Call me crazy...

In early June 2008, the following trade happened in my fantasy baseball league:

Third Base Cleanup recieves:

Johan Santana ($49), Derek Lee ($23), Carl Crawford ($40), John Rausch (N/A).

Team Foreskin recieves:

Brian McCann ($17), Adam Wainwright ($5), Brett Myers ($8), Nick Swisher ($9).

There it is. The most lopsided trade in fantasy history. And I was the guy who gave up that smorgasbord of perennial fantasy superstars. Right now you are saying to yourself, "How could that happen, the Deeb?," "Did Josh Hamilton give you his excess crack before the season?"

Most of the time I think of myself as a pretty rational person. And no, I didn't have to resort to anti-depressants after accepting this trade. Why on earth would I do this? To fully understand the logic behind giving up such huge names, lets delve into the league rules.

This league is a 12 team auction keeper league. Players may be kept for 3 years. Up to 7 players may be kept each season. Guys who are young, cheap and overperforming their auction value are the best players to own in the long term.

Back to the trade. Adam Wainwright for Johan Santana. Carl Crawford for Brian McCann. John Rausch for Brett Myers. Derek Lee for Nick Swisher. That's how this trade would break down individually, if they were individual deals. None of those deals would be done straight up. Why does it work as a package deal? Why was I interested in getting the players I got? Why the hell did I give up 3 perennial all-stars and, at the time, an emerging closer who was performing at a high level? Four words: Adam Wainwright, Brian McCann.

At the time of the trade, the only appreciable difference between Johan Santana and Adam Wainwright in statistical terms was that one of them was named Johan Santana and one was named Adam Wainwright. Wainwright was, by all accounts, having a better statisical season than Santana at that point in all categories except strikeouts. And even K's we're closer than one might expect. Wainwright is younger than Santana, significantly. Most important to me, Wainwright was 1/10th of the auction cost of Santana -- an incredible return on investment. In this one young starter, I saw a fixture of my staff for 2009 and 2010. Santana, by contrast, was a guy who had a reputation for being the best fantasy pitcher alive but hadn't really lived up to that in 2008. And at 49 bones, I was completely unwilling to bring him back.

Brian McCann is the best fantasy catcher in baseball. Since I've traded for him, McCann has made his third consecutive All-Star game. No other catcher in the history of baseball has done that. Read that last line again. McCann is a stud. Period. Carl Crawford is an elite fantasy player and if you break this trade into parts, he's the part that got me McCann. Carl Crawford does have a very fatal flaw in this league, however. OPS. My league includes OPS. If Carl Crawford were to suddenly start demanding that his accomplishments be listed off by a town crier every time he enters a room, the record would have to say "Stealer of bases, destroyer of Batting Average, OPS." He doesn't walk. He doesn't really hit for power. And his career average does not suggest that he's got a .340 season in him to bouy that OPS. What he does do is steal bases. He also makes a ton of outs and gets a ton of plate appearances due to his placement in the order. If your team is not full of patient, power hitters, your batting average and OPS ( or OBP) will take a plunge downward. You need a very specific team to support the negative aspects of Crawford's game.

At this point, ancillary players needed to be included to pull this deal off. Derek Lee was coming off of an incredible start to the season, but had had an OPS lower than .600 in the 4 weeks prior to the trade. Conversely, Nick Swisher was having a terrible statistical season -- or was he? At the time of the trade, Nick Swisher's Line Drive percentage was higher than his batting average. Significantly. What was Nick Swisher then? Supremely unlucky. And he was much cheaper and younger than Derek Lee. Since the trade, Swisher has been an equivalent or better player than Lee.

John Rausch was a player that had no value to me because I wasn't competing in saves or in 2008. His value was limited by the timetable of Chad Cordero's return. As soon as Cordero was back, Rausch was back to the wavier wire. Brett Myers was simply a cheap, keepable, upside pitcher that I took a gamble on. The guy has tremendous stuff and I didn't really have many keepable pitching options.

Names shouldn't be considered in trades. If you go by the names in this trade, I clearly lost. However, when you look at the stats (ie the only things that actually matter in fantasy), I won. Easily. Don't be afraid to take a chance on young, excellent talent at the expense of known, aging guys.