When to take your foot off the gas--Trading for Nola as a Luxury

[Sour Masher]

If you can make trades once the final rosters are set the last week then why not have the trading deadline reflect this? That's what I'd propose if it's the de facto rule. Otherwise I'd follow the rules as written to avoid any ambiguity. Like I said I don't think anyone is doing anything nefarious, but once you open the floodgates of not actually following the written rules, anything is fair game.

I think the origin of the rule was to deter dumping. Our trade deadline is three weeks before the end of the regular season. Any later and more and more teams would dump. We have too much of that as is, so we keep it earlier. But yeah, this is new for me. I think this is my first in 27 years, but it didn't occur to me that anyone would have agreed to a deal when trading was allowed and held off, or that any advantage was gotten with these deals. I think the nature of this season made these deals happen. Everything happened so fast, I think when the deadline came only 5 weeks in, it left some teams craving more action. I cannot recall another offseason where any deals were made the day after the season ended, let alone the 5 that were announced this year. Upon reflection, I'm not sure anyone has ever done a deal like this, and if they had, they waited to announce for a long time. But I really don't think anyone making these deals meant any harm or tried to gain any advantage. But it is good to think about. I do think if anyone was trying to hide anything, they'd have waited longer. All the deals were self-identified as coming together over the last week or so and being finalized today.

[Judge Jude]

glad you are thinking about it.

as someone who began playing in the Jurassic Era, this sort of stuff was explicitly not allowed - and for specific reasons.

the simplest explanation is that an owner should always look for his own advantage.

"futures" deals tend to leave one owner agreeing to a later deal that, if not for the previous contingency, they wouldn't make.

ergo, don't make the deal and don't have the contingency.

I'm all for leagues choosing their own destinies, of course.

and I think "slippery slopes" are overrated.

but now and then, people go too far out on slippery slopes and they do get hurt.

[Sour Masher]

In the off-season? I grab Deivi Garcia and down a good beer in celebration.

Pablo Lopez is a good pitcher - and he's done some serious work to improve himself, and the results have shown and are legit. But even with that, he's still a 4ish ERA (with some improvement upside based on FIP), 8.5-9.0 K/9, 2.5 BB/9, mid 1.2ish WHIP (with some improvement upside to low 1.2s) pitcher with a decent defense and good park to pitch in. Solid guy, nice plug and play type, good #3-4 fantasy SP.

But Deivi Garcia has monster upside - #1 SP potential - and even if he wouldn't quite hit that, he has a vastly better offense and bullpen backing him up. And he's still free next year? Nice.

I did this deal and I miss Pablo. But the part that is really getting me is just how putrid Garcia has been. He keeps getting shelled in the minors. What happened to him?