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| Understand Your Leagues Rules & Player Trade Controversy |
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It is extremely important for you to read your leagues rules and one particular rule you should know is how your league conducts trades. Have you ever been in a league where both parties accepted a fair trade, yet enough people voted against it so it was declined? Did you go back to the drawing board to tighten it up and yet the same results from other league owners. I think most of the time these guys are just upset because they aren’t the ones involved in a trade. Since they can’t have their way, they ruin it for everyone. Or, were you that disgruntled owner who didn’t get his way?
As a commissioner of 15 years now I can't remember a season going by without a season not having trade issues. If you are a commissioner, you have to make a decision and stick with your guns. After all, you have to do all of the organizing and preparation for the league and you are called the commissioner for a reason.
This is usually the biggest controversial problem for most leagues every season. Especially when money is involved. There are really only a few options a commissioner has when setting up this rule. So, the list I created below gives brief descriptions on different trade types with the result of a fairness ruling.
Player Trades
- League Votes: This is when a trade is proposed, owners can opt to approve or reject a trade. On many occasions, fair trades or even trades are rejected by anonymous owners; making it a frustrating transaction for all parties involved. Many leagues are setup this way and I personally despise this option.
- Commissioner Control: Having a commissioner having final say so in a trade transaction isn’t so bad if the commissioner is a fair one, but there is still the appearance of bias opinion. So if your league has this rule, be sure you trust your commissioner. You can always add a two-person committee and put it to vote at that point. This way the final decision is based on more than one person’s opinion.
- Open Market: This is when owners can make any trade and nobody has an opinion upon its fairness or its legitimacy. This rule isn’t any good because there always seems to be a couple of owners who team up mid-season and stack one team to try and recoup as much of their league dues as possible.
- No Trades: This is when team owners must live and die by their draft and the free agent waiver pool of players. This rule isn’t any good because having the option to make trade transactions is an important element for team owners who want, but most likely need to search for a suitable trade to help better their team to make the playoffs.
- Player Trade Calculator: Currently there aren’t any good trade calculators out there. The ones we have found really are one-sided calculators. Basically you select players you want to pick up and players you would be trading away and it will tell you to either “Take the trade”, “Don’t take the trade”, or “It’s a close trade, but you may not want to”, etc. This really isn’t a solution for commissioners. We at Fantasy Sports Tech have a solution in the making. A trade calculator that any owner can input players names involved in the trade and a simple output to the screen will display, “Fair Trade” or “Unfair Trade – Please try again” and so on. It will be based upon player parameters such as current injuries, fantasy scoring, your leagues scoring, position, strength of schedule, etc. I am sure you get the picture.
Since there really isn’t a good solution on the market at this point, I personally suggest commissioner control. If you are the commissioner, stick to your guns and if you are an owner, give ‘em a break; let the commissioner make the final decision. If you don’t like the trade, then find a trade that fits your needs to beat them. Fantasy football is about having fun, so if you are betting too much money on leagues while the losses and transactions are getting to you, you may want to check yourself into a gamblers anonymous center near you.
* Be sure to know when the trade deadline is so you aren’t too late when you feel you need to look to improve your team.
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