Saturday, September 12, 2009

More Roto Ethics

Anonymous presents another Rotisserie ethical question.
It's after the trading deadline. You need an OF with some power to help you grab a few points. Another team has extra hitters but needs a starter. The two of you conspire to put your players on the FA wire at 1 a.m. so no one else will be online to pick up the players. What are the thoughts on this?
I don't know what anonymous' league's rules are when it comes to first come, first serve. But as a Commissioner this is a situation where I'd be inclined to set a precedent and overturn the claims.


This "trade" sounds like a case of two owners genuinely trying to exchange fair value for fair value and help each other out categorically. I'm OK with that, but I'd be concerned if the next "waiver" trade saw Owner A essentially work out a dump deal with Owner B using the same methods.

I used to play in first-come, first-serve leagues way back in the pre-FAAB days. But even then, if a player was waived or released there was a grace period before you could claim him. I'd suggest the same thing for any league that desires a modicum of sanity. In Sportsline, waived players typically have to go through two cycles before a FAAB bid can be placed. This provides a happy compromise between the daily moves that the league uses and allowing teams to be aware that someone is available in the free agent pool.

2 comments:

Brett said...

Yeah, no way on this one. Whether or not it's a "fair" trade, it's irrelevant because the trading deadline has passed. (It shouldn't matter if it's a fair trade or a dump trade).

I have thought about this, and will likely propose a rule that says that players who were released at, say, 9pm or later on the day of our free agent pickups (the program runs at midnight) are ineligible to be picked up until next week.

Toz said...

There really is no trick to this one: as soon as you say "they agree," you have a collusive situation. Once you have collusion, regardless of whether the proposed notion is fair or not, you start sliding down the slippery slope.