Should Vetoes Be Allowed?
Vetoes are a popular check and balance to the trade market, but it’s unclear whether they should even be allowed in most leagues. I have a firm opinion on the topic, but my main goal is to create a discussion about the pros and cons of trade vetoes as we head into Thanksgiving break.
The purpose of the veto is to prevent unfair trades from affecting the league. It seems, in theory, to suggest an owner’s sole sources of surplus value should be from the draft or waiver wire. They should not be able to acquire surplus value from their rivals.
This argument holds more merit in a league with widely varying skill levels. For example, if you put Eno Sarris and your mom into the same league, it stands to reason that Eno would have a big advantage. Eno’s probably many, many times better at fantasy baseball than your mom. Probably.
There’s nothing wrong with unbalanced leagues, the kind that let co-workers, families, or childhood friends share something over which to bond. However, judging from the comments here on RotoGraphs, most of you are in cutthroat leagues with a competitive field of owners. I’m sure there are one or two laggards, but every owner knows what they’re doing.
In such an environment, the use case for a veto is seemingly marginalized. If everybody knows what they’re doing, then a seemingly lopsided trade was made intentionally. Unless you can prove collusion, it’s probably just a case of divergent values. Is it fair to veto a trade because one owner sees things differently than the majority of the league?
Let’s consider the Mike Trout trade I discussed on Monday in the ottoneu league FanGraphs Staff Two.
I received:
$55 Mike Trout
$14 Jonathan Lucroy
A rival received:
$5 Corey Seager
$4 Steven Souza
$3 Jace Peterson
The general assessment was that I rooked my rival. One commenter said he would consider a veto of this trade. However, another commenter did the math using Steamer values and found that both Trout and Lucroy are overpriced. My own price sheet has them as slight values, but only because I manipulate what I consider the “neutral price” to favor skill sets I like.
So we have a trade where sentiment strongly favors me, but the math is less rosy. Moreover, this is a situation where mine was perhaps the only team that could afford to acquire Trout. His owner would have been forced to cut other high quality players like Robinson Cano, Stephen Strasburg, or David Price if he kept Trout. With their price tags, those players wouldn’t have returned much.
This is a situation where both owners accomplished a specific, reasonable goal, and the math is at least somewhat supportive of the trade being fair. By comparison, if I had made the same trade in a standard Yahoo league, one where prospects hold almost no value, there would be a stronger cause for a veto.
In a competitive league, the best remedy to an owner who consistently makes bad trades is to replace him or her. Using the veto is simply masking the symptoms of a broken league. I’ve seen leagues where trading stops completely, owners leave, or the veto is used tactically to prevent other rivals from improving.
My advice regarding vetoes is to enact a league constitution with clear guidelines regarding when a veto can be used. In my own leagues, a trade must be “clearly unconscionable.” Owners participating in such trades, especially the seller, are subject to removal at the commissioner’s discretion.
These are some of my high level thoughts about vetoes. They’re a dangerous tool that can take away from the enjoyment of a league. A veto is like taking advil for a sore pitching shoulder. It will mask the pain, but it won’t fix your problem. In fact, if you keep pitching, the advil will just let you do more damage. Vetoes are the same way, they just make the league even worse. I always prefer to attack the cause of a problem rather than a symptom.
I didn’t mean to make this so much about how I feel, it just happened that way. Mainly, I’m interest in how you feel about vetoes. So get to it.
You can follow me on twitter @BaseballATeam
How can I get my mom in a league with Eno??
A few years back, my league vetoed this trade:
Wade Davis for Ricky Nolasco.
Thank God they did, a blockbuster like that would have ruined the league for seven generations.
Short answer, “yes” with an “if.” Long answer, “no” with a “but.”
Should be available but very, very seldom deployed. You don’t want a league wrecked by an obvious collusion with no redress. (Like, say, Mike Trout and Gio Stanton for Glenn Perkins and Ivan Nava in a league with no keepers or budgetary constraints, with one owner dumping their good players to their best pal or seeking to ruin the league because something didn’t go their way, like a jilted lover scorned). Otherwise it shouldn’t be used when both players legitimately think they’re helping their teams or when someone is acquiring keepers to build for the future at the expense of their current year’s talent. When in doubt, don’t veto. It should be treated as a nuclear option for the league commish.
Yes, Ivan Nava is the love-child of Daniel Nava and Ivan Nova, obviously.
In the leagues that I’m in, it seems like every year, there’s a veto challenge, but not one has stuck. Some really lopsided trades that appeared to have made some managers resign from the league the next year have gone through without issue because the only valid reason for a veto is if there is evidence of collusion,, and collusion is extremely difficult to prove
It’s not that hard to prove at all. In my leagues I simply ask each involved manager to tell me why they want their side of the trade. If the guy getting shafted doesn’t have a good reason for getting shafted… veto.
What’s the standard? I’ve seen managers over value Daniel Bard thinking that after the SP experiment was over that he would just go back to being the elite RP that he had always been and so he valued him right about where most people would value Clippard in holds leagues. Was it a bad evaluation? Certainly, and most people knew that in the league, but this guy really believed that he could be an elite back of the bullpen pitcher.
I’ve seen guys overvalue prospects because they’re prospects. I’ve seen guys undervalue older players with no signs of doom on the horizon. What if teams know they’re giving up too much, but desperately need to fill in a position? What’s to stop them from lying about their evaluations? Not every fantasy GM is up on sabermetrics, and some just dislike them. Some guys value their favorite players way too much, or players from their favorite teams. See how easy explinations can be to fake? Basically anyone who wanted to commit collusion could come up with anyone of these excuses to make it look like something else, and the investigation would end right then and there.
Vetoes make some sense in non-keeper, redraft league if the trade is “clearly unconscionable”. But in a keeper league it’s almost impossible to justify them if one team is playing for the present and the other the future. Often times the obvious winner of a keeper-league trade isn’t clear for months if not years, if ever.
I have run a keeper league consisting of 16 teams for 5+ years now with probably close to 50 trades per year (including offseason) and there has yet to be a veto of a trade. Fingers crossed that continues.
that is great. question for you – do you see your winners (or, say, top 3 finishers) change out often – is there parity? or does it seem that one owner consistently wins both the trades as well as the league?
Vetoes for collusion, yes. Vetoes because one owner fleeced another, no. We’ve implemented “anti-tanking” rules in some of our keeper leagues where owners who are selling out for the future are penalized, usually a case of beer being brought to the next draft. We’ve also implemented a rule where if an owner is trading their picks for the following season, they must pay for that season upfront. This has eliminated the franchises which are trading everything to go for it this season, and then fold the next season because their roster would be junky.
Vetos are a necessary evil that should be used very sparingly.
In leagues with unbalanced skill level, they are especially needed.
In competitive leagues there are needed at certain times such as :
1. An owner is leaving a keeper league and goes all in for this year.
2. One year leagues where one owner is out of contention.
3. Trades across multiple leagues ie. I will trade you Trout for Howie kendrick in this league if you trade me Trout for Howie Kendick in our other league.
In a football keeper league that I’m in, we have a set of rules where any discrepancy (including trades) are ONLY reviewed if someone files a grievance. From there, we form a 3-person committee that reviews and provides a ruling. The committee is composed of random and unbiased managers and does NOT include: the commissioner, the manager(s) in question, and the manager that files a grievance. We’ve only had to use it twice, but it keeps things pretty hunky dory and I think the drama is low because of this as well.
Who do you play with, the UN?
Naw. In the UN, the panel would be larger than the whole league. Veto decisions would be made by a majority vote, except 10% of the league would have the power to veto the veto. At that point, nothing would happen until the chance to air the same grievance came up again a few months or years later. Finally, even if a veto was approved, one of the teams would then need to pony up their own time and money to enforce it.
The answer is this:
Yes, but you should then be willing to say to the person that you don’t want them in the league anymore (whether its because they are a cheater or because you view them too stupid to run their own team properly).
The bar should be high, as in 75% or so of the league. If there are 12 owners not involved in a trade, and 9 are willing to veto, chances are pretty good that there’s something seriously wrong with the trade.
I play in a 14 team dynasty league that started as a group of friends and has slowly morphed into a more competitive group as original owners have been replaced with random recruits from internet sites over the years. The mix is now 50/50. We have no formal rule about when a veto should be used, but we have a guideline that it should be used sparingly and owners are given the benefit of a doubt. Veto votes typically come up about once a year, and I haven’t seen one pass in my 4 years in the league. Usually when a vote comes up, it involves a new owner who is getting used to how players are valued around the league.
I agree with this and would say as a general rule, all parties not in the trade minus 1 is a great benchmark. In an active league, everyone should see the trade and be able to veto it.
Many veto issues come from leagues like Yahoo, which require a 1/3 MINORITY to veto trades. This pretty much means that a small number of jerks can completely freeze trading for the whole season.
As someone who has played a lot of public leagues, vetos tend to happen a lot in the intermediate-competitive leagues. Those are ones where the owners are competitive enough to care, but too short-sighted to realize that if they veto everyone else’s trades, they won’t get any trades through when they need them either.
This. Vetos for a super majority only (~2/3 of teams not involved in the trade). And while I’ll grant anyone the right to Veto for any reason, I would strongly encourage they be used only in cases of suspected collusion. Vetoing because you don’t think a trade is even is BS. Vetoing because the trade hurts your own team is BS. Vetoing because a newbie is being taken advantage of is also BS. Only collusion.
Had a fellow owner vote to veto my $29 Bruce for $23 Zimmermann. It went through but there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that trade.
Some owners are “gee I’d never veto, don’t wanna ruffle any feathers!”
And at the other end of the spectrum you have “that trade isn’t helping MY team, of course I’ll vote against it!” knee-jerk response.
Both are kinda numbnuts in their own way, just different breeds of the same species.
I agree with the consensus – you need some check on trades that aren’t made in good faith. The only time I’ve seen vetoes used was in a redraft league where one owner was so angry at being in last place in July that he started offering his stars in trades for backups. After that was vetoed, the owner dropped all his players to waivers. The commissioner manually undid each drop, and I think the owner eventually just didn’t check his team for the rest of the year.
Point being, if you’re in a league with mature and rational people, you don’t need vetoes. If you’re in a league with real people, it’s probably good to have the option.
does anyone have a requirement that a team must shop a player to X other teams? What does everyone think of that. If teams actually looked around the league to see what they could get, I’m sure that would prevent a lot of lopsided trades in keeper leagues where it might be hard to gauge keeper value.
How would the league know though? Would they be mandated to post the trade offers that they got when the trade gets posted? Whats to keep them from just fielding offers with no care for negotiations because they just want to take the offer that originally worked on?
the owner would have to say, “I offered Cano to X, Y, and Z.” If that’s not true, X,Y, or Z will speak up.
A concern may be that if you’re already about a 4 person faction who only deal among themselves, they will just use each other to satisfy the rule. But I think the rule would allow many in the league to say “Hey, stop only asking X,Y, and Z.”
So what’s to stop them from making outrageous offers knowing that they’ll get turned down just so that he can make his quotas? You could do that to every team in the league knowing that not only will you get rejected, but teams will unlikely bother making a counter offer.
1. The teams (assuming they’re not in the faction) will say that your offer was outrageous
2. You might counter with a better offer than what that team ultimately receives.
There’s no way to prevent a guy from colluding with his buddy (besides removal), but a rule like this (I’m trying to get ideas on how to get it to work) might get some teams to start shopping around when they were either (1) too lazy or content before or (2) not as comfortable talking to the rest of the league as they were another guy.
Personally, if I’m trying to make a trade, I’ll message as many teams as I think might work. Through teams having unrealistic expectations (in general or just with me) or being slow to respond (if at all), I end up trading with maybe 3 or 4 teams only. But no one would accuse me of colluding with any of these guys. They know I ask around.
Scroll down OT. I think the ability to rescind a trade would serve the function you’re looking for.
Better is subjective depending on the needs of the team in question and their personal valuation of talent, eligibility, age, etc.. Obviously at a certain point those arguments would break down, but it’s a difficult system to nail down. Perhaps you might just be better off using a ‘blind’ veto system. No one knows if anyone has voted to veto the trade, but if they feel like it’s truly lopsided then they can vote, and if more than 50% of the league wants to veto the trade, then it gets vetoed. If you have guys who vote to veto everything, you can warn them or kick them if it gets really bad.
I would suggest that you setup an email account for the league to send vetos to, and whenever you get enough, you can give the league access to the password to confirm.
Hardly any team does the legwork to try to find the most for their players, especially a team in the bottom half of the standings in July.
I’ve recently tried to implement a counter-offer rule. During the trade-review period (3 days in my league) any other manager can try to counter or up the offer. It seems to work well, as managers that accept counter offers get less “bad” offers in the future due to their willingness to walk away from the bad deal.
My league has a 24 hour period in which either party can rescind a trade. Ostensibly, other owners can use that time to make better offers. It’s not encouraged, but it’s not explicitly disallowed either.
There is a corollary rule to prevent this from becoming widespread. If you rescind a trade you cannot trade the players involved for a period of 10 days.
Brad, I like the idea of getting other offers on the table, and in public (at least after the fact, see below), but that system doesn’t force the owner to take the best offer either. Yes, there might be social pressure like “why would you take that offer” or “why do you always seem to take offers from A and B”.
My conversation a few posts above seems to work in a similar way but might have some advantages. It works in the same way because it forces the manager to hear offers they otherwise were not interested in seeking. They’re not forced to take the best offer, but there will still be the same social pressure I described above.
The advantage, however, is in the secrecy of offers. In some leagues, it’s bad form to tell someone else the offers you get. You can say “Do better or else I’ll take another deal” but you can’t really say what the other guy was offering or looking for. My proposal keeps offers secret (unless in the one instance collusion is alleged), and you as a manager in that situation has the option of keeping your offer secret if you want. Remember, my scenario would require the accused party to demonstrate the offers he sent out to the X teams he was required to offer, not any subsequent counter offers. Anyone alleging collusion can then rebut by showing offers that the accused received and rejected, but they do not have to if they want their offer/intentions to remain secret
I also want to reiterate that I have not formally tried this in a league. I’m wondering if it can work and the best way to make it work, and comparing it to other proposals.
I have used the idea whenever a friend of mine joins a league full of people who don’t know the guy. If we come up with a trade, I’ll tell him to shop his players to other guys so they can’t allege collusion
In my experience it’s the “veto button” that get’s most abused.
I force any veto’ing manager to post publicly well thought out reasons why they are veto’ing. If 3 managers veto a trade, both managers involved have to defend their side of the trade to the commish.
If the guy getting shafted doesn’t have a good reason to make the trade (ie play for next year, difference in player value etc) then I let it go. If he doesn’t come up with something believable (i just felt like trading) then no… you can’t disrupt the balance of the rest of the league due to your lack of interest in competing… and THEN you get officially veto’d. And likely replaced by a new manager.
If the guy just really wants the bad side of a deal, you can’t stop him from doing that, it’s the guy that was talked into making a bad trade when he is not in a position to care about what happens in the league that I like to step in and see what’s going on.
That was “If the guy getting shafted DOES have a good reason to make the trade (ie play for next year, difference in player value etc) then I let it go.”
I’d add to that that there should be a sharp limit on the number of times that a veto vote can be requested. Something like the replay challenge system: You get one veto request a year. If you request a veto, and the league votes to uphold it, you get one more veto request for that year. Otherwise you lose your privilege to request a veto vote for the rest of the season.
That’s a lot of extra’neous apostrophe’s, friend’o!
I am in favor of using a veto. I agree with Roger that a high, 2/3 or 3/4 threshold is warranted. If that many people believe something is wrong – that is basically the entire league (excluding the two who made the trade). What’s wrong with players taking democratic control of their league? I find anti-veto sentiment to be extreme, almost fascist, in its anti-regulatory zeal. “Vetoes Should NEVER BE ALLOWED!” Like there is some purity to trade markets in fantasy baseball and that the guy who ripped off the other player is some kind of social darwinist hero. I’m in favor of fair play and vetoes serve as a regulatory check to ensure it as they are democratic. On the topic of collusion – I don’t think that the concept should even exist as it is simply impossible to prove. What, are we going to hire a private detective or issue subpoenas for emails? You will never know intent, so when considering a veto you should only consider your own valuation. I believe that the concept of collusion is mostly employed by anti-veto purists to show that they are reasonable – like there are some cases when the veto is warranted. But in reality such a situation of collusion is impossible to prove, so saying you are ok with vetoes in cases of collusion is like saying you don’t believe in the veto.
I think the big thing that people complain about with vetos is that when thresholds are below 50%, they’re actually undemocratic. In that a small minority can block all progress. Well, okay, that’s sort of how politics in real life works, but people want Fantasy Baseball, not Fantasy Congress!
When people say they are OK with vetoes in cases of collusion, it just refers to cases in which collusion is suspected and plausible. No one requires absolute proof or incontrovertible evidence.
I’m so glad you brought this up. I agree 100% …. The term “collusion” is totally irrelevant and is often a smokescreen crutch for those who are anti-veto. Like you said, nobody is telepathic. Nobody is getting e-mails subpoenae’d. Collusion is unprovable, and intent is irrelevant.
Calling a spade a spade, the issue is players being dumped for significantly less than market value. Like say I offer Wainwright for Tulo to an owner, and next thing I know I look up and the deal going down is Liriano for Tulo to another owner. Regardless of whether the seller dealt Tulo to his buddy for a favor or to some guy he doesn’t know just because he wasn’t paying attention, the effect is the same, and it’s just as unfair to the rest of the league.
I agree with whoever said that an owner needs to prove that they shopped around. In the above scenario, if the guy actually shopped Tulo publicly and clearly and received no better offers, more power to him. But if nobody knew the guy is available and he undersells, or he literally receives a better offer and takes a far worse one, either way the owner is not playing to win and is unfairly disrupting the competitive balance of the league. It’s out of bounds. In a serous league, these kinds of deals absolutely should not be allowed.
The only problem with veto voting is there is a very high pct. Of owners out there who don’t ever want to “rock the boat” and just don’t have the cojones to vote veto.
So I do believe it works best in the commissioner’s hand, but I don’t think its healthy for the league long term for the commish to do so without strong support from owners.
These kind of deals are basically a commissioner’s nightmare. It’s a thankless job.
Don’t play fantasy baseball with tools…problem solved. The one league I was in with veto problems was filled with frat bros. in better leagues–no need for a veto.
Auctions and Keeper leagues make it complicated since we can consider the future value or return.
Some people will only see year ending value and think a trade should be vetoed
In a competent league veto is there as a nuclear option to save a season from being ruined, but probably means selling player is booted by next season. Or both seller and buyer if colluding.
I’ve been in a keep-players-forever league for over a decade, and while vetoes are technically allowed, I’ve never seen a single trade blocked. I think that’s a good thing.
I’m Commissioner of a very custom keeper/dynasty league who has final approval of all trades after the league votes. We tried to simulate more of a GM experience in addition to the daily lineup play; therefore, we have more options than most leagues. For example, multiteam trades, cash, PTBNL, a 5 year time limit on ownership before a player becomes a free agent, etc., are part of our game.
Neither the league nor I have ever vetoed a trade which may say something about the team owners. Although there are different skill levels, it’s a very active, highly competitive group. All of them play to win and collusion is not a concern. (We have nightly “meetings” during the season while the games are on TV and openly discuss/negotiate trades with almost everyone in the league present on the chatboard. From other leagues that I play, I’d say this league is unique.)
IMO, given the high flame out rate of prospects, I think you are the clear winner of that trade, but that’s in a vacuum. IDK what other players your teams own or your league’s rules. Even then although I might not value some players the same as someone else does, it doesn’t make me right.
Because there isn’t a collusion concern and because this is a keeper league, I don’t ever expect to need/use veto authority with this group of team owners in this league.
That said, in a redraft league with money on the line and unknown participants, somebody needs to keep an eye to watch for collusion and player dumps to keep it fair for all.
PS. I am your grandmom (the only female), a stat nerd, computer geek, and usually win.
Granny:
Your league would probably never need the veto due to the level of players you attract.
An average public league player, or a general working league is not going going to be playing in your league; where your by-laws are longer and more complicated than the sites’ working laws.
But thank you for the details of your league, it sounds interesting and full of yearly audits. (* You guys sit and chat online nightly????? Prison League?
Hey J Mo,
You are absolutely correct.
As I said, a different kind of league needs someone to keep the group honest. It’s not necessary in our league but you never know in the future. We could lose and need to replace team owners and the dynamic could change.
Our league evolved over a period of years from a public type league to what we have now based on the discussions of the league members. We don’t have bylaws and our rules are less complicated than Ottoneu. We just allow a lot of stuff to make it as realistic as possible.
Prison league? LOL! We’re international with players from Canada, New Zealand, and Venezuela in addition to the US. We have almost every cultural and ethnic group represented. The age range is 25-65 with the majority being 30 something. (I’m not the oldest.) We have annual meeting at a ballpark somewhere, so we’ve all met just about everyone in person.
Everyone has MLB.TV and a favorite team. Almost all owners log into the league chatboard when they are watching baseball to discuss the games, engage in trash talk, or whatever. Science fiction, zombies, and players who pitch like zombies are popular topics. It’s like Science Mystery Theatre 3000 went to a ball game. The chats are hilarious.
It’s interesting how this group “met” each other and the league was formed, but that’s another story.
I’ve run an 8-team 15 x 15 Yahoo redraft league for 9 years. I keep sole veto power as Commissioner, but I allow any GM to make their case for why they don’t like someone else’s trade. If their case has merit, or if I question the trade myself, I give the teams involved 2 days to explain their thinking and logic in detail. And “I think Nava is better than Trout” doesn’t fly as an explanation. Having said that, I tell everyone I’m not Commissioner to save you from your own stupidity. If you CAN make a case for Nava being better than Trout, then I’ll allow the deal to go through.
I gave myself veto power because I had an issue with collusion some years back, and it completely wrecked the season. Is it fair that I have the final say? Yes, because I take great pride in running a fun, competitive league. Everything is spelled out for everyone in a very detailed Commissioner’s Note right up front. My philosophy over the years has become I’m going to run a clean, competitive league. If you don’t like it, there are lots of joke leagues out there. Join one of them.
Later in this thread, I call for exactly what you do: having vetoes wrapped up in a well experienced, benevolent commish.
SUNSHINE – There are no vetoes in my league, but the EXACT terms of each trade must be posted for 48 hours before any trades can be consummated. (Any change in any term necessitates a new post and a new 48 hour window.)
That gives each owner a chance to review the trade, offer a better trade (if they can), or persuade either party that it’s a bad trade.
Vetoes are the epitome of the slippery slope and should therefore only be used exceedingly sparingly. For instance, I am in a 10 team 5×5 Roto NL Only auction keeper league with contracts and as I just came back to the league after a 5 year hiatus as an expansion team, I was in hardcore rebuild mode for 2014. We can keep up to 15 players and 5 minor leaguers and a rotation draft fills the 40 man rosters after the auction draft fills the starting 24.
Since I knew I was rebuilding I started trading a few weeks in to maximize the value of the more expensive players I drafted for my trade partners. One of the trades I made received a lot of negativity from the other owners in the league:
I gave:
Brandon Belt $21 2 years
Daniel Murphy $22 2 years
Austin Hedges $10 Minors
I got:
Anthony Rendon $10 2 years
Kolten Wong $10 1 year
Corey Seager $10 Minors
Keep in mind this was very early in the season when Belt was crushing the ball, Rendon was not yet a household name, and Wong was performing badly enough to get sent down to AAA for a couple weeks. Many owners were saying well this league is a wrap for the now Belt owner’s team to finish first and that it would not ven be close.
If we examine this now It is clear that I came out ahead not only for the future, but on production for 2014 as well. I had honestly hoped Belt and Murphy would perform well for my trade partner and wholey expected to take the loss in 2014 for the gain in 2015. My trade partner wound up finishing 6th and I placed 7th and I am glad that I play in a league to where it would take a Kershaw for Vogelsong trade of disproportion to actually get vetoed, all grumblings of owners aside
I’m surprised that this trade drew static. I think you got good value in return and obviously you saved some money. Sometimes roto league players react to these things according to which player happens to be on a hot streak at the moment. Even in experienced leagues, you can have short-sighted owners.
The genesis of most bad, one-sided trades are leagues where the ability gap of owners is wide enough for the strong to pilfer the weak.
So rather than vetoing trades, why not a league where membership is up for a vote too each year, with the goal of weening out weak owners and replace them with better ones?
Works fine if you have time to play every year and build a solid core. Not so good if you need to make a game-time decision about joining/starting a random league every spring if you will be in one place and not crushed by deadlines over most of the summer.
I’m a huge proponent of having the commissioner being the sole arbiter of vetoes for trades.
In experienced leagues, vetoes rarely come up, but in any “friends and family” redraft league, you’d be shocked how rookie and basic many owners are. I’m in a redraft fantasy football league with friends and family now. I was winning until a guy got DeMarco Murray from his recently eliminated neighbor for 3 backups. League voting vetoes was insufficient; this required a strong commish hand.
The more experienced the league, the less this BS happens.
In my fantasy (redraft) hockey league, I suggested giving the commissioner veto powers (rather than 4/12 owners, or whatever stupid number yahoo has), and allowing each team to explain their decision before the commissioner vetoes a trade. This idea was turned down by other owners because they thought the commissioner wouldn’t be fair about it…and now 2 months into the season we’ve already had 3 reasonable trades vetoed because 4 owners apparently think every trade is unfair.
So now, when offering a trade, there are two things to consider:
1) am I getting the better end of the deal?
2) am I getting too good a deal, to the point where it will get vetoed?
It’s absolutely ridiculous.
2 more thoughts:
#1. Vetoes for me aren’t to avoid changing the balance of power as the article states. They’re for avoiding collusion and nothing more. People should be free to win trades: this is a game, right?
#2. Popular vote vetoes invariably descend into real life pecking orders in basic leagues: everyone gangs up on the real life whipping boy, everyone teams up on the winner, everyone votes against every deal……It’s fine in a legit league, but in basic leagues, it’s awful.
I’ve only been in one league where a veto was necessary, and we ended up having to kick out the “weak” owner 2-3 months later.
I have been in other leagues where vetoes happened but they were abusive.
In one league I run we do the following:
The commish gives the trade the eye test. One that clearly looks fine (about 90% of trades) gets approved right away. If it looks lopsided, then the trade sits for 2 days, during that time any manager can challenge the trade. If no challenge then it passes (about 90% of the time it comes to this, so 99% of trades get passed in 2 days or less). The few that do get challeged get put up to league vote, you get 3 days to vote, and a majority have to vote against. the teams that made the trade both state the basic rationale for why they made the trade (ie if you are getting prospects- state you are in rebuild and then why you like those prospects).
Most of us use the rule; if there is a reasonable reason to make the trade from both sides, let it pass. so if you trade a Trout for Heyward and say it is to get younger, it will get vetoed since trout is younger and better (your reason is just wrong)
I can’t believe how many commenters favor veto’s. Get some panties on girls and play with the big boys and trades should never, EVER be veto’d. EVER.
I had too many trades veto’d in yahoo keeper leagues where people thought I was getting shafted. One of them involved selling Hamilton high they year he hit 43hrs, along with Sabathia (who was still a ‘stud’ according to those idiots) and someone else I can’t recall. No one tells me value on my players, and I”m not telling value on any other players. Play ball.