This is for all of you who have tried to figure out how good a deal you're making.  When trading a position player for a SP, does adding up each player's career value and comparing the totals necessarily make for a fair trade. Other than specific roster needs, what factors does one take into account?

Total career salary is a good starting point.  Sure, all $30M-career players are not created equal, but it's a good start.  I'm sure everyone does this a little bit differently.  I typically weigh a few things:

-- positional scarcity (I value C, 2B, SS, 3B are more highly than 1B/OF of similar quality)
-- Career value (total career salary is a decent proxy for this, but there are other methods)
-- Peak value (most of the time, I'd rather have 2 awesome and 2 mediocre seasons than 4 good ones, all else being equal)
-- How well peak value matches up with the peaks of other players on the team

Unlike a lot of owners, I do not believe that pitching always trumps offense in WIS, especially in progressives.  If it fits the needs of my team, I'll trade an SP for a position player of comparable peak and career value, especially if the position player is a catcher or middle infielder.

Also, because I am sure everyone uses a different method for valuing careers and trades, it drives me nuts when owners in a progressive veto a trade.  Unless the trade is just over-the-top blatantly an example of tanking or favoritism (eg: trading a star player for a scrub or a AAA, with no draft picks involved), I don't think trades in progressives should ever be vetoed.

contrarian - -- positional scarcity (I value C, 2B, SS, 3B are more highly than 1B/OF of similar quality)


I have a half-completed chart looking at different batting stats by starting position on this site.  I'm half thru looking at c, 1b, 2b, 3b, ss, and of for 1936, 1946, 1956, 1966 and 1976.  Didn't want to make it a huge project, just a snapshot of averages, while also making it random enough so a player like Cal Ripken or Honus Wagner doesn't skew the results.

I've got the 1936, 1946, and 1956 seasons done. 

The average OPS for different positions for those 3 seasons

1956
c- .736
1b- .860
2b- .734
3b- .748
ss- .733
of- .811

1966
c- .678
1b- .773
2b- .670
3b- .679
ss- .670
of- .746

1976
c- .746
1b- .803
2b- .676
3b- .749
ss- .691
of- .796

Total averages
c- .721
1b- .813
2b- .692
3b- .728
ss- .699
of- .784

  This helps if you're trying to figure out if you should trade your 1b with an .800 OPS for a 2b with a .700 OPS.  The answer is yes, you should. 

Posted by marcstuart on 1/2/2011 8:58:00 AM (view original):
This is for all of you who have tried to figure out how good a deal you're making.  When trading a position player for a SP, does adding up each player's career value and comparing the totals necessarily make for a fair trade. Other than specific roster needs, what factors does one take into account?

I don't think total $ value is very significant.   I look at each player and think how many:

All Star Quality years
Full Time playable years
PT playable years

If I were to trade a SP with 5+ FT (AS or just useable) years, I would want  a position player equal or more quality years.

Posted by marcstuart on 1/2/2011 8:58:00 AM (view original):
This is for all of you who have tried to figure out how good a deal you're making.  When trading a position player for a SP, does adding up each player's career value and comparing the totals necessarily make for a fair trade. Other than specific roster needs, what factors does one take into account?

Pitching is always more valuable than hitting in my opinion.  But I also agree with Contrarian.  C, 2B, SS to me are more valuable than other positions, and depending on the quality could go toe to toe with pitching

I don't think total $ value is very significant.   I look at each player and think how many:

All Star Quality years
Full Time playable years
PT playable years
 
I agree w/ T.Joe here....

But overall, I believe a good SP is worth more than a good position player. If all years involved were "somewhat equal" I would expect the team trading for the SP to give up a little extra.