Kicking Rocks: The Dump Trade

With the second half of the season beginning this weekend and your league’s trade deadline rapidly approaching, keeper league owners are making the same tough decision that numerous MLB teams are making.  Are they buyers or sellers?  If in contention for a top finish, keeper league owners are deciding which stud protect to deal off to bolster their roster for a run at the title while the bottom-feeders are licking their chops, ready to give up the world to get their man.  It turns into quite the ugly battle in most leagues and is usually a primary source of fantasy angst.  But like it our not, it’s reality.  Welcome to the dump trade.

The arguments both for and against the dump trade are plentiful.  Those that are in favor of them usually come from two schools of thought.  The folks at the bottom of the standings cite that they are building for the future.  They are not giving up players that they would protect and should be allowed to build their fantasy franchises in any way they see fit.  Their trade partners at the top talk about the inherent value of keeping a particular player the following season and the advantage it provides a team next year to own such a guy.  Wouldn’t you agree that a team has a distinct advantage to walking into 2012 with Adrian Gonzalez rather than hoping their $12 bid lands them Justin Smoak?  If so, then what value do you assign to that in a trade this season?

On the other side of the coin, you’ve got those that are vehemently against the dump trade.  In a lot of cases, they are some of the top teams in the standings that would rather not part with their studs and are attempting to block their competition from pulling off such a deal.   Understandably, they are protecting their place in the standings.  But you also have other owners who, regardless of standings, talk about the integrity of the league and how it is no longer about knowledge and savvy GM-ship, but about who can pull off the most egregious dump trade at the deadline.

There’s also a third group that lurks in here.  There are those that are not in favor of the dump trade, but feel that they are forced into it based on the trade market established by the league.  If the league vote vetoes the dump trades, then this owner has nothing to worry about.  But if your league passes them through, then this owner is left with the decision between: Do I make my own dump trade to keep up with the Joneses or do I maintain my ethics and integrity and risk finishing in 7th place?  More often than not, the former is the road most often taken.

Every side has it’s merits and every side has it’s flaws, but the bottom line is that it’s up to the league to ultimately decide.  That is why there is a league vote and not some autonomous commissioner ruling.  Sure, you can go that route, but usually the commissioner has a vested interest in the league and shouldn’t be allowed to make such unilateral decisions without some sort of checks and balances.  You could go to a third party site, but who are these people voting and how do they know what’s really fair or not fair in your particular league?  How do they know if your league favors starting pitching which ultimately increases the value of a player like Clayton Kershaw?  They don’t.  Not to mention the fact that most people voting on these sites go by names rather than actual research and numbers.

The responsibility is in the hands of the owners and whether you are for or against this common keeper league practice/dilemma, you have to trust the process no matter how flawed it may be.  Lobbying for votes to sway it towards your opinions is wrong.  You have to let everyone make their own decisions.  Owners at the top will usually vote no, owners at the bottom will usually vote yes, and the decision is ultimately made by those that are paying close enough attention to vote objectively based on the merits of the trade.  If the player being dumped for four non-keepers is truly worth it, then the trade should go through.  If not, then it’s back to the drawing board and time to re-work the deal.  When the league speaks, stop arguing and actually listen.





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

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Andrew
12 years ago

Voting on each trade one-by-one is nonsense. All trades should be approved unless there is collusion at play.

It’s pretty simple: if you don’t like dump trades, don’t take part in keeper leagues. Keeper leagues NEED dump trades for survival.

The Open Market Trading system is the best format I have seen for resolving this issue and really leaves no room for complaints.

R M
12 years ago
Reply to  Andrew

This is a ridiculous statement. Open markets lead to situations like we have in America right now….an extremely wide gap between the rich and the poor. You get a few dominant teams at the top, a few absolutely depleted teams at the bottom, and a bunch of mediocre teams that are good enough to stay with it but have no chance of winning. I am in a 20 team league that has a tight voting policy and is going strong in its 4th season. Most of the leagues I have been in with this laissez-faire type voting policy have become inactive within 1 or 2 seasons. Until you have a full group of owners that you know are absolutely knowledgeable and dedicated to the league, you can be pretty sure your league isn’t going to last long with an “open market” trading system.

Cody
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

This is by far the worst comment I have ever read.

The problem with America right now is that the majority apologizes for the poor and loathes the rich. Let me rephrase that, the majority apologizes for those who did not strive to learn and achieve success financially and loath those who worked hard to learn and achieve success financially.

Why should the rich be condemned for being successful? Why should the poor be revered for being unsuccessful? This is horrible logic and is why economies, governments, and societies fail time and time again.

batpig
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

obviously rich people worked hard and poor people didn’t! easy peasy!

Andrew
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

In an Open Market Trading system for dump trades, the rebuilding owner places his stud on the open market and then gets to pick and choose the best offer for his team. It is in the best interest of the league long-term if the rebuilding owners gets as much as he can for his stud. The other contending owners can all choose how much they are willing to give up. In this way, nobody can complain. Why exactly do you have a problem with that, R M?

Rob
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

First off-
Don’t start your reply with “this is a ridiculous statement”. That already shows you’re not the type of person who reads and respects other owner’s opinion. You are showing that you think you know it all and no one else knows what they are talking about. Basically you are saying you are the type of person who vetoes trades because you know what is best (which is impossible because baseball is not an exact science, otherwise there wouldn’t be a need to play at all).

Contrats on your awesome league of 20 teams in the 4th spectacular season of drama free with you “absolutely knowledgeable and dedidcated” owners. Your fantasy baseball Utopia sounds quite annoying acually… let owners make their own decisions and you worry about your team. If you don’t like the way the league is set up (or how apparently knowledgeable you opponents are) find another league. Please not one of mine though.

Alex
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

I love armchair economics mostly because you can take a group of 350,000,000 people living together and decide how to fix it in one sentence, all while seemingly making other people look stupid.

And no, trickle down economics doesn’t work. The tax rate on the wealthy was 94% in 1945. NINETY FOUR PERCENT. It stayed over 90% all the way until 1964 at which point it was lowered to 77%, where it stayed for some time. You can thank mostly Reagan for its low of 28%, which has pretty much become the norm, with the top bracket now in the mid 30’s. Yet the wealthy bitch and moan about raising it to 40%. These aren’t your well-off upper class people we’re talking about, these are people that make over $1 MILLION a YEAR. How many of these people do you think actually started out with nothing, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work?

Alex
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

The American dream is dying along with the middle class. Our Government, politicians and lawyers will be our end.

I’m sorry that I actually just got political on a baseball site. It won’t happen again.

Cody
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

I love baseball because it is a free market. I love the fact that there is no cap and the fact that teams like the Rays and Marlins (the teams I grew up with, follow, and love) can face giants like the Yankees, Phillies, and Red Sox and prevail. They prevail, not because they are rich, but because they make smart decisions and work hard. They prevail because they do not make excuses and point to the fact that they are less “fortunate” than others.

I grew up below the poverty line and now I am currently on my way to financial security for the rest of my life because I studied hard and worked hard to get where I am. My brother on the other hand goofed off in school, got in trouble with the law, and can now barely stay out of jail/hold down a job. Why would anyone pity him and loath me? I made good decisions and he made bad decisions. How is that logical?

I hope to be a millionaire one day. It is a goal that I have in life. Most millionaires have acquired the fortunes in the same manner. Most ARE NOT silver spoon offspring (look at the general richest people in the world lists). And if they are, they usually fade into oblivion within a few generations. Those who are rich, do great things with their fortunes. Not because they are forced to by some government, but because they want to. Because it fulfills them.

Baseball and Objectivism philosophy mirror each other in numerous ways and it is why I love both.

magguu
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

“The problem with America right now is that the majority apologizes for the poor and loathes the rich.”

The poor ARE the majority. What are you smoking? The ability to convince so many poor to vote for policies that only help the rich is the greatest achievement in the history of the Republican party.

Feeding the Abscess
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

Alex:

You could have driven several 18 wheel vehicles through the deductions in the tax code when the rates were so high. To actually believe that anyone paid those rates is to believe in fairy tales.

Hawaii 0-5
12 years ago
Reply to  R M

My league has been around since 1986 and has never vetoed a trade. Fail