The Francisco Lindor rumors are in full force right now and along with them are the hypothetical trade scenarios. Agree with them or not — according to my timeline, y’all hate just about everything from both sides — it’s still fun to think up deals where a bonafide major league superstar gets moved.
So it got me wondering about trying to land said superstar in a dynasty league. What would it take to land a player that’s averaged 34 HR, 20 SB and a .278/.342/.514 slash line in the last three years? Oh, who also just turned 26, making him one year older than someone like Pete Alonso?
As usual, no dynasty league is the same and each team has different contention windows, so I tried to think up different scenarios. I’ll assume 5x5 scoring.
How do you land Lindor if…
…you want to trade only two major league players?
This might be the easiest route to land Lindor because you need to give up some serious quality. And if you’re trading two major leaguers, chances are you’re in a competitive window like your trade partner. First, assess the other manager’s team. Let’s say the he or she needs a bat and a pitcher equally. How about something like Jose Ramirez and Max Scherzer? You sell it by pointing to JoRam’s second half and mentioning they maintain some speed, and they get an aging Scherzer who should have 1-2 more elite years in him.
What if they need two bats? What about something like JD Martinez and Paul Goldschmidt? You’re going to take a hit in power, and lose out on rostering a strong 1B (have you noticed how thin the position is now?), but you take the trade off in age. In an OBP league, I might favor the JD side. Always important to take league context into mind. How about Javier Baez and Eloy Jimenez?
What if your opponent is somehow loaded at shortstop and needs two pitchers? You’re looking at shipping off two top 20 arms. How does Patrick Corbin and Noah Syndergaard sound? Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of losing pitching in one fell swoop like that, so make sure you have plenty of depth or you have a surefire starter or two waiting to debut in 2020.
….you want to trade only prospects?
The possibilities are endless here. But in order to respect your counterpart, you don’t want to do a chump dump and offer seven different prospects in the top 50-150 range. That’s an automatic decline. Instead, you’re going to need at least 1-2 prospects in the top 20, and preferably one in the top 10. If I’m the Lindor owner, I also want a bat to be the headline because pitchers are too risky.
So what about Julio Rodriguez, MacKenzie Gore, Vidal Brujan and Alex Kirilloff? Those are all top 30 prospects and all but Julio Rodriguez should be seeing regular playing time in 2021. It’s certainly a hefty package but prospects are never a sure thing until they show it at the highest level, no matter how good they were in the minors.
Here’s also where I’d cash in on some helium names in the low levels. Maybe a package headlined by a couple of close major leaguers and a couple of rookie ball names? Jarred Kelenic, Marco Luciano, Noelvi Marte and Bobby Witt Jr? There’s more ceiling involved in this package but much higher risk. But if a manager if maybe fireselling and looking to build for three years out, he might be more enticed.
If you want to only trade a couple of minor leaguers, then you’re looking at names inside the top 10. Something like Jo Adell and Gavin Lux should get you there because they’re going to contribute a fair amount in 2020 and have had strong success recently.
…you want to trade major leaguers and prospects?
This is going to be a combination of the first two categories. Think of the prospect as the sweetener rather than the centerpiece (unless it’s Wander Franco). Again, I’ll limit it to two or three names. What about Keston Hiura, Tommy Pham and Kristian Robinson? Or if the other manager doesn’t care about age, Anthony Rizzo, Charlie Blackmon and a high risk/reward prospect like Oneil Cruz?
There’s a ton of variations, just remember quality over quantity. If it seems like a slam dunk offer in your favor, you’re probably too light. If it hurts to hit ‘Send’, chances are you're more or less on the money.
…if you’re Eddy Almaguer?
By now I hope my league mates realize that if you’re in a league with me, you’ve acquiesced to getting league transactions published by me.
That’s right, early this offseason I pulled off a blockbuster deal in my 16-team OBP dynasty league for Lindor. This was much more than Lindor so while I’ve been preaching quality return, you’ll notice there were plenty of names involved.
I received:
-Francisco Lindor
-Gary Sanchez
-Robbie Ray
-Robinson Cano
-Kevin Cron (M)
-Francisco Morales (M)
I traded away:
-Yoan Moncada
-Jean Segura
-Yadier Molina
-Spencer Howard (M)
-Dustin May (M)
-Jordan Groshans (M)
-Simeon Woods-Richardson (M)
-Bryse Wilson (M)
My minors were effectively cleaned out, but I landed a couple of elite players at their position and some needed speed with Lindor as I aim to win a title. The other manager had joined the league in the offseason and needed to rebuild his farm and land a core major league piece. I’ll let you all be the judge of this trade.
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Let me know what you think of my trade scenarios in the comments or on Twitter. Hopefully you guys like these just a little bit more than the real life ones floating elsewhere.