Speculations

Pearls, Revisited

In a recent email Tom referred to “The Votaw Rules” and I was gratified to note that I have an actual fan. I was curious, so I went searching to see what the other Votaw Rules were and found this post from last year. Alas, the rule Tom quoted was not there. So he must be referring to some other Votaw Rules.

Upon reading the post (humbly titled “Dave’s Pearls of Drafting Wisdom”) I find that one thing I said last year is now false – the Cheese have now completed one year with a winning record! So there must be some value in these things. Rule #7 came true for Cottage last year in a big way – if I were writing it this year, I’d take out Ron’s name and put in mine.

One thing I didn’t mention last year is contracts. In the past 12 months I’ve become aware of the importance of contracts to our league.* You have to look at both their EFL contract and and their MLB contract. For example: last year I accepted an MLB trade for Ben Zobrist, even though I really couldn’t afford his salary. I knew that he would be a free agent at the end of the year, and that the A’s would be highly motivated to trade him for prospects. This worked out really well – Zobrist was traded for Sean Manaea, and I was able to shed the big salary and gain a nice prospect in one move.

I recently proposed a trade that had nothing to do with baseball skills. It’s all about contracts and the potential for taking advantage of an expected MLB trade later on. Unfortunately my target trading partner thinks I’m crazy and he turned me down.

I’m glad that EFL rules permit us to take advantage of MLB trades. It makes the off-season a lot more interesting. Allegheny got a whopper of a deal (like he needs one) this off-season with Shelby Miller and the amazing Arizona Diamondbacks. Did you see that one coming, Mark?

Actually Cottage may get a pretty good deal too – we might be able to take advantage of Cincinnati’s tanking their team. We’re just waiting to see if that deal is followed up by an even craftier Dodger transaction between now and the start of the season.

So check out the Trades page on this web site and see if there’s anyone you’d like to try for.

 

 

 

*Obviously I’m writing to only a minority of our owners. Most of them – the ones above Cottage in the standings – have already closed this blog entry, since this stuff is elementary for them.

1 Comment

  • The Votaw’s law I remember about Rockies pitchers must have been in the *oral *tradition of the scribes and Votawries.
    Tom