Back Door Sliders: Buy Low Trade Targets

When I was a kid, I collected comic books. Batman was (and still is) my favorite superhero. As you can likely surmise, I had a lot of Batman comic books and because my parents grew up in the era of million dollar collectibles like baseball cards and comic books, they didn’t throw anything away. This sounds absurd today. We are several decades into the mass commercialization and manufacturing of pretty much everything. But at that time, the story of “My parents threw away my Mickey Mantle card and now it’s worth two million dollars” was not as uncommon as you’d think.

1952 Mickey Mantle rookie card worth $5 million

Anyway, back to the Batman comics. My parents never threw any of these things away out of fear that it would be incredibly valuable later. Fast forward 25 years. I’m married, a couple kids, the house, the cars. I have bills to pay. My parents are looking to downsize their home, as they are now 25 years older as well and I am asked to go through all of the items they have held onto on my behalf over the years. The process isn’t too complex. I can and either a) throw them away or b) take them from collecting dust in my parents basement and move them to my basement so they can collect dust there.

As I am sifting through Sega Genesis cartridges, VHS tapes and Power Rangers action figures, I come to my beloved comic book collection. I am completely bowled over by the amount of nostalgia that takes me over. I generally don’t….. How can I say this? Feel feelings or hold an emotional attachment to objects. But I do with these comic books. The obvious choice here is B. These are coming home with me. Maybe some of them are even worth something. They hold a special place in my heart, but not as special of a place as money.

I decide to inventory what I have, find an online price guide and see what’s there. Largely, they are all worthless. Remember what I said earlier about growing up in an age of mass production? Just like any other market, the collectible comic book market is driven by supply and demand. And apparently comic book printing was pretty high volume business in the 90’s. But like I said before, I was a huge Batman fan. More specifically I was a huge fan of Batman: The Animated Series. In fact, I still remember watching it for the first time when I was in second grade. I had toys, t-shirts, videos and most importantly here, I owned the entire run of the fairly obscure comic book line that ran along with the series.

Now, not to completely abandon fantasy baseball and go down a Batman rabbit hole, but let’s completely abandon fantasy baseball and go down a Batman rabbit hole. A little known fact is that Harley Quinn, the maniacal female sidekick of the renowned villain the Joker was created by the writers of that TV series. She was adapted into the Batman and broader DC Comics universe several years later. Her first ever appearance in any form of comic book was in Batman Adventures #12, based on her character in the animated series. And since it wasn’t a particularly popular or best selling book to people who weren’t nine years old, there aren’t that many of them floating around these days. There was one floating around my basement though. The value at that moment in time, fresh on the heels of the Suicide Squad movie and the announcement of a Harley Quinn solo movie sequel, was about $1,800. Not life changing obviously, but a nice return on a $1.75 investment.

Harley Quinn (left) in a comic book for the first time

I scanned eBay, looked at the appraisal process to sell and started to figure out what I needed to do next, But in the end, I couldn’t sell it. Not for sentimental reasons. Not because it would have been weird to have the whole run of the series minus that one issue. I couldn’t sell it out of fear. Because if it is worth $1,800 today, I wonder what it will be worth in another 20 years? I was afraid I would sell it for too little now and regret the decision later.

And when talking about April trades in fantasy baseball, that is going to be the biggest hurdle you need to clear. Your league mates are going to push back on trade talks out of fear. Fear that their third round pick is just off to a slow start. They’re scared to give a guy away for below market value. And since the fantasy baseball season can be long and painful when your team isn’t good, fear of such a critical mistake will shut down skittish owners from reasonable negotiations that involve discounts on valuable players.

That doesn’t mean there is no deal to be made. Unless they are inexperienced, or just bad at the game, nobody is going to trade you a slow starting Francisco Lindor for a solid, but unspectacular hot starter like Mike Moustakas. Lindor is fine. He is a talented player. He’s not going to be bought low.

But, if you target players who were already a little risky, already had some questions around them, or they were being overvalued during draft season, there may be some opportunity here.

So, let’s dive in. Here are 4 buy-low trade targets that I believe are actually acquirable despite the fear of your opponents and some ideas on what to offer to land them in a trade.

Rafael Devers- 3B- Boston Red Sox

Rafael Devers is a notoriously streaky player

There are plenty of people out there who are 1000 percent in on Devers. But he has been a volatile player throughout his young career. A horrific start in 2018, a big bounceback later that year, a legitimate (though slightly lucky) break-out in 2019, a good, not great 2020 and now a pretty poor start to 2021. No matter how high they were a few weeks ago, it’s entirely possible whoever has him in your league is nervous today.

Here’s why I would swoop in for him now. Best I can tell, this is all part of a more aggressive approach at the plate. His swing rate has increased from a 53.5 percent career rate to a 62.1 percent so far this year. I wouldn’t always love to see that, but his contact rate has skyrocketed as a result. Up 6 percent from his career norm overall, but the part I like, his contact rate on pitches in the zone is 90.9 percent. Compared to an already healthy 81.8 percent career rate he was already carrying and it appears this could be a very valuable change. Factor in that his hard contact rate is perfectly aligned to his career norms and his GB/FB rate is actually leaning more to a fly ball oriented approach, the potential power gains here are mouth watering.

In other words, he is taking the Javier Baez approach. Just sell out contact for power. The difference is that Devers has a far, far superior contact skill to Baez and I think he has better raw power as well. That approach is temporary feast or famine gain for a guy like Baez, who will turn back into a pumpkin when pitchers decide to just stop throwing him strikes. For Devers, it might make him a top 15 hitter, considering his already advanced skills in that area. Not for nothing, his walk rate is already up to 11.5 percent, which is a sizable jump from his career norm. So, he seems to already be more selective than Baez. The potential drop in average is a real factor, but let’s be honest, he isn’t a true .300 hitter anyway. So jump in now while the drop in batting average and BABIP are the only visible changes to his game and before 50 homer power starts to show up.

Your fellow owners invested a fairly high pick in Devers, as his ADP was 37th on Yahoo so you won’t be able to fleece them. But I would gladly offer a Max Muncy, Nicholas Castellanos, Yordan Alvarez, or Corey Seager caliber of player for Devers. It will feel like they are getting a safer, currently more productive player that they could have drafted instead of Devers on draft day. But Devers should land a tier ahead of all those guys come season’s end.

Max Fried- SP- Atlanta Braves

Max Fried has pitched much better than his numbers show

This is a trade I can really see getting made. His numbers look pretty bad so far. A 9.00 ERA. A 2.43 WHIP. 3.89 walks per nine innings. A line drive off his leg. Young Max has had a tough start to his 2021 season.

But I assure you that better days lie ahead for him. I have found that guys who are “breakout candidates” coming into a season tend to be available when it seems to not be working out and even if it is only two starts, it doesn’t appear to be working out. On the surface at least. First things first, Fried’s 3.65 FIP suggests that he’s performed much better than the surface stats would suggest. Combine that with an abnormally low 66.3 percent strand rate and a fluky-bad .565 BABIP and it paints him as a victim to some timely hitting and shaky defense.

Fried owns a career-high K/9, which may be inflated because he has pitched so few innings, but is also posting an almost elite 28.2 percent K rate to support it. To top it off, he has a super low 20.8 percent hard contact rate, a career-high 14 percent swinging strike rate and is throwing ever so slightly harder than ever before.

This all shows me a telltale hard luck situation, despite the fact that he is pitching better than expected. While he was a hyped prospect and a big breakout candidate, he is far from an elite fantasy option at the moment and if I am talking trades, these are the types that can set you up for the season. If you offered someone who is uneasy with Fried’s first two turns in the rotation Steven Matz, Julio Urias, Sandy Alcantara, or Matthew Boyd, they have to at the very least give it serious consideration. Even though the walks are a little troubling, everything else points to a better future for Fried and this may be your chance to buy in before his surface stats catch up to his underlying metrics.

Keston Hiura — 2B- Milwaukee Brewers

Death, taxes and a Keston Hiura strikeout

Wow. Just wow. Hiura is off to about as bad a start as I’ve ever seen. As of this writing, he is hitting just .043 with a 45.8 percent K rate and 0 walks. I know the season is only a week old, but man. He’s swinging more than he ever has before at pitches both in and out of the zone, while making less contact, as evidenced by that 45 percent K rate. I will drop it in here one last time for emphasis. He has a 45.8 percent K rate. He probably just struck out once while you were reading this paragraph.

There really isn’t a whole lot of good I can say about him either. Nothing redeeming in the metrics really. I don’t really think he’s been a victim of bad luck. The closest I can get is that his hard contact rate is still solid. Not only is he striking out, but he’s getting more and more flyball oriented, which jeopardizes an already modest batting average projection of .255. He’s either not seeing the ball well, needs to knock the rust off, or is playing through some sort of injury.

Here’s the real rub. I had Hiura on every do not draft list I created this year. He was being drafted as a top 50 hitter and a Yahoo ADP of 72nd overall. I think he’s a talented player, but I didn’t see a logical projection that justified that position in the draft. Personally, I had him ranked in the Justin Turner-Kris Bryant- Kyle Lewis neighborhood, which is about 175 players deep on my ranking sheet.

Jeez Mike, take it easy. You are insulting this poor guy with almost the same excessiveness he strikes out. Why is he even on this list anyway?

I’m glad you asked. Because strikeouts were always a part of Hiura’s game. Maybe not at a 45.8 percent clip (Sorry had to get one more in). If you drafted him on your team, you should have expected to get the counting stats, but have him pull down your batting average like an anchor.

Eventually, he will find some rhythm at the dish and he does hit the ball hard in the rare instances he makes contact. I think there is a very real possibility he is a .210 hitter and if your team is hurting for batting average already, or you play in a points league, I can understand steering clear. I don’t just mean that from a 2021 perspective either by the way. I think he may truly be a player who struggles to hit over .235, hence my low ranking. But I still personally project a 79–28–86–12 line from him. And if you need help in any of those categories, especially from a second baseman, Hiura is a viable target.

Here’s how I’m handling this. There are other players I have buried on my rankings sheets that get drafted too high in my opinion. Many of them are young, shiny new toys guys with hype or grossly overrated veterans with name recognition. I’m using Hiura’s struggles to acquire him at the price he is truly worth, even though he was grossly overdrafted in March. If I can flip a Kris Bryant, Gavin Lux, Jared Walsh, Dylan Carlson or Miguel Sano type for Hiura, I am doing it. I guarantee there are owners out there who drafted Hiura somewhere near the 7th round, are panicking watching him go 0 for 4 with a pair of strikeouts every night and would happily accept any of those trades for him right now.

Rhys Hoskins- 1B- Philadelphia Phillies

Rhys Hoskins (left) has been driving the ball to all fields this spring

Hoskins is a bit different than the players we’ve discussed so far. He’s on fire to start the season and I believe this is him blossoming into the player the Phillies always hoped he’d be. As much as I felt Hiura was overrated in draft rooms this spring, I felt Hoskins was one of the most underrated. Where I am hoping not to have my rose colored glasses of confirmation bias on, I projected him as a top 40 overall player with a Yahoo ADP of 140. And right now, he looks to be well on his way.

While his numbers look good on the surface, he has caught some bad luck which has suppressed his true performance. He missed a homerun the other night by about 5 inches and his hard contact rate is through the roof. His average exit velocity is 92.1 according to statcast to go with a 66 percent hard contact rate. Now obviously that is unsustainable and his .529 BABIP and .417 batting average will eventually normalize. Some will point to the fact that he hasn’t worked a single walk this season. But he has always had the ability to walk to get on base and I know that will be there in time. The only true gripe with Hoskins is that he now bats second in the Phillies lineup, which saps his RBI ceiling. But he will still knock in a respectable amount, score a ton of runs and the power is and always has been real. But based on his projections and how he is hitting right now, if he can sustain even half of his batting average gains and hit .280 to go with the 32 homers I project for him. He stands to score 112 and still have 92 RBI in my model and that my friends is closer to top 30 than top 40 overall.

I love deals like this because you can essentially buy low on Hoskins while simultaneously making the other owner think they’re selling high. I would gladly offer Anthony Rizzo, Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, Jose Altuve or a player in that neighborhood for Hoskins and see if they bite. This has the potential to be one that people sneer at or give you a tough time about now. But it will work out for you come September.

Fear can be a powerful agent. And in all honesty, the entire month of April is practically nothing more than an evaluation period for seasoned fantasy managers. But, some of these guys are volatile enough they may be ready to push the panic button. And there is no reason you can’t be the beneficiary when they do. Some of the best trades I have ever made in fantasy baseball have happened in April.

Oh and one last thing. In addition to the fear and if I’m being honest, greed, I never sold the comic book because I never really had a buyer. Sure there is eBay or a physical auction. But nobody ever offered me anything for it. It was worth $1,800 and had someone shown up and offered me $2,500, I would have taken it on the spot. That is almost 40 percent over face value. I would have been crazy to say no. What a fool that buyer was I would have thought.

Today, that same comic today is selling on eBay for over $7000.

You won’t get the return on these players later. The time to buy is now.

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