Grand Theft Roto: Get ready to S.T.E.A.L.

For many of my formative fantasy years, I thought I was the only one who loved trading more than any other aspect of the game. I mean, drafts are fun, auctions are even better and winning is tremendous. But the moment of pulling off a deal and watching everyone else in the league react to the transaction e-mail with outrage and envy beats it all.

Like I said, I thought I was the only one, until I began writing Grand Theft Roto and started receiving e-mails like this.

"I am the greatest fantasy trader in the world! No one deals like me! I fall asleep at night trying to think of ways of turning Mark Buehrle into Max Scherzer. When a waitress offers me more coffee, I counter and get her to make it a latte and a free biscotti thrown in."

I'm paraphrasing, of course, but the sentiment expressed above has been included in an impressive percentage of correspondence I've gotten from ESPN readers. Now either all these people are exaggerating, much in the way one stretches the truth when trying to convince someone that Jerry Hairston Jr.'s .326 batting average in 2008 is as legit as Dustin Pedroia's .326, or there are a lot of people out there who think they have what it takes to get deals done.

If you're one of those people, this is the year I'm offering you a chance to prove it.

More on that later. First things first.

For true trade addicts, now is the time to start setting yourself up for a year full of offers, counteroffers and counter-counteroffers with a side order of haggling. That means assembling a team of players, via a draft or auction, that people are going to want, or better yet, need to acquire via trade.

So who are these players? Well, that depends on your league.

Some use dozens of scoring categories, utterly devaluing players like closers and speed merchants who might only help a team in one area. Other leagues might only use players from just the AL or NL -- I call them monoleagues -- and feature large rosters, making it crucial to acquire as many position players with full-time starting jobs to feed those counting categories.

Maybe you're in a head-to-head league with daily lineup changes, which encourages owners to stream several pitching slots. If so, you can pretty much abandon any starting pitchers outside your top 20 known commodities, and maybe the next 10 sexy young names, because there won't be any market for the Gil Meches and Ted Lillys of the world, even though I'd be happy to have both in more traditional formats.

Know your league's quirks, and more importantly, if possible, the quirks of your fellow owners, and that will tell you whether it's wise to draft a team built for bargaining.

If your league is a place where "trade" is a four-letter word, you're playing with a bunch of people who can't spell, but it also means building a team for swappage makes no sense. But if your league get-togethers look like the ending of "Trading Places," then get in touch with your inner Billy Ray Valentine and go for it.

Assuming you are in a trade-friendly league, and want to be dealing form the word go, here are the overriding principles.

1. You want the best player on the board

Whether you have generated your own cheat sheet, or you're using the player ranks and values provided in ESPN's draft kit, you have to know which remaining player has the most overall value. The key is to take that player, and keep taking that player until the point where passing on a the best remaining Izturis brother might mean having to start the year with Alex Gonzalez and a Jeff Keppinger voodoo doll as your plan at short. You want to have the most total value on your team, even if it leaves you with some soft spots. It's a long season, and a few weaknesses coming out of the draft are nothing compared to having commodities others are going to want and need.

2. If there aren't enough to go around, grab two

This is basic economics, supply and demand. If there is a position or category that you have already taken care of, and you notice a bunch of teams are playing chicken about who will take the last top-tier guy at that slot, you have an opportunity to shake things up. For example, the draft kit lists nine third basemen in the top 100 picks for an ESPN standard league. These nine are expected to hit for at least a decent average, hit many homers and drive in a plethora of runs. Beyond that threshold, you have other options, like the speedy but fragile Chone Figgins, the schizophrenic Adrian Beltre and then a bunch of guys like Ryan Zimmerman, Alex Gordon and Mark Reynolds, who all have upside, but also some red flags.

So if you're 10 rounds in and already have Evan Longoria tucked away, and you notice two or three owners with a void at third are playing chicken, waiting on Garrett Atkins, it's time to strike. They're all thinking you're not interested and they can wait to get their third baseman on the way back. I say prove them wrong, grab the guy with the trade value then start making offers before the draft room is even empty.

3. Pay attention to praise

This won't help you in autodrafts -- which are abominations, anyway -- but in any sort of live draft or auction scenario, jot down a note about which guy in the draft room wrote "great pick " on the chat board or bid you up a few bucks, because you'll know there is at least one other owner who really likes him and might be willing to pay the stat-inflated price to acquire him if he starts hot.

With these three guidelines guiding your draft strategy, you're sure to come out of the gate with a roster that's ready to trade, assuming you're in a league where such activity happens. But what if you could join a league where you were sure such activity happens every day, all season long, until the final moments tick down before the trading deadline? A league where every offer drew a counter? Where every owner was a shark, convinced he or she will die without being in constant roto-motion?

That's a dream I've had for quite some time. When I created the "Grand Theft Roto" column almost four years ago, I figured I'd position myself as a semi-fictional fantasy underworld Mafioso, bent on committing larcenies all over the roto landscape and writing about them to give readers an idea of just what is possible. I often made references to the "GTR Family" as if we were a real organization, with a compound on a lake outside Reno, dummy corporations to cover the importing and exporting of players, and even a secret handshake.

Little did I know how many prospective members of the family there were out there.

Over the years, I've received thousands of e-mails from like-minded fantasy owners, each just as addicted to the art of the deal as I am. These are the hustlers, the hitmen and the capos-in-training, who all understand that while you can't win every league every year, you can gain some satisfaction from pulling off a deal and getting a player you've lusted for. I've tried to reward them with occasional mentions in the column, but I've decided it's time to give them more.

For the first time, I'm offering my readers a chance to prove just how dangerous they are when it comes to dealing and stealing.

2009 marks the first-ever season of "The S.T.E.A.L.", which stands for the "Serious Traders, Everything Allowed League." Drafting online during the final week of March, it will be a 16-team, mixed 5x5 league with 23 active roster slots, five bench spots and one DL option. Quick math says that as many as the top 464 players in the league will be on rosters, meaning that the only consistent way to improve a team will be to trade and trade often. This will not be one of your public leagues where a half-dozen potential closers will be available on the waiver wire and injured stars will be waiting to be snatched up as soon as they're on rehab assignments. Also, there will be weekly lineup moves and waiver transactions, so no one will be streaming pitchers or using their bench as a shuttle service for platoons.

As the name suggests, there will be no vetoes or approvals necessary. In fact, there will be only two trade rules. One will be "No collusion." The other will be "Any owner who doesn't accept, reject, or counter an offer within the space of 5 days will be publicly humiliated the first time it happens. The second time, they'll be out." Simple. It's a swapster's paradise, and you are invited to join.

I, "Don Pietros" in GTR circles, will own one team, and I'm looking to fill the rest of the league with readers who make offers more often than Bob and Jillian make fat people sweat. Everyone will be playing to win, of course, but getting deals done along the way will carry just as much glory if not more.

"So how do I get in?" you ask. It's so simple, even a Yankees fan can do it.

Just use the link below to send a message to my mailbox, make sure you correctly enter your e-mail address, and then supply me with the following six pieces of information:

Your real name

Your age

Your hometown

Your GTR Family Nickname (i.e., the mafia alias you think you've earned)

Your best-ever fantasy baseball trade (notice I said "trade" in the singular. I don't want your version of "War and Peace" about how you made six trades in the space of a week that eventually turned Dave Dellucci and Eric Gagne into Jake Peavy.)

Fifty words or less about why The S.T.E.A.L. needs you.

Now to answer a few questions you might have:

Yes, you get bonus points for making me laugh, think, gasp or grab my thesaurus.

No, you will not get in by kissing butt or offering to set up me up on a date with your cousin … unless your cousin is Salma Hayek. Of course, she just got married, so even that won't work.

Yes, you have to be able to be online for our draft, so if you're planning a cruise for March 28, you'd better pass.

Finally, anyone who cannot follow all the above directions doesn't get in. So if you accidentally enter the wrong return e-mail address or decide to write me a 1,000-word essay about why you're the cat's pajamas, you've blown your shot.

This isn't to be cruel; instead, it's a filter to make sure that everyone who gets in is detail-oriented and really ready for it. This is key, because The S.T.E.A.L. isn't just going to be for the enjoyment of myself and 15 other roto-thieves. It will serve another purpose.

You see, while I will be doing my usual due diligence this year by anonymously joining several public leagues to use them as a lab for the "Pulling the Job" section of Grand Theft Roto, I have noticed an increasing amount of difficulty getting deals done in these leagues over the past few years, mostly because of two factors. First, the attrition rate in public leagues is way too high, as many owners use them as "mock drafts" and then check out by the end of April if their team starts out slow. I hate that. Second, because ESPN.com players often read which players I'm dealing or stealing, it becomes much harder to actually consummate a trade involving them.

So The S.T.E.A.L. will be the one league I'm in where I know deals are getting done and the owners are making up their own minds about who is worth what. In weeks where I don't have any of my own trades to report, I'll pick my favorite one from The S.T.E.A.L. and break it down.

So to recap: Fantasy glory. Fantasy fame. Fantasy felonies. I'm offering all three. So if you're ready to put your mafia where your mouth is, feel free to apply.