Fantasy League Trade: Justin Upton For Josh Johnson

Recently in an NL-only league (the 30-round draft league), I was looking to deal for Albert Pujols, and based on some comments from Fake Teams readers, and taking a closer look at my roster, I decided to make the following deal:

Justin Upton

Mike Leake

for

Josh Johnson

Ian Desmond

I have enough hitting even without Upton with Ryan Howard, Colby Rasmus, Manny Ramirez, Carlos Gonzalez, Jay Bruce, Seth Smith, Pedro Alvarez, and Casey Blake. My pitching staff of JJ, Mat Latos, Chad Billingsley, Hiroki Kuroda, Carlos Silva and Jonathan Sanchez is solid, and I have Edinson Volquez coming off the DL next week. 

I think I can deal one of my lower ranked starting pitchers down the road should I need an offensive boost. With Johnson, I think I can make up 3 points in ERA and 2-5 points in strikeouts as a few of the teams ahead of me in strikeouts have recently traded some quality pitching. 

Dealing Upton was difficult, but I had to give up quality to get a pitcher like Johnson. With Leake, we recently heard that the Reds will skip a few of his starts in the near future, and may do the same down the stretch depending on how Volquez performs when he returns from the DL. I asked for Desmond as my middle infield was lacking with Craig Counsell manning my MI spot.

How did I do?