Trade Rules

[ReeferDave]

I am starting a Roto Keeper money league this coming season and I was hoping to get some objective feedback on Trade Policies.

I was in a money league for the past few season that was rife with controversial trades and drama, mostly involving the commish. I have parted ways with that league to hopefully start a long term league with less problems.

Simply said, I hate league vetos. In my experience, it usually leads to owners voting down nearly every trade cuz an owner appears to have "won" the trade or its not "fair" or it benefits a leading team too much. Or other horsecrap. Truth is, someone always wins a trade, but politics get involved and people get pissed.

What I was thinking of doing is construct some kinda guide for trades. Define collusion and a bad trade. If a trade seemed overly questionable, I was gonna ask for it to be reworked in accordance with guidelines that I put toghether. I don't have anything down about said guidelines, but I was hoping to get some feedback on what guidelines should be or if this is a good idea or not.

I would love to hear what other people do the ensure an enjoyable league experience. The money aspect of the league is the main concern. Money always makes things a little more serious.

Anyway, thanks in advance for your input,

dave

[JTWood]

I run a 4-year old, contract, money league. Due to the presence of contracts and cash, some trades can get pretty odd. For example, I recently traded Beckett for Micah Owings and cash. I couldn't keep Beckett or afford to resign him, and whoever got him was going to have to pay out the nose to keep him by giving up cash and their Franchise Player. Because we have deals like this, and to make sure that vetoes were only happening for deals that absolutely needed to be vetoed, the league put in these rules:

First, we made vetoing a deal extraordinarily difficult. The trade has to be vetoed with a 2-to-1 supermajority against it, and there needs to be at least 4 nay votes. That second provision makes it hard for a couple guys to band up and run out to derail trades by a particular owner.

Second, we actually put in the rules a statement that reads, "Each owner is strongly encouraged to veto only when collusion is suspected and for no other reason." Obviously, that doesn't prevent anything, but at least everyone knows the league's stand on the topic.

Third, we make all league voting 100% anonymous. Even the commish doesn't know how owners vote, and we specifically prevent our arbitration process from trying to determine how each owner voted. You would think that the anonymity would make it easy for someone to vote against a trade, but the anonymity comes with a benefit. If you don't know who voted against your trade, you can't cast a retaliatory vote later. The anonymity of the system contains emotions and prevents petty squabbles from arising.

In the end, the rules end up turning our veto system into less of a trade evaluation system and more of a rules evaluation system. In 4 years, we've vetoed exactly one trade. An owner out of contention was trading players to another owner in contention with the strict agreement that the players be traded back after the playoffs. We called it a "rental" trade, and it went down in a ball of flames for obvious reasons. Since then, we've had one other trade that really pushed the rules, but it wasn't illegal. It passed, and we cleaned up the rules later.

There are some guys here at the Cafe that are in my league: daullaz, RyanK, DaQ, kellythemick, BigH0rt. If you want a second opinion on the quality of these rules, go ahead an PM them. They'll always speak their mind objectively.

Oh, and one last bit of advice: Get good owners. They make all the difference.

Good luck!

[converge241]

Im in 2 leagues where the commish simply makes sure there isnt collusion or something else that would damage the league (including one where I am the commish)

I prefer it..no worrying about people vetoing because they thing guy 1 is making out on the deal or guy 2 is amking out or vetoes to protect themselves and hurt another team etc.

[commence8]

My 16-team league has a committee of the 5 most active members of the league (including the commish, myself). I used to handle all the vetoes myself, but I didn't like the burden of having everything up to me, so I instead made a committee to handle this kind of thing. The committee only vetoes a trade if it is blatantly one-sided and/or collusive. This system has worked well for us. It's easy to argue 1 man's decision, but it's hard to argue the decision made by a 5-man committee. BTW, 1 trade has been vetoed in our 5 year history.

[aclapsaddle]

Use a trade deadline. A typical deadline eliminates late season trades that would benefit a team trying to make a run at the end, but a variation that says players traded after a certain date can not be kept for the following season would mean even if a team trades for ARod to win the league, ARod is back in the pool on draft day.

Use a weighted veto system. A bad trade will always draw a couple of veto votes so say a veto in a 12 team league requires 7 votes (2/3 of the 10 teams not involved in the trade). If a team has a deal vetoed then the requirement drops to 6 votes, then 5, etc. This will keep teams in collusion from repeatedly making trades and will eventually eliminate them from trading altogether.

I've played in leagues where people have made bad trades, but I've never seen anything I thought was collusion.

[SenPalpatine]

This is from my keeper league's constitution:

B. Trade Protests

1. Trades should only be protested when obvious collusion is involved. Since the League is a "keeper league", all must remember that owners may decide to "re-build" and make a trade that may not improve their team at the current moment. The following rules will govern trade protests:
a. In order to protest a trade, an owner must post their protest to the League message board within 24 hours of the trade being announced by the stat provider.
b. If more than 1/4 of the owners in the League protest the trade (at least 4 owners in a 12-team League), the trade will go to a vote of all owners with a minimum of 2/3 majority needed to overturn the trade.

[Baldie180]

I run a football league where it's commish veto only. I have one other person with co-commish powers and ask that person to review a trade I am involved in so as to take away any possible complaints about allowing my own trade.

I prefer this system always, except to say that the commish should have a backup such as my example when this system is used. One of my leagues saw a trade involving the commish that was complained about by several owners and of course the "he approved his own trade" argument was brought up. For the record I had no issues with the trade myself.