Trading Peeve #1

I've seen a lot of columns this year surrounding "Trading Dos and Dont's." I'm not necessarily sure all of these apply to carryover leagues, and there might be some that apply to carryover leagues that wouldn't matter in expert leagues that just throw everyone back.

I think we all have our peccadilloes, which might bother us and make our league mates think that we're petty. I think it also might work the other way; we might do something that infuriates our fellow owners that we don't see as much of a problem.

With those caveats out of the way, here is one that bothers me.

Getting offered a player who is about to be waived anyway.
This happens all the time, particularly in the leagues I play in, where you can't keep players on reserve who are active major leaguers. And a lot of owners are pretty up-front about these types of deals, typically posting a message on the league board or sending out a league-wide e-mail that goes something like this:

Hey guys, I've got Brian Buscher coming off the DL next week and need to make a move. I'll take a draft pick or farm player for Buscher or I'll do something bigger for Adrian Beltre or Jason Giambi (looking for pitching).

This I don't have a problem with, and if you're in this position, you should aggressively market guys like Buscher so that you don't get nothing. Teams in the middle of the pack who can't make the waiver claim or don't have the FAAB might give you more than you expected.

What rankles me is when an owner offers me a marginal player that I know he's going to get stuck waiving for something I have that is pretty valuable. Everyone in the league knows that he's going to waive Willy Aybar because he's got Frank Thomas coming off the DL, and he's not going to get rid of Aubrey Huff or Justin Morneau. Yet I still see owners sent me e-mails that say:

Hey Mike, I see you just lost Carl Crawford. How about Aybar and Kyle Davies for John Lackey?

I don't even bristle at the bad offer. What gets me is that I'm getting offered a guy I can get for free next week.

Ask yourself this before making an offer like that: Do you typically figure out who can be waived in your league? If you're like me, you do, so you should be able to tell who other owners are going to get rid of if they can't reserve active players.

I'll bet that if you're doing this, most owners in your league are as well. Don't assume that you're going to pull a fast one with a borderline guy who everyone knows you have to release anyway.

We're all paying attention, big guy. And you're only fooling yourself.