Would this veto be justified?

[23]

First, I'm not big on trading draft picks, whatever the league format. It's too easy for inexperienced or ignorant players to get duped because of how much their "value" fluctuates based on how far away the draft is.

Second, team/owner vetoes are one of the easiest ways to break up an otherwise good league. The simplest and most effective method for dealing with trade disputes is to have the commish make an immediate ruling on it (or have an uninvolved panel do the voting) and then stop all discussion about it. The more vocal and public debate the commish allows the more devisive, vindictive, and childish the owners seem to act.

All that being said... there is some way where you can establish "values" for each draft pick, based on the depth and distribution of talent within the player pool. Supposedly, a table like THIS is the type of thing that NFL GMs would consult when trading picks. I'm sure that these particular values would have very little to do with a fantasy baseball draft, but just using it as an example you've got a total on one side of 372 points (the team getting the fifth rounder), and a total on the other side of 335 points (the side getting the 8/9/10/11 picks).

Easily close enough that I would not suspect collusion or league-tampering.... which are the only reasonable excuses for EVER vetoing a trade. If a poor owner makes bad decisions that hurt his team, that's his business. If you think that it's unfair for another owner to profit off of them maybe you should have made him a better offer.

Lastly, it's a H2H points league... which to me makes it automatically a casual, non-serious, and non-competitive league among friends. If it was truly a measure of skill and baseball knowledge it would be a roto league.

Agree wholeheartedly. My league is in the midst of a vote to allow the trading of picks and I'm fearful because it seems like most of the owners want to do it. I don't blame them because they don't see it through the eyes of a commissioner, but I think it just invites problems.

MTU: As for the draft values chart, that was actually the very first thing I thought about when the the topic was brought up in our league. I should, however, point out that the NFL chart you reference (which was created by Jimmy Johnson and, incidentally, is outdated) also takes into account the contractual obligations attached to each pick. For example, in a Roto league the No. 1 pick is a much hotter commodity because you don't have to pay the top pick a $40 million signing bonus and, for the most part, you know what you're getting. Carl Crawford is a much "safer" pick than Matt Stafford, who, in theory, is not only unproven but will likely require patience/learning curve in addition to the big contract. If anyone has seen a way to assign values to Roto draft picks, I'd love to see it. I suppose you could use the NFL chart as a jumping-off point, but the correlation isn't exact.

Long story short, in our league one of the worst teams wanted to trade CC Sabathia (i.e. one of his few assets) for Dan Haren, Phil Hughes and Billy Butler with the reasoning that his 15 keepers are far inferior to the best teams in the league. So it's only smart to turn one asset into three if you can, plus he is slated to add Adrian Gonzalez with the first pick in the draft. Anyway, the team trying to ACQUIRE Sabathia was one of the deeper teams in the league and was trying to bully the inferior team into making the deal without Hughes included. So he suggested adding picks into the mix (his 5th and 6th for the other team's 3rd and 4th).

I bring it up because it's a perfect example of what you said - an inexperienced owner not realizing he's getting taken for a ride. The other owner was attempting to acquire Sabathia, not give up Hughes AND pick up two high picks in the draft. It just seems like murky waters and more trouble than it's worth.

[dfa]

Would the veto be justified?

No, I don't think so. Unless there are not enough votes either way, a veto would not be justified. It's a bad deal, but A never should have agreed to it in the first place. Agreeing to it on AIM is not the same as clicking on the 'agree' button.

I am a commish in one league and a player in a different league. I would agree that LM veto power is the way to go. Plus in the other league I'm in it takes way too much to see any actual changes.

I do think that this drama can be made into a good argument to go back to having LM veto power. (any deal I'm involved in has to get approved by the vice commissioner, rather than a league vote.)

[thedude]

As I say every year: NO VETOS unless there is collusion.