Goal
To control "dump trades" and restore the competitive balance in the league, while supporting an environment of active involvement throughout the season.
Proposal
- Limit the draft picks that may be traded during the regular season to Rounds 14-24
- Open trading in the offseason (i.e., end of championship through draft day) to all draft picks, Round 7-24
- Maintain six playoff team format
- Maintain same trade deadline
- Do not limit the number of trades that can be made, or tether the round spread
- No further fines
Advantages
- Protects the competitive balance by ensuring all teams enter the offseason with the first seven draft picks, along with six keepers.
- Deters the trading of stars during the regular season due to the limitations of potential compensation.
- Expands the number of teams in contention by leveling the talent.
- Rewards teams that draft and manage their roster the best, rather than those most willing to sacrifice next year's team.
- Incentivizes owners to keep stars -- and, therefore, maintain competitive rosters -- through the end of the season due to potentially better compensation in the offseason.
- Maintains the potential for big deals involving picks during the offseason, when each team shares the same universal goal -- to prepare for the next year -- as opposed to the team-specific goals during the regular season that depend on a team's competitiveness.
- Does not hinder active owners by limiting the number of trades a team can make.
- Turns regular season draft pick trades to supplemental considerations rather than integral components.
- Challenges owners to seek out potentially valuable non-stars through trades.
- Prevents a new team from inheriting a "dead team," should an owner decide to leave the league after depleting resources.
- Enhances the appeal and activity of the offseason/pre-draft period.
- Easily policed (unlike limiting the number of trades)
- Limits the ability of teams to use all of its resources as it sees fit.
- Depending on the level of activity, offseason trade tracking could be challenging.
Link to thread from 2012 discussion on this:
In my opinion, we still had a problem a few years back when we didn't allow draft pick trades. Dump trades still transformed the league, it was just based on keeper versus non-keepers, instead of keepers versus top round picks.
ReplyDeleteI say we need to reel it back even further than adam writes. I love the 14-24 in the reg. season, and no holds barred in the offseason. However, I still think we need to up the trade deadline and increase the number of playoff teams to 8.
Is it even possible to compromise with a playoff of 7 teams in this league? Top team get a bye and bottom 6 play each other? I'm not sure how much flexibility we get with Yahoo.
I understand what you're saying, but I think its important not to tie the hands of the teams that are out of it and looking to improve. Over the years, player-only dump trades have helped a lot of teams improve their rosters for the following year -- without giving that team a huge advantage (ie, many early draft picks) the next year. They're sort of a great way to promote parity. While these player-only trades can help competitive teams improve greatly, ultimately they're watering down their talent in the long run.
DeleteI think what we need to focus on is eliminating the incentive for teams to give up.
For those of you who are relatively new, prior to the advent of draft pick trading, we often dealt with deals that involved a contending team sending one good keeper in exchange for three lesser, though productive players. A modern example would something like: Mike Napoli, Ryan Vogelsong, Mark Buerhle, and BJ Upton for Wil Myers and Eric Hosmer. The problem being, the team receiving the veteran players got a big advantage in the current year, the team receiving the keepers were better off for the next year, and the rest of the contending teams were screwed. I didn't have a huge problem with this, seeing it as an effect of the marketplace, but some didn't like it, especially if the validity of the keeper value of the players were in question.
Anyhow, I think my proposal will still quell these kinds of trades. If a team has the ability to get better picks in the offseason, they may just wait. It won't get rid of them completely, but I think that's a good thing.
I see a lot of Torii Hunter for 17th rounder-type deals, with some Chase Utley, Adam LaRoche, and Ben Revere for Dylan Bundy and 14th and 16th rounders in there. Deals that can help both teams while not excessively helping teams in the current season.
Regarding playoff teams, I'm still not in favor of more than half the league making the playoffs. I'd rather try to even the playing field to ensure more teams are competing in the final weeks of the regular season for the chance to make the playoffs than expand the number of teams playing in the postseason.
The deadline could be moved back a week or two, but I don't see it making a huge difference in what we're trying to accomplish.
Good thoughts all around here. I like Adam's idea of limiting which rounds can be traded during the season, and it being wide open in the off-season. This will accomplish what I think we are trying to do, which is to reduce a teams ability to become artificially better in the middle of the season due to dump trades. Teams should not become overwhelmingly improved because another team is rebuilding for next season. It's not fair to the other teams in the playoff race, and it's also not fair to the rest of the league when the rebuilding team is a pile of trash and gives every team it plays free victories, and can really screw up the playoff seeding.
DeleteWhat we need to do is continue the discussion that we are having right now, and come up with 3 - 4 possible solutions that we can put to a vote. Whichever option is the most popular will be implemented this year.
So far here are the options that we are talking about:
- Limiting the draft pick rounds that can be traded (14 - 24 currently proposed) during the regular season
- Moving the trade deadline up
- Increase the number of playoff teams from 6 to 8 (I don't think Yahoo will allow us to 7)
Am I missing anything else? What other ideas do you guys have? Let's compile 3 - 5 options that we can put to a vote, but I think we all recognize that we need to do something about the dump trade issue.
I am not in favor of limiting the picks that can be traded during the season. As discussed there will still be player only dump trades and I do not see this as the solution. Rather than restoring the competitive balance it would hurt the teams in need of rebuilding. If a team wants to build for the future why inhibit them in any way? As a team who was out of the running last year being able to trade for picks and build for this year was fun and kept me engaged in the league. Initially when we instituted trading picks there were some "lopsided" trades while people were still figuring out the true value, but we as a league have started to understand the market and have readjusted accordingly.
DeleteI think the way to limit dump trades is to create incentives for teams to stay competitive. 8 Teams make playoffs for instance (can keep same format as 6 team playoff with 1 and 2 getting a bye but have 5-8 play for the 5th and 6th seed). Give the first pick (or most “balls”) in next year’s draft to the 7th place team. Pushing up the trade deadline would also help.
Some other ideas:
1. Don’t “have” to keep 6 players. For instance keep 4 and get a 5th and 6th round pick.
2. Add a couple more keeper spots that are round specific. For example pick a guy up in the 20th round you can keep him for the cost of that round (or round -1/-2).
Chris I like the way you're thinking. Why is parity a good thing? Is it my fault some people can't put together a competitive team? If your team stinks, it's your fault. It's not the league's responsibility to help you get better again. Jason and I were both able to make the finals and keep our draft positions in good shape.
ReplyDeleteAnd as Chris says, allowing early round pick trades is a great way for a team to pick up better keepers. Regulations, regulations, regulations. What is this, the Obama administration?
You were in favor of such regulations last year (see thread link), Russ. Not that you're not allowed to change your mind, but I would be curious as to why.
DeleteIt was pretty clear most were in favor of some sort of regulation last year, so this proposal is in response to that. Your points certainly are valid. I long believed in keeping an open market, but there was a clear problem last year. Parity doesn't necessarily mean socialism. It just decreases the incentive to give up early in preparation for next year, which (should)increase the competitiveness of the league as whole -- something I think we all wanted at the end of last year as it was essentially a seven-team race for the last 6-8 weeks. The proposal I think strikes a good balance between allowing flexibility and achieving our goal to be a competitive league.
As one of the most consistent performers in this league, this proposal clearly does not help my personal cause at all. However, I am interested in re-establishing the competition that once existed.
I just took a look back and realized how brilliant what I wrote was. Yes we should limit it to some degree, but we shouldn't limit rounds you can trade. If you limit the TOTAL number of trades a team can make involving draft picks, say to 3, the basement teams aren't going to be as bad because they can't trade every spare part and therefore be foreced to run complete losers like Ryan Lavarnway and Ramiro Pena out there every day.
ReplyDeleteMaking open trading an offseason only activity is not a good idea in my opinion. I am sure I am not the only one who doesn't even remember who was on my team (outside of keepers) 6 weeks after the season ends.
We could try a combination of both. Maybe limit everyone to two or three trades of their 7-13 picks and unlimited 14-24. Just a thought.
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