I've just taken over a rather mediocre real-time team, and with the trade deadline approaching I'm looking for some tips on late-season trades and using the free-agent draft.

My guess is the thing to do is to latch onto as many players as possible who look like they could improve dramatically from 1998 to 1999...meaning established players coming back from injury, younger players moving from part-time to full-time, and starting pitchers who have taken their lumps for a year or two and are ready to emerge (I guess if anyone could spot these reliably they'd be making be $ on a major league payroll!).

These seem rather obvious and are probably the dsigns of about half the teams in my league at this point. Any other rebuilding strategies out there?

What about the tradeoff between trading or keeping established young stars? Shop A-Rod around to the contenders or keep him as the primary building block?

Thanks for any ideas?