Twi-Night Doubleheader - Week 19

Does it bother you guys when I don't do these posts on Mondays? It should. I'm not going to be any better about it, just saying, you should be pretty pissed.

Fantasy Players of the Week

• AL Hitter: Michael Brantley, OF, Indians (.375, 7 R, 2 HR, 6 RBI, 2 SB) - This is the kind of across-the-board production those of us who were watching Brantley at the beginning of the season were hoping for. The .203 season average and only 143 at-bats...not so much.
  
• NL Hitter: Mike Stanton, OF, Marlins (.556, 5 R, 4 HR, 8 RBI) - That caliber of batting average is always great to see, and when you partner it with as many homers as anyone over the past week, the pick is kind of a no-brainer. As in, pick anyone else and you don't have a brain.
  
• AL Pitcher: Felix Hernandez, SP, Mariners (1-1, 20 K, 0.00/1.09) - Felix was a party to one of the weirder SP games this year on Sunday. He gave up six hits (one home run) and four walks over 6.2 innings, yet allowed zero earned runs. The problem, of course, was six unearned runs, but as fantasy owners, those are just runs that affect your chance at a win. Fantasy-wise, he's your pitcher of the week in the Junior Circuit.
  
• NL Pitcher: R.A. Dickey, SP, Mets (1-0, 7 Ks, 0.00/0.22) - While you could pretty reasonably argue that Wade LeBlanc (2-0, 15 Ks, 2.13/1.03) has had a better past seven days, I'm going with Dickey. He's having a career year, and at this point, with 2.43/1.15 ratios and by far his best ever K/BB ratio (2.4), he should really be on a team in most leagues (he's only 39% owned right now).
  

Buy-Backs

We had an interesting situation crop up in our fantasy baseball keeper league this past weekend, as a result of some new trade clauses. There was a buildup this season over the course of three trades, each including a variation on a concept.

The first trade (completed about 8 weeks ago) included The Usual Suspects sending Daniel Bard and a second-round pick to the Huber Heights Heroes, in exchange for a few pitchers. The trade included the following clause:

If Daniel Bard is kept by any team, the second round pick is sent back to the Suspects, in exchange for their 4th round pick.

Fast forward to last weekend, when two teams (one of them being my own Riders of Rohan) decided to take this concept a step forward. A trade of Jose Bautista, Mariano Rivera, and Kevin Gregg for Jonathan Sanchez and Carlos Marmol included the following additional features:

Riders of Rohan also trade their 10th round pick to Those Guys.

Additionally, after the season has concluded, Those Guys have the option (before 31 December, 2010) to reacquire Jose Bautista in exchange for the 10th round pick, previously acquired from Riders of Rohan.

A few hours later, the following trade was made:

Cleveland Enforcers trade Trevor Hoffman and their 2011 2nd round pick to Huber Heights Heroes for Matt Cain. After the season, Heroes have the option to reacquire Cain in exchange for their 2011 4th round pick.

And we realized we had a problem on our hands. The Enforcers and Heroes' trade was basically just a rental of Matt Cain for the remainder of the season, and most of the league (including the Enforcers and Heroes, by the way) felt the trade was in bad taste.

In the short term, we decided to force renegotiation of both trades from this past weekend. Long term, we're trying to figure out a couple things. How far do we want our brand new "conditional pick" ban to go? Should the Bard trade be revisited? What should the language of our rules addendum say?

I'm asking, what do you think?