One Trade Is Tearing My League Apart (1 Viewer)

[NeonDeion21]

I am the commish of a 16 team auction keeper league. Our draft has a $200 budget. In our league, you can trade a maximum of $25 of your next years budget.

This was a trade that went down.

Team 1 (4-2): Sends Jimmy Graham and Harry Douglas.

Team 2 (5-1) Sends $25.

It's a crappy trade. Whatever. But the two teams are brothers. Is this collusion or a fair trade? The league leans strongly towards collusion. I say it should stay. Thoughts?

 

[ImTheScientist]

Nope, not collusion.

 

[TheCommish]

Should stay, but it would be interesting to know how many players you can keep.

This is one reason I stay clear of keeper and dynasty leagues. You can have a great team, but then some team (or teams) give up on their season and trade away their studs for next year's assets. Seems like a lot of the unbalanced trades posted in this forum are in keeper and dynasty leagues. You need to know what you're getting into with these leagues, because it's tough to value things in the future.

 

[Long Ball Larry]

Who is team 1's TE now?

 

[FF Wiseguy]

My guess is collusion, but I think you need more to go on other than the fact that they're brothers and that at 4-2, the team sending Graham has no reason to think this year is over. But who knows? I have a guy who started 3-1 and put a note out saying his best player was available and looking for keepers.

If he doesn't feel his team is a contender despite his record and having Graham, then that's his call. And yes, Graham should go for more than $25, but that is the cap, so he's restricted in that way.

I would say talk to the two brothers. Let them know the trade concerns the league is why. Let the owner trading Graham explain his reasoning, and have the league vote on it. Best you can do. I agree with you that you should let it stay.

 

[NeonDeion21]

Jordan Cameron. Even more of a reason it should stand.

 

[Khy]

Should stay, but it would be interesting to know how many players you can keep.

This is one reason I stay clear of keeper and dynasty leagues. You can have a great team, but then some team (or teams) give up on their season and trade away their studs for next year's assets. Seems like a lot of the unbalanced trades posted in this forum are in keeper and dynasty leagues. You need to know what you're getting into with these leagues, because it's tough to value things in the future.

Yeah, the best way to evaluate dynasty and keepers when its a question of "Is this collusion" is almost always "No... shutup it's a dynasty league, you got yourself into this". Short of something like... Jimmy Graham for Chris Gragg straight up.

In this specific situation it sounds like Team 2 is going for the "Win this season" route and essentially punting next season but losing out on 1/8 of his overall budget. While Team 1 is saying "I'm not going to win this season, Graham will be rotting on my team, I'll trade him and go into next year with a stock pile of good money to draft a much better team". It's slightly unbalanced, sure. But Harry Douglas' involvement doesn't make it more or less unbalanced. He's probably useless.

Your league is looking at this trade all wrong, the way I see it, it should be valued like this:

Jimmy Graham for 2014 1st Round pick.

In a dynasty league that'd be considered a bad trade but still acceptable, in a keeper league though? I'm assuming you guys have some form of penalty for keeping certain high profile players? Then it's fine.

 

[WilsonTheVolleyball]

Trade should stand. If you don't like it, then propose a vote to ban the guy who gave up Graham and Douglas at the end of the season. If you don't want to accept the results of said vote, then you can quit the league.

 

[Khy]

Jordan Cameron. Even more of a reason it should stand.

Oh, well then the league is just being obnoxious. Team 1 is clearly thinking "Graham might be hurt, we're not hearing much besides 'signs point to him being okay' and if I can cash him in for league maximum budget trade for next season I may be able to turn this into a team that can make a run for 2-3 years in a row at the championship".

Tell the rest of your league they're insane and bickering like children. Then maybe link them to this thread so they can see that everyone agrees with you here. There's nothing at all wrong with this trade.

 

[RUSF18]

Is Graham eligible to be kept next season? At what price (if applicable)?

Having an extra 12.5% budget for the next season is pretty good, as that would typically get a solid RB or could turn your good RB2 into another RB1. Maybe this guy would have done it even if it meant giving up $50 for next year, so in that case, your league rules made it seem worse. Who else would you trade the maximum amount of money for, if not for one of the best guys at his position? And if you think that amount isn't enough to make it "right", why have that be the max, or why have the rule at all?

That being said, it could also very easily be a situation where one brother gets to load up this year while the other starts at an advantage next year, but that isn't clear cut.

 

[NeonDeion21]

Thanks fellas. This is why the Shark Pool is awesome.

 

[buddhacwru]

Have you considered raising your trade cap to say $50 or $40 bucks? Why $25?

 

[Craig_MiamiFL]

You didn't provide a lot of additional details, but trade should stand.

 

[Khy]

Have you considered raising your trade cap to say $50 or $40 bucks? Why $25?

I assume to avoid situations like... well this?

One team could just trade away 1/4 of their next season for say ADP and Justin Blackmon and it'd be hard to fight that. It'd be like in a 20 round draft trading away your first 5 picks for them next year. It's essentially saying "I won't win next year but I'm almost guaranteed to win this year". $25 is a solid cap.

 

[lod01]

Sounds like some people in that league had no clue about Jordan Cameron and team 1 did, scooping up BOTH Graham and Cameron.

Nothing wrong with this trade at all.

 

[pollardsvision]

One team now has (I assume) a cheap Cameron and an extra $25 at auction. Not too bad.

If Graham was expensive, it's a great trade.

If there's no wr/te slot, a trade like this was sort of inevitable. (Not necessarily for this reason but I think all leagues should have one btw. Or even better, 3 of them)

With so many good TEs, its silly to only be able to start one of them.

 

[The Duff Man]

Duct tape

 

[TheFanatic]

Let it stand...

 

[Sarnoff]

All trades are, by definition, collusion.

 

[fred_1_15301]

Nice trade for both teams. Not sure why anyone would have an issue with this.

 

[fred_1_15301]

Is this honestly tearing your league apart? If so, ditch these losers next year.......

 

[monk]

I am the commish of a 16 team auction keeper league. Our draft has a $200 budget. In our league, you can trade a maximum of $25 of your next years budget.

This was a trade that went down.

Team 1 (4-2): Sends Jimmy Graham and Harry Douglas.

Team 2 (5-1) Sends $25.

It's a crappy trade. Whatever. But the two teams are brothers. Is this collusion or a fair trade? The league leans strongly towards collusion. I say it should stay. Thoughts?

Tell your brother you are going to have to reverse it

 

[10tihwj]

The 2014 draft is supposed to be strong. Having an extra $25 to ensure the guy gets who he wants could be huge. Or he could blow it on the wrong guy. Point is, he got value for a TE he didn't need desperately and a WR whose value will never be higher.

 

[NeonDeion21]

I am the commish of a 16 team auction keeper league. Our draft has a $200 budget. In our league, you can trade a maximum of $25 of your next years budget.

This was a trade that went down.

Team 1 (4-2): Sends Jimmy Graham and Harry Douglas.

Team 2 (5-1) Sends $25.

It's a crappy trade. Whatever. But the two teams are brothers. Is this collusion or a fair trade? The league leans strongly towards collusion. I say it should stay. Thoughts?

Tell your brother you are going to have to reverse it

Not my brother. It's a league with family members we have been playing with for 10+ years. Family leagues suck.

 

[Captain Hook]

I am the commish of a 16 team auction keeper league. Our draft has a $200 budget. In our league, you can trade a maximum of $25 of your next years budget.

This was a trade that went down.

Team 1 (4-2): Sends Jimmy Graham and Harry Douglas.

Team 2 (5-1) Sends $25.

It's a crappy trade. Whatever. But the two teams are brothers. Is this collusion or a fair trade? The league leans strongly towards collusion. I say it should stay. Thoughts?

You don't say how long this league has been running but I would doubt too long and certainly not long after this - the ability to trade auction dollars for the following year is one of the worst rules imaginable for a keeper league and I have never seen one survive that had similar rules.

 

[Coeur de Lion]

I am the commish of a 16 team auction keeper league. Our draft has a $200 budget. In our league, you can trade a maximum of $25 of your next years budget.

This was a trade that went down.

Team 1 (4-2): Sends Jimmy Graham and Harry Douglas.

Team 2 (5-1) Sends $25.

It's a crappy trade. Whatever. But the two teams are brothers. Is this collusion or a fair trade? The league leans strongly towards collusion. I say it should stay. Thoughts?

Tell your brother you are going to have to reverse it

Not my brother. It's a league with family members we have been playing with for 10+ years. Family leagues suck.

Don't get this -- I'm close as hell with both of my brothers, but if anything I'm more competitive with them in FF and everything else. From experience, slipping a "thank you for beating _________ for last year's CAFFL title" into Thanksgiving grace at the big family dinner is effing priceless.

 

[Coeur de Lion]

BTW trade is 100% fine, IMO.

 

[cstu]

Jordan Cameron. Even more of a reason it should stand.

Oh, well then the league is just being obnoxious. Team 1 is clearly thinking "Graham might be hurt, we're not hearing much besides 'signs point to him being okay' and if I can cash him in for league maximum budget trade for next season I may be able to turn this into a team that can make a run for 2-3 years in a row at the championship".

Tell the rest of your league they're insane and bickering like children. Then maybe link them to this thread so they can see that everyone agrees with you here. There's nothing at all wrong with this trade.

This seems like a smart move by the team giving up Graham if he thinks he can win with Cameron. $25 doesn't seem like much but he'll be able to outbid a lot of people next year.

 

[cstu]

You don't say how long this league has been running but I would doubt too long and certainly not long after this - the ability to trade auction dollars for the following year is one of the worst rules imaginable for a keeper league and I have never seen one survive that had similar rules.

I completely agree it's a terrible. I suggest letting this trade stand and voting to remove it next season.

 

[GregR]

Let the owner trading Graham explain his reasoning...

This.

Ask the Graham owner why he feels this trade is to his benefit. Then ask him why he feels this is the best value that he could get for the players he traded.

Then go from there. The measure I would use is do I think a reasonable person could believe as he says he does. Not "do I think he's correct". Reasonable people believe a lot of things that are wrong.

If after that your league believes it is collusion, then deal with it (fining them cap room or keeper slots, kicking them out, whatever is appropriate). If it isn't collusion, then let the trade stand.

A middle ground position if not collusion and if the owner getting Graham is willing to help end the strife in the league, is roll back the trade with his agreement and let the Graham owner pursue another trade for him with everyone including his brother knowing he is available.

By the way, as a possible way of helping avoid this... my dynasty/salary cap league has a Fire Sale rule. If anyone is making trades that might be deemed a Fire Sale, they have to notify the entire league in advance so everyone can make offers on their players and any trades that go down will be at true market value. Our rule lists some of the factors that may cause a trade to be deemed as such (timing in season, current players for future considerations, team is not likely to make playoffs, aging vets for young players, etc), and says they can ask the commish in advance whether something might be deemed a Fire Sale if they aren't sure. And are advised that if they don't check, to err on the side that a trade will be considered one. After all, talking to more than one team about their players is never going to be to their detriment, so there is no reason not to do it.

 

[monk]

The 2014 draft is supposed to be strong. Having an extra $25 to ensure the guy gets who he wants could be huge. Or he could blow it on the wrong guy. Point is, he got value for a TE he didn't need desperately and a WR whose value will never be higher.

He got value for a TE he didn't need ? I'm Sorry I thought we were talking about Jimmy Graham on the Saints who is arguably the best scoring player @ any position other than QB

Never played in a league like this so I am not sure .... would it be a reasonable trade if it were Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant, Adrian Peterson , McCoy etc ... because Graham is outscoring all of them from the TE position.

 

[RUSF18]

Let the owner trading Graham explain his reasoning...

This.

Ask the Graham owner why he feels this trade is to his benefit. Then ask him why he feels this is the best value that he could get for the players he traded.

Then go from there. The measure I would use is do I think a reasonable person could believe as he says he does. Not "do I think he's correct". Reasonable people believe a lot of things that are wrong.

If after that your league believes it is collusion, then deal with it (fining them cap room or keeper slots, kicking them out, whatever is appropriate). If it isn't collusion, then let the trade stand.

A middle ground position if not collusion and if the owner getting Graham is willing to help end the strife in the league, is roll back the trade with his agreement and let the Graham owner pursue another trade for him with everyone including his brother knowing he is available.

By the way, as a possible way of helping avoid this... my dynasty/salary cap league has a Fire Sale rule. If anyone is making trades that might be deemed a Fire Sale, they have to notify the entire league in advance so everyone can make offers on their players and any trades that go down will be at true market value. Our rule lists some of the factors that may cause a trade to be deemed as such (timing in season, current players for future considerations, team is not likely to make playoffs, aging vets for young players, etc), and says they can ask the commish in advance whether something might be deemed a Fire Sale if they aren't sure. And are advised that if they don't check, to err on the side that a trade will be considered one. After all, talking to more than one team about their players is never going to be to their detriment, so there is no reason not to do it.

So if a trade happens that you feel meets the definition of a fire sale, but they didn't "announce it" as such ahead of time and before a deal was agreed upon, you reverse it? There's a lot of subjectivity in those factors you list.

And in reference to the bold, this seems like it could be a little dangerous if precautions aren't set up. What happens if after a fire sale announcement, a couple teams make comments about how they're not interested, and then suddenly there's one team who feels like the market for that player is much lower than they expected, and they lowball the team who put the player on the block?

My auction keeper league had an issue with these types of dumps near the end of the season back when we first started up. We instituted an in season cap that was 25% above our auction budget that teams must stay in compliance with, based on the total auction value of the players on their roster. It significantly improved the league and we haven't had any issues since.

 

[10tihwj]

The 2014 draft is supposed to be strong. Having an extra $25 to ensure the guy gets who he wants could be huge. Or he could blow it on the wrong guy. Point is, he got value for a TE he didn't need desperately and a WR whose value will never be higher.

He got value for a TE he didn't need ? I'm Sorry I thought we were talking about Jimmy Graham on the Saints who is arguably the best scoring player @ any position other than QB

Never played in a league like this so I am not sure .... would it be a reasonable trade if it were Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant, Adrian Peterson , McCoy etc ... because Graham is outscoring all of them from the TE position.

He's still one player at one position that is not of need for the guy making the trade. Also, he's hurt. And, Talib just shut him down, perhaps providing a blueprint for future teams to slow Graham down if they have the personnel. Graham could forever be the guy he's been so far this year, or he might not.

A good example from last year is JJ Watt, albeit in IDP. Watt was generally outscoring offensive players, let alone dwarfing anyone else who played DE. This year, he's been good but not in the way that he was last year. Moving Watt generally worked out (so far) for anyone who had him last year and traded him in the offseason or earlier this year. Maybe he continues to transcend his position, maybe he doesn't.

 

[buck naked]

Great. Another collusion thread.

 

[JAK Straw]

How many players do you keep each year, and how many guys on Team 1's roster are obvious keepers? Keeper leagues cause some weird dynamics, if you keep say a max of 5 players a year and have 7 great players, you're forced to make what would seem to be below market trades to capture the value you're created. Wondering if that's part of the picture here. But I agree trade should stand.

 

[T with T]

Alittle collusion but doesn't hurt brother I say it's hard to turn back but pretty dumb trade for the guy with Graham.

 

[Sarnoff]

Shut down the league, but keep the entry fees for yourself for your troubles.

 

[GregR]

Let the owner trading Graham explain his reasoning...

This.

Ask the Graham owner why he feels this trade is to his benefit. Then ask him why he feels this is the best value that he could get for the players he traded.

Then go from there. The measure I would use is do I think a reasonable person could believe as he says he does. Not "do I think he's correct". Reasonable people believe a lot of things that are wrong.

If after that your league believes it is collusion, then deal with it (fining them cap room or keeper slots, kicking them out, whatever is appropriate). If it isn't collusion, then let the trade stand.

A middle ground position if not collusion and if the owner getting Graham is willing to help end the strife in the league, is roll back the trade with his agreement and let the Graham owner pursue another trade for him with everyone including his brother knowing he is available.

By the way, as a possible way of helping avoid this... my dynasty/salary cap league has a Fire Sale rule. If anyone is making trades that might be deemed a Fire Sale, they have to notify the entire league in advance so everyone can make offers on their players and any trades that go down will be at true market value. Our rule lists some of the factors that may cause a trade to be deemed as such (timing in season, current players for future considerations, team is not likely to make playoffs, aging vets for young players, etc), and says they can ask the commish in advance whether something might be deemed a Fire Sale if they aren't sure. And are advised that if they don't check, to err on the side that a trade will be considered one. After all, talking to more than one team about their players is never going to be to their detriment, so there is no reason not to do it.

So if a trade happens that you feel meets the definition of a fire sale, but they didn't "announce it" as such ahead of time and before a deal was agreed upon, you reverse it? There's a lot of subjectivity in those factors you list.

And in reference to the bold, this seems like it could be a little dangerous if precautions aren't set up. What happens if after a fire sale announcement, a couple teams make comments about how they're not interested, and then suddenly there's one team who feels like the market for that player is much lower than they expected, and they lowball the team who put the player on the block?

My auction keeper league had an issue with these types of dumps near the end of the season back when we first started up. We instituted an in season cap that was 25% above our auction budget that teams must stay in compliance with, based on the total auction value of the players on their roster. It significantly improved the league and we haven't had any issues since.

Yes there is a lot of subjectivity in the determination. Which is why they can check first and get a concrete answer and not have to worry about subjectivity.

The example you gave doesn't happen. Owners don't mail the entire league about their lack of interest in players. We've never seen anything but the amount of interest and discussions increase for an owner who let people know he was in fire sale mode.

 

[Pipes]

I am the commish of a 16 team auction keeper league. Our draft has a $200 budget. In our league, you can trade a maximum of $25 of your next years budget.

This was a trade that went down.

Team 1 (4-2): Sends Jimmy Graham and Harry Douglas.

Team 2 (5-1) Sends $25.

It's a crappy trade. Whatever. But the two teams are brothers. Is this collusion or a fair trade? The league leans strongly towards collusion. I say it should stay. Thoughts?

You don't say how long this league has been running but I would doubt too long and certainly not long after this - the ability to trade auction dollars for the following year is one of the worst rules imaginable for a keeper league and I have never seen one survive that had similar rules.

Stupid stupid rule about trading future auction dollars. It's amazing this hasn't come up before. I think the trade stinks but unfortunately it's within the rules so it should stand.

 

[ImTheScientist]

Great. Another collusion thread.

What would happen if we didn't get one a week. Someday people will learn nobody cares about their yahoo free league.

Play FPC and you won't have to worry about this mess.