Kicking Rocks: Stupid Trade Offers
I’m in 6 different leagues this year and every league has a different set of rules, rosters, waiver restrictions, etc. But the one common thread that ties and binds all things fantasy here is the moronic trade offers that get thrown around at this time of year. Forget about sample size and statistical history. Apparently those mean nothing to the trade hungry vultures just waiting to swoop down and pick off the carcass of stupidity.
Now for some people, it’s hard to fault them. They’re new to fantasy and they just don’t know any better. How are they to know that Howie Kendrick has already blown his load on power for the month and is two weeks away from spraining his labia? Research and common sense? Sure, that would be nice, but you can wish in one hand and poop in the other and see which one fills up first. Even in some of the most competitive leagues, you somehow end up with that one guy who begged his way in because he wanted to feel like he was part of the group and doesn’t know squat about fantasy baseball or statistics.
But what really steams my clams are the guys who do know better; the ones that have played with you for years and still try to sell you a on a dog that won’t hunt. They’re the ones, right now, that are trying to pass off Willie Bloomquist as the next Ricky Henderson, Jeff Francoeur as the next Vladimir Guerrero (circa 2001), and Sean Burnett as the next Mariano Rivera. They’ve known you for years, know your level of knowledge, and yet still try to pass of their garbage for your slow starting studs. It’s annoying, it’s insulting, and it’s not even worth your time to jump into a negotiation. You sit and stare at your computer screen, dumbfounded. In complete disgust, you long to have those 30 seconds of your life back that it took for you to read the email and process the sheer stupidity.
I’m sure I’ll get a few scathing emails for this, but I’ve got to share some of them with you. Believe it or not, there are several that I could list here but I’ll just give you a few that fall under the “I want to hit you in the face with a rock that has this trade offer tied around it” category.
1. 12 team, mixed, 5×5 roto, standard categories
His Carlos Pena, Brandon League, David Aardsma, and Carlos Gomez for my Albert Pujols and Drew Storen
Trade Comment: I can give you Pat Burrell instead of Gomez if you want more power instead of speed.
This one came to me the day Pena hurt his thumb. The guy who sent it said he had no idea of the injury, but the time stamp on the email tells a different story. I mean, do I even have to break this one down for you as to why I respectfully declined? My personal favorite was when he so generously offered up Burrell, the human out, as a replacement for Gomez.
2. 10 team NL only, head to head, 6×6 (OBP instead of AVG; add K for hitters and HRA for pitchers)
His Ramon Hernandez, Ted Lilly and Brett Myers for my Buster Posey and either Clayton Kershaw or Matt Cain
Trade comment: You look like you could use some more SP depth.
I’ll give it to him that perhaps I could an extra starter. But the fact that it’s head to head, I went heavy on relievers and used my 2 bench spots for offense. My other starters are Jaime Garcia and Jhoulys Chacin, so I feel pretty confident that I don’t need to add 2 guys that gave up a combined 52 HR last year. I won’t even discuss the catcher inclusion.
3. 15 team mixed, keeper league, 5×5 roto, standard categories
His Evan Longoria, David Murphy, and Brandon McCarthy for my Jay Bruce, Pablo Sandoval, and Yovani Gallardo
Trade comment: Longo is bona fide keeper, Bruce never protected, Sandoval borderline and you never keep SPs.
Less than a week into the season and he offers me Longoria in a dump trade? Jeez, does my team look that bad? I especially love the part when he devalues Gallardo because I don’t like to protect starting pitching.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Look, I totally get that it’s the start of the season and you’re excited to trade, but really? You gotta do better than that. Start using your head. That’s the lump that’s three feet above your ass.
Got some of your own? Let’s put ’em up on the stupidity scale and see how they weigh in…
Howard Bender has been covering fantasy sports for over 10 years on a variety of websites. In addition to his work here, you can also find him at his site, RotobuzzGuy.com, Fantasy Alarm, RotoWire and Mock Draft Central. Follow him on Twitter at @rotobuzzguy or for more direct questions or comments, email him at rotobuzzguy@gmail.com
What’s the average DL time for a strained labia, and how does one’s performance fair after the injury?
I’m pretty sure Jacoby Ellsbury’s labia sprain kept him out most of the season last year.
why did i read all this… lame article.
one of those trades was offered by you… right?
I kind of enjoyed it.
In a league where each team has a 40 man roster and keeps everyone from year to year except for who they cut to draft new guys, I recently got offered Matt Treanor (backup catcher), Willie Bloomquist (4th OF), Freddy Garcia (5th SP?), and Jon Rauch (8th inning guy) for Shin-Soo Choo (potential All-Star) and Carl Pavano (#2-3 pitcher).I respectfully declined and restrained from many comments I wished to make.
Try posting these trades on TradeBashers.com. The community will vote on which side of the trades is superior and you can go back to the originally manager who offered you the trade with proof, 88% preferred one side 12% the other for example, that his offer stinks. See how fast the offers improve.
These are all currently on there. Someone listened.
trade in a dynasty h2h 5×5
Trevor Cahill, Denard Span
for
Josh Beckett, Jake Arrieta and Jason Werth
[i]pretty equal value[/i]
i don’t see the problem with that one.
…how is that bad?
Jason Werth is a top 15-of…shouldn’t he alone be worth more than that…?
Except Jason Werth isn’t a 23-year-old top of the rotation starter? It’s a dynasty league…
Chris Perez for Ricky Romero. hahahaha he didn’t even try to mask it by offering more guys on his side.
depends on what kind of league, but if you were to need saves, i don’t see the issue.
I just traded Jaime Garcia for Chris Perez. A reliable source of saves can be hard to come by.
How is that bad?
I’ve been irritated at lame trade offers before. On a few occasions I’ve really vented steam back at the would-be deal-maker — big mistake.
I know we all want to win and that we can all be pretty cut-throat at times, but it’s important to remember it’s just a game. Best not to burn any bridges or cause any bad feelings.
The best thing to do is just smile to yourself and politely hit the “Decline” button. Then move on to the next offer.
Agreed. Worst I’ve ever responded is “seriously?” That usually gets the job done: they know you’re not a fool, both of you get a laugh out of the proposal, and you move on.
Definitely agree. You never want to handicap yourself in a league by giving yourself one less team with which to trade….
I bite the inside of my cheek…..a lot!
I used to send guys an email that said: “X was pretty much a consensus second round guy,a # 15-20th pick. Since then, he’s gotten off to a great start. I’m not trading him except for fair value.”
And I never EVER got a fair counteroffer back. So now I just hit “Decline” and shake my head.
Yah, some people just can’t see trading as a system where both teams can benefit by balancing (or disbalancing) their categories, positions, and/or risk. Instead, they’re just trying to fleece you. Thankfully, in a well run league (see: One that is not privy to the stupidity that is arbitrary vetos), one will usually be able to beat those guys handily. You’ll get to trade to address areas of need, they’ll be stuck holding the hat waiting to “win” a trade until there’s no one left who needs a trading partner.
I was offered Francisco Cordero for Joakim Soria straight up.
Comment from the party in question: “In case you are looking to upgrade your closers.”
Haha. “In case you were looking to upgrade your closers, this one goes the opposite direction.”
My favorite trade offer ever, standard 5×5 10-team H2H: he sends me Brandon Phillips, Stephen Drew, Jose Reyes, and Jason Kendall(!), I send him Robinson Cano, Troy Tulowitzki, and Brian McCann.
Seems fair, I can’t imagine why I declined it.
The 3rd one isn’t all that bad. Yea, it’s a “looks lopsided on paper” trade, but I think the Longo/Murphy/McCarthy side definitely has potential to win out at the end of the year.
agreed, in a keeper league it’s not that bad. Evan Longoria is a bona fide 1st rounder, and in fantasy trades often the “best player in the deal” is the winner.
It’s still lopsided but Gallardo is overrated and netting a 1st round stud like Longoria in a keeper league without giving up anyone above the 5th round (at best) is not bad. The Bruce/Gallardo side should get a slightly better 3rd player back to go with Longoria + Murphy (McCarthy is f’ing terrible) but if you made it Longoria, Murphy, and a decent starter to fill in for Gallardo it’s pretty even.
In a keeper league I would trade Bruce + Gallardo for Evan Longoria all day and night.
I do love Longoria, but I also have a pretty unhealthy man-crush on Bruce. i think, by season’s end, he will be someone that gets protected on a regular basis. I’m also pretty high on Sandoval and gallardo, so I suppose it’s just a matter of opinion here…..like most trades…
I also forget that it’s an AVG league (my keeper league uses OPS instead of AVG) so Sandoval is a little more valuable… I wrote him off a bit.
That being said, in the quality vs. quantity trade the quality side is usually better, and there is no doubt that Longoria is the best player in the deal. Even if Bruce pans out, he’s just a power-hitting OF, which is a lot easier to find than a 5-category 3B.
Basically, you would always trade two 4th-5th rounders for a 1st rounder, is my point.
Now, of course, it’s always “a matter of opinion” but the point is that that 3rd deal is actually debatable, whereas the others who brought up were laughable and no reasonable fantasy player would consider them. So it just seemed like it didn’t fit the thesis of the article as well…
That’s the thing with analyzing trades. You have to know who you’re higher on than other people are. You can’t call a trade ridiculous just because he happened to pick only players you’re big on.
The only really bad one I’ve seen this year was offered to a friend of mine; Mauer, Jeter, and A Ramirez for Posey, Tulo, and A-Rod. I think he was just trying to see if my friend was a n00b, because the same guy who made that offer had already discussed several reasonable deals with me.
12 team 5×5 daily roto, standard scoring… My Ryan Howard for Manny Ramirez and Mitch Moreland.
My response… This is a Chris Carter “C’mon Man!”
if its a keeper, and depending on which OF manram would replace, thats not a bad offer at all.
That’s actually an interesting proposal.
Obviously you and jaywrong don’t appreciate the awesome that is ryan howard’s bat.
the bat that is declining and can’t hit left handers?
yeah…. that sounds like captain awesome.
@jaywrong
yeah, right…there are so many good left-handed pitchers out there and Howard is declining – can you believe it – he isn’t even hitting +40HR and +140RBIs every year!
31HR and 108RBIs last season…phew…what a lame player to own…I’d rather have the glorious Manny “say no to drugs” Ramirez and an unproven player who doesn’t hit for power…
Pat Burrell has a lifetime OBP of .361. While no Pujolus, I’m not sure it’s fair to call him “the human out”.
Perhaps you’ve missed his last 64 AB dating back to the 2010 playoffs — 9 for 64 with 29 K
Sample Size
Career vs. 64 ABs
hmmmm..
you should watch his ABs. The guy looks lost most of the time. I understand the small sample, size, but his career is a thing of the past. He is not the same guy that produced a .361 OBP
Right, yet another “you should watch [insert obscure game/games here].” If you really have that good of an eye for baseball talent that you can tell how good a player is just by watching them, what are you doing commenting here? Maybe you should try being a baseball scout.
I really do not understand this obsession with “I watch so-and-so play so I must know more than you about that player.”
5×5 keeper league with OPS instead of AVG.
His Jeter, Oswalt and Hanrahan for my Tulowitzki.
He said my pitching looked weak. I have Kershaw, Gallardo, Haren, Scherzer and 3 closers. And Tulo is keepable in the 8th round for the next couple years.
He got mad when my response was just a link to the Glee cast singing “Hell to the no”.
The worst part about insulting trade offers is the “quantity for quality” trades. It’s not just because you’d be getting 3 ok players for one great one, but because you’d have to DROP two players has part of the trade. Subsequently if the two guys you’re potentiall be dropping are ok players in their own right, then it makes a bad trade even worse.
In my head-to-head league, one guy offered someone Jonathan Sanchez and Aroldis Chapman for Hanley Ramirez and K-Rod. The other guy accepted.
depressing, but I guess there really is one born every minute.
Wasn’t there a veto option?
Trade vetoes are silly since the ones who vote on the trade have a stake in the outcome of the vote. That’s why an outside appraisal like the community voting at tradebashers.com is so valuable. You get a truly objective community based valuation of fantasy trades. There are also more voters than in any one league so the final outcome is more statistically significant.
Yah, from what I’ve seen, that should be a pretty easy veto. Usually the issue that I have is actually that vetos are far too easy to accomplish, rather than the opposite.
If you have a few people who will veto any trade that hurts their chances of being first (see: any trade they are not involved in), it pretty much kills all trading in the league. I think Yahoo’s default is like 3 or 4 teams out of a 12 team league. Needless to say, I’ve been in a couple of leagues where 9 out of 10 trades got vetoed, most of them for basically no cause.
That’s why my preferred league configuration is one with a good commissioner. The “wisdom of the masses” tends to turn to a whole lot of gamesmanship and “tragedy of the commons” in most public leagues.
Lopsided trade offers are a staple in most of my leagues. Quite often we try to one-up each other with even more lopsided counter offers. Good times.
Besides, you never know when someone might click on the “Accept” button by accident.
I don’t much care for the league settings
Offense- R, H, HR, RBI, BB, FPCT, AVG, OPS, NSB, SLAM
Pitching- W, CG, SHO, SV, BB, K, HLD, ERA, WHIP, QS
Over 14 teams H2H
My buddy convinced me to join it with him. So I did my research and hey, Pujols is significantly more valuable in this league than most others! So naturally everyone wants him.
I get Justin Morneau and A.J. Burnett (recently upgraded to Liriano. Not bad, still not good) for Pujols.
Oh, and Alexi Ramirez was just dropped. I don’t think I’ll be keeping up with how this league goes.
I would like to submit a gem of my own:
I trade: nothing (ESPN lets you do this)
Other team trades: Albert Pujols
his response:
“idiot”
Now that’s pretty funny.
My league allows draft pick trading and is a re draft every year. I offered a player still lingering on my roster from the prior year that has to get dropped before the draft starts (like Loney quality) for his first three round picks.
In a Standard league, I was offered Even Longoria for Jose Bautista and Brian Mccann
that’s not a terrible deal really…. one 1st rounder for two 3rd-rounder types. It all depends on how good you think Bautista really is.
y’all should just go to tradebashers.com and post these instead of bitching about ’em (or in addition to laughing at them). you can counter your trade offerer with ‘dude, 95% of people prefer your side of the trade, obviously it was unfair.’ i’ve been using this site a bit since i found out about it, because it is fun to ahve that ‘see? stop low balling me!’ back up proof.
but unfair offers are a part of the game, and what cracks me up is when people take them personally and get all mad about them. just decline and move on. or better yet, counter. obviously the other team wants to trade, make a fair counter offer.
While you may find lop-sided deals insulting and angering, I see them as opportunity, no matter which end I am on. The point of trading is to get the better end of the deal. Why make an even trade? How does that help you get better and the other guy get worse? I don’t run a charity, I want to win the league and win every trade. It’s people like yourself that ruin the fun of fantasy sports. You over value all your players, micro-manage your lineup and spend entirely too much time breaking down the stats of every player from a simple offer. Especially if its an initial offer. Any dummy who accepts a first offer deserves to lose a trade. Loosen up, make more deals and have more fun. Or continue to draft a team, never negotiate a deal and wonder why you consistently lose and never really enjoy all aspects of being a fantasy manager.
A fair trade could be something like “I have a lot of power but no speed, I’ll trade you a power guy for an equally valued speed guy since you have a lot of speed and no power.”
Or “I have a lot of offense and no pitching, I’ll trade you a hitter for a starter.”
Trades don’t have to be lopsided for both sides to win.
*Trades don’t have to be lopsided for one side to win, rather.
This. No offense, but if you’re playing with people who you can “win” trades against, you’re clearly not playing against good enough competition. Which is fine, it’s still fun to win, but it’s kind of silly too. (I remember when I used to play with some of m hometown friends where I literally had to restrain myself from flat out fleecing them, because they were such unrepentant homers)
There are three ways that one can exchange even “value” but improve one or both teams:
1. Positional improvement – Better players get more playing time because they’re on a squad that needs them at a position. Needless to say, you’d be stupid to hold on to Tulo if you have Han-Ram, he’s worth way more as a trade chip.
2. Category improvement – Typically can’t do this until a bit into the season unless you have a glaring need, but obviously you want to either balance (roto) or unbalance (H2H) your categories to get it in a position to win.
3. Injury risk/DL Management – If you have too many injured players, but they have value, you basically have no choice but to ship them out. Alternatively, if you have a lot of injury prone players- you may want to trade them for equally-valued players with lower talent but less risk. This is a rare case where you might do a straight up positional swap (often of P or OF).
4. Upside/Bust Management – This is always one of the interesting ones. You want to win, which is discontinuous. 1 point short of winning helps you about as much as being 100 points short. So you want to balance your sure bets with enough variance upside guys to give you a solid shot at winning. Deep leagues favor steady players, shallow ones favor upside (since replacements are easy to find). If you’re in a good position, it can make a lot of sense to trade off riskier players for reliable ones. If you’re in a bad position, you need to collect scratch tickets and pray.
So… looked at like that, there are a LOT of ways you can improve both teams by trading players who are basically equal at draft day.
His Tyler Colvin and Ryan Spilborghs for my Josh Hamilton. It’s a 3OF league, and I also had Holliday and Swisher, so it’s not like I was starved for depth.
Side note: how much is tradebashers.com paying people to keep advertising them in the comments here, and should they start to get removed as spam?
I don’t think a trade always has to be a trade.
I love proposing lopsided “trades” with a note that says, “Hey, here are the pieces I’d like to put into a trade. I’m not sure how you’re feeling on those guys, but see if you can make something work”
But that’s so lazy! If you want to make a deal, you should at least put some effort into it.
CBS player pages show recent trades and a lot of unbelievably one side trade appear to consummate without labia-damage, which means they aren’t terrible trade offers.
I actually looked into a lot of those trades, especially the really lopsided ones when they first started that feature. CBS just lists the players that are moved for each other, it says nothing about free agent dollars, draft picks or anything else you can add in the comments section when negotiating a deal. So those deals that are listed, sometimes have more involved.
I offered a guy in my league Prince Fielder and Ryan Dempster for Tim Lincecum and Neil Walker. Dude didn’t even send a counter offer.
I changed it to Fielder and Dempster for Lincecum. Once again no counter offer.
I hate being in leagues where nobody trades unless they get an amazing steal of a deal.
Or, you know, maybe he just doesn’t want to trade Lincecum.
Howie Kendricks … two weeks away from spraining his labia? LMAO.
Basic 5×5 + ops, hld , someone offered Kelly Johnson+ Andrew McCutchen for my Joey Votto.
I threw out one of these stupid trade ideas to a kid in my league that doesn’t know much… and he accepted!
i got: youkilis (he’ll heat up, he will!), ian kinsler (i don’t believe in regression. totally going to hit 100 homers this year!) and carlos quentin
and he got: luke scott, zobrist and ryan raburn
who won that one?
You took advantage of an ammy. You win brownie points for doing that, but since the commish should have vetoed or strongly considered denouncing the deal anyway (if it is anything like the leagues I am a part of), I wouldn’t say you “won”…. just took advantage of one dumb fantasy player. 😉 But nice job indeed.
I kindof hope for his sake that Zobrist has another 2009.
lol @ the second trade where he says you need pitching depth but he offers a swap. Obviously the trade is lopsided, but swapping pitchers doesn’t add depth, his comment didn’t even go with what he was offering.
I don’t think the 3rd trade was worthy of this list IMO considering its a keeper league.
My favorite all time was in 2004. The guy offered me Sean Casey and a free agent pick for Mark Teixeira. My reply was “LOL!”. He was livid.
as if anyone of you hasnt tried to pass Ryan Braun the reliever for Ryan Braun the hitter and trade him to some sucker
Why would anyone do that? If you pull it off and win the league, you’re greatness has been discredited because you’ve douched it up. If you propose it and it’s declined, you’re forever known as the guy that tried to douche it up. Lose/Lose, IMO.
When I get a shitty offer, I do one thing (usually), and one thing only:
I make the other GM an even shittier offer in return, and give no explanation. Take it or leave it, jackass.
Not exactly the same, but the worst trade-related event that occurred with me was proposing a 2-for-3 trade (I don’t recall the exact players) with a buddy in a 6×6 roto league. We had discussed the trade in person and both agreed, then I spoke with him as I proposed the trade and agreed again.
I dropped a player to clear the extra roster spot on my end, then he rejected the trade at the last moment. Naturally, I can’t reclaim the player I’ve just dropped without waiting out waivers. Shame on me for moving too quickly on the drop, I guess, but still not cool.
steex– next time you guys discuss a trade, make him buy you a round or two
I was offered Mark Reynolds for Jay Bruce. /anger
sorry- thought it was a good offer…Reynolds can hit…maybe I renew my offer after Reynolds started to hit the balls out of the stadium
These trades are bad, but were they the initial offer or a trade in a long series of talks? Initial offers are always shitty, because people want to work their way down so they get as much as they can. If you would start at the bottom and work your way up you would get hosed every time. Not supporting trades THIS lopsided and stupid, but the logic is something I use in negotiations as well.
Jeter for Stanton. Keeper league.
Most lopsided I ever declined: his Ryan Theriot for my Jose Reyes 2 years ago (had to have been thrown out there on the off chance I would just accept any player from my favorite team)
Most lopsided I ever accepted: his Brian McCann, Ryan Braun & Justin Verlander for my Geovany Soto, Ian Kinsler & Joba Chamberlain. This one almost caused the league to disintegrate but somehow ended up going through.
His Uribe/Lyon/Chris Young (NYM) for my Werth/Lilly/Kuo.
Ridiculous.
What’s ridiculous is that you are offended by this offer. I suppose you expect him to offer you all his good players for all your bad players? What do you have to lose by countering that?
I used ZiPS, Bill James, and others to build composite projections for my drafts. According to these projections, Werth/Kuo/Lilly have approximately $45 of value in aggregate while not a single player he offered me has positive value. Young is a shot in the dark, Lyon is a serious injury risk (and I don’t need saves), and Uribe is consistently meh. The offer was a non-starter.
That’s too much work for a draft. You should know by now that you can draft the best projected team and still lose to factors like dumb luck. I don’t see why everyone expects good offers to fall into their laps on the inital offer.
Was offered Aaron Harang and Alfonso Soriano for Max Scherzer
And by the end of the year you may regret turning it down.
Yeah, i kind of like Harang for a comeback this year too
Unfortunately a popular theme in some of the leagues I’m in are the 3/4 scrubs for 1 stud. Whats even sadder is when they get accepted, and sometimes by people are pretty smart fantasy players and know better. Idk.
One of the more mind boggling things was at the end of a season with limited keepers, a bunch of teams dropped players. Someone came along a few weeks later and added a bunch of the guys then just packaged them to teams and upgraded his keepers… Lol if they wanted the guys all they had to do was add them from free agency. Instead of trading their top players for them.
great topic – my friend and i were diascussing this just yesterday. i was telling him in our standard 5×5, 10 team league, i got offered his Juan Pierre, Vernon Wells, and Roy Hallady, for my Clayton Kershaw, Ian Kinsler, and Jake Peavy. I guess since one of my players is on the DL, it completely devalues the other players involved. Lol. I sent this back with the repply “This is basically what you’re asking of me, care to accept?” my Manny Ramírez,,Vladimir Guerrero, David Price for his Carl Crawford, Roy Halladay, Zack Greinke
Another one that really got to me was in a 14 team dynasty league. I posted a message saying i had prospects to trade for a closer, and i get this offer a little later…his Drew Stubbs, BJ Upton, and Ryan Frankin, for my Tim Lincecum and Prince Fielder. What’s funny is I had already declined this offer once before when he asked for the same players but had Shawn Marcum instead of Franklin in the deal.
This trade appeared in my league:
Robinson Cano
Ichiro Suzuki
for
Billy Butler
Rajai Davis
Ervin Santana
Ricky Nolasco
The player giving up Cano/Suzuki received Pedroia in an updated version of the trade
BUT
he also dropped Carlos Lee, Michael Cuddyer, and Jordan Zimmerman as a result of getting that many players
6×6 (standard+ Holds and OPS) 12 team lg
Chase Utley + Mitch Moreland
for
Hanley Ramirez + Jose Tabata
I’m in a mixed league, head to head, points based system. I’ve got jason heyward and jose tabata in my outfield along with torii hunter. I wanna get Carlos Gonzalez to round out my outfield. I’ve got Brian Roberts on my bench just sitting there and this guy won’t take Alex Rios, so this is what i offer him.
Ryan Zimmerman + Brian Roberts
for
Carlos Gonzalez
good or am i just starstruck with Cargo?
It’d be a better offer, I’m sure, if Zimmerman was actually healthy.
yeah he’s due to be back week 4
and i just got offered willie harris and paul janish for dexter fowler and russell martin…i don’t get it