often have no idea what we’re going to write. We might often have an idea of what we want to say, but figuring out what we want to say and how to say it is rarely divine intervention.

The reason I’m mentioning this is because I wrote a few points and scrapped them. I wrote a few more sentences and scrapped them. And it happened again. I’d like you to picture a waste basket with crumpled up pieces of paper in and all around it. Because type, delete, type, delete, open new document, and more typing just doesn’t have the same imagery to it, does it?

Yes, I had writer's block. Of course any writing teacher worth his or her salt will tell you the same thing: Write what you know.

But I always hated that advice because what if you can’t? Because here’s another big truth—I’ve never won a keeper league that was worth bragging about. If I’ve never made the right decision, how can I tell you what you should do? And that’s when I remembered one of my favorite expressions: Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions.
So, maybe I can’t tell you what to do. But I can tell you what NOT to do. So, with that in mind….Here’s what NOT to do in your keeper league as your trade deadline approaches.

Do NOT try to straddle the lines.
If you’re in the bottom quarter of the league or the top quarter of the league, your decision on whether to go for it is probably pretty obvious. There are some exceptions, but generally if you’re one of the top three teams you should go for it, and if you’re one of the bottom three teams, you should play for next year. It's when you’re in the big glob in the middle that the decision is tough. But whatever you decide, do it. Either go for it all or sell off the pieces. Those that come in fifth place are often doomed to find themselves in the same place the following year. I’ve been openly honest with you so far, so you really need to trust me on this one. I’m not saying you can’t keep a few cheap prospects and still win it all. But trying that is a recipe for disaster. Choose either the southbound lane or the northbound lane. Riding the median is just asking for trouble.

Do NOT think your lead is safe.
If you’re in first place, it is because of your keen drafting and deft trading, right? After all, look at the gigantic lead you’ve built up, right? Who could possibly catch you, the mastermind? And maybe you’re right. But I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that you’ve probably been a little lucky, and if your nearest competitor pulls off a couple decent trades, your lead will start to dwindle…quickly. And next thing you know, your speedster pulls a hamstring trying to leg out a triple. Your ace suddenly gets claimed by an NL West team and gets rocked in his first visit to Coors Field. Your hot young pitcher gets shut down for the season because his non-contending team won’t risk extra wear on their future ace. I’ve seen it happen to me, the people I care for, and the people I don’t care for. It's cliché, but it ain’t over 'til it’s over.

Lackey took a no-hitter in the 9th in his last start against the Red Sox. Photo Credit: SD Dirk

Don’t underestimate your competition.
In my primary keeper league, I’m going all in and recently swung a huge deal for Johan Santana. I felt pretty good about the deal, especially when a few leaguemates emailed me to congratulate me on my heist. But that was short-lived, as just hours later, one of my competitors gave up a couple players he hasn’t depended on all season and got John Lackey back in return. Suffice to say that Lackey’s near no-no on Tuesday is not good for me.

Don’t let the other fantasy sports stop you from managing your team.
If you’re out of it already, you’re probably thinking more about the Eagles and 76ers or the Dolphins and the Heat than the Phillies and the Marlins. It is too easy to let these distractions get in your way. Stay the course. Trade those high-priced players for something useful for next year. Bolster your roster with those late season players coming up for a cup ‘o joe. Watch for those players making a couple rehab starts. The crumbs of knowledge you pick up now could be tasty fantasy morsels next year.

Email blasts and message board announcements are good, but they’re not enough.
So you’ve announced your intentions and told your league that you’re looking to trade. Don’t be surprised if tumbleweeds roll in instead of a stampede of offers. Most of the time, your leaguemates probably already have an idea of what your intentions are. They know your team and what top-line players and attractive cheap players you have. Savvy owners will already know not only what they want from you, but probably what you need as well. If you’re lucky, you’ll get some lopsided offer that you can try to counteroffer. The biggest benefit of announcing your intention is that it makes a dump trade harder to protest. You are much better off contacting each owner individually. Do it by phone or in person if possible. It is easier to ignore someone’s email than someone’s live voice. Plus, the less distanced the contact, the easier it will be to make a mutually agreeable deal for both parties.

And finally, do NOT let it stress you out.
I’m not naïve enough to think that none of you are playing for money. But remember, even if you’re playing for serious money, it is still a leisure-time activity. This is supposed to be fun. Worrying about the impact of every little move will only make every decision more stressful and the whole process less fun. Remember, it is about the journey, not the destination. If you can’t enjoy it, you won’t enjoy it. 

I can hear you grumbling, “Thanks a lot Mr. Fortune Cookie. You still haven’t told me how I know if I should go for it!” And you’re right, but since I’m just rolling out the platitudes tonight, remember that hard work never killed anyone. My answer—Do the math.
Pull the final standings from last year, the previous year, and the year before that. What kind of numbers did the winning teams have? (If this is your first year in a keeper league, take the current leader in each stat and project it out. For example, we’re almost at the three-quarter pole. So if the leader in RBIs has 300, figure it will take approximately 400 to win the category.) Calculate what it will take for you to reach certain numbers in the different categories. Is your team going to have to hit .420 to win? Or can it simply maintain your current and more realistic .280 batting average? Look at every category. And you have to factor in potential trades too. What happens, for example, if someone trades for Josh Hamilton or John Lackey? What impact will that have? Consider all the variables. Suppose you have a top-notch player who has never been healthy a full year and looks like he suddenly might do that. Well, what happens if he does get injured? The bottom line is the more numbers you run, the clearer the picture becomes.

I’ve asked you to trust me, so I’ll continue to be open with you. I’ve been bluntly honest. Why stop now? I know you’ll be shocked to find this out, but writing for RotoExperts.com has not enabled me to pay off my mortgage. So, I still have to go to a regular day job; one where I do analysis all day. So the last thing I want to do is run more numbers in my leisure time just to figure out if I want to go for it or sell the farm. Granted, my place in the standings is a huge determinant, and how much ground I need to make up is a huge factor. But, I’ll let you in on a little shortcut that I consider when deciding to go for it or not: I look at my team and I score each player a +1, 0, or -1. A score of +1 means they’ve exceeded not only my own, but standard expectations as well, so I can’t expect anything better from them the rest of the season. A perfect example is Nate McClouth. A -1 means they have fallen way short of expectations and things probably can only get better. Aaron Harang comes to mind here. A 0 of course means they’ve given me the production so far that I expect, and there’s no reason to expect either a big drop or big leap in production the rest of the year. I then total the score for my team, and then I do the same thing for at least the other four or five teams that are a concern, if not the whole league. If my total score is far higher than my opponents score, I decide to sell off the pieces. My team has overachieved, and I should probably expect a return to the mean. If my score is far lower than my opponents score, than I go for it, also knowing that a return to the mean is likely. 

And for those still reading who don’t care about strategy but are looking for player suggestions, I’ll give you one: Steven Pearce. He was my pre-season Ryan Braun suggestion for this year. With the Pirates trading Xavier Nady, Pearce should now see full time in right field. And admittedly, Pearce has struggled so far with just two hits in 13 at bats. But that’s good news, because that probably makes him available in your league, and Pearce absolutely murdered the ball in the minor leagues. In 2007, for example, he hit 31 HRs in 487 at-bats or approximately a HR every 16 at-bats. But he’s not just a hacker with power. Despite his current struggles, he still has a career .285 AVG at the major league level. In addition to power and contact, he also has a little bit of speed, having stolen 14 bases in the minors last year. And I’ll admit (there I go with the honesty thing again!) he might not help you this year. But I know I want to have him on my roster going into next year. You should too.

Answers to last week’s quotes:
John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”
The Breakfast Club
Green Day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends”
My Cousin Vinny

Next Week: No Mice and Men next week. Making like Clark Griswold and taking the family on vacation.

Mark Strausberg has no problem telling you the truth. Whether you want to hear it or just want to tell Mark to “keep” his thoughts himself, email him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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