By Butters in D.C.

League 14

League 16

The Major League trade deadline has come and gone, but the fantasy deadline is right around the corner. This week can determine who wins your league and who is waiting for next year … again.

Making the right move isn’t always about catching up in the stats in which you are behind. Sometimes you can be better off in the long run by bolstering your position in a tight category or actually making a trade with someone else who isn’t even in the race.

This week’s ‘Hit List’ is about strategies employed at the trade deadline … and some players that can make all the difference.

The simplest, and most used, strategy is to add players who help you attack categories while giving up players who contribute in categories in which you are pretty locked into position.

Saves and steals are the categories that are most easily attacked in order to make a move in the standings. If you picked up Eddie Guardado, Joel Zumaya, and Joel Hanrahan in the last week or so, then you know what I mean. If you really want to make a move in saves, though, these are not the three amigos that you want. None of them are going to be good enough, or get you enough saves, to move the needle.

Who, then, do you target for saves? I say look for a guy on a team that’s in a dogfight in their division, who is the team’s entrenched closer, and has been both effective and healthy. This criterion minimizes the chances of trading for someone who gets shut down to protect his arm … or someone whose arm falls off.

The choices are narrowed down to (in order of my personal desirability) Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, Brad Lidge, Bobby Jenks, Mariano Rivera, Kevin Gregg, and Brian Fuentes. Now it’s a matter of how much you want to spend to get your guy. Ask around, see what the other owner wants in return and go for the lowest price.

Steals are another category where one player can make all the difference - as long as he is the right player. You will want to use similar criteria for choosing the right base thief; health, effectiveness, on a team where every run matters, with the additional categories of supporting cast and reasonably consistent playing time.

This leaves me with a list of (in no particular order) Carl Crawford, Jose Reyes, Willy Taveras, Shane Victorino, Carlos Gomez, Orlando Cabrera, Matt Kemp, and Carlos Beltran.

It’s a short and fairly specific list, I know, but realize that, after Willy Taveras, three of the next four closest players to the lead in steals are Ichiro, Juan Pierre, and Jacoby Ellsbury. Respectively they have one, two and two steals in the last month. No one is running, so you’re going to have to pay a hefty sum to make your move.

Remember, steals tend to come in streaks, which is fine if the streak comes the day after he hits your roster.

Sometimes, if you are sitting in first place with a moderate lead, you may feel content to sit back and let the team that has carried you this far bring it home. This can be a fatal mistake to your hopes of fantasy glory. A ten point lead can disappear overnight.

Imagine this ‘dooms-day’ scenario:

You have three starters go one day and get absolutely rocked, and then the same happens to your closers. The second place team traded for Willy Taveras who goes 5 for 5 in steals and picks up 5 more through his roster.

Ryan Howard, Lance Berkman, and Jason Bay (all on the second place team’s roster) all hit three homers in one night and four more of their players have a 4 for 5 night at the plate.

Wow! I bet you wish that you had traded for Taveras and maybe bolstered your lead in homers and RBI.

While I admit that that particular scenario is a little far fetched, it is an example of what can happen if you stand pat while your opponents make moves to try and catch you. If you see that your lead is a little closer than makes you comfortable, don’t be afraid to make the three-for-one Swisher/Thome/Ibanez for Crawford deal … if that’s what keeps your homer/RBI lead safe.

Another strategy is called placing. This seems to work best in a league that has very active owners for the entire year. Here is another scenario for you:

You are in second place in the league and a half point out of first. You have fifty more homers than the second place team in that category. You see that the team in seventh place is about five homers away from the team you are chasing. With this strategy, you trade Lance Berkman to the seventh place team in a deal where you get back, say, Kevin Gregg and Matt Kemp.

Not exactly even value, but not a veto-able deal. This works on two fronts. You are attacking steals and saves, while trading a player to a team that can overtake the team ahead of you in a category in which they are vulnerable.

This strategy can work amazing results, but it is incredibly hard to pull off. The person with whom you are trading must have something you need and be able to attack your opponent’s vulnerable category; something not often found. When it works, though, for that small moment you feel like a real MLB GM.

Isn’t that what this game is all about?

E-mail me examples of deals you’ve done, why you’ve done them, and if they worked or not! E-mail column coming up with your responses!  mike@fantasybaseballmafia.com