The recent trade

Hello Everyone,

A little birdie mentioned to me that there was one GM who is quite dissatisfied with the most recent trade between Brandon and myself, and even thought the trade veto worthy.

We have been through this particular issue on a few occasions over the last couple of years, so I will try to make this short and sweet.

1) As a GROUP we have agreed that no trade is vetoable in this league, unless collusion is suspected. Period. End of story.

2) The biggest reason for this is that NOBODY knows what the future holds. What may look to some like a really lopsided trade may in fact turn out very differently in hindsight. For example, my trade for Brodeur last year raised a similar ire from one or two GMs. Look at where Brodeur is now. He had an OK season last year, but he didn't help me to win the championship. And he has ben a HUGE hindrance this season. It's looking more and more like he sill be a dropsie for me next year. Yet I gave up Huet (also a bust), Tangradi (remains to be seen) and a 1st round pick this September, which I could have used to land a great young player like Jeff Skinner, etc.

3) Regarding this most recent trade, both St. Louis and Boyle are in their mid thirties. I am hoping they will continue to produce until at least the end of this year. If they don't, or they start off slow next year, I wonder how much trade value they will have? I expect not much. In any event, I doubt they would land four top young studs (Hedman, Paajarvi, two 2nd round Sept picks). I know for a fact that this is one of the reasons Brandon wanted to move them now, instead of wait until they potentially lose their trade value. He managed to do that very thing with Brodeur and at least got something valuable in return for them.

4) How valuable are Hedman and Paajarvi? Well, I guess time will tell. Hedman certainly has the pedigree and talent to be an elite defenseman for years. He also has some supremely talented teammates and a coach that loves deploying D Men into the rush. Plus not much competition from other young defensemen. Paajarvi hasn't broken out yet, but his SEL numbers are comparable to Kopitar and Backstrom's numbers at the same age. And nobody needs to mention how valuable these two guys are now. The Oilers certainly have the talent to be the next Chicago, Washington or Pittsburgh. Will they? Nobody knows for sure.

So ... for anybody who has a problem with this trade: suck it up. You knew Brandon was interested in moving St. Louis for a younger player and that I was interested in moving Paajarvi for a top vet. Perhaps you should have made a move of your own.

One last little point: there seems to be a myth around here that my team is dominant. To answer this I direct you to this small fact: Over the last 2.5 years I have been in the lead for exactly 3 weeks out of 49 weeks during the regular season. I was in the lead for the last two weeks of the regular season in 2009, and I was in the lead for one week this year. Even with this trade there are NO guarantees I am going to win.

Cheers,
Matt

You don't have to justify your trades. I wouldn't mind the guy who has a problem with a trade voicing his concern publicly since he seems to have a problem with trades in general. There hasn't been a single veto worthy trade IMO. And the day we veto a trade is the day I leave this league. The deal definitely helps you out this year.

The only thing I disagree about concerning your post is saying how brodeur will be a drop. No way in hell you just let him go without getting something back. It reminds me about when you and I were talking trade regarding lidstrom in 2008. You claimed that I was in a win win because you were going to drop him at year's end and I could pick him up. He was never dropped.

The rest of your post is bang on. You can't judge a trade on the day it happens. Unless you and Brandon are in it together; and I know you aren't; there is no reason to veto

I will say it again folks:

I don't believe that the issue is the trade itself, but rather that there was no opportunity to vote on ESPN to express his opinion on the trade.

I think it is a fair complaint and I hold by my recent post that I think we should do away with pushing any trades through at all and agree upon an official Trade Review Period and stick with it.

No, there shouldn't be a trade panel. People will vote based on if they think the trade is lopsided. That is no one's call but the two people trading. It's infact collusion to vote against a trade simply because a person feels that it makes one team better.

Keep pushing the trades through. No voting is needed

Sorry Greg, as you know I agree with Jason on this one. It's easy to vote against a trade that doesn't help your team (but helps another team), so in a sense that is equally as bad.

If there continues to be disagreement on this issue the only thing I would consider doing is giving the trade a one or two-day review period, but even that is a slippery slope because we are not reviewing or voting on the trades anyway.

What needs to happen is for people who take issue with this to understand the dynamics of the league. We set it up as a cascading keeper in part to ENCOURAGE trading. Lower placed teams have more keeper slots, and as we've seen, they see this as a way to use "veteran" talent to trade for up-and-coming talent in order to rebuild. It is these rules that helped Brandon go from 8th to 1st in one year, and Jay from last to one of the top teams in two years. I see this as being a really positive thing, especially considering the dynasty league I joined in September has basically had two trades over the last three months. The rules they have in place do not encourage a lot of interaction or trading amongst GMs.

We have a special thing going here. Let's not ruin it by tinkering with this. For those GMs that want to compete, why don't you consider trading some of your top prospects or top draft picks for veterans?

I think i would have to agree with matt and jay on this one
i dont think that trade was unfair at all.

We all pay our individual fees to run our own teams accordingly. Not every trade can appeal to every GM.

I hate everything

I think the trade is Horrible. But I didn't know we couldn't veto. If we had a vote I would vote to veto. But if it's not a league that we have that option then so be it. I have seen other trades on espn and went in and voted. I just figured that would be the option on all trades. This would've been the first I vetoed had it been up there long enough. Your league, your rules, I get it. Just not clear on all the rules.

If a trade seems unfairly lopsided, a majority of managers voting against the trade within three (3) days will veto the trade. during the off-season (April 13th until the draft in September), managers have two weeks to veto any trade. NOTE: this rule of veto is only to be used in extreme situations to prevent managers from “stacking” a single roster.

from the manifesto.

I don't believe that the stacking was intentional but I still think it's a bad trade that stacks a team. The word collusion isn't in the manifesto. So either we update the manifesto or allow managers to decide their own opinion on vetoes I feel. I think we should get a vote where if 5 out of remaining 8 managers feels it's veto-able then it gets vetoed. That seems to be the way it's written in the rules. I think?

I know you are new to the league John, but this is something that we have discussed at length on at least two previous occasions. On both occasions it was decided by a wide majority that vetoes (or even votes) should not be allowed in this league unless collusion is suspected. The wording was not changed in the manifesto to reflect this (as with a few other decisions), so that is perhaps something that we should do.

It is a very slippery slope when other GMs start to vote on a trade, because obviously the trade is not helping them. It is also difficult to assign value to respective players in many cases, because "proven vets" are more valuable to a completing team, whereas "potential" has more value for a non-competing team. There have ben MANY MANY MANY trades in this league where young players who haven't necessarily proven themselves have received MUCH higher value in trades because of their "potential." Such is the case with this most recent trade.

Who is to say who will win this trade?

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1) If you look at stats Martin St. Louis has started to slow down substantially over the last couple of weeks, whereas Magnus Paajarvi has started to produce a fair bit more. What if this trend were to continue for the rest of the year?

2) Boyle currently has a decent record, although not spectacular. Hedman isn't quite where I thought he would be, in large part because of the nagging injuries he's had to deal with since his hot start. Whose to say that Hedman won't match Boyle step for step the rest of the year. Hedman certainly has similar skill and pedigree to one Drew Doughty, and look what Doughty did last year? Furthermore, why isn't Doughty matching those numbers this year? If Jay traded Doughty ALONE for St. Louis and Boyle I don't think there would have been a single person who would have had issue with this trade. Much less traded with a top young Left Winger and two very high draft picks.

If you want to look at "proven" versus "potential" for judging trades, you should also look at a few other trades in this league. Here are three that I just thought of off the top of my head. I know there are many others that I was not very happy with from a personal standpoint, but who am I to judge why other managers do what they do?


TRADE #63

October 29th, 2009

Soo Storm gets:

Pavel Datsyuk
Marty St. Louis

Desolation Row gets:

Bobby Ryan
Michael Frolik
Jakob Markstrom
Jonas Gustavsson
Cancel side bet
1st RD pick Sep 2010 (1.21)
3rd RD pick Sep 2011 (SS)
4th RD pick Sep 2011 (SS)


TRADE #71: March 11th 2010 (Soo Storm and Buffalo Cab Co.)

Soo Storm gets:

Joe Thornton C
Dan Boyle D
Miikka Kiprusoff G

Buffalo Cab Co. gets:

Jonathan Toews C
Erik Johnson D
Desolation Row's 3rd round pick (2010)


TRADE #79

August 2, 2010

Motley Crue gets:

Derick Brassard (C) -- Columbus Blue Jackets
Jonas Gustavsson (G) -- Toronto Maple Leafs
3rd R draft pick Sept 2010 (Desolation Row)
1st R draft pick Sept 2011 (Desolation Row)
3rd R draft pick Sept 2011 (Soo Storm)
4th R draft pick Sept 2011 (Soo Storm)
1st R draft pick Sept 2012 (Desolation Row)

Desolation Row gets:

Ryan Getzlaf (C) -- Anaheim Ducks

I like the examples. And I might have vetoed one of those. But why not have us managers make our arguments and let us decide on if we want to veto or not. I mean it's 5 out of 8 to actually get the veto. We are all adults here. I don't think it would be a disaster to let us make up our own minds.

in your trade i believe st. louis as about 50% chance of top 10 forward this year. 50% chance of top 20 next year. Boyle i would say 80% chance top 10 def this year and 50% chance next year. I give pav and hedman 0% this year and 5% next year. then Brandon will have to decide if he keeps them over other players that are good two years from now. If he does then in the third year things will start to get closer.. still to your advantage in my opinion. So for the next three years i would say this trade is 80% in your favour. That means that there is a 20% chance that Brandon gets the best of you in this trade... but it's possible. But I make my own veto threshold at about 70% favour.... if it's get to 70% I veto. And this could change after discussion. But I think we should make up our own minds. I'm new and if this has all be decided then that's ok. But i think it's worth bringing it up again.

The assumption in the pro veto camp is that cancelling bad trades will lead to a better league in the long run.

In my experience of keeper leagues over the years I've yet to see any evidence of this, but have seen tons of evidence of vetos serving to piss people off.

Well, that is well said Joel.

10 points Slytherin.

Well you can list this as the first instance of not having a veto rule as pissing someone off. In my other two leagues we have vetoes and people get pissed off. But we always work through it. And there are people that want trades vetoed that don't get it and they get pissed off. I think it will work about the same either way. We have been running for 3 years and never had anyone leave. But I can see I'm heavily in the minority which is totally cool. As long as we get a say and I feel I've said it.

Having said all that. I would not vote to veto this trade if it were a full keeper pool. I would like to put forward any plan to increase the number of keepers in the future. Drafting was a bit crazy at the number we draft now. Maybe increase the number of keepers over the next few years??? Anyone like this?

Well kids. Here I am again:

I would consider keeping our two day review period in place. This gives everyone a window of opportunity with which they can make their voice heard. We would need 5 of 8 GMs to vote NO on a trade to ever have a veto and we have not had anything in the past remotely close to this. In fact, I think we have had only one NO vote in our three year history (and we have had nearly 100 trades I believe).

You mentioned increasing the number of keepers in your post John. I would support that. I think that it is a good idea. That September draft nearly killed me.

G

The current format does a wonderful job of keeping the top and bottom relatively close together. This is a good thing. Everyone stays interested that way. I'm in a full keeper. We keep instituting rules to create more balance. These rules are designed to help rebuilders stay more interested. The current format is a pretty good format. Most of the members from three years ago remain. That's pretty tricky, considering we really don't know each other.

SCOOP

True enough Scoop. When I think about it, who has been around since the beginning?

Matt, Greg, Ray, Jay, Richard, Scoop, Joel, Brandon. Correct no?

I think that is a pretty good retention rate all in all.

I agree with Scoop that this league strikes the closest thing I've seen to a perfect balance. In the other two keeper leagues I've been a part of the balance is nowhere near as good as this one. Both of them are/were full keepers.

In the first league, the balance was so thrown off in the first year as a result of a couple of lopsided trades that the league dissolved.

The second league was just started this year so it remains to be seen. However, the rules don't really encourage trades (or any other kind of interaction for that matter), and as a result there was been two trades amongst twelve GMs since the September draft. There isn't any sort of bond between anybody in the league, and I have a tough time seeing this one last very long either.

I love the fact that in this league Brandon was able to go from 8th place in the regular season to 1st place (Reg) and 2nd place (playoffs) last year. Ray went from 9th place in the regular season to 2nd place (Reg) and 1st place (playoffs) last year. Jay's team was an unsavoury 3-17 in the first year, and because of some ballsy trades he is now sitting at first place in the league and will be very difficult to beat.

To be honest, I have never heard of anything else like this out there.

I reiterate that we have something special here. For the newcomers it might take them a little bit of time to figure out how the league works, how different GMs value players, and how they can use the dynamics of the rules to increase the value of their team. But when they do, the same opportunities will be open to them to trade and build and get into contention in short order.

well said matt