Veto to win??

[Baseballer02]

How many of you veto trades, fair or not fair, just so someone else's team doesn't improve. This happend to me last year in one of my Yahoo leagues(5x5 roto). I was leading basically every category except steals, so a trade of one of my hitters for Juan Pierre was accepted and pending, but then somebody ran there mouth, and everyone vetoed. But it was all good, I just picked up Sanchez and Podsednik from Free Agency. Anyhow, anyone pull off crap like that?

[Transmogrifier]

Only veto if collusion is involved. Play like adults.

[CBMGreatOne]

Collusion isn't the only grounds for vetoing. Insanely stupid and unfair trades are worth vetoing too.

I don't care how desperate someone is for saves, Jorge Julio for Manny Ramirez is a veto, even if the owner giving Manny has Beltran, Vlad and Bonds as his other OF.

There still has to be some credence to value for value.

I've seen managers take advantage of stupid owners, and that, while not as bad as collusion, is still wrong.

Trades have to pass through Bud Selig's office and get his approval in the MLB. And they aren't vetoed just for collusion.

I agree though, depending on who you traded for Pierre, that sounds like a poor sportsmanship on the part of your competition.

[Baseballer02]

I don't remember who it was I was trading for Pierre, but it was a fair trade. It was going just fine and then some posts a message saying, "ARE YOU ALL STUPID!! HE'S ALREADY WINNING EVERY OTHER CATEGORY SO WHY ARE YOU GIVING HIM STEALS!! VETO THIS!!" Pissed me off. I had already pretty much won the league, so why couldn't I just have all the glory.

[j_d_mcnugent]

there are basically two criteria i use when determining whether to veto a trade.

1)it must be insanely lopsided

and

2)if it goes through it would greatly upset the competitive balance of the league.

i wouldnt veto it because it helps out the competition. thats just not right.

[Mr. October]

I was getting ready to start a thread on this very topic. The same thing happened to me in my money league, well almost. I was in 2nd place in the standings(H2H money league) and right before the deadline a guy fighting for the final playoff spot announced that Delgado was on the block. I Offered him T. Hunter and Big Hurt for him. It cause a huge stink in the league and came 1 vote shy from being vetoed because I was supposedly ripping this guy off. As it turned out I came out on the short end of the deal(IMO). This really got me thinking of a better way to handle trades other than a league vote. Any suggestions?

[EugeneStyles]

I think the best way to deal with it is have 2 veto votes cause the trade to be brought in front of the commissioner for approval. Unfortunately, most of the time the commissioner plays in the league, and so in most yahoo leagues you never know if he's gonna be impartial or not.

In the absence of an impartial commissioner, I'm not sure there's a better way to handle vetos.

Maybe an automatic algorithm that checks two players' preseason ranking, yearly stats, and recent stats, and if they're more or less in-line, it doesn't allow a veto. Like if, say, ARod is being traded for someone who is on pace to hit 45 HR's and 150 RBI's, even if that guy wasn't rated very high in the pre-season, it ignores vetos?

Probably more trouble than it's worth, and would probably cause more problems than it solved.

[swarmee]

This really got me thinking of a better way to handle trades other than a league vote. Any suggestions?

Well, there are some pay services that will evaluate trades, although I don't know how good they are. I'm for a strong commissioner who talks out the trade between the two parties to make sure they both know what they're getting. Then if the guy getting the weaker part is still OK with the trades (usually based on positional needs), then I'd let it go through.

[DJUmperPSU]

In our keeper league things only get vetoED if

1. someone steps up and says they want to take it to vote
2. majoirty vote wins.

In my new sportsline league, it seems like every trade is voted on, which is kinda lame.

[jimmycolorado]

I agree with only one sentiment said so far: a trade should only be vetoed if there is collusion involved. If two teams have an agreement, regardless of how an uninvolved team sees the trade, it should go through.

The above example of Julio for Manny is a perfectly justifiable trade, and shouldn't be vetoed. It's supply and demand. You trade your strengths to defend your weaknesses. If a lopsided deal comes across the table and you don't like it, tough sh*t: every team in the league had the same opportunity to "rook the rube", and someone else beat you to it.

As for trades that "upset the competitive balance", this is harder to do than one would think. Unless the league is a 20-team, NL-only with 40-man rosters, a "lopsided" deal such as the one mentioned above simply will not affect the level of play.

If there's collusion, the deal should be stopped. Otherwise, let the teams be run as their owners see fit.