To Veto, or not to Veto, that is the question. Do you veto trades in your league? Should you veto trades in your league? Does it matter what type of league you are in before you answer? If a veto is allowed, should it be done by the commissioner or a by a league vote? I’ll touch on all of this in what follows by using a poll I ran on Friday, April 19th, to show just how messy it can be, deciding what a fair trade is or isn’t. As they say, it’s messy business.
THE VETO QUESTION
Last Friday, a user asked me if he should veto a simple, 1-for-1 deal, of Chris Sale for Brad Hand? I put the question to a vote, and here are the fairly stunning results.
Stunning that the results were nearly split down the middle. I mean, when more than 1,500 people vote on something, is it ever that close?
Here are some of the comments folks left as well, and they are as wild as the results that were nearly split 50/50.
No collusion. No veto.
Unless there is clear cheating, you never vote against a trade.
Is it collusion? Is an experienced owner taking advantage of a new owner in the league? If neither, no veto regardless of inequity.
Vetoes are for chump leagues.
How was this poll even close?
On its face? No. I feel only if there is proof of collusion should a trade be vetoed.
You sure the guy giving up Hand shouldn’t get more?
If the Sale owner is just that stupid, allow. All trades should be approved unless there is collusion.
Those kinda trades get people kicked out of leagues
I would do it in heartbeat if I needed saves and had influx of SP value is based on team need so hard to give full opinion in a box.
Imagine being stupid enough to believe that Chris Sale and Brad Hand are of equal value. Team needs has got to be the dumbest response to trades like this. “I really need stolen bases so I’m giving up Kershaw for Billy Hamilton” idiot.
Why would this be vetoed? Is there any possible argument to be made?
Everyone in the league had the same chance to take advantage of the Chris Sale owner. Good job to the team that saw blood in the water and made the Brad Hand offer.
Unless there’s collusion you should never veto a trade. If trades are lopsided to the detriment of the league the commissioner can always choose to not invite the owners back next season.
Assuming no collusion, assuming one team needs saves and one team is stacked at SP, why not- if both managers believe it makes them better it should go through.
Vetoes shouldn’t be a thing. If someone makes consistently bad trades remove them from the league.
I don’t like the trade per say, but they fill diff needs & if there’s no collusion well…
people saying no, don’t play in competitive leagues. Period. This wouldn’t even be proposed in a serious league.
Fantasy Baseball is a free society where the dumb, and the smart, have to co-exist. Just say no to Veto’s.
Trick question. No vetoing should be allowed!
And now, a couple industry voices.
This isn’t even close to being vetoable. Surprised it is even controversial. An elite closer for an ace with legitimate concerns. I’ll take Sale but an argument can be made for the Hand side.
@zachsteinhorn
It’s a little early in the season for this trade but I see no issues with it.
@jeffwzimmerman
So, let’s review the thoughts of the voters.
Some of you thought this was a fair deal.
Some of you thought this was an incredibly lopsided deal.
Some of you thought that the person getting Sale was winning big time.
Some of you thought that the person getting Hand was winning big time.
It’s rather remarkable really.
It was basically a 50/50 vote, and from a reading of those of you that offered your thoughts, it was pretty much the same no matter what angle we look at – veto, no veto, Sale wins, Hand wins.
SO HOW SHOULD YOU HANDLE TRADES?
Obviously, trades like the one listed above get some people hot, thinking someone is ripping someone off, while others see the trade being on of teams trying to address weaknesses on their squads. The heated back and forth above leads to the need to adjudicate such deals in some manner so as to avoid people quitting on leagues (I’ve been in leagues where this has happened). There are four major options on how to handle trades that I see.
1 – Don’t allow trades.
Leagues like the NFBC simply don’t allow you to trade. The result of leagues like this is that that no one can take advantage of anyone else by talking someone into a terrible offer. What’s terrible? That’s often in the eye of the beholder. The no-trade leagues, deemed no-fun leagues by some, also remove the collusion concern completely. This is the safest, fairest way to run a league, though some do find it a bit boring.
2 – Allow trades to be made with no consequence. Everyone in your league is an adult, and they should be allowed to manage the team any way they want to.
This is how most people seem to run their leagues. While I’m all about freedom, I have to admit that having a league run like this can lead to certain trouble. We’ve all be in a league where someone just doesn’t get it. They trade every slow starter for every hot starting player, no matter that it’s a six-month season. We’ve been in a league where someone is obsessed with rookies, an at every turn they dump-trade a productive vet for the next guy up. We’ve all been in a league where, frankly, someone just doesn’t understand the value of players, sometimes in a painfully inept manner. Do we really want to be in a league where there is no recourse? I can tell you, from personal experience, that the no-consequence leagues can blow chunks.
3 – Allow trades with a commissioner determining the validity of the deal.
This used to be the way most leagues were set up. At the same time, leagues used to be comprised of a group of people who knew each other. Nowadays, how many of you really know your league mates? Even if you know a couple, do you know half the league? Probably not, right? I write that because if I know “Jim” I have no issue at all with him being the commish since I’ve known him since we were nine years old and I know him to be an honest, intelligent fella. But what if you don’t know Jim, do you trust him? Further, we live in a democratic culture so it makes sense to me that we would want our leagues to revolved around those principle versus letting a despot make the decisions.
4 – Allow trades with the league owners voting on the deal.
If you’re going to allow the veto, this seems the most equitable way to do it. Everyone gets a vote on the deal, to make their voice heard, and the results stand. The question with this format is how much of the vote should be required to overturn a deal?
Some leagues say a simple majority of 50 percent.
Others leagues up the bar to two-thirds or 67 percent.
Others push things even higher to 75 percent, or three quarters.
Depending upon how aggressive you want to be, you could even say that every person not involved in the deal has to say it’s a veto in order to turn the deal over.
In the majority of leagues that I participate in trading isn’t easy (industry leagues can be difficult to find a trading partner). I have to admit that even in the industry leagues that I participate in – and let me be clear there is no veto option in any of those leagues – that each year a couple of trades go down that I just don’t understand. I often scratch my head thinking ‘that’s really not a good deal’ or ‘how could they have accepted that deal and turned down what I offered last week’? However, that’s the price of doing business in industry leagues – there is no oversight.
In the overwhelming majority of leagues, I think there should be rules, and that means there should be a process for vetoing a trade. You can’t let someone deal off pieces at crazy values since those moves don’t just impact the two teams directly involved. You can decide what that process is, but realize that there should be something in place.
A final thought.
Things are different in dynasty and keeper leagues, so they should be treated differently. I might be trying to win this season, you might be trying to win in 2021, so we have different goals when entering the trade market. Understand that nearly every trade in a keeper scenario is going to tick someone off royally. “Dump trades” happen all the time – I want your one superstar so here are four of my guys OR I can’t keep Superstar X so I’ll take those two minor leaguers with 23rd round value – and there is really nothing that can be done about that (to a certain extent as you can obviously put limits on the number of trades allowed, the number of players allowed to be moved in a deal, there can be limits on the $ or rounds moved, penalties can be placed on players dealt in terms of their keeper value etc.). If you aren’t going to accept that deals like that will happen, then you shouldn’t be in those kinda leagues because you will go nuts.
Just make sure you have some process in place. If you don’t, ticked off folks will rule the day.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday-Friday, 8-10 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). Follow Ray’s work on Twitter (@baseballguys) and be sure to listen to his podcast work too.
