“Lets! Make! A Deal!” was a popular phrase during the ‘60s and ‘70s as Monty Hall gave away fabulous prizes simply for picking the door with the prize behind it. Sounds easy right? Imagine this scenario: Your shown three doors and told that a prize lies behind one and nothing lies behind the other two. You are asked to select a door. After you do so, one door containing nothing (and that you didn’t choose) is opened. You now have two closed doors. You are asked if you would like to keep your door or switch doors. Which would you choose?

Most would choose to keep their door, either out of fear of switching away from the correct door or because of the assumption that the remaining odds were 50/50. Are they right? Two doors, one with a prize and one without, of course it’s a 50/50 chance. But, its not: The chance of originally choosing the prize is 1/3 (one prize and three doors) this equals the overall chance of choosing the prize if you stick with the door you originally chose. On the other hand, the chance of initially choosing a door without a prize is 2/3, and a participant who originally chooses a door without a prize always wins by switching their door. In either case, the host must reveal one door without a prize. In the case where the participant originally chooses a door without a prize (2/3 probability) the host must reveal the other door without a prize, thus leaving only the door with the prize to switch to. This leads us to three possible outcomes:

1. The player originally picked the door with the prize. The game host has shown one of the two doors without a prize.
2. The player originally chooses Door A which contains no prize. The game host has shown the other door with no prize.
3. The player originally chooses Door B which contains no prize. The game host has shown the other door with no prize.

If the player chooses to switch, the prize is won in that last two circumstances. If
he chooses to keep his door, he wins only in the first circumstance. Thus, you have a better chance of winning by switching rather than keeping your door. In other words, players who switch will win the prize two out of three times.

And behind door number one we have Brian Bannister. He’s the guy you took a flier on in that late rounds of the draft and has worked out better than you could ever imagine. Naturally, you want to hold onto him because, after all, how could you forgive yourself if you traded him now and he played that well all year? While the Monty Hall problem doesn’t exactly apply here, it segues well into the idea of selling high on your players even after you’ve fallen in love with them.

Don’t deny it! A man crush is nothing to be ashamed of. It happens to the best of us. I’ll admit it: I’m in love with Zach Greinke! But, too many times owners pass up great offers for their overachieving sleepers because they overrate them. Naturally you appreciate the talent of the players you drafted a little more than the others. After all, if you didn’t, you would have never drafted them in the first place. However, you must realize this and trade players at their peak, not after they’ve already crashed. Brian Bannister isn’t going to have a 2.42 ERA all season. Trade him while his value is at it’s absolute highest. That would be NOW. What are you waiting for?

GO!

Other Things You Should Know:

Sell High Candidates:

Chipper Jones: Kevin Orris talked about him here. As long as he plays he’s great but…he likely won’t be healthy much longer.

Raul Ibanez: Ibanez was ranked 140 by Yahoo! prior to the season and that was generous. He’s now ranked nineteenth in their system. He is the perfect sell high candidate.

Nate McLouth: McLouth had a lot of upside going into the season, but he won’t be hitting .384 all season.

Joe Crede: He’s great with the glove and inconsistent with the bat. On top of that, he’s had injury troubles for the past couple years.

Buy Low Candidates:

Jose Reyes: Most Reyes owners aren’t quite ready to give up on him and rightfully so. Still, they’ll likely be willing to sell him below the value they drafted him for.

Price Fielder: Prince finally hit his first homerun. He probably won’t be a buy low candidate for much longer. Act fast!

David Ortiz: A .141 batting average and two homeruns is not like Big Papi. Even if he doesn’t perform as well as in the past (which is likely) he’s still likely to improve.

Hunter Pence: He’s struggled thus far, but he proved he can play last season in the bigs. He’s got a boatload of talent and the season is young.