The State of the Race

I don’t know how many of you check the standings on the website home page on days I don’t post.  My EFL time the last couple of days got soaked up in calculating defense ratings updates, which should be available to you soon for all your players. And yesterday morning was spent helping as a course volunteer for the Oregon Spring Half Marathon at Champoeg (which Sam won).  So I couldn’t get an update done yesterday.  Here is what the standings looked like Saturday morning:

Note that the Tornadoes nearly caught the Rosebuds, and the Kangaroos did the same to the Wolverines, who held steady at 3.3 games out of first place. Kaline held on just above .500, Brookland threatened to sink the Cheese almost to the bottom of the fondue pot, and the Balk maintained a 0.4 game lead in front of the Miami Marlins.

That’s Derek Jeter’s Miami Marlins. No matter what else is going on, one’s fantasy season is in large measure successful if one is beating Derek Jeter.

Ok, having set the stage, here are this morning’s standings:

I read Saturday evening a piece on MLB.com about starting pitchers the Padres might target for trade. One was Madison Bumgarner.  But, I thought, how terrible it would be if the players the Padres offered were guys I already have, say, Luis Urias and Chris Paddack for Bumgarner. I already have Urias in the first of his five EFL rookie years.    And I have Paddack as a debutant.  A Bumgarner trade for those two would be useless to me.

Or would it?

Consider:  if the Giants trade Bumgarner for a guy who has never been to the majors, I’d get to keep that hot prospect. It’s clearly provided for in our rules, and most of us have taken advantage of that provision.

If the Giants trade Bumgarner for a guy the computer stole from us in the rookie draft, I’d get to take that player for my own for the rest of his EFL rookies days. Also clear from the rules.

inI can accept that trade, too, and I’d get Senzel as a rookieSo if the Giants trade Bumgarner for Paddack — no, let’s say the Indians trade Kluber for Paddack, I don’t have to let the Kangaroos snag Paddack away from me for his debutant season.  But I don’t control Paddack after the season ends.  I only have title to him until the season is over.  I have a limited estate, one that divests at a defined moment (the end of the regular season, including any tie-breaker games to determine who gets the wild card). We call that title for a term of years (in this case, less than one year).  An interest like that always creates a remainder interest in whoever is slated to own the asset after the term expires.

If the Giants trade Bumgarner for Nicky Senzel, who is as of right now unowned