Giving Up On Lincecum

This post contains no analysis.

I just traded Lincecum off my fantasy team.

It’s hard to know if I won the trade or lost it, because my fantasy league has keeper rules that are too complicated for me to understand. We’re allowed 4 one-year and 2 two-year contracts per year, at a 10% premium per year to auction price (so a $30 player is $33 in year n+1 and $36 in year n+2). For a while, we’ve been allowed to trade contracts, assigned or unassigned, and also up to $25 of next year’s auction money (out of $305). Starting this year– in an attempt to curb some of the extreme dumping that has taken place in recent years (close to the trade deadline, the teams out of contention would unload their superstars to the highest bidder, and the $25 might end up buying a bunch of real difference-makers– making it very difficult for even an excellent team to win without making major sacrifices to the following year’s chances)– there’s now a salary cap of sorts, where a team can’t deviate by more than $75 from auction day values (so you can only dump net $75 worth of superstars, basically), the auction money trade limit has been lowered to $15, players can’t be sold solely for cash anymore (players must be exchanged on both sides), and unassigned contracts can’t be traded on their own.

(If you’re following this, maybe you want to take over my team?)

So I traded Lincecum (who, at $36, is unlikely to be worth contracting for next year) and $10 of next year’s auction cash for Tommy Hanson ($18), Matt Moore ($27), and Stephen Drew ($1).

Perhaps I should also explain the points system we use for scoring, but the short version is that it’s all about innings, earned runs, walks, and strikeouts. Wins don’t count, hits don’t count.

Moore may be too pricey to contract, given his inconsistency. Drew is a throw-in who can hopefully replace the frustrating Yunel Escobar later this season, maybe. I feel good about the trade.

I’m in 7th place out of 10, incidentally.

Without any major injuries to blame it on. (Scott Baker? Lance Berkman? Those seem like lame excuses more than legitimate reasons.)