This trade is so unusual and the timing is just crazy but on the plus side fantasy owners have a lot to love about this trade. For those who have not heard about the crazy trade on Sunday the Atlanta Braves sent Craig Kimbrel and Melvin (B.J.) Upton to the San Diego Padres for Cameron Maybin, Carlos Quentin, Matt Wisler, Jordon Paroubeck, and some some draft picks. Of those players only three are truly fantasy relevant: Kimbrel, Maybin, and Wisler so today we will look at them and see what value they can have moving forward. Note that Quentin has value too but was DFA’d right after the trade and will likely either be traded again or dropped so no reason to focus much on him.
Craig Kimbrel is baseball's best bullpen arm and that is not opinion that is dominating fact. Kimbrel owns a K/9 of 14.82 in his four years of closing for the Braves and a 3.36 BB/9 is pretty solid for a bullpen arm. He has racked up 186 saves averaging 46 saves per season except for 2010 where he was not named the closer and has only blown 19 saves in his career. What most owners do not realize about Kimbrel is how good he is at keeping the ball down in the zone and forcing groundouts. He has a career 44.5% ground ball rate to a 35.1% fly ball rate which means he gets 1.27 ground balls for every fly ball he gets, not a bad ratio for a closer.
So we know the numbers and we are all very aware that Kimbrel is good, but what does the trade do to his value? Well in theory, it raises it quite a bit since the Braves were likely going to be the doormats of the NL and that means he was not in a good position to get many saves. Being traded to a contending team means that the chances for saves goes way up and the fact he went to San Diego also increases his value since that stadium is tailor made for him. Kimbrel owners should be dancing right now on how much good luck they fell into when they just received from the fantasy baseball gods. The next question is what do owners do with this news and there’s two ways to look at it: trade him at peak value and get a decent haul back, or keep him and ride him all year. Both options have their ups and downs, but it may be better to hold onto Kimbrel until the right deal comes up, after all owners have plenty of time to wait on trades.
Cameron Maybin has had an up and down career in more than one-way. The once top prospect has struggled to really live up to the title of top prospect ever since being traded to Miami back in 2008 and now at the ripe old age of 28, he is a far cry from being what he was. Injuries have really hampered him in his career and when he was not hurt ineffective hitting and plate discipline issues (career BB/K ratio of 0.33) prove to be a killer. A below average career slash line of .246/.309/.365 says it all and sadly the one area he did give fantasy value was his legs which have been the main injury issue for the last three years. Owners can pass on Maybin but at the same time he is likely to get a lot of playing time in Atlanta and Maybin has been shown some ability to play when healthy so deeper or NL only leagues should keep him on the watch list.
Matt Wisler is an interesting option for fantasy owners, as he may have actually been the main piece in the trade, always something to note in fantasy when that happens. Wisler’s minor league career has been pretty solid in the areas that owners like to see: has been able to keep an 8.00+ K/9 on each level, has had below a 3.00 BB/9 in all levels. Wisler has four pitches: fastball, slider, curveball, and change and of those the curveball is the only pitch that rates as average while the rest of the pitches rate as above average. Overall Wisler is a good watch option for deeper leagues and has the potential to weasel his way onto shallower leagues.
