Trading etiquette

[horrorfan]

Here\'s the situation:

You are in a trade negotiation, and the other guy (call him A) told you (call me B ) via email that he\'ll probably accept your trade later on unless he suddenly gets a better offer. Fair enough.

Later on he sends an email, but I wasn\'t around to check it until a fair bit afterwards. He says he has received another offer (from C), the details of which he actually tells me, and decided to go with it. Fair enough. By the time I read the email, the trade is going through. However, the guy (A), in my opinion, is getting a worse deal. I\'m not naming players, by the way.

I assume that doesn\'t usually happen, where the guy (A) will tell you in advance who he\'s been offered from someone else. Assuming I saw the e-mail earlier, in this case, do you sit tight and keep your mouth shut, or do you \'convince\' him that he\'s getting a worse deal?

Is there a right or wrong thing to do?

On one hand, is it right to tell the guy not to take the other offer? Our deal was actually ok, and would help us both. But it could appear that you\'re only looking after yourself, and maybe risk further negotiations. Also, if you did, there\'s a risk the other guy (C) would find out.

On the other hand, if you didn\'t say anything, you could use this as a learning experience, knowing what it will take to get the guy to bite, and use it to your advantage in future negotiations.

Anyway, hope it\'s clear and thanks for reading my ramble.

Any thoughts?

[doulos]

I\'m not sure there\'s any set in stone route here. If the guy asks what you think of the trade a simple \"Personally I felt that our deal was better, but whatever you decide for your team is fine.\" is doable, but otherwise what else can you do? The deal has gone through and you move on, taking note of personal preferences that Player A might have in terms of trading.

[Shoeless]

Not sure what I would do in that situation - has never happened to me. I guess the guy thinks he has a better deal with the one he is going with and while I might think differently I can\'t guarantee I am right, so I would likely clam up and say \"good luck with that - thanks for considering our deal\".

[woodrow]

If it was me and I saw who he was considering for C before he accepted it, I would definitely have gone back and tried to convince him otherwise. Of course that may do nothing to sway his opinion because he obviously thinks the other guy\'s offer is the better deal. You can only shake your head here and move on. I\'ve seen plenty of trades where I had offered more earlier but for whatever reason they weren\'t accepted. Later on, this same player(s) was traded for what I thought was a lessor deal... this I usually chalk up to timing, his preferences, whatever. You move on and hopefully get the deal next time.

[HockeyHippie]

And I feel the opposite. As much as it would suck, I wouldn\'t have said anything, just using it as a learning experience and trying to get an idea of both Manager A and Manager C for future negotiations.

I too try to to craft deals that help both parties, but that doesn\'t always work out, with player perceptions being so different sometimes. I recently had to convince a guy to take Brassard in a deal, one he is now glad he made.

And of course if one of the other Managers is a Dobberhead, then all bets are off!

Good luck.

[typo88]

I would not go and try and convince \"A\" to take your deal. Everyone should manage their own team, in their own way. It sucks that he didnt accept your deal, but there is not a whole lot you can do.

It is very dangerous to start talking about trades with GM\'s in the league (when they dont involve them). My first league had major problems and almost split apart because one Gm was talking to everyone, trying to manipulate them, and then threw a hissy fit when he suspected others of doing it.

IMO, the best thing to do is just keep your mouth shut and keep on plugging. Some may disagree, but I think that involving GM\'s in discussions that dont pertain to their team compromises the legitimacy of following trades (who knows who has influenced whom?) and sort of defeats the purpose of every GM managing their own team.

[Sharpie]

Stash this little piece of information in the back of your mind for later on in the year. The guy was probably just shopping his guy around to see what he could get. He obviously saw something in the other deal that he liked better, which could have been player preference/eligibility/depth/certain category... The deals will come around and you will have your chance to steal a trade from another owner during the season.

[lanky522]

I\'m going to take a different stance on this, and think through the mind of team a (the team that ultimately made the deal with team c instead of you).

When a manager tells you that he\'ll get back to you at some later time, and then he sends you an email telling you the exact specifics of a trade he\'s worked out with another party, he\'s trying to play you.

He\'s trying to get you to say, \"oh well I\'ll offer this.\" Otherwise, he\'d just tell you that he worked out a deal that he was happy about with another manager. By telling you that he would be trading players 1 & 2 and recieving players 3 & 4, he was basically saying, \"offer me something better than this if you want.\"

When you didn\'t respond (because you didn\'t get the message until after the other trade was finalized), he went with the best deal that he had.

I think it would have completely been reasonable for you to then say, \"that\'s not that great, I\'ll offer you this... this is better for you and me,\" because I think he was actually trying to get you to do just that.

This is just my two cents from my experience. I\'ve used that tactic before to good effect. Sometimes you can even bluff about the \"pending trade\" with team c to juice up your trade talks with team b... although you have to be very careful that you don\'t get called on your bluff.

[horrorfan]

lanky522 wrote:

I\'m going to take a different stance on this, and think through the mind of team a (the team that ultimately made the deal with team c instead of you).

When a manager tells you that he\'ll get back to you at some later time, and then he sends you an email telling you the exact specifics of a trade he\'s worked out with another party, he\'s trying to play you.

He\'s trying to get you to say, \"oh well I\'ll offer this.\" Otherwise, he\'d just tell you that he worked out a deal that he was happy about with another manager. By telling you that he would be trading players 1 & 2 and recieving players 3 & 4, he was basically saying, \"offer me something better than this if you want.\"

When you didn\'t respond (because you didn\'t get the message until after the other trade was finalized), he went with the best deal that he had.

I think it would have completely been reasonable for you to then say, \"that\'s not that great, I\'ll offer you this... this is better for you and me,\" because I think he was actually trying to get you to do just that.

This is just my two cents from my experience. I\'ve used that tactic before to good effect. Sometimes you can even bluff about the \"pending trade\" with team c to juice up your trade talks with team b... although you have to be very careful that you don\'t get called on your bluff.

I agree that this tactic is used, but I\'m pretty sure it wasn\'t the case. I sent him an email earlier with the \'thanks for considering\' line, and his response was (and I believe it was genuine) that he would\'ve made the deal, but he feels that the other guy offered will have a breakout year. We shall see.

Thanks for all your comments.

[Shoeless]

Even if he was trying to play you - why would you offer more than you already have on the table when you think it is a better deal for him anyway.

You probably will be able to trade with this guy in the future - I think the tone is set for this now.

[lanky522]

Shoeless wrote:

Even if he was trying to play you - why would you offer more than you already have on the table when you think it is a better deal for him anyway.

You probably will be able to trade with this guy in the future - I think the tone is set for this now.

agreed. B)