"Fair" Trading

[WBC]

This is my 1st year in taking part in a fantasy hockey league, so you can call me a rookie who is learning the ropes as I go. One of the leagues I am in is a 12 team dynasty league with standard yahoo settings, 27 man rosters where we each have 12 man farm teams for prospects as well. Anyways, yesterday I accepted the trade of giving up Varlamov for James Neal and Steve Mason... the other guy was basically desperate for goal tending. The problem is that one of the other gms in the league is balking the trade and crying "trade rape".

I am just wondering if someone offers me a trade which I can see is in my favor am I supposed to say "No thats too much let me make it more fair" in the art of fair play??

[ridinryan44]

Yea it's trade rape, what a sweet deal for you, but when someone wants a player and they are willing to overpay, that's fair game. Happens in my keepers every once in a while and while it sucks, I don't think there is anything you can do about it other than deciding if you wanna be a part of the league or not.

Too many bad trades like that can definitely ruin a pool, especially if it's the same GM constantly taking advantage of others, but as long as it doesn't happen to often it shouldn't be a big problem.

I mean Washington is a much better team than Columbus right now. Varly has just as much upside as Mason in my opinion. If I had Varly and someone offered me Mason for him straight up I would say no. What would be the point? I would need someone else in the deal. While Neal is a great addition, I don't think I would accept much less of a player if someone wanted my Varlamov. I would make him pay for it. This deal isn't that bad, IMO. Overpayment? Yes. Unfair? No.

[fulcrum]

Hey WBC.

well first off, I guarantee if you didn't accept that deal someone else would have accepted something just as lopsided...... and it was pretty lopsided.
If the trade had been Varlamov and Neal for Mason....that might have been closer to fair....

A trade is a trade. In the perfect world a league shouldn't need or have rules for trades. BUT......
If you are just starting your league, and you have a few GM's that aren't as knowledgeable as the rest, and you allow a pile of these trades to happen, you will find thatyou end up with a really unbalanced league and are going to being looking at ways to fix it. Some of the GM's will have fallen so far out of competition that they can't recover .....and they will just walk away, or become very inactive. Especially in Dynasty leagues that really don't promote a whole lot of trading.

At the end of the day ...how good did you really do building that power house team if the guys you acquired those players from didn't know what they were doing.

I don't know what the answer to your question is....but I think its yeah, you have to accept it and hope that the other guy learns or was desperate and really did know what he was doing....Varlamov will be no slouch.....who knows in 2 years, maybe you will be regretting it. But I doubt it.

I have accepted trades as lopsided as this one....maybe worse. And they were with guys that weren't as knowledgeable at the time.....they don't forget. Once their feet are planted and they are legit and have learned a lot....you may not have much of a trading partner there.....

Not sure if this helped at all, as I jumped back and forth over the fence on you, but I don't think there is a simple, ethical AND competitive answer to that question.

Good Luck with your new league.

[sjww]

No, you accept it [and laugh all the way to the bank]. Fantasy sports is a game to see who is the best manager. You are not being the best manager if you ignore opportunities to improve your team.

I have made out well from some bonehead moves of others.
1) In 2006 I picked up MSL off waivers after his owner dumped him just 4 games in without a pt. MSL went on to score over 40 goals and over 100 pts.
2) Last year (I think), I picked up Gonchar off waivers after his owner couldn't wait any longer for him to get off the IR and play again on the same day news came out he was playing in the next game.