Weird Trade and Cut Sequence

[Sour Masher]

Preface: I'm certain this was not planned as both owners are active, earnest guys who try hard to make their teams better. This is why I'm venting here, because these sequence really irks me.

Two onwers, a dumper, and a contender and rival of mine in my conference made a trade just a few days ago. The dumper gave Victor Martinez and got Stetson Allie. I didn't like the deal, as I'm not a big fan of Allie and I thought the dumper could have gotten more. In talking with him and the other owner, I found out that the dumper actually proposed the deal, and of course the contender readily took it. Fair enough. Not a good deal, but I've certianly gotten obsessed with a high ceiling low minors prospect before. So even though this contender is my main competition for a title, I didn't whine about the deal. However, today at 3:30 PM, just 5 days after this deal, the dumper just dropped Allie. At 3:31 PM, the contender picked him back up. So, the contender essentially got Victor Martinez for free, filling the biggest hole in his line up.

Am I out of line in being really annoyed by this? How can you like a prospect enough to trade Victor Martinez for him and just a few days later drop him? Again, as suspicious as this looks, especially the timing of the drop and pick up being literarlly 1 minute a part, I don't think anything untoward happened here. It still annoys the hell out of me.

[DJBeasties]

Preface: I'm certain this was not planned as both owners are active, earnest guys who try hard to make their teams better. This is why I'm venting here, because these sequence really irks me.

Two onwers, a dumper, and a contender and rival of mine in my conference made a trade just a few days ago. The dumper gave Victor Martinez and got Stetson Allie. I didn't like the deal, as I'm not a big fan of Allie and I thought the dumper could have gotten more. In talking with him and the other owner, I found out that the dumper actually proposed the deal, and of course the contender readily took it. Fair enough. Not a good deal, but I've certianly gotten obsessed with a high ceiling low minors prospect before. So even though this contender is my main competition for a title, I didn't whine about the deal. However, today at 3:30 PM, just 5 days after this deal, the dumper just dropped Allie. At 3:31 PM, the contender picked him back up. So, the contender essentially got Victor Martinez for free, filling the biggest hole in his line up.

Am I out of line in being really annoyed by this? How can you like a prospect enough to trade Victor Martinez for him and just a few days later drop him? Again, as suspicious as this looks, especially the timing of the drop and pick up being literarlly 1 minute a part, I don't think anything untoward happened here. It still annoys the hell out of me.

I would be pissed. On our message board, you'd be called out for that stunt.

[Erik]

Preface: I'm certain this was not planned as both owners are active, earnest guys who try hard to make their teams better. This is why I'm venting here, because these sequence really irks me.

Two onwers, a dumper, and a contender and rival of mine in my conference made a trade just a few days ago. The dumper gave Victor Martinez and got Stetson Allie. I didn't like the deal, as I'm not a big fan of Allie and I thought the dumper could have gotten more. In talking with him and the other owner, I found out that the dumper actually proposed the deal, and of course the contender readily took it. Fair enough. Not a good deal, but I've certianly gotten obsessed with a high ceiling low minors prospect before. So even though this contender is my main competition for a title, I didn't whine about the deal. However, today at 3:30 PM, just 5 days after this deal, the dumper just dropped Allie. At 3:31 PM, the contender picked him back up. So, the contender essentially got Victor Martinez for free, filling the biggest hole in his line up.

Am I out of line in being really annoyed by this? How can you like a prospect enough to trade Victor Martinez for him and just a few days later drop him? Again, as suspicious as this looks, especially the timing of the drop and pick up being literarlly 1 minute a part, I don't think anything untoward happened here. It still annoys the hell out of me.

I do.

[Stephen]

That seems suspect at best.

That said - if the league allows dropped prospects to be picked up with no waiver period to allow everyone to see that a transaction is going down the I'm surprised issues haven't sprung up before this.

[Sour Masher]

That seems suspect at best.

That said - if the league allows dropped prospects to be picked up with no waiver period to allow everyone to see that a transaction is going down the I'm surprised issues haven't sprung up before this.

Yes, it is a completely open system. In the 15 years I've been in this league, I don't recall something like this happened. There have been deals with low level prospects tossed in and then cut after more research has been done, but those were not major pieces, and typically no one else picked them up right away. Here it is a one for one deal. I just don't get it.

[Sour Masher]

Here is an email I sent and a response I just got from the contender...I know the other owner does this, so what he is saying makes sense.

My email: Do you always have your email account open? How did you make that pick up so fast?

His response: lol....I'm off today and I had written up the mason pick and I waited for the hot sheet to come out to see if I liked anyone and honestly I know Tim always looks at it and then cuts someone good for a player on there. It happens every week! It killed me that someone had the guy he tried to cut Zach Cox for.
So when I saw his email much to my delight, I just added in Allie.
Tim cracks me up sometimes...
He originally offered Martinez for Bauer and Bundy then I made the deal for Soto and he offered him for Allie....I was like ummmmm, ok.
good times

[Erik]

So he's saying that the other owner is a dolt, which is also a plausible explanation.

[Sour Masher]

I heard back from the dumper. His response makes sense too. I'm less mad now. Both guys are good guys. I just wish the contender didn't have Victor Martinez for nothing right now as I'm competing with him.

Here is his reasoning: "Allie hadn't put up great numbers at that time of the trade, but he was projected as a frontline starter and ranked in the BA top 100 preseason. After reading both BA and BP today throwing up major red flags, I needed to admit my mistake by cutting him."

[Stephen]

I don't like his response at all. As you said earlier - if he liked Allie enough three days ago to trade a stud without shopping him around to the league and then read an article or two and determined that a prospect has fallen that significantly in a few days of minor league games he's at best a terrible owner and at worst trying to cover up the stench of collusion with some I'm an Idiot scented Fabreeze.

Either way, I think the trade should be called into question and I'm about as anti-veto of an owners as you'll find on these boards.

[Grinch]

I don't like his response at all. As you said earlier - if he liked Allie enough three days ago to trade a stud without shopping him around to the league and then read an article or two and determined that a prospect has fallen that significantly in a few days of minor league games he's at best a terrible owner and at worst trying to cover up the stench of collusion with some I'm an Idiot scented Fabreeze.

Either way, I think the trade should be called into question and I'm about as anti-veto of an owners as you'll find on these boards.

+1
you can't give away a player of that caliber for NOTHING!

[Sour Masher]

Yeah, that is what I'm mad about. His response to my annoyance is pointing out that he offerred Martinez to me and I didn't want to give up much for him, which is true (we are frequent trade parnters and probaly the two most active traders in the league), but that is because I have Mauer and Napoli, so I'm set at catcher, and I have Agone and Hosmer, so I'm set at 1b.

I assumed he'd end up getting something good from someone else. I didn't expect just Allie from my rival, but even then I brushed it off, thinking he must have read something really glowing about Allie or something--he gets real hung up on Hot Sheet reports.

Still, I'm going to chalk this up to a fluke and a really bad whim offer on his part. This is just his second year in the league after taking offer a horrid team and he's built a really nice farm system in that time--mostly on trades with me. I gave him Harper and Trout last year for Adrian Gonzalez and Dan Uggla. I've also traded him Freddie Freeman, Brandon Belt, and Zack Wheeler in deals this year for an expiring Matt Cain, Uggla (again this year), Bonifacio, and some minor leaguers back. He usually tries to go for that level of talent with me, and I usually give it. I have no idea why he asked for Bundy and Bauer and then settled for Allie with my arch rival. It makes me think maybe he isn't as discerning as I've thought and I've been giving too much in our deals.

The one sinister thought I don't want to consider is that I've traded with him so often that he got mad I dismissed his shopping of Martinez and he decided to give him to my rival for next to nothing (turned out to be literally nothing) to show me I need to give a lot in a deal even if it doesn't help me. If that is true, that is pretty messed up, and not helpful to him. If he really wanted to do that, he should have warned/threatened me outright and I would have given more just to keep martinez from this other guy. I'd have found the roster spot for Martinez just because he fills such a huge hole for my biggest rival.

[virgonomic]

This still stinks, and the league needs to put measures in place to avoid this happening again.

I made 2 dump trades and am scouring the FA market for anyone who might be worth $10 next year (I picked up Carp last weekend), but I think it would be bad form to cut one of the players I acquired in a dump trade (Hardy 10, Pineda 8, Drabek 4, Capps 8, Melky 2, Cain 7).