Commissioner obligations

[AtP]

I am a commissioner in two money leagues and have been for 6 years now. We have very few problems because of two reasons I feel.

1. The majority of the owners are active and love fantasy baseball.
2. I feel I am a fair and impartial commissioner as well as being an active owner.

That being said. I joined a fun league last year that has a bunch of very questionable owners. We use a bench system and this league loves to trade. I see some of the worst trades I have ever seen in my 12 years of fantasy baseball. For example.

Mark Prior for Jason Giambi and Matt Morris (Prior may be good but damn)

Mike Sweeney, Darrin Erstad, and Johanna Santana for Carlos Beltran and Kevin Millar (I like Beltran but this is a points league not a roto)

Magglio Ordonez and Barry Zito for Mike Piazza, Vernon Wells, Orlando Hernandez, Scott Stewart, and Brad Wilkerson. ( I know this doesn't look bad from a numbers standpoint but the guy getting the 5 players will probably only start Piazza and Wells on a regular basis)

My question is does anyone feel the commissioner has the right to step in and stop an owner from hurting himself. I know it is only a fun league but I get tired of watching the same vultures feed on the guys on the bottom. When I came into this league at the beginning of last year an owner actually had all of these guys on his team, in a 14 team league.

A-Rod
Magglio
Abreu
Bagwell
I-Rod
Randy Johnson
Pedro Martinez
Todd Helton

I mean how does one guy accrue so much without raping other owners. Should the commissioner stop this. Our turnover last year for new owners was 8 new owners out of 14. And this new batch of 8 doesn't look any better than the old batch.

[DGroundhog]

I don't think you should step in as the commissioner. If the rest of the league allows it, I guess you have to go with it. Unless you have specified that the commish has final approval of all trades, you just come off looking like a dictator commish.

I know how you feel though. I was in a league lasty year with 10 other guys and one female, The rest of the league was practically tripping over itself to stack her team. I swear one guy traded her Randy Johnson just to say he gave some girl he met on the internet his Unit.

[Arlo]

Some leagues, particularly those of a friendly nature that plan on staying together for several seasons, have an agreement to protect new players from making bad moves until they gain a bit of experience. If you have some sharks in your league along with inexperienced folks, this might be an option for you...

[AtP]

Mostly I wonder is it appropriate for the commish to send a message to the other owners saying, you need to be careful how you conduct business for the good of the league.

[rotisseriking]

Unfortunately you're going towards that nasty word 'collusion' which never comes across good in a league. This is most likely friends trading ebtween friends to bump them up in categories. It used to happen in my football league until I put a rule in saying anyone that intentionally tries to sabotage their team will not be invited back. If no one else is complaining, which is how my rule got started with people griping, then just leave it alone is my advice...

[Ike]

This may not help, heck you may already have it as a policy, but one possibility is to say on any trade you are even borderline uncomfortable about, you will notify all league members (league message board or email), and if 50% even or higher among those who vote in a time window (1-2 days, depending on what you think fits the league's level of daily activity; longer if it is not a daily transaction league) vote against the trade, then you will cancel it. Trade participants may not vote. *You* get to vote. You get no extra weight in the voting, but if your time window is fair, and no one else bothers to vote, by definition you cancel the trade (1 vote to none).

If this is not the answer, consider possibility #2: the league isn't worth staying in. Leave it, and find another... or start another, private, and only allow folks in you know as decent managers/owners from other leagues or from posts here or elsewhere.

Good luck!

Ike