I'm assuming that trading Dunn for Zambrano with me would have had the same net affect on your team as the deal with DB had, so the big thing here for you is this:

Is DB (who is closer to you in the standings) gonna improve his team by more points than I (who is further behind you) would have improved mine?

The guy who improves the least is, obviously, is the guy you should have traded with.

Well, let's see.....

What did DB gain?

I figured he loses almost nothing by not having Howard.

A few games to fill in for Thome or Pujols on their days off. Maybe the fill-in guys he has to use now are worth .75 FPPG or so less than Howard.

I’ll be generous here, and say DB loses 10 points by not having Howard anymore.

To figure his estimated gain, I like to take a look at what his Pitching Rotation figured to get him – based on average FPPG – before the trade, and then what his new rotation figures to get him.

With 48 starts left, that looks like this:
So DB's "After" rotation gets him about 53 more points than his "Before".

Minus the 10 points he loses with the loss of Howard, that's a net increase for DB of 43 points.

What Did JG Gain?

A little bit harder to figure, with only 33 starts left.

But I did the same thing -- How would I play it if it were me?

With 33 starts left, here's JG's "Before" and "After"

So, JG loses about 37 points with his new and weakend pitching rotation.

Now, we have to add in the projected increase in points for JF by having Howard.

I'll be generous again.

Let's say 60 games of Howard instead of 60 games of whoever.

And let's say that Howard is worth one full FPPG more (which is really a lot) than the "whoever" he replaces.

So that's a net increase to JG of 60 points.

Subtract the 37 JG loses in pitching, and the trade is worth a net increase to JG of about 23 points.

Versus the expected increase for DB of 43 points.

It's close - it figures to be with almost 2/3 of the season gone - but DB gets the edge on this trade.

One more thing to look at.....

What Would PL Have Gained in Comparison?

What can we predict would have happened if JG made the Dunn-Zambrano trade with me, instead of the one he did make with DB?

I figure it like this:

From JG's POV, he improves about the same - a loss in pitching (about the same since Beckett and Penny are fairly even) and a gain in offense (about the same, since Dunn and Howard are fairly even)

BUT....

If he trades with me instead of DB, I do not improve my team as much as DB improved his.

Here....let's look at my "Before" and "After" pitching, with 57 starts left:
So I gain 47 points in pitching.

BUT.....

I lose 60 games of Dunn.

I'l be generous again, and say that I only lose .5 FPPG by replacing him (in reality, it's probably closer to that one full PPG than half a point), so that's a minus of 30 points, for a net gain of 17.

Since JG gains 23, and I only gain about 17, JG probably has a very slight edge over me in a Dunn-Zambrano trade.

But the main point is that JG traded with a guy who is closer to him in the standings - DB - and made a trade in which that guy improved his team more than JG did, when he could've traded with me, who is behind him even more in the standings and would've inproved less.

I know I'm gonna hear about "fuzzy math" and "predictions" and "projections" being meaningless, but hey, you gotta go by something in making the comparison.

Show me how you were better off making the trade that you did with DB than you would've been in making the trade with me.

Not that I'm so upset that you didn't.....

As the figures show, you improve more than I do, so you would've gotten the better of that trade.

I'm not even sure why I was willing to do it in the first place.

I played with the numbers before I proposed it to you, and it came out with a slight advantage for me, but I can't find the figures i came up with, and don't remember how i came up with them.