Keeper League Dump Trades and League Integrity
About two months ago, I was asked by a member of the local league I commish to replace an inactive owner in the league he commishes. I replied that I don’t have the time to monitor another team, but if all I’m asked to do is respond to trade offers and ensure I maintain a healthy active lineup (I totally failed at that task), then sure, I’ll take over the team. This is a keeper league in its inaugural year that I was actually asked to join before the season began, but declined for several irrelevant reasons. The league rules are relatively standard, with mixed rosters, 14 teams, and a limit of three keepers. An auction was conducted to roster players and keepers could only be selected from players acquired via the auction, with a salary $5 above their auction price.
Not surprisingly, the team I took over was pretty bad. It had some surprising gems, including a $1 Aaron Judge, but lots of crap and the team languished in the bottom five. I barely did anything with the team, aside from bidding on a potential closer at some point, along with rejecting a bunch of bad trade offers. But the trade deadline comes on August 20, and that means it’s quickly time to look at the standings, then your roster, and assess if you have a shot at the money or not. To dump or not to dump is the question.
Obviously, I have nothing on the line so I’m a bit biased, but the team is weak and with a thin free agent pool, it appeared impossible to ever get this team into the money. So it was an easy call to dump, and that’s when the ethics and integrity issues arise.
I have only participated in a keeper league once, and in that one time, I didn’t even remain for the second season. So, I have never actually played a season, selected keepers, and then entered the following year with a list of keepers with which to surround during the draft or auction. However, I do know that if you have no shot at the money in a keeper league, then every player you own at a non-keeper price is worthless to you. Ideally, you trade off all your pieces to improve your keeper situation next year. Unfortunately, that likely means ensuring the rich get richer and really pissing off the rest of the league.
So this is what just happened…
A week or so ago, I reviewed all the rosters and auction salaries and made a short list of the best keepers in the league. I generally only cared about $1 keepers and focused on hitters. Turned out, every single one of the five keepers I listed belonged to the same team…ya know, the one in first place, of course (who is also a member of my local league). So I emailed him, told him exactly who I was interested in and which of my players were off limits as potential keepers.
The top two keepers in my mind were Cody Bellinger and Yoan Moncada, both with $1 salaries, keepable next year for $6 each. While I preferred Bellinger, he had little interest in trading him, so the focus shifted toward Moncada. As we continued to discuss possibilities, I posted a message on the league message board with my intention to trade my stars for keepers. In a keeper league, this is the best strategy as teams fight for your best players. Though that was my hope, it didn’t happen. I got a couple of offers from one team, all terrible, and I quickly declined. That was it.
So back to the first place team. In my mind, anyone I was not going to keep had no value to me. So he could ask for every player that was an upgrade and if that was what he required to send me Moncada, then sure, we have a deal!
I logged on today to find the following offer made to me:
Yoan Moncada for Jake Arrieta, Gary Sanchez, Josh Donaldson, and Robinson Cano
Wowzers, that’s a lot for Moncada. But who cares? None of those players are at prices I would considering keeping, so if that’s what I need to give up to acquire a top keeper for next year, that’s what I’ll have to pay. It’s not like anyone else made any real offers to compete anyway.
Since I would need to replace all those stars and don’t feel like searching the free agent pool, I asked the Moncada owner to send over the guys he’s benching/dropping to make room for his new collection of stars. So the final offer included Jonathan Lucroy, Ariel Miranda, and Chris Davis, to go along for Moncada.
Accepted.
After I asked the owner to send over those replacements, I said I hope this doesn’t piss off the rest of the league. I genuinely meant that because it sucks when these types of trades occur and the standings are potentially affected in a dramatic fashion by someone at the bottom of the standings.
Sure enough, I got an email soon after from the commish questioning the trade. Knowing the two of us, he wasn’t suspecting collusion, but still felt like I gave up wayyyyyy too much for Moncada and was none too thrilled.
So what am I supposed to do? The way keeper leagues are set up, this is just a side effect of the structure. Whether I finish in 11th place or 13th place, it doesn’t matter. If my non-keepable players have no value to me, why wouldn’t I just give up whatever is requested to secure a guy I considered one of the top keepers in the league? Should I have negotiated with the first place owner? What would have been the point? It’s not like I need to save my stars for another keeper trade. We could only keep three players, and one of them would be Judge. I have several other good options for a second keeper, so I don’t need any additional keepers after Moncada.
So keeper league players — Did I act foolishly? Is this truly ruining the integrity of the league, as the commish claimed? Should I care about how a trade affects the standings, even if I am looking out for the best interest of my team and improving my position for next year (am I really supposed to reject a trade because I think other owners will be pissed?!)? Should I really have negotiated with the first place team to perhaps give him two to three players, instead of four? Is this just what happens in keeper leagues and there’s nothing one can do about it? And last of all, is there really any reason to hold onto non-keepable players if you’re headed for a non-money finish?
Mike Podhorzer is the founder of ProjectingX IQ, an advanced fantasy baseball analytics platform that transforms projection data and in-season performance signals into actionable intelligence. He is the 2015 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Baseball Writer of the Year and three-time Tout Wars champion. He is the author of the eBook Projecting X 2.0: How to Forecast Baseball Player Performance, which teaches you how to project players yourself. Follow Mike on X@MikePodhorzer and contact him via email.
The issue was that no one else apparently wanted to trade with you. You’ll take whatever you can get for the players that have no value to you, but the other teams should have been competing against each other for the assets available, and bid up the price.
But in the end, the person with the single best keeper gets everything because the non-keeper players are of no value to him
Voice for the dissent: true, the market didn’t present better options at the time, but the return for Pod is *so* light that it wasn’t worth the the collateral damage to league, and the market value “long game.” Heck, if Pod passed, the other manager may have caved and given up 2 keepers instead of just Moncada.
Not sure I buy that entirely. He received other offers, but he said his list was basically Moncada and Bellinger. He wouldn’t take what he could get – he only wanted one thing and if it wasn’t those two players, there wasn’t a counter or discussion, just a rejection of the trade. Good offers or not, he wasn’t interested in what other teams had. I think his trade should be allowed, but it absolutely is a blow to other teams, has compromised the integrity of the league, and ended the season prematurely. To avoid this they should change the rules.
“made a short list of the best keepers in the league. I generally only cared about $1 keepers and focused on hitters. Turned out, every single one of the five keepers I listed belonged to the same team…”
If you can only keep 3 players (and you had Judge at $1) then you have no excuse other than you had a terrible year! Do not blame the last owner!!!
Also, if you only keep 3 players this type of trade must happen all the time… and Moncada at $6 next season doesn’t sound so great!!!
Would much rather go after an established great player for $10-30
I agree. The rest of that league are idiots for letting happen exactly what you told them all would happen.
If you’re only keeping 3 in this league, the trade only really has consequences for this year. For the future, it’s possible all that’s kept out of the deal is Moncada and Sanchez. I think this trade would have been more of an issue if teams could keep more than 3 guys.
Totally agree here, only having 3 keepers encourages this kind of trade. We have the ability to trade draft dollars and no limit on keepers (plus the salary escalation), which gives incentive for the out of it team to go for quantity AND quality via several trades.
You offered up your stars and nobody replied. If you’re not building for this season you have to have to build for the future so I would (and have) make a similar trade. Sounds like the commish is just butthurt that he didn’t act on your call to trade.
As long as you let everyone know your intentions to trade, you are fine. Most likely the other players are upset they didn’t pursue a trade. Leagues should have incentives for bottom teams not to completely dump- like if you fall below a certain point threshold you lose draft dollars or a prize for best second. Or a salary cap so you cant just acquire too much salary in a trade. Or in an established league, like one I run, guys know these sort of trades are on the table, so it’s about maximizing your return, we also keep more guys, so you can’t sell your assets in just one deal.
Gold Plan draft would be an obvious and easy way.
We have salary increases commensurate with original auction or waiver addition price and $5 penalties for each year kept after the first one. These penalties are assessed prior to the salary increases so guys can get pricey FAST. It is absolutely imperative to trade players if you have been fortunate enough to afford them for 3 years.
Securing $1 or $2 keepers is essential (as with any keeper league) because auction prices tend to be well above industry standard.
I traded Votto and deGrom for Keuchel (before injury) AND Springer and Carlos Martinez for Danny Duffy and Moncada. All the guys I acquired can be kept for a minimum of 3 years at an affordable salary if they perform up to snuff while everyone I shipped out will likely be available at auction next spring due to keeper cost.
I think as long as you communicate to your league mates that you are selling off assets and give them an opportunity to offer you deals, it shouldn’t make any difference if deals are lopsided. It’s just the nature of the beast with this format.
I’m fine with that given the very limited number of keepers your league allows. In a league that allows more keepers, it would make more sense to unpack all of those veterans and make separate deals to acquire multiple pieces. I’ve been playing Ottoneu for a while and the depth of the rosters and the ability to keep as many players as you want (under the cap) means this kind of trade wouldn’t make sense in that format. Given that you only get 3 keepers in your league, though, it makes perfect sense to make a big package deal for one elite keeper.
If anything, I’d say your league has a beef with its own rules, since this kind of trade is incentivized by the structure you’re describing. They should consider revising the rules next year if they want to avoid this scenario.
How would you revise the rules? Also looking for solutions in my league.
Probably just allowing more than 3 keepers would do it in that league, since there would be less incentive to lump all of your veterans into one trade for one elite keeper. Together with that, they could consider making the rosters a little deeper (by adding a CI or MI spot or increasing bench spots and innings limits) to increase the value of depth. Not sure how deep that league is already.
Another option would be to play around with the way in which prices rise on keepers year over year. If someone like Moncada more quickly reached a fair market price, there would be less incentive to go so far out on limb for him.
I suppose the league could also consider some kind of “luxury tax” scenario. I’m guessing the addition of Arrieta, Sanchez, Cano, and Donaldson put the #1 team way over the cap. Maybe there could be some draft pick penalty for going over the cap by X amount.
Those latter two solutions are a little more tenuous. Just brainstorming here, so figured I’d thrown them out. Increasing the number of keepers seems the more direct and sufficient solution.
This is hard to do, but there are some ways to incentivize good performance, even for teams at the bottom of the standings. For instance, I play in a H2H points league that has a weekly prize for most points scored, which anyone can win in a given week, regardless of standing position. I also play in another league that has a losers bracket in the playoffs, the winner of which gets rewarded with incentives in the next season’s draft.
Other options include expanding the number of keepers, or add a prospect keeper system. These options reduce the likelihood of a situation where a bad team would dump ALL of their valuable players for a single keeper, since there are lots of areas where that owner could help their long term outlook.
Why not just make it that Keepers can only be original drafted players and that players acquired via trade are not eligible as keepers, or set a must be acquired by “x” date in the season so as not to throw the final month into turmoil.
My 12 team keeper league (draft, not auction) awards 1st, 2nd and 3rd picks in the following year’s draft to the teams that finish 4th, 5th and 6th overall the previous season (i.e. that do not win any cash prize).
Since we instituted this rule several years ago, we have seen many positive changes:
1. With more teams in contention, there are fewer dump trades.
2. More teams are paying close attention to their rosters every week throughout the season.
3. We see more trades made between teams that are in the middle of the pack, so it is not just the rich getting richer.
Huge fan of this rule, personally. For an auction league, you may want to consider rewarding the 4th/5th/6th place teams in some way (more cash at next year’s auction?) to keep more teams competing throughout the season.
It’s an unfortunate side effect of keeper leagues, especially leagues that limit you to a small number of keepers from year to year. 3 keepers is such a low number that a deal like that seems inevitable from year to year, since other teams wouldn’t have a chance to match the offer with volume. If the keeper limit had simply been based on overall salary I think it would have been easier for other teams to get involved in the bidding.
After several years of struggling with super-lopsided trades (in a keeper league with prospects, not dynasty) where sellers and buyers were acting rationally (creating superteams at the deadline and leaving the sellers with skeleton teams through the finish), but a single B+ prospect would yield two current superstars, we implemented a “fan interest” penalty where teams were penalized for how far below a .400 win percentage (this is an H2H league) they were in the second half. This ended up providing a powerful brake on dump trades without killing the trade market.
Interesting concept, this “fan interest” penalty. How does it work? How much of a penalty do you impose? And I presume you impose the penalty after the season is over, since with most keeper leagues I’ve been in the trading deadline is at least two weeks (sometimes more) before the playoffs begin.
I ask because we had a firestorm of protests after a lop-sided trade in my AL-only NL-only hybrid league. Since I’m leaving after this season (planning a big move to another state), I guess it shouldn’t concern me. But I could always pass on to the other 20 owners this idea for consideration. They were talking about how to address this problem without discarding the no-veto rule.
The penalty escalates by how far under .400 you are in the second half. The max penalty is about 10% of next year’s auction dollars.
hey, what a concept!
fantasy fandom. do you have fantasy bobblehead nites?
when I had a strato team in Whitesburg, KY. we had a promotional nite for our team the “East Carolina Crackers” (little geography issue there). It was ‘Honky Nite’… bring yourself and a honky, and get your ass in free; that I borrowed from a Cheech and Chong skit.
a sense of humor is always good when your team sucks.
The issue is that this league needs to have a salary cap/floor to prevent these trades from getting too lopsided. Otherwise this is to be expected. Both owners are managing their teams rationally.
No problem with this. That’s where the market was. Bad traders always get frustrated when good traders complete a deal. One thing I’d mention to the commish is if he has a problem with dump trades then create mechanisms to mitigate their effect on the league. In my league we’ve created incentives for non-playoff teams to keep competing. We also have a dual trade deadline system so that elite players (rounds 1-5) can no longer be traded for keeper-eligible players after the first deadline. Second deadline works as normal. The first deadline comes earlier so there’s less incentive to dump elite players… Even with these mechanisms we still have dump trades. It’s part of a keeper league. And it adds to the fun.
Yes, it’s ruining the integrity of the league.
No, that’s not your fault, and it’s reasonable for you to make that trade.
It’s certainly not inevitable that this happens in keeper leagues.
Partly it’s because you don’t care whether you finish 11th or 13th. If an owner isn’t interested in the end of season results and making them better, or at least not torpedoing them, that’s going to have potential integrity issues. Partly it’s that nobody else made an offer, but if you’re set on Moncada, then other offers won’t change that.
Mostly it’s due to poor keeper rules that clearly haven’t been thought out. It’s pretty easy to think about potential rule exploits when designing the keeper system. Such as not restricting it to 3 keepers only, having a salary cap of some kind during the season, etc.
Yeah, that’s one of the proposals that have been discussed in my AL-only NL-only hybrid league. An in-season cap on how much salary a team can take on during “dump” trades.
IMO, the proposal won’t be accepted since the league’s rules are already so complex. We have a 22 page “Constitution” that lays down the rules governing this league. Adding to the complexity is that it’s a variable keeper (5-15) league.
No, I would not have traded all of my star players for Moncada. Why didnt you counter by, say, removing Sanchez? You have an obligation to pursue the best deal for yourself, and not give away talent. I don’t believe you did that.
Of course he doesn’t want to trade Bellinger, with 34 HRs this year, instead of Moncada, who strikes out 40% of his ABs early in his ML career. Did you offer Jake Arrieta, Gary Sanchez, Josh Donaldson, and Robinson Cano for Bellinger?
“he could ask for every player that was an upgrade and if that was what he required to send me Moncada, then sure, we have a deal!” That’s where you went wrong, and where you removed all of your leverage for Bellinger. You must alter your “deal-accepting criteria” if you wish to deal for elite keepers. If you are willing to trade all of your players for their second best keeper, why would they ever trade their best keeper?
I believe he did if he identified and acquired 1 out of his 3 keepers for the following season when he shipped out 4 guys that were not going to be held at their new salary. And by communicating with other owners that he would be pursuing deals at the deadline, he absolutely pursued the best deal for his team. It’s not his fault the other owners did not come back at him with a realistic proposal that was mutually beneficial to the parties involved.
By his stated logic to defend the move (Mondada and Bellinger were the best keepers, and I was willing to trade any combination of non-keepable players to acquire them), the behavior of the other owners is a complete Red Herring. How can another owner beat this trade if he is willing to trade all non-keepable players for the 2nd best keeper in the league??
Of course, perhaps his stated logic is not aligned with his actual motivations (ie. he wanted to punish the other owners’ lack of response to his firesale). Perhaps it has something to do with the reason he didnt want to join the league before the season? Maybe he disagreed with the league settings, and is trying to make a point with the trade. Maybe he dislikes one of the owners, and this trade punishes him as he sits in 2nd place.
As someone who is in a league where these exact trades are made, I can assure you the sole motivation is to set yourself up for success in the future.
I am also in a long-running keeper league, keep 4, and inflation over auction values. We have many types of these trades (A $1 Puig for an in your prime Migual Cabrera + Prince Fielder). You probably are also aware of the difference between a situation where you are just playing one season (and filling in for someone), and one where you are playing multiple seasons. A branch of economics (game theory) spends a lot of time thinking about the differences in these situations, and repeated interactions produce different outcomes if you’re against the same actors.
If Mike was going to be in the league for a long time, he would not trade all of his legit players for an owner’s second best keeper. And then as justification, complain about other owners’ unwillingness to trade.
What’s interesting is that I get the sense that Mike realizes something was wrong with how that trade settled. My intuition is that if he was in the league long-term, this trade wouldn’t have happened as it did, and it’s more than just “Unkeepable stars for 1 good keeper” reservations.
While certainly possible, I don’t think you can make the assumption that he wouldn’t have made the deal if he were sticking with the league long term.
I’m in a long term (15+ years) league like this and these trades happen all the time. I myself have been on both sides of this kind of deal on multiple occasions. I see no problem with them at all. I actually rather enjoy the pressure of having to scramble to make crunch time trades to keep up with another team that made a deal like this to catch me or hold me off.
These trades are even more incentivised due to the fact that we’re a “keep forever” league with no future season cost consideration for keepers.
?
why stay in a league that supports this kind of trading.
^ well stated!
Love ya Mike but sorry, that is not a good deal. Moncada is not the sure-thing difference-maker in the future that would warrant such a haul.
The trade doesn’t stand on it’s own merit, but even outside the vacuum it doesn’t give you a significant boost in the future, and it seals the fate of the league title. You can spend $3 on 3 keepers next year without doing this. If that guy won’t give up more than moncada for that package, then f him, walk away. Dump the league next year if you want but don’t ruin the fun for the other contenders.
In other words, don’t cave to the single situation. Hold true to some standards like “extract fair value” and “don’t f the league for marginal personal gain.”
Not to blast you — I understand you are new to keepers and the market wasn’t there. If this were really a keeper league you were staying in, there would be more at stake than moncada.
Oh, and let me know if you have any openings in a league for next year, Mario, ok? I like where you are coming from. mickbabesandy@zoho.com
The other constructive criticism I have has nothing to do with keepers, but the art of the deal (barf.) If he had 5 of the keepers you wanted (and could only keep 3 himself) there’s no way you should have walked away with less than 2 of them. But your openness and honesty gave him all the leverage. You played the role of the motivated trader, and he played the role of the shrewd treasure keeper. You needed to flip the script. Tell that dude that if he acquires Arrieta, Sanchez, Donaldson, Cano… he is going to the promised land. Flags fly forever, etc. If he wants to get there, it takes 2 prospects, not one.
I think Mario makes a lot of sense in his comments, Mike. It hurts the integrity of the league even though you put it out there to everyone. I dont like the feeling for myself that I am giving the title to a team merely for my own benefit. No criticism intended at all.
Any one else could have made and offer but no one did, his market was 1 person and having Moncada is better than nothing.
This is happening in a major way in my league right now with teams being called out for ruining the league. Some teams are saying that all trades must include current league assets and others are suggesting we keep a limit on the number of minor leaguers that can be on each team so nobody can stock up on prospects. I kind of think there is no way to ensure totally fair trades in keeper leagues because the teams competing will always be upset when other competing teams dump future assets for current stars. Would love to find a solution to this.
I have been on all 3 sides: reloading by trading stars for $1 keepers, going “all in” by trading $1 keepers for stars, and watching a rival become an unbeatable juggernaut by swinging a trade like this.
It seems to me part of building a team is maintaining players you can use as trade bait to supplement your team down the stretch. In that regard, there is nothing inherently wrong with teams trading $1 Bellinger for a giant return of non-keepers. But it is going to be a major turn-off to the other contending teams, who are left playing for 2nd place (which is the same thing as 10th place – you lose either way).
My suggestion is that teams thinking of trades like this should be open with the league about their plan, and give contenders a chance to compete fir their own trade offers. I would not make a rule to this effect – just a basic sportsman-like courtesy, and effort to make sure teams don’t just say “screw it” and abandon their teams.
All it takes is 2 teams to make it a bidding war, any owner lazy enough to just dump his assets but not try to get the best deal shouldn’t be kept around. It takes a moment to say “I’m selling talent for future assets” and ask around on a few players.
In our keeper league, Yahoo tracks the “keeper costs” for each player, easily displayed next to each guy. We have a cumulative “acquisition cap” you can take over the course of the season (for instance, if you have a $60 remaining cap, you can’t make a net trade that will give you more then $60 of contract cost).
We also have a cash bank account system for use in the auction that isn’t necessarily necessary for this rule, but allows higher bank accounts to have more “acquisition cap” space.
Either way, this keeps lower-tier teams from trading $100 in contracts for $1 in contracts, but allows the flexibility to trade lots of value to several teams. The bottom teams can reload, but none of the elite teams can get a monstrous in-bulk upgrade.
You did the right thing. Letting the league know of your wants and intentions gives the other league members no excuse.
I am in a league where non-contenders are similarly aggressive in getting read of players whose contract is running out and can’t be kept. They have a prospect draft and farm team as well; to incentivize trying by those out of it, the first pick goes to the team that finished FOURTH — top team out of the money. Then the draft order runs down the list so that the last-place team picks just ahead of teams in the money. Somewhat of an encouragement to continuing to try– it is no longer clearly optimal to give up *every* non-keeper for a Moncada.
Mike, good thought provoking article. Including all salaries would have helped. The first question I ask myself is: “would this happen in real MLB?” If the answer is no, then it’s probably a bad trade. I don’t like vetoing trades but in this case I probably would.
I would have emailed the other owners prior to the trade and told them that I about to accept this offer. To see if there is any increased interest. I also would have kept at least one of those players, because the market for them would have gotten hotter after the first trade. As you have shown that you are serious about trading. The second place team and those after him would have to trade to keep up.
You said; “I was asked by a member of the local league I commish to replace an inactive owner in the league he commishes” obviously the intent was to keep the integrity of the league, play out the season and not make any bad trades that affect the standings in an unfair way. Sorry, I think you failed.
The first question I ask myself is: “would this happen in real MLB?” If the answer is no, then it’s probably a bad trade.
I respectfully disagree. When the Red Sox sent a quarter of a billion dollars of salaries to the Dodgers (AGon, Carl Crawford and Beckett) in exchange for virtually nothing (unless you’re a big fan of Loney and Rubby DLR) what do you think they were doing?
It was a salary dump, plain and simple.
“would this happen in real MLB?” is a horrible proxy for dump trade fairness. In MLB it’s common for one star to be traded for multiple prospects. In roto is’s common for one top keeper (say a $1 Aaron Judge) or a megaprospect (think Bryant a few years ago) to be traded for multiple stars.
For a decade now, my high stakes league has utilized a 48-hour period in which all other owners are allowed to make counter-offers to the rebuilding owner. It’s the only policy I’ve seen that makes it impossible for anyone to complain. Give it a try.
Love this idea.
I’m in the 7th year of a Dynasty league where we have salary escalators (+$2 each year, double after every third year), and a salary cap – but within those parameters, you could keep your entire team.
I also joined a H2H mandatory keep 4 league with no salaries.
The reason for keepers is to encourage both full-season participation regardless of team strength, and to give incentive for trades. I’m finding in the dynasty league, the aspect of building an entire team allows you to avoid these type of dump situations – the biggest trades tend to be guys about to double in salary traded at split salaries (which requires they become free agents after the season), but almost always includes a cheap long-term keeper or high value minor leaguer. The other league seems to have a lot of dump trades, because the “long term value” aspect is concentrated in a much smaller portion of your roster.
Moncada a keeper in a keep 3?! I think fantasy baseball can be divided into two camps, those who live to chase the next best thing, and those who try to win.
Did this exact same thing in my keeper league. Don’t feel there’s anything wrong with it
I would consider not returning to this league. It seems like a bad combination of people who don’t put in the effort to improve their own teams and who complain when someone else does. You should not have to choose between improving you team and avoiding the wrath of the disengaged masses.
While the league rules encourage this type of trade, your situation could have been avoided if more people who have made legitimate efforts to acquire some of your valuable non-keepers. The majority of us who play in keeper leagues (and are competing this year) will attempt to deal with players who announce they are dumping. It is not difficult. Decided which players you want and offer something of keeper value. Your offer may not get accepted, but you are at least forcing someone else to part with something of greater value. It keeps the league honest. When if doesn’t occur, a lack of competing offers will inevitable lead to inequitable trades.
“Keeper” leagues with only 3 keepers are crappy keeper leagues.
Agreed play Y2Y or make it a substantial keeper number 8-10 to prevent this type of thing. Of course dynasty works best because dump trades dont really happen, every player has future value.
This trade, made by a placeholder owner, is pretty much of a turd.
Issue always is, that these deals can have very high impact on the current season’s standings which have taken pretty firm shape and it is easy to see where gains can be made. The value of a trade that picks up a couple critical points and moves a squad from second to first ought to be extraordinarily high. Instead the “they are worth nothing to me if I don’t trade them” and “I don’t care if I am tenth or last” ethos dominate. Since there are 8-10 teams not trying to finish first at this point, versus maybe 2-3 that are, that makes some sense. But the future impact acquired by dumpers tends to be negligible compared to the immediate impact in tight pennant races.
We have the 48 hour counter offer window as well. It sort of works. On the other hand we have one Svengali who has separately traded Koda Glover for Anthony Rizzo, and Phil Maton for Michael Conforto despite it.
League in question probably needs larger keeper lists, and something to incentivize continued competition. Fewer keepers for finishing further out of the money, higher minor league picks for finishing closer to the money, monetary penalties for finishing last or near last, all come to mind.
Keeper leagues in general need to figure out how to make players on expiring contracts not worthless. There is no MLB corollary to that. Perhaps some part of the auction budget or draft slots tied into making “qualifying offers” to expiring players.
Mike: I’ve been in three different types of keeper leagues (none of which involve only 3 keepers).
Most of the responses have already addressed this, but here’s my two cents: NO WAY the trade you made compromises the integrity of the league, as your commish alleges. It happens all the time in keeper leagues; you did what most owners would do faced with the particulars of your situation.
While dumping-trades happen in all keeper leagues, the problem is greatly multiplied in leagues where a player’s value relies on more than just their performance.
Moncada has value as a keeper not because of how he played this year, or even probably next year, but because of the cost associated with him. If all players had the same cost, you wouldn’t have made that trade – even being in last place. Whenever I read an article where someone says something like “All-Star Caliber Player X has no value to me”, it strikes me as really odd.
In my opinion, the best – and by that I mean most fair – keeper leagues are where keeping one player costs your 1st round pick, a second player costs your 2nd round pick, and so on. That way a player’s value is solely based on how they perform. No team has any incentive to dump a top player for a lesser player, because both players have the same keeper cost.
Others have said it, but this trade is reasonable because your league only allows 3 keepers. That rule incentivizes exactly the type of trade you made, for exactly the reasons you made it. Your goal is to get the single best keeper you can, and thus you should give up anything that doesn’t have future value to you to get it. Your trading partner knows this, so he can (correctly) play hardball, insisting on your whole team in exchange for that keeper. Now, it’s possible you could have tried to call his bluff and say you’d only do it for Bellinger. Maybe he would have blinked, maybe not.
Anyway – my advice is to increase the number of keepers to something reasonable. 10-12 is common, in my experience.
I’m the Commissioner of a 16 team H2H league. We keep 4 players based on the round they were drafted and every year at the trade deadline we have arguments about trades like this one.
There isn’t any question that trades like this one affect the integrity of league. There is no reason other than laziness on your part to accept that trade without negotiating. Cano improves the other team over Moncada all by himself.
There’s no reason to give up 4 players to get him. That’s not say the players aren’t less valuable to you today but 4-1 is simply being greedy and taking advantage of someone just shrugging their shoulders and saying “duh, ok”. Is that guy really not going to accept only “Cano and Arrieta? Does that not improve his team enough?
All year until this point people are fighting injuries, slumps, benchings, closers being removed and all sorts other variables to keep their teams in contention. But now all that effort and research using sites like this are wasted because people are giving players away like they’re candy.
It’s just weak. They’re needs to be an economic factor to mitigate against that but it seems hard to quantify.
The other managers in the league already have incentive to negotiate with Mike even if they don’t have much interest in his players – make sure their competitors don’t improve their teams. They all were probably assuming that there was some competition for Mike’s players and so they didn’t need to bother. Once the trade got posted though, they realized that everyone was thinking the same thing, and because of that Mike had only one suitor.
Who was lazier? The manager who didn’t reach out to multiple teams even though he found an offer that satisfied his needs? Or the other 12 owners who knew that Mike was selling but never bothered to open up any negotiations?
The laziness isn’t that Mike (or whomever, this is a philosophical exercise really) didn’t look to other owners. He had an offer for the player he was interested in and that’s fine.
The laziness is in accepting that offer that is badly unbalanced and clearly affects the competitiveness of the league without attempting to counteroffer.
Would the player with Moncada really only accept a deal that was 4-1? Any combination of 2 players of the 4 would very likely improve his team immensely without being obnoxious.
These leagues are a community to which everyone needs to accountable.
If the market is only one team, you’re forced to accept whatever they give or choose nothing. It’s a bad deal but still your best option. This is on the other inactive owners who sat on their hands instead of driving up the price.
No one has any grounds to complain because you made your intentions known and no one made you a decent offer. The first place team reached for the ring and they didn’t.
To me this is what makes keeper leagues fun. We keep 5 in my league and the time leading up to the trade deadline is a lot of fun because it closely resembles what happens in real baseball around the trade deadline. That is, the teams that are in the hunt try to make moves to upgrade their teams for the stretch run and the teams that are re-building try to acquire assets for future seasons. It’s no different than what the Cubs, Yankees, Dodgers, etc. did this year and if a team chooses to sit on their hands while other teams make moves then that’s their fault.
Basically, this league you joined sounds like a dud. A good keeper league should see lots of trades at the keeper deadline and trade deadline unless there are restrictions put in place to discourage the bottom teams from trading with the top teams. Since this league has no restrictions then it’s a free-for-all and it’s up to the owners to act and react to the moves being made by the other teams – creating a competitive market for assets. Since only one guy is shopping it’s kind of a joke.
One way to keep teams from completely tanking is a long term payout. 1/3 of the prize money is in the form of a 3 year pool. Every year we pay out to the teams with the best three year record (11 pts for first place, 10 for second, for each year, with the highest total points getting the first place payout).
If you tank, you will be out of the running for the three year pool until the tank year rolls off.
Of course, you need a stable league. Ours has been going for 30 years.
A stronger strategy though, may have been to trade good players to second place team, putting first place team in a more dire position so he’d have to move Bellinger for a haul.
It’s not entirely about other teams not competing for your players though. If your list is Bellinger, Moncada or nothing, they were never in the negotiations from the start, whether you alerted the league with a post or not. You played within the rules but, as one of the competing teams, I’d be upset about it too. Moncada, a player who might not be of actual help next year either, ended the season in the first place team’s favor – in August. I get why you did it, I get why the other team did it, but let’s not feign ignorance about the indignation of other teams in the league when they didn’t luck into one of the only players you considered worth trading for. It’s made all the worse because your team, whether run by you or the person before you, was admittedly inactive the vast majority of the season. Once you finally decide to act it results in a destruction of league integrity and hope for nearly all the other players.
Again, I get why you did it, it’s in the rules, and it shouldn’t be stopped, but they don’t have to be happy about it and the league rules should be altered in future seasons to prevent this sort of thing from happening.
People are pointing out that no other teams made offers at the deadline, but no one seems to be interested that no one bid Moncada higher in auction. The #1 prospect in baseball shouldn’t ever go for $1 in a 3-keeper league with unrestricted trading.
The other GMs in this league just don’t seem to be very bright.
In our league there are escalating financial penalties for the bottom 4 finishers. I don’t know how much it discourages dumping, but the threat of paying a stiffer penalty (maybe a fine of 40% of the entry fee as opposed to 30%) for finishing last instead of second to last has to weigh on the mind of owners when making such trades.
So, this happened to me in my ottoneu league where a dude got a huge haul (plus like, 90 in loans), and I was pissed. Though the thing about that was, the players he was getting in return weren’t even good that good…and ya know, the loan.
But, I digress….I understand why you would do it, and if the other owners are PO’d because you took something you wanted, that’s their fault they didn’t make you an offer. However, if I were a team in that league, fighting for a top spot, I’d be angry.
Good trade for you in a keeper league. I made a similar deal two years ago and finished first then second in my league. This year was hurt by injuries so I did it again. Lots of complaints, but I’m stacked for next year.
I had a similar situation in my league. We are NL only with a $460 budget and keep 12 and I had $10 Bellinger. I posted to the board that he was available. Most offers I got were crap but then I get offered Yelich, Posey, Greinke, Spangenberg, and Bumgarner for Bellinger and some prospects. I’ve run away with that title and the other guy is now set up as a favorite for next year.
You just have to be able to trust that owners are doing what they truly think is best for their team, whether competing or building. If that negatively impacts other teams then too bad. Think the rest of the NL was happy when the Dodgers got Darvish for Willie Calhoun? Too bad. Make better offers
I believe you should have passed on this trade, Mike. You overpaid for an unproven asset probably because of the price tag as much as anything. At the very least, you needed to negotiate a greater return.
In your words, the 1st place team had the 5 best $1 keepers. That tells me right away that he is unlikely to keep Moncada. He’ll keep Bellinger and 2 other more proven assets. So, Monacada is pure trade bait for this owner. And since Moncada is struggling, it is not as if Monacada is helping this guy win the title this year.
My offer would have been any 2 of the 4 players for Moncada, or all 4 players for Bellinger. I sincerely believe he would have blinked, and he would have traded you Moncada for Sanchez and Donaldson or maybe Arrieta if he needed a SP. I don’t think he trades Bellinger but I do believe he happily ships Moncada out of town for 2 big upgrades, particularly since he was unlikely to keep him anyways.
I was just on the buying end of a very similar trade:
My round 23 Bellinger (keepable at that round for 2 more years) (and some fodder like Albies, Bud Norris and Alex Claudio) for Altuve, Carrassco, Britton, and Chapman.
The negotiations happened quickly, and with somebody who was talking to every team in the league about his roster and keeper players. I was persuaded to trade the best keeper in the game, a win now asset no less, in a “buy” deal to fill several black holes.
The deal went through, as did some other lopsided deals (cheap Severino) to my rivals from the same seller, but I know there were at least a couple of veto votes for it.
We’ve tried to address the issue of tanking (such as trading prime Johan Santana for “keepable” Steven Drew) through out the years, but the league format just doesn’t allow for a solution. It’s fair game.
In an ongoing keeper/dynasty league, trade relationships and owner relations are more valuable than the results of any one trade. On its face (if you didn’t know the rules), this may be the worst trade in fantasy baseball I’ve ever heard. But trades are a function of the rules, and DUMP trades are the engine that drives keeper/dynasty leagues after mid-season. In this case, it’s the RULES that compromise the integrity of the league. The rules are not well-thought or researched, so no one should be surprised that an interloper comes in, wrecks the championship race, and walks away from a 4-for-1 without even getting the proven player (Bellinger).
I joined a dynasty league for the first time this year and I definitely have been enjoying it (it’s a long established 10+ yrs league, so the kinks seem to have been worked out). We have 10 players we can keep w/o restrictions, so it might be anecdotal but only keeping 3 players seems to be part of the problem with this league. I’d say increasing the amount of keepers or having some type of value cap on trades would help address the issue.
We aren’t an auction league, but one aspect in our league that helps balance out the lopsided trades is we can also trade future draft picks and they almost always end up as part of these sell off deals; providing a bit of balance. These picks can then be useful for buying back more low level keepers as we approach the draft.
Is anyone else in some sort of similar league–dynasty w/ ability to trade picks? I’m curious of any advice or thoughts anyone has on how they go about assigning value to future picks. This is one thing I haven’t really got a good handle on yet and haven’t found anything useful online for doing this analysis.
not having ready the numerous replies, my thoughts.
1) to trade with the first place team puts you in the cross hairs of others in the hunt for this season.
2) a keeper league w/ a hard limit of 3 is absurd.
3) any league that is in it’s first year of creation is going thru such pains as folks flake out.
combining 2 and 3 together is a recipe for big problems when you add in money.
good luck with that
I have been running an auction dynasty/keeper league for almost 30 years. What we did to give the bottom feeders a reason to not completely dump is institute a consolation tournament comprised of the non-playoffs teams. The tournament determines draft position for our annual rookie draft, which takes place prior to our annual auction. This really keeps teams interested through the end of the season and to have a reason to keep valuable players they may not necessarily be able to keep.
I see nothing wrong with the trade considering the rules for that league. It is the type of trade those rules encourage, more power to you and the other owner for taking advantage of it. However; I personally would have tried to get more for those players.
In my opinion if your only going to keep three players then just do a redraft/auction each year. For a true auction/keeper league the values/salary of players must escalate each year they are kept, but the number of keepers should only being limited by salary cap issues. If a team can keep all his players and be under the cap more power to him.
Personally I lean to redraft leagues or true dynasty leagues that have a minor league system, allow you keep any/all players forever as long as you do not exceed the maximum major league and minor league roster caps. A trade like that would never happen in either of them because the value of the player is strictly performance based along with future performance projections. In the dynasty leagues there are trades of younger players/prospects for established 34+ stars based upon whether a team is playing for this year, next year, or 2-3 years out.