Just Say No

[SpecialFNK]

i have no problem sending crazy proposals that i think would benifit me. if im in a league where i dont know the other people how else am i going to know if anyone is crazy enough to think the trades are maybe fair to them. the worst they can do is click reject and maybe call me crazy/insane/drunk/whatever.
ive allready had one crazy trade accepted this year (my Taveras/Escobar/Dmitri Young for his Ichiro/MGiles). when i sent the proposal i wasnt neccessarily expecting him to accept, i thought maybe he would have some interest and ask for more, but he accepted.

[hot4tx]

I usually respond to these ridiculous offers with threats of physical violence and naked pictures of myself.

[ramble2]

Sometimes those crazy offers are just a way to get a discussion going. Especially if it's a league where you don't know how else to communicate to people. Lots of Yahoo players don't publish their email addresses.

It's annoying to get stupid trade offers from people just trying to rip you off, but if someone is just trying to express an interest in making a trade you don't want to scare them off.

[BigMusky]

it is funny that people always think the person offering the three crap players for your one good player is the idiot. Maybe he thinks "you" are the idiot. It is just like poker where if you dont know who the sucker at the table is, it is probably you. I offer 3 for 1 and 2 for 1 deals all season looking for suckers or people in a panic. Those are the deals that usually make your team better by increasing quality talent what I offer mostly in the beginning of season. 1 for 1 deals are a wash usually and simply a shift of strength on your team. So you sacrafice pitching for hitting.. or vice versa. Those deals only make sense at the end of the year before the trade deadline when you have a good sense of your team.

[teddy ballgame]

Then just post how much of an idiot the other guy is for offering the first one and yours was to make fun of him.

[WhiteHot]

I offered Aaron Rowand, Jorge Posada, Jorge Julio, and Pedro Martinez for Jose Reyes & Joe Nathan.

Think he'll accept?

[bcb]

I consider it a negotiation. I start with a close-to-crazy offer for the player I really want. I'm not going to show my hand and offer the max up front. I expect a counter if the other guy is interested in moving the player I want. If not, he can reject and ignore.

[chadlincoln]

You should never send your best offer. When buying a house and a car, you should never offer what they're asking for.

[Giambis]

I consider it a negotiation. I start with a close-to-crazy offer for the player I really want. I'm not going to show my hand and offer the max up front. I expect a counter if the other guy is interested in moving the player I want. If not, he can reject and ignore.

I agree with this and the Chadlincoln's point above to a point, but I think you have to temper your initial offer with some reasonableness. People get legitimately p.o'ed in negotiations when you low ball them, and it severely hampers the resulting negotiations. Buying a house and a car are slightly different, in that you generally have a captive seller who is soliciting offers, while buying a player from a team requires you to get their attention, which can quickly be lost if you don't provide them with something decent.
In most situations early on in the year, you're trading for value too, as your needs are generally unknown. While in that situation the offers are usually one-sided, I think that the more reasonable you are earlier on in the year, the more likely someone will deal with you when it comes close to crunch time.

Obviously everything is circumstance-specific, and trade philosophy is ultimately very subjective. Just my .02.

[A Fleshner Fantasy]

Haha, I always do that, and if people trash talk me, I just go back at them.