Effective Trade Discussions?

[hockeylifer]

During the \'off season\' it is always difficult to generate trade discussions. I am wondering what your experience has shown to be the most effective way of generating trade discussion. We have all sent out the email offers and not received a response. I hope I am not the only one that has experienced that! Or we have had the offers that are not reasonable.

Consider that you have a team that is in the middle of pact and there is a player on another team that you would like to own. What approach do you initiate? Email seems to be the standard communication tool but have you found the phone is a more effective way to consumate trades? Do you start off by questioning if the player is available or do you go forward with an offer? Do you offer fair value or do you \'low ball\'? I have never tried that approach. Are you willing to overpay if you want the player bad enough or do you walk away? If you get a negative response do you continue to revisit the issue? Hopefully not annoying the hell out of the other gm. What have you found to be an effective way of continuing the discussion? Email is convenient but doesn\'t seem effective. I suppose it helps if you have a life other than hockey. lol.

What works for you?

[Screaming Jawa]

In both the pools I\'m in, there are rules that mandate every message must be replied to, regardless of what the response is. (Keep in mind, there are also rules that GMs must be exhibit acceptable behaviour towards others.)

E-mail gives the other person time to think, a phone conversation doesn\'t.

I don\'t like the low-ball approach, because it sours the other GM towards any future talks, it also leads to a bad reputation. Rarely, however, have I ever started with my best offer, but that has happened in the past.

I have found, in the past, when I\'ve been tempted to overpay, but walked away instead, it ended up being for the best. It was for a prospect that never panned out, or a vet who deteriorated shortly afterwards.

As for your very first statement, the \'off season\' isn\'t all that \'off\' in one of my pools, so it\'s never really been a problem. If a GM is going on vacation, then he lets others know he won\'t be around to respond.

[goldfish47]

our league since we are so widly spread out(vancouver to new york) we use im. if the whole leage gets hooked into one messanger system then it makes it fairly easy to communicate. the only drawback is that everyone may not all be on at the same time but most services allow you to send messages to offline people

[Thieving Giraffe]

Most of my leagues revolve around email.

As for my strategy... wouldn\'t Lanky like to know... :whistle:

Post edited by: Thieving Giraffe, at: 2007/07/15 14:51

[Mercs]

Our pool is like Screaming Jawa\'s it is mandatory that you reply, even if it is an insulting deal. If we are gone for any length of time we let the rest of the GM\'s know (all done by E-mail, we have GM\'s from Oslo, Norway to Winnipeg). I never start with my upper end offer as there will always be bartering, if I really want a player I will offer very close to what my top offer would be. By the way made 3 trades in my pool so far this off season.

[blindedbyfear]

All of the members of my primary league live fairly close, within about an hour of each other at the most.

That being said, we still don\'t all see each other that often. Some members work with me, others I see weekly, and others I see only 2 or 3 times a year.

We do not have a rule that you have to reply to messages, but we all know each other so it\'s usually not an issue. I don\'t IM at work (or I place myself as invisible) because I work in IT and would never get anything done if I IMed about hockey all day.

We do have a couple of members who are difficult to trade with. One won\'t really trade anyone decent without an inordinate amount of effort, and another is always countering with just a little bit more.

What I\'ve started to figure out is that if I want someone I just ask if they\'re available and what it might cost. If I get a response that the player is available, then I\'ve made that owner state that they\'re available. Whatever they ask for can always be countered. If they don\'t reply then nothing was going to get the player anyway. There are always owners who wouldn\'t trade Ryan Getzlaf for anything less than Ryan Whitney, even if their primary need is goaltender and you\'re offering Kari Lehtonen. I generally will counter with something that\'s 1 or 2 counters away from my best. I find that my view on players is often very different from a lot of managers in my league. Even though it is a keeper league, youngsters are often not as highly valued as name veterans. It pays to know your competition. Rod Brind\'Amour might be much more highly coveted than Nathan Horton by some.

I used to go through a lot of effort to analyze the other player\'s roster and offer these 5 paragraph treatises on a 2 for 2 trade. That bores most people. If someone is willing to move a player, they\'re willing to move him, period. Sometimes it takes some persuasion, of course, but there are deals that can be made and those that can\'t.

I\'ve got a reputation as a good trader. I will overpay, a bit, sometimes, depending on the situation. I overpaid in a trade for Hasek the middle of last season but the trade helped me wrap up best overall record in the regular season, so it was worthwhile. I usually make a couple of off-season trades and a couple during the season. And even though I have a very good team I\'ll listen to offers for guys like Thornton and Kovalchuk. It\'s 99% I won\'t trade them, but I\'m not a jerk, I will listen and have a discussion.

My .02

Post edited by: blindedbyfear, at: 2007/07/15 22:13

[smoothfun]

#1,perserverance,either pester until they cave and make a deal or wait until the season begins and save face,you have to overpay grosly at this time , and you will lose on the deal , so perservere.

[Jason_Banks]

Personally I\'m a difficult player to trade with... I do\'nt trade often and I only get what I want, for what I wanna give... Mind you I;m reasonable in what I offer I usually give a good solid offer 1st time for the person to think over...

In the offseason I do not allow trades to be made in my lg... but you can talk and set out a plan all you want...

Usually when I\'m looking to deal I ask what the manager feels is thier imediate goals with thier team and what they need and to get back to me, before any player is discussed... after they give me thier assesment (I\'ve already made my own of thier team), we put minds togather and compare notes... from there if we have the same thoughts then we work towards a deal usually to fill gaps in both teams...

I have people come to me all the time asking \"Is Kovy Avalible?\" \"whats Tangays Value?\" \"Would you part with Boumeeseter?\"... the moment I hear top flight talent being thrown around I shut down trade talks... when trading superstar for superstar no one goes anywhere unless there is a decent age differance (and everyone is after young studs) or a Player gets injured... I\'m a firm believer Superstars cancel each other out... its what you do with the bottom of your roster that matters... in my leagues case... your 3rd/4th goalie 7/8th D man 5/6th forward at a givin position... I look at an NHL team Like Montreal Last year who had Koivo and Higgins as top centers... I wet my pants and picked up Plekanic... proved to be one of teh best moves in the lg, Higgins was hurt and Plekanic started sealing minuts from Koivo when Saku was getting warn down...

best way I see is: start with team discussion needs and wants, then find common ground and finally dicuss players... may take minutes may take days... 85% of the time when I do that I get a deal done quickly both teams are satisfied and Ive gotten what I wanted for what I felt was movable...

[Qube]

This is a really good topic.

I\'m not an expert at this.. This will be my second year in a keeper.

I use email & msn for communication.
Email is great because it gives both parties time to think & msn is perfect for when you really want to accelerate the process.
There are some GMs that are easier to deal with & they know what they want... so msn is what I use.

What I find though.. a lot of GMs don\'t like doing small trades.. it\'s the big ones they go after.. ie: Zetterberg, Gaborik.

I find that by improving my supporting cast, I increase my chance with bigger trades. I\'ve planned two small trades last year in order to get the asset necessary for a bigger deal.

But I would to agree with Mr. Banks.. the best way to get trade talks going, is to find out the other teams need.

[big_dl]

OK I\'ve tried to post something here twice and the gods seem to be against me. This will likely be my last attempt and if I fail y\'all will miss out on my sage-like advice, or foolish folly.

I am one of those who trades a lot, as an example I\'ve made 4 trades this off-season and am still looking to do 2 more at the very least. This continues into the regular season as I tend to be very impatient and occasionally make moves too early. I make moves for one or more of 3 reasons: want, need or bargain. This basically means that I\'ll inquire after a player if i just simply want him, but it doesnt necessarily fill a need or hole. I\'ll deal for a player or players to fill a perceived need. I\'ll deal for a player because I perceive his value to be low and thus a bargain which can be dealt later at a higher price.

How do I go about this? I send out e-mails to owners or post messages on the league site regarding players I\'m interested in. Because of the categories of interest this means I am not always after a star player. In the league I\'m in now we primarily e-mail, personally I prefer to IM. I prefer the real time dialogue that IM allows. When I make an offer I do do to accomplish one of 2 things. I will offer a fair value offer that I think will be accepted immediately or tweaked a little or I will offer a low ball offer in order to steer possible negotiations in a certain direction. Neither method works all the time, oddly they are probably equally effective. It is my philosophy that it is necessary to be very active in order to compensate for those who arent and because I find that only about 25%, in a good year, end up in deals.

I\'m posting this now, if it doesnt make i\'ll feel used and will have taken a substantial hit to my self-esteem due to my apparent inability to post a simple message. If it makes please disregaard this last paragraph. That assumes you\'ll be interested enough to make it through the previous 3.

[blindedbyfear]

big_dl, how long are you taking to type your posts? I find that if I take a long time to type up a post, or if I\'m multi-tasking, my session will sometimes expire and when I hit submit, my post disappears. Also if you\'re on a laptop and you accidentally hit a key that navigates away from the page that can be annoying. I actually just did that and had to re-type this. One thing I\'ve been doing when I\'m about to click submit is to copy what I\'ve typed, just in case.

You bring up a lot of interesting points and I think the most interesting one is that you admit to proposing trades just because you want a player. I think we all do that (I know I do) and I think a good thing to do is to ask yourself why you really want a player. I find that trades that I consider purely out of want over need never wind up being that good for me in the long run.

[lanky522]

TG wrote:

As for my strategy... wouldn\'t Lanky like to know...

Nicely done TG... Nicely done...

[big_dl]

I dont usually have problems even with long posts, it just happened that this time i was piggy backing off someone else\'s wireless while helping a buddy move to kingston (I wish I meant the one in jamaica, not that lucky though). The first time was due to a disconnection right as i submitted, the second time was due tome not checking to see if i was signed in after we got back to the site. I guess the third time really is a charm.

I think the problem with trading purely out of desire is that it blinds you to the merits of the deal. I think you\'re more likely to overpay for a player you want and not have it help then for a player you need. I like forums like these for precisely that reason, it gives me the chance to get a point of view thats withdrawn from the trade.