GRADE THE TRADE: IT BURNES…
The fantasy world’s a stage… the owners merely players…
When you analyze trades in a soft-dynasty league there are easy routes you can take to twist the deal to look good from different directions. “They’re planning for the future,” “They’re trying to win right now,” “They can afford to lose this“Upside vs known quantities,” and on and on. There needs to be some consistency of stance when looking at these deals otherwise it’s a pointless exercise.
Therefore, my stance is going to be, Does this trade make this team better? There may be teams that are out of the running at the trade deadline who make deals for next year. That’s fine and that serves their interests, but at least right now, at this point in the season when we should all be playing to win, my metric will be if this trade serves to improve the odds of a title.
Now that we’ve got that sorted…
THE TRADE:
voltsshock (patrick) trades: jackson chourio and 9th round pick
mendoza liners (michael) trades: corbin burnes and 12th round pick
Weaver has taken a page out of the Scott Boras handbook and ran this whole three ring circus around Jackson Chourio with a deft hand. His carefully crafted PR campaign playing owners against other owners all while driving up a price in anticipation of his major league debut was masterfully done. In the end everything played out exactly as he wanted. Chourio got the promotion in the frenetic final week of spring training, owner trades had reached a boiling point with FOMO rampant at all levels, and the perfect offer fell into his lap.
Setting aside the draft pick compensation on both sides, which is low enough to where it doesn’t move the needle much, the deal is essentially a straight trade of Chourio for Burnes. So let’s cut to the chase…
This is a bad deal for Michael.
Staron has Spencer Strider and Tarik Skubal. He has Kyle Tucker and Pete Alonso. Staron’s only weakness was a sixth keeper slot with no clear person to claim it. Instead of fixing that problem, Staron created a new one by trading a consensus top 5 pitcher in fantasy for a prospect who has never had a major league at bat.
The Brewers obviously believe in Chourio, since they gave him the largest prospect extension in the history of the game, but does that belief start with this spring? How long will it take for Chourio to return top 30 overall player value? How long has it been since a pure rookie with no major league at-bats has created that sort of value in their first year?
KRIS BRYANT - 2015 - 18th RANKED HITTER IN FANTASY POINTS
Bryant is the last pure rookie hitter with zero MLB at bats to start the year to crack top 30 overall hitters in fantasy points in their debut season. Not great odds.
Even accounting for the fact that Burnes has declined in strikeout rate the last three seasons, and the fact that pitchers are infinitely more likely to get injured than hitters, the point that I keep returning to is Why?
Does this trade make Staron’s team better in hitting categories? Not particularly. Chourio is expected to steal bases if nothing else, and Staron’s team is slightly sparse on speed so this helps in that area, but otherwise the likelihood of the hitting stats being improved is marginal.
Does this trade make Staron’s pitching worse? Yes. Significantly. Staron went from having indisputably the best pitching staff in the league to having a very good pair of pitching keepers. But, as we’ve discussed at length before, pitchers are unreliable and prone to injury.
So why? Why take this completely unnecessary risk? I have no idea. Get your guys and build for the future all you want but this can not possibly be seen as a trade that is reasonably seen as improving his chances for 2024. Yes there is a chance Burnes falls off a cliff and Chourio catches fire and things work out for Staron. However, we are talking about a small fraction compared to the significant likelihood that this trade is a huge net loss.
As for Patrick, he got what he wanted and needed. Acuna and Judge are now complimented by a true ace. This is the foundation you want for your team. The methodology was irksome and predictable, but it worked in that it drew the most foolish, talent bloated moth to the flame. You have to tip your cap. It was a circus all right, but we aren’t looking away.
