The Changing Face of Fantasy Baseball

[eightball61]

I like the idea about trade vetos, but the way I like it delt is everyone has there say and the commish. can use that as the final vote. Sort of like a jury in court.

[fishnuts]

This isn't to say I don't get my fair share of complaints every now and then, but it would take a large majority of managers from the league(at least 50%) to get me to veto a trade. I find that most trades that get bitched about often aren't that big of a deal after a few months.

Two excellent points here.

The second point: Ain't that the truth! Time heals. Hindsight aids the healing.

I, as commish, always defered to the league collective mind to determine the fate of their brethrens trades. I ran many leagues from 1984 thru 1999 and we had not one case of dumping or fraud.
However, all the leagues I ran were local; not internet. All the folks sat in my den each Spring and drafted teams across the room from their opponents, often their friends and allies. Perhaps looking into the eyes of your foe helps make it more clear,"Don't cheat."

I have mentioned before in various threads, that I ran and played in a league with a SPECIAL TRADE RULE. It worked like this.

Player A and B want to trade marquee players (not Marquis Grissom). Player C and Player D think the trade is b.s. so they appeal to the commish. Player C thinks that 'A' is screwing 'B'.
Player D just wants to be able to trade for one the players changing hands himself! Player C gets to intercede and offer Team B, who he believes is being screwed, a trade for the marquee player which he believes is better than what Team A is offering. Team B can accept either offer...his choice. The onus is on Team A to enrich the trade originally offered or lose to Team C the player he wanted. Player D then gets into the middle, on his appeal, an offers both Player A & B trades for either/both players. Now A and B both need to decide with whom they want to trade with...and for whom.

Rather than VETO, we adopted this proactive approach so that any team could offer fair value for players changing hands. It worked marvelously the three years this league was together. Again, any time that a lopsided trade appeared we had an owner step-up and make the offered team a better deal than the original traders had put forth.

As always, my .02.

[thetongueofire]

hey fishnuts that's an awesome system... a lot fairer and realistic than trade vetos. it may get complicated, but thats just how deals r made in real life! ill keep it in mind when im joining a league next yr.

[Arlo]

Nice concept, fishnuts!

[fishnuts]

All the leagues I ran were, of course, different from everyone elses. One of the goals I had in establishing my 'Shadow League' baseball was to find a game to suit stat hounds but also guys who would role play their positions as owner/managers. A game that could be pored over constantly by driven owners and yet enjoyed simply by checking box scores by those owners less driven. Please do not believe me arrogant when I say that I worked on the rules system for my game and ran test league in 1984 which was about a year before I ever heard of Roto. When I saw that Roto book for the first time I was,"there are others out there who do stuff like this!?"

Thats why we drafted mano a mano...face to face. It's quite easy to get right into the spirit of role play when owners make their draft selection are met with cheers of approval...Moans and groans of dissapointment...and my favorite chorus of, "Free Pick!" in case they picked poorly. Thats why we adapted the game over the course of seasons to help reflect the role play side. If fact during its tenure I don't believe we ever had rules modifications on the stat side.

We held more strict rules regarding position than most leagues.
Freeze rules required a player to have played at least .5 of his games at that position. Trade rules required that your selected pool player play at minimum .375 of his games at that posistion.
We tended to think it both 'pansey' and cheating to use players with 1-game, 5-game, 10-game appearances. We had guys try one year to fill a position slot with a guy who played it once or twice and I always had to negate the trade because of it. That was easy because our rules stipulated that no matter what your trade was, or with whom, that it must end with all teams having legal 23 man rosters. Finally, after deciding that I didn't want to spend my time being 'the trade cop' I let guys trade any way they wanted. With a big notice that if that traded player didn't fulfill his obligation of required games...that NONE of his stats would count towards year end totals! At that point even the hard heads realized you cannot compete against 14 offensive players with 13 offensive players. They self-policed and stopped trying to get away with a fast one.

Just as 'tongueofire' mentioned This Special Trading seemed to really add another layer to the role play as players were required to play 'owner/manager', 'player', and 'agent' in order to get some deals done. I never had to; and was never asked to veto a trade using these rules. Even though there were the occassional "Red Sox '04" that might have felt they got reamed...but at least they understood better what it takes to trade for a star. One thing this system put an end to was the 'I'll let you have my worst OF for your best P' trade offers because it put the entire league possibly in your business.

My .02 for this morning.
Glad somebody enjoys...

[Hauffa]

Ironman, great points about trades and protests (and fishnuts, very creative rule you thought up). I was just beginning to write an article on this subject when I found this thread (sorry to jump in so late). I totally agree that trades should be left to the managers except in extreme cases. Like fishnuts said (or at least alluded to), half the owners are just upset that they couldn't get as good of a deal as the (in their opinon) "winning" team. And if you have chosen your owners carefully enough, you need to give them the benefit of the doubt (exceptions being ones you listed: dumping, collusion, double-owner). Otherwise (in my opinion), a lot of fun is taken out of the game.

As I love to say, "PLAY BALL!" Which sometimes means, "let EVERYONE play and worry about your own issues!"

-Hauffa

p.s. Ironman & fishnuts, I'd love a crack at one of your well-thought-out leagues. I ran a keeper league for 5 years and it broke up this year due to several reasons - none of which were that it wasn't a fun league (mostly, we had guys in 2 different states and in different stages of life). I'm sure it is too late for this year, but keep me in mind in the future!

[LooseCannon]

I hate vetos.....my commish sucks....he lets all of his trades go through, but anyone who is getting a good deal should have their trade vetoed....He especially vetoes the trades that the top teams are getting good deals...he was soo bad that we made him turn off veotes after 6 weeks and we decided he won't be commish next year.