The Trading Blues Part I

Brett, my old leaguemate and commissioner of the N.L.-only league I'm using to review actual, live FAAB bids, laments the fact that there's little or no non-dump trading in his league:

And how about the lack of non-dump trades? The thing is this: nobody's dumping yet, and nobody is going to trade good keepers without getting keeper value for them, so tons of players are basically off-limits for trades until later on. Also you don't want to sell low (there's no point in me trading Ensberg now, for example), and among other players, you've got a few cheap guys that are either a) worthless at worst and not tradable at best (eg. Endy Chavez) or b) guys that you're not going to get anything in trade for but have some potential so you want to hold on to them. What's left are maybe a couple players per team who are priced at value and performing well. Am I wrong in thinking this makes non-dump trades nearly impossible?

Toz and I both have the advantage of having played in this league for about 4-5 years apiece, so a lot of what Brett is talking about is unique to this league. In fact, anyone who entered Brett's league and thought that some of the happenings there were typical would be in for a pleasant awakening upon entering another league.

But I didn't want to waste my time bashing my ex-league today. Instead, I wanted to discuss ways to improve trading in your league.

First and foremost, before I begin this discussion, keep in mind that some owners like or even love the dumping culture. In my earlier years of playing Roto, I've sometimes been the one who tried to present "fairer" rules or ethical standards so that there would be less dumping. The reaction was less than enthusiastic.

"I like dumping."
"It's rewarding to trade for the next Manny Ramirez when he's still a 19-year-old kid."
"It's just like real baseball; you never see 'fair' trades anymore."

Keep in mind that your league might very well love dump trades. If you're in the minority opinion, your options are to either 1) lump it or 2) leave it. Option #3 - learning to master dump leagues - is what I've done with moderate success. But know yourself. If seeing Vladimir Guerrero and Miguel Tejada dealt for Grady Sizemore and Jason Ellison turns your stomach, you shouldn't play in a league with a dump culture.

However, I like to start by discussing rules because this is one area where you can at least find a compromise and please both the laissez-faire owner who would trade his blind 92-year-old grandmother for a few extra stolen bases and the owner who gets mad when Brandon Wood gets traded for Vernon Wells, since Wood hasn't done anything yet. I am not endorsing any of the rule suggestions I am laying out here, nor chastising your league if you don't have rules like these in place. My goal is merely to present these options if you haven't thought of them before:

1) Reduce the size of your freeze lists
Too frequently, a 15-man maximum freeze list is what does a league in. A savvy owner can quite easily build a juggernaut by trading for a few studs and then picking up a bunch of young players through FAAB and seeing which ones work out. The result is often a killer freeze list that makes the league a runaway before the first pitch is even thrown.

2) Increase minimum salary of your free agent pick-ups and farm players
Alex Patton/Rotoman's American Dreams League uses a $15 minimum salary for hitters and a $10 minimum for pitchers who are called up from the farm system or purchased as free agents. This might sound radical, but watching someone win with a bunch of $2-4 players he plucked off the FAAB wire by accident is not fun.

This is even more important with farm players. Brett's league uses a bizarro system where farm players have a $0 salary on Auction Day and a $5 salary after that. Players like David Wright, Jose Reyes, Ryan Howard and many others have at one point been $0 S2 and then $5 S1 players. This weird salary tiering practically begs for a non-trading league until the dump trades come.

3) Institute a salary cap
This won't stop dumping, but it will limit it to some degree. I can remember the pre-salary cap days, when 8-for-8 trades were common, and one team would wind up with $450-500 of players. Try to institute a limit that is reasonable and won't completely discourage any kind of trading but also institute a limit where you avoid the kinds of trades I mentioned above.

These are the three most obvious rules that can curb dumping. The suggestions below are somewhat more radical, and can curb dumping but aren't for everyone.

4) The Topper rule
Patton's American Dreams League uses a non-contract rule where you can keep a player for two years and then you have his "topper" rights. This means that you can keep the rights to the player's last bid but his market value will be enforced. So if you picked up Johan Santana his first year in the league, you had a bargain in year two but then had to pay market value to keep him. The Topper allows you to maintain some control over a Santana, but prevents you from keeping him at an artificially inflated price for up to five years.

5) No farm system
Teams can only maintain a reserve list for the current season only. If you draft a minor leaguer and he doesn't make the majors by the end of the year, you lose him outright. In my league we don't do this, so Jose Tabata is already owned, and will be owned until he's a major leaguer. Having a reserve list still allows you to take a chance on someone like Matt Garza or Brandon Wood, but prevents you from speculating on 18-year olds and holding on to them forever.

6) Last place penalty
Some leagues impose a penalty on a team's draft dollars if that team finishes in the cellar. Going in with $250 to spend, for example, is a disincentive to completely dismantle your team.

7) Jubilee year
Another thing Patton's league does is has a clause where the league can decide at some point to start over with an entirely new auction after a season ends. This can shake up a league and keep it interesting for an entire year for an entire set of owners.

Again, I'm not advocating all or any of these ideas. However, if your league has severe dumping, you may want to consider some of these ideas. If your league is stale and is nothing but a dump culture, like Brett's, and most of your owners are sick of playing, you might want to consider mixing it up a little.

Realistically, though, every carry-over league is going to have some form of dump trading. Tomorrow, I'll talk about ways to work within the culture of these leagues to make fair trades.